I'm not sure the weather has been following the forecast this morning. The cloud has now thickened, and we have lost the nice sunny spells we had, and which didn't appear in the forecast. The latest revision to the forecast shows light rain from midday until 5pm, with another shower at 7pm. It seems possible that there could be some sunny spells between showers.  By my reckoning the day started closer to 14° C, and it seems to be about 15° C as I write this. Maybe it will make 16° C by midday, but it will probably then slowly fall to 9° C at the end of the day. Tomorrow may start at just 7° C, but there may be 3 or so hours of sunny spells until it clouds over. It may still seem bright for most of the afternoon, and the temperature should climb to a still chilly 11° C. It should stay there until the end of the day.

   Yesterday was a largely good day - mostly thanks to some nice weather. It was getting late in the morning before I showered, and then got dressed to go out shopping. It was to be another trip to Tesco, but I was very careful about what I bought, and I didn't spent that much for a change.

  Maybe I was a bit too careful about what I bought in Tesco because I ended up forgetting to buy a couple of things I had intended to buy. Maybe I was still in a state of shock that I was actually able to walk to Tesco with no coat, and with bare arms. I'm trying to think of a word that means almost warm, but just one tiny notch below that. Maybe I'll leave it at "comfortable". It was rather wonderful to feel the sun on my arms !
  I took this picture on my way back from Tesco. The sun was shining on my back, and there was loads of blue sky ahead. There was also a patch of thin cloud as well. That cloud was almost overhead, but the sun is still a bit low in the sky, and the sky was perfectly clear where the sun was shining.

  A lot of what I bought in Tesco was vegetables. I got more beansprouts for "Chinese flavoured" pork stews, and this time I am determined to use them up before they go off. Rotting beansprouts are really stinky ! I'll have to have two pork dinners in quick succession. I may well have pork, but in the form of ham, lunches. In support of that I bought more potatoes - a bag of ordinary, and a bag of sweet potatoes. The latter, despite the name, are supposed to be better for diabetics.

  It does seem I have eaten quite a lot of potatoes recently with no bad effects on my blood glucose. It is even possible, although I have no idea how, that they have had a good effect on my blood glucose measurements, but there could be other reasons for that. I'll see if it is possible to identify what has been a good effect, and exploit it more. On the other hand it could mean sacrificing some days measurements by eating the wrong things to prove a point. Maybe I should just accept I am doing things right somehow, and just get on with it.

  It was lunchtime when I got back from Tesco, and I did buy one temptation I might have had for lunch, but I stuck to my plans to eat a couple of Tesco "Finest" Scotch Eggs that I had in the fridge from a previous shopping trip to Tesco. They were probably tastier than the two Tesco cheese and onion pasty like "slices". The only trouble with the Scotch eggs is that I was burping up their taste for half the afternoon.

  After taking a short rest after lunch, but no snooze, I did a bit of work in the kitchen. The first thing was to do something I am trying to do as a routine now - removing the cold, and solid fat from the top of what would be my dinner later. It was yet another stew based on diced beef, and I had cooked the meat the night before, and it was quite cold when I removed the fat from the top.

  I also did a bit of washing up, and cleaning of the work surfaces. The other thing was to scrub some potatoes with a new brush I had bought for the purpose when in Tesco. I cleaned two small ordinary potatoes and one small sweet potato. I added them, plus some cauliflower to my cooked meat and gravy, and gave a 10 minute zapping in the microwave.  After that I could sit down and wait for Jodie to arrive while drinking a beer.

  Shortly before Jodie arrived I heard from Michael. He sent a text message saying he had bought some bottles of Diet Coke for me, and also asked if we were drinking as usual on the Thursday afternoon. I said yeas please, and yes, and looked forward to hearing Michael have a good moan.....well, I wasn't looking forward to it, but it is harmless, and allows him to get stuff off his chest.

  When Jodie arrived, and stopped fussing around with her making her lunch/dinner, I handed her the list of beers in my last but one beer order, and I also handed her a red and green pen. I asked her to put green ticks by any beers that she definitely had no interest in, and that I was free to drink without her supervision, and to put red ticks by beers I was not allowed to open until she was there. I think there was about 15 green ticks, and just 5 red ticks, and 2 of them was only because she hadn't had them from cans, and needed the labels.

  Despite Michael moaning 10 to the dozen, and Jodie not liking my beer selection, I had a good time, and with a few extra beers to myself, I got very happy drunk. Michael left at almost 5.30pm - some 5 minutes after his deadline to get home before his wife started cooking her dinner, and might "burn the house down". Jodie left to get a bus to Bromley at about 6.30pm. Once things started coming to an end I gave my dinner another 7 or 8 minutes in the microwave to get it hot.

