This morning did start with a clear sky and sunshine. The sunshine continues, but the clouds are building up. The latest revision to the Met Office forecast shows dark grey clouds and rain for 11am. The BBC say sunny spells might last to midday, but even they say rain from 1pm. Sunshine could return by 5pm. The BBC still say that most of the afternoon will be 13° C, but The Met Office say no more than 12° C. Tomorrow could be generally dull with some outbreaks of rain, but it get to 14, or even 15° C.

   Yesterday was a mixed day - good, or bad, or indifferent ! Late night, and for most of the night, it was definitely bad, but at least the morning started off moderately good, but only because I had very little to do, and could devote my time to quietly reading, and practising the art of being lazy.

  In the middle of the day I cleared a few items of washing up from the sink, and put the last touches to my already prepared, and potentially ready to eat dinner. I just added some sliced up long, sweet red peppers, and gave it all a 10 minute blast in the microwave. I also made some lunch. It was bigger than intended because I didn't want to put back the pack of corned beef into the fridge with just a single slice in it. I made two rather delicious corned beef and mustard sandwiches. One, with maybe a packet of crisps was my original intention.

  At about 3pm I got a message from Jodie saying she had forgotten to change her clocks, and she had slept extra late. She said to expect her at about 4pm. I said OK, and that I would have another little snooze. I don't think I did snooze, but I went through the motions as if I was going to. Jodie did arrive very close to 4pm, and claimed to be in a drinking mood. She had brought with her a beer that she had decanted from a can (or maybe it was from a tap in a bar) into a rinsed out fruit drink bottle.

  I always feel a bit wary of her re-bottled beer, and this one looked well dodgy. I soon found the reason why it looked dodgy. It was a carrot cake based beer, and it was a murky shade of orange. Some fruit beers are nice, but generally only those made to traditional Belgium or German recipes. I am not keen on modern "fruit sours". They seem to have little to do with "beer", and I definitely draw the line at putting carrots in beer !

  Jodie had to drink nearly 500ml of carrot cake beer all by herself. She claimed it was so wonderful that she was going to drink it extra slowly so she could savour it - and she did drink it so slowly that it was the only "beer" she drank for the whole session. I drank two large cans (440ml ?) of German style beer. One was described as a Pilsner, and the other as a Keller beer. Jodie said she had tried them before, and didn't like them at all.

  My first mouthful of the first of those beers (I think it was the Pilsner) didn't taste that good, but the second mouthful tasted better, and from then on I was really enjoying them. I followed them by a can of Guinness. That was almost it, by we decided on a spirit to finish off. We actually had liqueurs. Jodie had one and a half shot glasses of Peach flavour Jim Beam bourbon. The half was the last dregs from the bottle. I had three rum liqueurs, but only half shots glasses of each because of their sugar content.

  Jodie left just before 6.30pm to get a bus to Bromley for more beer drinking. It was quite amazing to see her leaving in full daylight thanks to the clocks changing from GMT to BST. I had warmed up my dinner before Jodie left, and so as soon as she was out the door I could tuck into it. It was very enjoyable. As partly described earlier, it was a chicken casserole with one small onion, a few potatoes, a single small chilli pepper, and the sweet, long red pepper all in a tasty, spice gravy.

  It was probably the gravy that made it look to be quite a big dinner, but I didn't eat/drink the gravy. The potato was so well cooked that it melted into mash in the mouth. The single small onion had just melted away while cooking. Only the chicken felt like it had some real substance. I was in a tricky position of having had enough booze to feel extra hungry, but not drunk enough for some caution to surface (although it probably never does).

  The result was that I had a "dessert" of a lamb and mint pie. It was ready made by, or for Aldi, and it was supposed to spend 20 minutes in a real oven to warm the filling, and puff up the puff pastry. I ate it cold, and it was quite stodgy like that, although the lamb and mint filling was very tasty. By the time I had shovelled it down I was starting to regret it. In maybe an hours time I was deeply regretting it.

  All that food inside me, combined with the gassy beers I had drunk, left me feeling bloated. Worst of all was that the pain was very similar to an Angina attack. I was resting in bed when the pain was at it's worst, and resting is the wrong time for Angina - it usually comes on after walking, or other exercise. However it did seem to respond to a 300mg Aspirin tablet dissolved in water, but at the same time I did have a few antacid tablets.

  Waiting for that pain and discomfort to go away took me until almost midnight, but as that pain was fading away I was afflicted by something else, and I am not 100% sure what it was. It had all the symptoms of a head cold - gushing nose, and the start of a wet cough. This morning there was quite a pile of soggy tissues by my bed ! Everything points to it just being the common cold, except for one thing. It only lasted for about 6 hours.

  Either my powers of recovery are far better than could be imagined, or it was caused by something, but quite what is a mystery. Having said all that, I have just sneezed, and I had to give my nose a very light blow. Compared to what I was doing at 1am, a light blow of the nose is nothing. At about 1am I was standing over the toilet, having a pee, and my nose was literally dripping into the toilet as well (I didn't want to spoil my aim, or the flow, but stopping to get a couple of sheets of toilet paper, and giving my nose a blow).

  I guess I feel better than expected this morning. I lost many hours of sleep last night. In fact I can't really say how much I got. It seemed like I hardly slept at all, but some chunks of time seemed to pass unnoticed. I can imagine having a snooze later on could come very easy. Most of my health indicators are saying I am almost healthy this morning. My blood pressure, admittedly after eating breakfast, which is always an excellent cheat, is nice and low (100/42).

  My blood glucose readings were just boringly normal instead of being very pleasing (under 8.0mmol/l like a lot of last month was). The Contour meter read 8.3mmol/l. and that is below my old average. The GlucoRX meter read 8.2mmol/l, and that is a bit better. The Sinocare meter read 8.8mmol/l, and that is above "normal", but not a lot. The average of all three was 8.43mmol/l, and that is 0.2 higher than the average for the whole of last month, but it is early days yet.

  It is still sunny as I write these words, but it may not last a lot longer, and by early afternoon it is likely to be raining. Under such circumstance I feel it is unlikely I shall be going out. If it had been a bit nicer I was contemplating doing a trial run to St Thomas's hospital so I could learn the route before the 16th when I have my MRI scan. I think I'll be staying in today, and maybe do some reading, and try and catch up on a bit of last sleep.
      







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