I was going to say that today would bring a lot of sunny spells, mostly in the morning, but the latest revision only shows sunny spells for 9am and 2pm. At least it should stay completely dry today, and that is a good thing because today is going to be so cold that any rain could fall as sleet, or even snow ! Today's temperature should slowly rise from 3° C to 5° C, for just a single hour, before falling to 1° C by the end of the day. Tomorrow the temperature might range between 1° C and 4° C, and it is going to be dull. It will be extra dull during some of the afternoon, and rain might fall at 2pm. With the air temperature at ground level at just 4° C, it will probably be colder higher up, and some of that rain may start as sleet or snow. it might be possible that an odd flake may make all the way down.

   I seemed to be quite busy yesterday, or at least I didn't seem to have much time to spare for getting bored. However in terms of actual stuff done, I don't have a lot to show for it. Maybe the most productive thing I did was to hand wash three t-shirts and three pairs of underpants.
  The thing that mopped up most of my spare time was continuing to read The complete Helliconia trilogy in one edition. This very thick book is tricky to read in my favourite posture - laying on my bed - and I often can't read more than 3 or 4 pages before my arms ache to much, and I have to take a break.

  I am now about a third of the way through - or about a thumb's width !

  It was the afternoon, after having some lunch, when I did my next most productive thing. Lunch was more rice crackers with pork and mushroom pate, or Camembert cheese. It was a nice lunch, but maybe I am getting a little fed up with that recipe now. I don't know what might replace it, but I hope it is as friendly to my blood glucose readings as those rice crackers seem to be.

  The actual productive work I did was to select and edit the final pictures take at the Petts Wood Xmas Carnival live stage, and they were of The Coyles. I didn't take many pictures because I was fed of with how crowded the place had got, and also my desire to get home so I could prepare myself to go out in the evening. However it turned out that I had taken enough photos for a reasonable photo album.
  I have no idea what his name is, but he plays what I call a tin whistle - I expect it has a better name.
  If I had to make a rash guess I might say this is Mrs Coyle playing her fiddle.
  Mr Coyle ? Maybe, probably not, but he plays electro acoustic guitar.
 I think that is an electric mandolin that he is playing.
  I had some trouble taking the last pictures, of which this is possibly the best one. That problem is that while the density of the crowd made it difficult to get wide angle pictures like this one of the whole band, I was trying to take pictures of the almost full moon. The moon is a remarkably bright object when seen by a camera, and you have to really wind the sensitivity/exposure down to not much lower than you would use for views on a bright summers day.

  Turning that ISO sensitivity down, and increasing the shutter speed to 1/2000th was not so bad in the dark, but getting back to the settings I had been using earlier, for pictures of the band, was not so easy when I could barely see the buttons I was supposed to be using. The first pictures of the band were badly over exposed, and the next very under exposed. Finally I hit the magic combination, took a few snaps, and then headed home.

  The day seemed to fly by, and suddenly it was TV time, and the usual three Star Treks, except this time I substituted Star Trek: Voyager with a half hour episode of 'Allo 'Allo, and a half hour of The Simpsons. Instead of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I flipped channels and watched Star Trek: Enterprise - which had a good story line.

 Earlier on I had prepared, and cooked my dinner. It was a simple dinner with only two main ingredients - diced chicken and pak choi (or Chinese cabbage) - plus the usual herbs, spices and stock cubes. It was surprisingly nice, and nice and benign on my blood glucose levels.

  My TV viewing finished at 8pm last night, but it was another hour before I went to bed. I didn't seem to feel very tired, and so I read some stuff on the internet, and then went to bed to read for a while. It turned out to be one of those nights when it seemed I would never get to sleep, and then suddenly, maybe less than 15 minutes after starting to try and get to sleep, I was fast asleep. I stayed that way until about 3am (unless I have forgotten about any time I might have woken up).

  From 3am, for maybe as much as half an hour, I did suffer from insomnia, but then, like earlier, I fell asleep without realising I had fallen asleep until I saw the time. At some time during this time I had a dream that involved squirrels, but I can't seem to remember anything more about the dream(s). At about 5am I woke up for a pee, and to turn the heater up full. I seemed to fall asleep very quickly, although it didn't seem to feel like it at the time. At 6.20am I woke up, and for some reason I was out of bed before I even fully contemplated being awake.

  I may have reacted so quickly, and leapt out of bed because I needed a pee, but not so desperately that I couldn't lay out my three blood glucose meters, and open the spreadsheet for the results before going to the toilet. It wasn't just a pee I needed, I also needed a poo. That was not surprising because I can't recall going at all yesterday. What was a surprise was how little I did.  Before the morning is over i can imagine I will have to go more.

  My choices of eating yesterday yielded another very good array of blood glucose results. As usual, the Sino Care meter gave the highest reading, but it was only 7.3mmol/l. Next came the Nexus GlucoRX meter with an even better reading of 7.1mmol/l. The Contour meter read a magnificent 6.9mmol/l. With readings like this I would be almost diagnoses as non diabetic, but it does come at a price to achieve it - notably a small choice of "safe" foods.

  Today, being a Wednesday, I would normally be heading for a couple of pints of Guinness, plus doing the crosswords, in The Jolly Farmers. Ayse, my favourite barmaid, is on holiday today, and so I have decided to drink more locally, and probably The Wethespoons. I might possibly be joined by Kevin, although I haven't had any confirmation from him apart from a "possible" sent sometime before or during the weekend. If he does join me I will have to be super careful about too many "one for the road ?" drinks. There is also an unlikely chance that Michael might join me or us.