The sun almost tried to shine between clouds earlier, and it could manage it again despite whet the forecast says. I can see a few very small bits of blue between the clouds. It should be close to mild today with the temperature already 11° C, and soon rising to 12° C, but it all depends on the wind. It seems to be calm at the moment, but I haven't been outside. Tomorrow should start at 12° C and it might quickly rise to 13° C, but may fall to 6° C by the end of the day. The penalty for the almost warm morning will be rain, and lots of it. It may be dry again by later afternoon.

  The big news this morning is that my internet/broadband connection is rather slow, and frequently comes to a complete halt. I am fairly sure it is Vermin Media doing an upgrade/downgrade/adding more government surveillance equipment.

 Yesterday was not a great day. It started off with a stomach upset that had me visiting the toilet a lot during the morning. It rather limited what I could do for a time. Oddly enough it ended in a very similar way. Apart from that, it was a fair day, but could have been better.

  During late morning, after a shower, I did some housework. One very over due job was to clean and polish the hand basin in the bathroom. I have to admit it was looking very dull, although not actually stained. A good rub with a pan scourer, and some cleaner brought it back to all sparkles (or something). After that it was downstairs to do a bit of washing up, and get the base of my dinner cooking.

  I should add that all this, admittedly mostly light, housework was inspired by the occasional bursts of sunshine we had. They also encouraged me to be lazy - laying on my bed with the sun coming through the windows on to me, while reading my book. I did allow that to go on a bit too long, and never had time to finish some laundry I had started. I did the detergent phase, and two rinses before I thought it was getting a bit near the time when Jodie, and possibly Alan would be ringing my door bell.

  Jodie did arrive a bit earlier then I expected, just a bit before 3.30pm, and Alan did turn up half an hour or more later, but he was only passing through, and wanted to drop off a Xmas present. Sadly it was not the Apple Mac has has threatened to dump on me. I am looking forward to getting it one day, although I have no idea what I will ever do with it. If it is moderately powerful I might be curious about the Apple video editor, but only the free version. I have no intention of paying for any software for a machine that might spend most of it's time gathering dust.

  The beer drinking session with Jodie was, as usual, rather a quiet experience. Jodie did not have a lot to say - except to sneer at some of the beers I liked, and one one occasion to sneer at one of her beers that she had expected to like. I might have seen the first hint that her tastes could be turning back towards the more conventional instead of all the fruity sour beers she seems to go for at the moment.
  Through the beer session I had the fairly lights and Xmas tree on the little beer fridge, lit up.
  As of yesterday I had only got 4 Xmascards hanging up below the clock, and above the iMac. Incidently, the iMac, after it's last fresh install, using all the hard disk, is behaving itself quite well now. I was even able to watch 15 minutes of an afternoon showing of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, before it seemed to lock up. I am unsure if that was the computers fault, or the sometimes poor signal quality in the dining room. It does suffer some picture breakup on some channels all the time on any receiver.
  Yesterday I broke open the new Welsh whiskies from the Penderyn distillery. The red box on the left of the picture was the first one I bought as much as a couple of years ago. The other two were only delivered last Thursday, but after all the drinking had finished.

  The red box, "Legend" I regarded as quite nice. The dark green box, "Celt" was 41%, very slightly stronger than most average spirits, but it has a slightly unpleasant smoky taste. Not actually nasty, but enough to make it not enjoyable. The final one, the "Maderia Finish" was 46% - considerably stronger than most spirits, and maybe it actually tasted too strong.

  Perhaps I was not in the correct mood, or perhaps after getting completely too blotto last Thursday I was holding back, but I can't say I enjoyed the whisky tasting. Neither of the new pair were better than a cheap bottle of Bells whisky, and that stuff is not exactly wonderful - particularly when drunk neat, which is how I drink most whiskies.

  Jodie left to get the 6.30pm train, and I did the final bit of dinner cooking - which was to add rather too much gravy granules to my beef and broccoli stew. It became so thick you could almost stand a spoon up in it ! It was sill rather enjoyable, and with some much gravy, albeit extremely thick gravy, it was nicely filling.

  Like most of Sunday, there was very little TV on last night that could capture my enthusiasm. I think I was reading in bed by 8pm, and while I could be 90 minutes out, either way, I think I may have been fast asleep by 8.30pm. I slept really well, but only for about 4 hours.

  Maybe it was less than 4 hours. All I know is I woke up a little before midnight, and I couldn't get back to sleep again. Just like happened a few weeks ago, I was feeling uncomfortable in a very hard to pin down way. After half an hour I began to notice noises from inside my belly, and soon after I began to get some discomfort in my lower regions. I thought it was just wind, and I did let out one big fart while in bed, but I had a fear that it was more than wind, and went and sat on the toilet.

  I passed more wind, and walked back towards my bed. I thought I had rather thoroughly emptied myself in the morning, but maybe I had eaten something that was still fermenting in my gut all day, and it wanted out ! The next time I went to the toilet, no more than a few minutes later, I most definitely "went" ! I could still feel a lot of churning and gurgling from my gut, and sure enough, five minutes later I was back sitting on the toilet for another 10 minutes, or at least it felt like a long time.

  Maybe 10 or 15 minutes after that I made a third productive visit to the toilet. It turned out to be only a small deposit, and it felt safe to go back to bed after that. It still took until almost 3am before I managed to get back to sleep. I was awake again at about 4am, but this time it was just for a pee (which I don't think I did while spending so much time on the toilet earlier). I turned the heater up fully before getting back in bed. It was an extravagant option considering it was not a very cold night, but it made it so easy to sleep whether I was covered or uncovered by the duvet.

  I'll skip over trying to remember anything of my dreams, and move straight on to my blood glucose measurements. This morning they were not good, but then again not particularly bad. Once again the GlucoRX meter, seemed to give a lower reading of 7.3mmol/l. The other three were 8.2, 8.4, and 8.6mmol/l. The highest was the Sino Care meter this time, and it suggested I should take care of what I eat today, but I seemed to have ignored that already by having a double portion of instant noodles for breakfast.

  I had been contemplating going out for a bit of train spotting today, but it seems duller and colder than is ideal for such a venture. On top of everything else, my broadband being slow and intermittent has slowed me down, and I doubt I would be ready to go out until early in the afternoon - which would be too late for any exploring. I am also not sure if my guts have settled down. I think I can feel stirrings again since eating breakfast. If I were to do anything at all today it should be complete fasting until I have recovered from what seems like a mild bit of dysentery (or so it feels in my imagination). I guess I'll wait until tomorrow to tell the full story of today - if indeed there is anything to tell.