There should be heavy rain as I write this. It is indeed quite wet outside from earlier rain, but at the moment it may be no more than drizzle....or it may even have stopped (difficult to tell from indoors). The latest revision to the forecast says an isolated hour of heavy rain at midday, and more heavy rain at 6pm with an hour either side of it of lighter rain. Today's maximum temperature should be 15° C. Tomorrow could be dry with sunny spells for most of the day. Both forecasters agree on this (unlike today where the BBC have gone for no heavy rain, but light rain for most hours), and both agree tomorrow could be 15° C again.

   I wrote very late yesterday, and covered the morning with it's appointment with the nurse for my annual diabetic checkup. What I forgot to mention was that my extra cleaning of my feet, with alcohol based hand cleanser, paid off. The nurse gave my feet her approval. I think she said they were in pretty good condition. I think she used her "monofilament" tool, used to check my toes still had feeling, a little harder than some previous nurses, and I was easily able to feel ever poke.

  Of course one factor about my feet is that I haven't been going on any long walks now for ages. Those long walks I did during Covid lockdown really pounded my feet to the point that after 3 or 4 five mile walks in a week they were more like tenderised meat instead of feet !  The nurses appraisal of my feet was probably one of the few, and maybe only positive things she said.

  I don't know if it was the stress of that appointment, although at the time I didn't think it was stressful, but the relief afterwards was quite strong, or if it was the 'flu jab, but I felt very tired yesterday afternoon. I was glad to have finished writing, and able to rest, or to put in another way, to indulge in extreme laziness. I only had a light lunch of a couple of those small salad pots I like, one was based on couscous and the other on chick peas, so I don't think they accounted for the tiredness.

  I don't know how long I slept for, but I suspect it was more than an hour. I woke up feeling groggy at first, but after a while I did feel better for it, and also sort of hungry. It was the perfect excuse to try out some (alleged) cheese flavoured rice crackers, although I had them with cheese and so I can't really say whether they were cheesy or not. I then spent another hour or so catching up with other reading before preparing my dinner.

  I was in a sort of "who cares" mood yesterday evening, and my thinking was that for one day I could indulge in whatever takes my fancy.......but maybe only up to a point. My dinner was grilled pork belly strips which had been marinated in some stuff that included some bit of chillies and some seeds/herbs. I grilled them on top of the rest of the mushrooms I had bought from Aldi. They were still in very good condition, but I doubt they would last much longer, and so getting rid of them was a good idea.

  The final third of my dinner was a small plate of chunky, steak cut, oven chips. The pork belly strips were nice, but because they are a special treat, the chips were even nicer. I ate dinner around 6am, soon after Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was on TV. It wasn't a bad episode, maybe one of the better ones from what was often a disappointing Star Trek series. Even Star Trek: Voyager didn't seem all that bad, although I am not sure I could bring myself to say it was good.

  After the three Star Treks I started to think about bed. I did a bit more online reading while consuming a couple of very large Vodka and Diet Lemonades (which seems better than Vodka and Diet Coke). Maybe I was in bed by 8/30pm, but it could have been 9pm. I read half a dozen pages from the book of short stories I am reading, and then fell asleep quite quickly and easily once I put the book down, and turned out the light.

  There were three notable things about my sleep. One was that it did seem to be quite good, and the second is that it didn't seem to be interrupted by the need to get up and pee more than a couple (or three) times. The third thing was about my dreams. Two of them featured atomic bombs, and I can't decided if the there was a third one on the same theme, or if it was just me thinking about soon after waking from a dream.

  I think there were two (or three) settings for these dreams, but in each case the atomic bomb was more or less identical. each bomb was quite small - about a foot tall, perhaps three inches across, and bullet shaped. At the base of each bomb were three petals that were normally close to the case, but the trigger for the thing to explode was when they flapped down to stand at right angles to the case.

  I have no idea how I came to be holding these atomic bombs, but for added safety I bound up the petals with blue electricians tape until it would be hard for them to unfold. I am not sure what I did with it after that. In the next dream I once again bound those petals up, but this time it was with yellow electricians tape. This time I disposed of it by burying it in some soft boggy ground that existed in the dream version of my garden.

  I am not sure if there was a third dream, or if I was just playing with the idea in my head just after waking up. I suppose it could have been half dream, and completed for fun in my awake state. This time I bound up those petals (I obviously did not want the thing to ever go off !) with gaffer (or duct) tape. I then disposed of it by throwing it into a river that flowed underneath Lewisham. That was not very ecological, but at least I did hope that it would not explode until it was clear of Lewisham !
  This morning I was not expecting good blood glucose readings after having chips for dinner, and the salad pot things for lunch. To my surprise the readings were not that bad....or were they ? I pricked my finer, and gave "first bite" to the meter on the left in the picture above. Once upon a time that would be the definitive reading, and it is both lower than expected, but also a bit higher than desirable. I then used a tissue to wipe off the blood from my finger before giving it another squeeze for fresh blood for the next meter, and once again for the third meter.

  It is interesting that the Contour and Sinocare meters roughly agree with each other. If they are accurate they would be good readings, but a pattern is emerging that I will be checking tomorrow, and maybe for a few more morning. It seems that a second squeeze of the finger may contain more blood plasma, or other fluid, and less read blood cells or something, and so give an artificially low reading. What I will be checking is whether the first reading is always higher than the other two.

   In the picture I showed yesterday it was the Sinocare meter on the left, and it has the highest reading. It is a shame that I can't discuss this with someone knowledgable about blood chemistry. The nurse would almost certainly not have been receptive to even discusss it, let alone by able to give any answers. There is one old school doctor at the practice. assuming he hasn't retired, who would find it interesting, and be prepared to discuss it, but whether he would have the specialised knowledge to offer a valid opinion is doubtful.

  I suppose the good thing is that the worst case this morning is not terribly bad (I consider any reading starting with 8 is acceptable). To satisfy the nurse I should be aiming for even lower readings tomorrow, but on a dull and dreary day, and probably a wet day, I am not sure I can be bothered to try too hard. On the other hand, I don't have a lot of anything too terrible in the larder, but I do have have some good stuff for a meat and green vegetable stew for dinner tonight.

  Apart from preparing and cooking dinner, I am unsure what I shall do today. The outside doesn't look very attractive, and so I will not be going far even if I go out at all today. There are a few items of shopping that would be nice to get, but are far from essential. Perhaps the best shopping would be to stock up on some of Aldi's sugar free soft drinks, but I could be tempted to buy stuff that would not be a good idea to have around - particularly when "cake" has just suddenly flashed up in my mind for no apparent reason. Mmmmmmm, cake !

P.S. One thing I could attempt today is to get the clocks on all three blood glucose meters to read the correct time and date!