There will be less sunshine today compared to yesterday according to the Met Office forecast, but the sky looks very clear, and the BBC forecast does say full sunshine from sunrise until sunset. Also the BBC seems to have got the temperature about right. It was (and still is) only -1° C, and not -2° C! Both forecasters agree the afternoon temperature will only reach 3° C. By the end of the day it will be down to 1° C, and 0° C by tomorrow morning. Tomorrow will be cloudy, maybe even "overcast" all day. Tomorrow night will be very cold with a temperature of just -2° C.

    Yesterday was not a good day because much of it was very boring. There was stuff I could have found to do, but I was not in the right mood for it because I was treating myself as being ill for the day. Really that just meant keeping myself warm, and hoping that my inflamed operation scar tissue would settle down - the inflamed scar tissue that gives chest pain that is a bit like a heart attack, but isn't. It was caused by very cold air the previous day.

  There was a good clue that it was the cold air causing the chest pain. The only times when it felt like it was going to start aching again was when I spent some times in the unheated, and so rather cold, kitchen. It is hard to understand or explain how it is possible to know that pain will start before it actually does. I guess it is a sort of very gentle, ignorable ache that is just enough to warn of worse to come.

  Having to keep a heater going all day, and often turned up high, was annoying, depressing, and expensive. It was expense that was the main cause of the depression, and yet even if I was perfect health I wouldn't want to sit around in a freezing cold room. A brisk walk in a very warm coat would have been cheaper, but even with the warmest coat my chest would get inflamed again, but from the inside to the outside - there is no getting away from it, we all have to breath by sucking in lungfuls of freezing cold air !

  In several respects the cost of the electricity shouldn't have caused me too much consternation. I had over paid, and built up quite a lot of credit before winter set in, plus I got my £500 pensioners winter heating allowance. There was also the fact that one thing I did do yesterday was to pay off both my credit card bills, and they were a lot lower than expected. I didn't actually check my main bank account balance, but it should have been looking healthy if I had.

  It was on the assumption that my bank balance was very healthy that I indulged in some "retail therapy". Part of my inflamed scar tissue problem was probably due to my new leather jacket. While I can do the front zip up without too much trouble, it is tight, and the pressure on my chest can either hold it all together, or it can make the pain worse. I wondered if I could find an even bigger leather jacket withouit paying a fortune for it.

  The answer could be yes or maybe. Another look on Amazon showed a similar style, real leather jacket. It was made in China, which I must admit is worrisome, but on the other hand it did show a sizing chart in both imperial and metric units. Their biggest size looked like it might even be too big, but that is better than too small, and so I ordered one. It will be here sometime in early February. That is a long wait, but there is a lot of uncertainty in their prediction. It could be 1st February plus or minus a week.

  This does leave an unanswered question of what to do with the (new) old leather jacket. I can still wear it, and if it was raining I could do it up, but it would feel better left open, and I could and probably will wear it until it gets too warm to want to wear any sort of coat. It would be nice to give away the old jacket, but I don't know enough people, and no one I can see wanting to wear a leather jacket like an old time rocker or motorcyclist.

  I spent most of my day just quietly reading. I have to say the book "Roving Mars" is getting good now. It started with mainly politics (or the office politics type in the main), but the chapters I was reading yesterday were getting quite technical - although gently explained for those unfamiliar with electronics or computing. One thing that was an eye opener for me was the care and testing that was done long before the rovers were even sat on a rocket stack.

  I suspect if I was in charge I would prefer to bang together 10 of the rovers with only testing done on the first, and then flown all of them to see which survived and worked. It seemed like there was enough prior expertise to simplify everything. I think I saw that each Delta rocket flight cost about $68 million, but the cost of the rovers was over ten times that amount. A mass production strategy would be much cheaper, and the money could have been spent on rockets.  Maybe I could have managed the mission far cheaper, and if only three rovers survived, or worked properly, that would still be one more than the very expensive way.

  I don't think I had anything like a proper lunch yesterday. I just had some small packets of Hula Hoops, and some chunks of cheese. I also had occasional small handfuls of peanuts. I definitely know what I had for dinner at about 6.30pm. It was another simple grilled/roasted, diced lamb with sprouts. It is becoming a favourite of mine. It is ridiculously easy to prepare and cook, and I like the taste combination.

  As usual I ate dinner while watching Star Trek episodes, although I ended up paying little attention to them. Both Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Enterprise were lousy episodes. It was annoying that there were two bad episodes on at the same time. I flicked between them, and if one had been good I would have stuck with one, but in the end I saw bits of both, but watched neither. Later on there was better stuff like The Simpsons, QI and Have I Got News For You.

  I ended up in bed, reading, at about 9pm. Between 9.30 and 9.45pm I had managed to fall asleep. With the temperature falling so low last night I was tempted to keep the heater on high, but I turned it to low before falling asleep, and then turned it up high sometime between 2 and 3am (maybe it was actually 3am). On the whole I slept well last night, but I recall having quite a wide selection of dream - most of which left no lasting memories.

  This morning I was not expecting good blood glucose results after eating a fair bit of "naughty" stuff yesterday, but in reality the results were satisfactory. The first reading on the Contour meter was an alarming 10.4mmol/l, but I did that one again, and the new reading agreed more with the other readings, The reading I recorded was 8.3mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter gave a nicer 7.9mmol/l, and the Sino Care meter read 8.6mmol/l.

  Today I must have a shower (I didn't bother yesterday), and I must brave the cold air to go out and get some shopping. I need a few things from Tesco. I must try to be patient walking to and from Tesco, and by patient I mean walking at a more steady pace instead of walking as fast as I can manage these days. One the other hand, pushing myself would be a better way of checking that any chest pain is, or isn't, a pending heart attack. As hard as I try, I find it hard to walk slowly, and so I guess I'll find out the hard way.