  When I took the lid off the casserole dish I had cooked it in, it seemed to be quite a large dinner, and some of the bulk was the potatoes I had added. They did make it a pleasure to eat, but I still had a tinge of worry about eating those potatoes. Later evidence would suggest I didn't have anything to worry about - except maybe for the amount of calories probably in them.
  The days are getting longer, but it was still dark soon after 6pm, and fully dark after 7pm, but not entirely dark in my garden. My CCTV has a very sensitive camera module in it, and it almost looked bright in my garden at 7.43pm. Over in the distance someone has what looks to be a very bright light from their house, and my solar powered LED lights look dazzling. In fact, to the naked eye, it still looked quite dark in my garden.

  Once again there was nothing on TV to keep me up, and I think I was reading in bed by 8pm. It may have been as little as half an hour later that I fell into a very deep, drunken sleep. Two hours later I was woken by a message on my phone. I wouldn't have fretted too much if it was from a friend, but it was spam, a very special form of spam. I couldn't read all the small details on the picture that was the message. My eyes felt too gummy after being woken from sleep.

  The picture was of a poster promoting Dr Elias, And His Soul Surgeons who had a gig on the 25th March in the new Catford Constitution Club. Warren, aka Dr Elias does have my phone number, but I think the message was sent by his wife for some reason. I black listed the number and blocked the number. I must admit I was quite annoyed being woken up in the middle of my sleep, and later was even more annoyed when I had to endure 3 to 5 hours of insomnia.

  I just could not get back to sleep for ages and ages .... although, as has happened before, I did seem to have dreams when I thought I was awake. All the dreams were instantly forgotten until I had one at around 5am. I did seem to be sleeping at that time, and it was a fairly long dream. In some ways it was a sort of rehearsal of what I would like to do tonight, but probably won't.

  In the dream I was going to venue where Steve and Carrie were playing a gig.  It was a brand new venue, and the seating, consisting of long tables, meant it was very hard to navigate around them - and they were outside and wouldn't be able to see the band. I found the stage inside by slipping through the kitchen to come out behind the stage. My big, professional camera allowed me to do so !

  As planned I managed to find Carrie, and the rest of the band about half an hour before they were due on, and had a chance to chat to Carrie. She started off by hugging me, which was most pleasant ! I told he that I was so sorry to hear about the death of their bass guitarist, Paul Newham, and was shocked by how quickly it happened. (I believe he hd been suffering from some sort of cancer for some time without mentioning it publicly, and he was on stage, playing just a few days before his death). I urged Carrie to find another good bass player, and get the show back on the road as soon as possible.

  I did my best to have a long lay in this morning, but I failed, and was still up before 7am. I may well have a few snoozes today to make up for it. After a visit to the toilet it was time to check my blood glucose level. After the beers and the big dinner, I was not expecting good results, but I was wrong. In the case of the first reading I took I was very wrong. I gave the first pinprick of blood to the Sinocare meter, and it read just 4.6mmol/l. I have never seen a reading that low before, and never expected to see it on that meter.

  I thought it must have been somehow contaminated blood, and so I tried it again a bit later using a fingerprick on a different finger. That second time it read 7.1mmol/l, and that agreed roughly with the other meters. The Contour meter read a miraculous 6.9mmol/l, and the GlucoRX meter read 7.3mmol/l. These readings could almost be from a non diabetic, and I really wonder what magic is taking place.

  There does seem to have been a drop in my blood glucose readings since starting the new drug prescribed to me by the hospital. The drug dilates blood vessels, and helps blood flow more freely. One possibility is that I now have better blood flow to the Pancreas (the source of Insulin). That could be a clue that might help the cardiologist I am due to see in May* to locate where an artery is constricted, and possibly point to having a stent fitted to relieve the constricted bit.

* I forgot to mention that on Wednesday I got a letter from the Cardiology department for an appointment to see a cardiologist in out patients. One curious thing is that the letter implores you not to arrive more than 30 minutes early, but in a different paragraph says to arrive at least 30 minutes early so I can have an ECG (electro cardiogram) before I see the consultant.

  Better blood flow to the Pancreas may be just one reason my blood glucose measurements have got lower. It might be possible that the continued drop to this mornings even lower figures could be the result of taking the Chromium supplements. Today would, or will be when I take my afternoon tablets, my third dose. Considering I felt I did not eat all that carefully yesterday, it shouldn't be hard to at least match it. Tomorrow's result might be interesting, or a disappointment.

  One, and possibly the only big event today will be the delivery of my special, just for me, beer delivery. I have been notified to expect DPD to deliver it between 1:06pm to 2:06 pm. I am unsure about today's driver, but I would not be surprised to get my delivery as early as 1pm.

  A second, possible big event today is that I would like to go to a gig tonight. At the moment it seems very unlikely I will go out, but if I did it will be like in my dream, going to see Steve and Carrie in The Coach And Horses in Beckenham. It is a simple journey on the 54 bus, taking about 25 minutes, and the bus stops a few minutes walk from the pub. It looks like the weather could be reasonably kind to go out, and I feel I should make the effort, but ....hmmm, but..... well, we'll see.
      







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