While I had the hoover out I thought I should do a bit more. I had noticed the stairs were very dusty, but hoovering them is not very easy. I decided to try a dustpan and brush. Apart from the dust that raised, it seemed to work far better than the hoover, although if I had had the energy and enthusiasm I would have run the hoover over the areas where I had used the brush to pick up some of the light dust. The dustpan and brush was very effective of things like hair and fluff. I had to empty the dustpan three (or was it four ?) times.

  Once I had the stairs looking reasonable I fired up the hoover again, and cleaned from the bottom of the stairs to the front door. I always find hoovering to be quite taxing work, but brushing the stairs was another adventure into pain. Bending over, but working at arms length to avoid breathing in too much dust, had my lower back really protesting before I had done the whole staircase. I had to stand back, and perfectly upright, to view my work before I did the last 3 steps.

  I felt I deserved a nice rest after that bit of hard work, and i also fancied something to eat. It was lunchtime, but I couldn't bother to prepare anything more than opening three small bags of ready salted crisps. At that point I thought I had sabotaged any chance of getting a reasonable blood glucose reading this morning, but at least those crisps were very enjoyable, and that seemed to justify it.

  Once I had let the crisps settle I tackled another job that I didn't expect to do until it was warm, sunny and dry enough to use the washing line (maybe in May or June). For some insane reason I decided to hand wash a moderately thick double duvet cover. The long cuff rubber gloves I mentioned yesterday, came in very handy for washing, and in particular, wringing out that duvet cover between rinses.

   A wet double duvet cover is really heavy, and so my arm muscles got a good workout yesterday. It was really hard to wring out as well, but I persevered, and although I didn't use any fabric conditioner, I did do 4 rinses after the detergent, and after that last rinse I struggled to try and wring out as much water as possible before draping the duvet cover over the big clothes horse in the dining room. I used the fan heater on low to blow warm air under the clothes horse so it would rise up, and speed up the drying.
  It felt good emotionally to have done those two housework type jobs, but physically.....well I guess I didn't really have any lasting bad physical effects, although it did leave me feeling rather tired in a non sleepy sort of way. I had at least an hour to be very lazy before preparing my dinner, and start it cooking. It was to be grilled/roasted sprouts and diced lamb. The worrying thing was that I noticed a nutrition panel on the bag of frozen sprouts. I never realised that sprouts have a fair bit of sugar in them.

  It was too late to not cook the sprouts, and in a sort of gloomy way I thought I may as well go the whole way and have a couple of cans of high strength, and possibly sweet Oranjeboom black label lager (9%) to wash my dinner down. I ate my dinner about a half hour earlier than my usual dinner time, and I didn't eat while watching Star Trek. The original series episode being shown seemed like the umpteenth repeat of the small quantity of episodes the broadcaster has that the keep showing over and over again.

  Instead of Star Trek I started watching, and enjoying a documentary about buildings and stuff used in World War 2. They showed a munutions factory somewhere near Wales that was not previously that well known. It made Cordite that was used as propellent for big naval guns. Quite a lot of the programme was about Naval facilities, and "The Atlantic War". The best thing was that it was all presented in the true English fashion - no hysterical screeching voice overs, just calm, well explained speech.

  I did watch Star Trek: Enterprise, but only one episode. For some reason, maybe to quickly get to the final episode faster, there were two episodes on last night, but I thought one was enough. Half an hour later I watched an episode of The Simpsons, and an hour after that I watched an edition of Have I Got News For You. That finished at 10pm, and I went straight to bed to read for maybe half an hour.

  I am unsure of the exact time I turned the light out, but it was probably around 10.30pm, but I didn't go straight to sleep - not for a long while ! While laying on my back reading, I was hardly aware of any discomfort, but as soon as I turned over onto my side, and attempted to go to sleep, I became very aware of what might have been a heart attack type problem, but would later resolves as being more likely acid indigestion.

  After a while, perhaps half an hour, I got up to take a couple of antacid tablets. Just sitting up straight reduced the pain in my chest - something I doubt would happen if it was a heart attack. I took the antacid tablets, and waited. Initially nothing happened, but maybe half an hour later I started burping - a lot ! Each burp seemed to relieve some pressure in my chest. Eventually I was comfortable, but in the intervening time I spent 10 minutes in the cold bathroom thinking I might also need a poo. I didn't.

  It must have been at least, and possibly past 1am when i finally managed to go to sleep. It was not good sleep. I seemed to wake up quite often. Sometimes I was too hot, and sometimes too cold. I went for a pee at least a couple of times, and maybe a bit more than usual. That didn't bode well for my later blood glucose readings.  I can't remember anything about and dreams except for a sort of feeling rather than an actual memory.

  I seemed to thing that I had seen, or even ridden on either a small monorail, or narrow gauge railway. I concluded that I must have visited a super villain in his underground lair, presumably in a hollowed out extinct volcano - all the best super villains have them ! It is a shame I can't remember any more about the dream(s) because they might have been quite interesting.

  Despite my lack of sleep I got up early this morning because I have things to do. After a quick visit to the toilet (a long one would happen a bit later) I checked my blood glucose readings. I had a doomy fear they might be terrible, but I was wrong ! The Contour meter did read a bit higher than desired, but less than expected. It gave a reading of 8.6mmol/l. That was higher than desired, but at least it was lower then feared.

  The other two meters were much kinder to me. The GlucoRX meter read a very good, even excellent, 7.1mmol/l. The Sino Care meter was also very kind. It often reads on the high side, but it still managed a very good 7.9mmol/l. Sadly even these good readings, except for the Contour meter, were not good enough to get my end of month average down to a good month. I even tried the Contour meter a second time, and it insisted it's first reading was correct. Maybe the best result is it seems my fears about sprouts are wrong.

  This morning I want to do the complete three part ablutions - shave, shampoo and shower, so I am fresh and clean before going out. Earlier in the week there was some reason to hope that today might feature some sunshine, but then it changed to a prediction of rain, possibly heavy rain, but the very latest revision to the forecast says I should be able to go to The Jolly Farmers at lunchtime, and come home again in the dry. It will be very dull, but it should be around 11° C, and so not too cold.