The new year has not got off to a great start. There is a lot of cloud in the sky as I write this but it is not too dull, and it does look like there could be a sunny spell at some time this morning. From mid afternoon it could get extremely dull, and before long there could be heavy rain up to, and probably beyond midnight. The warm wet air causing the rain could warm the day up from 8° C this morning to 11° C by 10pm. Tomorrow looks far from cheerful. It might be dry first thing, but by sunrise heavy rain could start to fall, and may not end until sunset. It should be warmer though with 12° C expected.

  Today, the first day of the new year, I am using my new icons. They were originally supposed to be purple, but now seem to be a very girly pink.....Oh well, I might make them more purple, or maybe I'll get used to them as they are.

  Yesterday had it's good moment, but also plenty of bad ones. I don't think a single thing I thought might happen, actually happened. Some of the problem was me, and in particular my guts, but the weather didn't help. In fact the weather was in a teasing mood, which made it seem worse.

  My original intention was to go out soon after midday to The Jolly Farmers pub for a quick pint of Guinness or two, and give Ayse, my favourite barmaid, a small new years present of some (real)Turkish Delight (she is of Turkish decent, and i am assuming she would like it - I know she has a sweet tooth). That never happened, and there were two reasons why.

  The first reason was that the weather kept turning nasty, sometimes very nasty, after some really nice sunny spells that made it extra tempting to go out until in the space of little more than a single minute the sunshine turned to heavy rain. The other reason was that I had an "upset stomach". As I finished writing yesterday morning I noted that I had seemed to be constipated, but as my writing came to an end I was no longer constipated. Unfortunately it didn't stop there. I had to make two more visits to the toilet before midday, and each time it progressed to the complete opposite of constipated.

  I ended up choosing to stay in, and I didn't even bother going out later when my guts appeared settled to the Turkish (or maybe now Polish) little supermarket on Catford Bridge. I was looking forward to getting some tomato flavoured instant noodles, plus other flavours I can't get in Tesco - including beetroot flavour. Beetroot flavour instant noodles are a Polish speciality, and particularly around the Xmas period.

  There was just one notable thing I did yesterday afternoon, and it was to wash a medium sized bath towel. I did it in two shifts after I had given it an hour or two soak in detergent. Each shift I must have rinsed that towel at least 6 times. After a total of 12 rinses (and possibly 14 - I wasn't keeping count that well) the rinse water was almost free of soapy foam, and I finally hung it up to dry in the dining room.

  I had the fan heater in the dining room blowing at the towel, but to avoid burning too much electricity I only had that heater on low. Some hours later I substituted a desk fan blowing cold air, and I kept that on all night. The towel is nice and dry this morning.  Avoiding burning too much electricity becomes much more important from today when electricity (and gas) prices go up. Once winter is over they may go down because the rise today is most probably just 200% profiteering.

  I didn't really do anything else during the afternoon except read. I didn't even eat all that much. My lunch was just some chilli flavour micro chipsticks with a couple of sliced of German smoked cheese with ham. It was not exactly healthy, but it was fairly low sugar. Ideally I would have fasted because I was still getting some sort of pain on the right hand side of my guts.

  It is possible that it could be appendicitis slowly developing, but I believe that usually comes on quite quickly. Mine is a sort of mild, but annoying griping pain, and it comes and goes. Sometimes eating makes it better, and that could be a sign it is some sort of ulcer. Sometimes going for a poo eases it, and that might suggest some sort of pressure build up because of a blockage. Of course it is probably cancer, or some organ about to explode.

  One thing I didn't do was to prepare any dinner. some it got lodged into my mind that I was going to order some shish kebabs for my dinner. A bit of the reason for it was because kebabs are usually responsible for a useful drop in blood glucose readings the next day. For maximum healthiness I should only have had one single kebab, but greed (and paying enough for free delivery) was responsible for me ordering two, and eaten both.

  It was also have been more healthy if both had been shish kebabs, but one was a (mystery meat) donor kebab. I have to admit they are rather nice  even if rather greasy and salty. The only problem is that I waited for an age for them to be delivered. The official estimate was for delivery between6.10pm and 6.30pm. They actually arrived at 7pm, and were only just tepid. In fact by the time I had eaten the first the second was almost cold. Normally they are not this bad, but it seems they were a lot busier than usual last night.

  TV entertainment last night was more Carry On  films being shown on ITV3. Some of the later ones were those I watched the previous night, but I was in bed before the repeats started. I was in bed by about 9.30pm, and I read for a while. There were a lot of noisy fireworks last night that kept me awake, and I can't decide if that was a good thing or not. It was about 11.30pm when I passed some unusually extra stench scented wind. I was also feeling a bit uncomfortable.

  The next time I passed some wind I also very lightly soiled my underpants (luckily I was wearing underpants in bed !!). I quickly dashed to the toilet where I sat down in the cold for maybe 10 minutes as I pebble dashed the toilet pan in spasmodic squirts. I seemed to have finish, and headed back to bed, but a few minutes later I was back to the toilet for another round. After another 10 minutes sitting in the cold it seemed like I must be empty apart from the food I had eaten a few hours earlier.

  I went back to bed, but I could not relax and sleep. For one thing it was just after midnight, and the bombardment from fireworks got even more intense, and I was not sure I was completely empty. It was probably 1am before I fell asleep, but from then on I seemed to sleep quite well. I am not even sure I got up for a pee until almost 5am. I finally got up around 6.45am - a bit earlier than recently.

  As hoped, all my blood glucose readings were in the light green. The Contour meter read 7.6mmol/l/ The GlucoRX meter read 8.1mmol/l, and the Sino Care meter read 7.9 mmol/l. That is a fairly tight grouping, and it gives an average 7.87mmol/l. My current plan is to only use three of my four meters at a time, and I'll use the two newest meters, the Sino Care, and the Vivachek on alternate weeks.

  Despite seeming to "empty my bowels" rather thoroughly last night, I still do an almost normal poo this morning. Before I ate anything, and before I had drunk much, I hopped on the scales. The reading was not as low as hoped, but it still remains slightly over a kg less than my official medical records show from my last visit to the nurse. Today I can't say I am fasting because on the strength of my low blood glucose readings I did have some breakfast, but if I can make it, I am going to try not to eat anything more until dinner time. I am also trying to stick to drinking just chilled water today to help flush out my rancid bowels !

  As I write this the sun is finally shining. If there was any reasonable chance it would continue I could be tempted to go out for a short walk, but the forecast still says there may only be a couple of hours of sunny spells today....However, it seems they may now last to midday, but black skies and heavy rain are still forecast from about 4pm. I think I'll be staying in today, trying to keep warm with just a "single bar" electric fire.

  There is one definite thing I have to do today, and that is to wash one lightly soiled pair of underpants, plus maybe another pair or two and a couple of t-shirts. I assume I won't be seeing anyone today so I may start that washing before having a shower - if indeed I have one today. Other stuff to do today is computer back ups. I have already backed up my photo and other picture files to my two back up disks. I need to back up the whole of my home partition onto my two back up disks for that. Doing so can take an awful lot of time. Maybe after it is done I may replace the operating system with a new one - MX Linux. I think that version of Linux may be a little bit faster.