There was some rain during the night, but I don't think there was any rain at 9 or 10am this morning. Today is likely to be a mid grey day, and there still a 50% chance of some light rain at 2pm. Today could be 13° C all day long ! Meanwhile, over on the other channel, the BBC predict thick dark cloud, but only predict rain, generally as drizzle, this evening. They reckon 14° C today. Tomorrow looks pretty grim. Both forecasters predict copious rain, and a temperature of 13° C.

  I seemed to feel a fair bit better yesterday. Nothing much hurt, but there was still that recent wound tenderness feeling that stopped me exploring all my physical limits to see just how well things had progressed. It made me think that the very sweaty period the night before last was probably a fever burning some of the bugs off.

  I would say that one reason why I felt better yesterday was that I kept warm, and did very little, but that is not wholly true. Having a hot (although not very hot) shower, and washing my hair seemed to make me feel better, although whether that was physical or mental is anyone's guess. It was definitely to ensure a spurt of activity before the morning was over, and that included going outside the back door into the raw weather outside.

  The reason for going out the back door was to walk the three or four paces to where one of my outdoor temperature sensors was hanging on an ancient nail in the wall. It was still working after seemingly many years, but was reporting low battery. I brought it in, changed the two AA batteries, and took it out to hang it back up. it was a bit grubby after being out in the elements for years, and I wanted to wash my hands after changing the batteries.

  The nearest place for washing my hands was the kitchen sink, and while I had the hot water running I decided to do some washing up. I washed all the beer glasses for use later today, and washed up some other stuff and cutlery. It was obviously cold when I was outside, and the kitchen has no heating so it was cold in there too. To my surprise it didn't seem to trigger any negative effects, although it most definitely felt good to be back upstairs in my bedroom where the heater was on.

  Following some moderately high blood glucose readings yesterday morning, one of my aims was to try and fast for as long as I could. To be honest I never thought I would make it until lunchtime, but to my surprise, I did !  During the afternoon I did snack a bit. I had two half handfuls of peanuts spaced by about an hour. At about 6pm I had my dinner, and just being stewed diced beer and red cabbage should have been very safe - it was and it wasn't. More about this later.

  Yesterday, like tomorrow, had the potential to be an incredibly boring day, and indeed for the start of the afternoon I did little more than read my book, and I might have had a snooze. I have no idea when it was, maybe 4pm, I decided to watch the other Bill Bailey DVD (as bought from Poundland). It was nice and amusing, and I got to wonder if I could find any more of his concerts on the internet.

  I did find two that I was able to download. One was from 2008, and I watched that a bit later in the evening. I have to admit that the first half was just stand up comedy, and was a bit lacklustre. The second half featured Bill Bailey's great talent as a musician, and was far more entertaining. It ended just before 9pm, and that seemed to be a good time to go to bed. I had turned the heater off maybe half an hour earlier, and so I was relying on the duvet to keep me warm.

  The duvet did indeed keep me warm, but ultimately it was too warm. The deeper the sleep the lower the body temperature is, and by about 1am (which seems a boringly popular time for this) I woke up from an interesting dream that is now completely forgotten because I was more distracted by feeling cold after going for a pee. Back in bed I started to feel too hot under the duvet, and too cold without it.

  The worst thing is that the sudden exposure to cold in the bathroom, triggered off my chest. It is a peculiar ache that is hard to explain in ways that don't sound like I was having a heart attack (maybe I was, but it wasn't quite right for that). There was no other option but to switch the heater back on, but only on low. I was probably awake for an hour before the room felt warm enough to partially discard the duvet, and by that time the chest aches were fading away.

  At 4am I needed another small pee, and on the way I switched the heater up to full. I could then almost do away with the duvet, and I seemed to sleep really well after that. Once again I had what seemed to be some nice dreams, nothing exciting, scary, or erotic, but pleasant enough to completely forget once I opened my eyes and realised it was gone 8am again. The first thing I did was to check my temperature, and it was completely "normal" compared to many mornings.

  After a rather nice, but not spectacular poo, I weighed myself. I seemed to have lost a couple of pounds (maybe almost a couple of kg) in the last few days. I was expecting some, but not much loss, after not eating much yesterday. I got that as expected, and in theory I would expect my blood glucose to be fairly low this morning. The fact that it wasn't suggests I am still fighting some sort of bug.

  One thing this morning was how my four blood glucose meters agreed with each other, and yet didn't. In order, the Vivachek meter had the lowest reading of 8.4mmol/l. The next lowest was the Contour meter with 8.5mmol/l. Then came the Sino Care meter with 8.6mmol/l. Finally, the highest reading was from the GlucoRX meter at 8.7mmol/l. It is worth noting that that order of ascending readings was not the order I did the measurements.

  I was careful to try and give each meter clean blood, and I guess that is how they came to be similar. On any ordinary day I would think these readings are moderately good....or at least quite average....but after fasting for so much of yesterday, and my one big meal theoretically very safe, I was hoping for readings that might start with a 7, and maybe even one starting with a 6.

  I have skipped breakfast again this morning, but I can't fast today because beer will be involved. I shall have lunch today, and it may be a plate of "skins on" oven chips. They have too many calories to expect weight loss, but past experience is that they don't seem to have much impact on my blood glucose readings the next morning.

  Later this afternoon, typically around 3.30pm, I should be joined by Jodie and Michael to sample some Xmas beers. I have quite a few here that have been sidelined because Jodie wanted to go through her beer advent calendar. Most of the first beers from it have been nasty fruit sour beers, but I think there may be a few good ones in the last of the box.

  There is a fair chance I will get a bit drunk this afternoon, and that increases a dilemma I have. It is should I rustle up my own dinner, or order a takeaway. It is traditional now for me to treat myself to a takeaway Xmas dinner - usually some Indian food, and on many years enough for a couple of dinners and a few weird breakfasts and lunches. Prices are too high for that this year, but I could get a couple of Tandoori mixed grills, and have one tonight, and one tomorrow. They should be mostly safe providing I don't use the mystery green yoghurt sauce - that seems to be loaded with sugar !

  I must admit that a takeway is very tempting, but it feels like I have been spending far too much on Takeaway food recently. On the other hand I have not been spending much in supermarkets because I have felt not up to going out to them recently. Maybe I do feel up to going today, and yet I can't face the expected crowds today. My stock of food here is enough to feed me for a week, but not all of it is "safe" and there is little left that is exciting in the right way. Maybe I'll just have a couple of cans of soup tonight.....or maybe not.