This morning the heavens opened, although I'm not sure if I have noticed any heavy rain. At the moment the rain is really persistent, but only mildly heavy, or maybe just light rain. The latest revision definitely predicts heavy rain for 10am, 11am and midday. After that it will be light rain until gone 4pm. Maybe closer to reality is the BBC forecast that says light rain from early morning to 3pm, and then 2 hours of drizzle. Both forecasters predict it will reach 12° C today. One of thing the BBC predicts is strong winds this morning starting at 10am. Tomorrow may also be very wet, and it will be colder as well. The temperature may peak at 11° C at 9am, and then slowly fall to 5° C by 11pm. The morning after could see the temperature down to just 2° C - cold enough for snow, but no snow is forecast.

    Yesterday had all the makings of a very boring day thanks to the terrible gloomy weather. However, although it was not terribly exciting, it was a fairly busy day. It started with quick shower before a shopping trip to Tesco. It was one of those shopping trips where I bought a lot of stuff to fill up an empty cupboard (so to speak).

  I bought lots of packets of instant noodles, three packets of rice crackers, and a few assorted cheeses. I also bought some more salad stuff, and a couple of meats to make meat salad. One was a reduced price packet of herb infused meatballs. Normally I would stew them with something like broccoli, but this time I will grill them. I also bought a pack of beef burgers that I shall grill, and then cut into cubes to go in a salad....at least that is the plan, but there could be some leeway in that plan.

  I avoided buying anything "dangerous", but I did buy a pack of smoked salmon canapés that were reduced to almost half price. Their nutritional information showed them to have very little sugar content. They may still have been dangerous, but if so it was a timed delay fuse. I had them as part one of a lunch soon after I came back from Tesco. They were sort of nice, but a little bit not nice. Maybe too salty, or just too fishy - both of which should have been expected.

  It was cold, but not wet when I walked to and from Tesco. I wore a thin coat, but didn't bother to zip it up. I took a couple of ordinary big (and strong) carrier bags with me, but not my rucksack because I wasn't intending to buy any heavy bottles. It was not a pleasant walk in the gloom, but on the other hand it was pleasant to walk quite fast with no significant pains expect for a sore neck, that had been sore soon after getting up. I suspect I slept awkwardly or something.

  I supplemented the canapés with some rice crackers and cheese.  After that I lazed on my bed reading for half an hour or so before starting on a long job of editing videos recorded on my TV.  On one hand I wished I had taken more advantage of the recording facility on my TV. One thing that put me off was not realising that recordings could still be made with the screen and sound turned off. On the other hand, just a few days of recordings made for quite a time consuming job.

  It was not essential, but it feels more tidy to top and tail, plus edit out any adverts of each recording. Once you get the hang of it, it is a very simple job, but it is still time consuming. One extra time consuming thing is where the recorded programme has been broadcast before the official time. That means that the title sequence can be party missing. If I can I try and use the (hopefully) identical title sequence from another episode. It works well for The Avengers, but some programmes start with the action, and the title sequence is shown a few minutes later. Deep Space Nine is a good example of that, and a missed start can be very annoying.

  As of yesterday I had only edited and saved as a complete programme 7 out of 27 recordings. It is evidently a job I should do far more frequently than leaving it weeks before seeing what I had recorded ! Although not a scintillating way of passing time, it does give some satisfaction to save each edited programme. I almost stopped in time to watch Star Trek: The Original Series, but it was a boring one, and I continued editing until it was time for dinner.

  Dinner was a very simple, and not so huge salad - a basically corned beef with iceberg lettuce with one tomato and two radishes, salad. As I said, it was not that big, and I decided to have a sort of dessert of sugar free "fibre" biscuits with cheese. Everything seems to slide down OK, but fast forward to bedtime, at approx 9pm, and I started to feel dreadful. It is hard to describe how it felt. I seemed to be hot and cold a the same time, and there was something I can only describe as pressure in my chest, but which was not really pressure.

  It was maybe an hour later that I realised what was probably going to happen, and after tying my hair back with a hair tie, I went to the toilet where I initially thought I needed to poo, but soon changed my mind to the reason I tied my hair back. I was soon "yodelling down the great white trumpet" !! I was copiously sick. It seemed like it had taken an awful long time, but the most obvious thing to blame was the smoked salmon canapés. It might have been the so called "washed and ready to eat" iceberg lettuce which was contaminated in some way. If it was it is a bit unfortunate because I still have a third of a bag to use up, plus an unopened bag - presumably from the same batch.

  After washing out my mouth with plenty of water, and some mouthwash, I headed back to bed, and tried to relax. It still felt a bit like I needed a poo, but several visit to the toilet produced nothing. I eventually got comfortable in bed, and fell asleep at some time after 11pm. I seemed to mostly sleep well, but woke a few times to have a pee, and to change the level of the heater in my bedroom depending on if I felt too warm or too cool.

  The one thing that really spoiled my sleep was some horrible dreams. It was like I was watching some sort of ghastly You tube channel about mutilating animals (seemingly dead or anaesthetised). In one video they were driving a back hoe against a giant polar bear to see if it would explode when squished. I did not want to see the result so I turned to another video, and that seemed to be about a gorilla with it's arms cut off. It was all terribly unpleasant, and the only way to stop it was to wake up, but it still left a very unpleasant taste.

  After seeming to throw up my entire dinner I was expecting some magnificent blood glucose readings this morning.Two were good, one was bad. Both the Contour and GlucoRX meters read an identical 8.4mmol/l. That was moderately good, but I had hoped for an even lower reading. I tried the Sino Care meter twice, and both times it was sure the reading should be 9.3mmol/l (I think the first reading was a little higher still). That was most disappointing.

  Another thing that was disappointing was that my idea that no longer taking the Turmeric, Ginger, and Black Pepper tablets had stopped my hard, and painful to excrete hard stools. It seems not. This morning was a long process, although only mildly painful this time. That and the vomiting last night, is perhaps a sign that my entire digestive tract is worn oiut and becoming useless.... or something.

  Today, being a Wednesday, I should be going for my regular Wednesday lunchtime drink in The Jolly Farmers. I definitely would like to go, and maybe I still will go, but.... Going out out in the rain, under a gloomy sky, is never a pleasurable experience, but is usually not a reason not to go, but today there is another factor involved. Sometime today, and probably, but not necessarily quite late in the afternoon, and possibly even late in the evening, I am expecting a parcel from Amazon with a few goodies in it. I would not like to miss it. That could be the excuse to stay in, but I'll have a shave and shower just in case I say to hell with it all and venture out for a couple of pints of Guinness.