It is clear to see from the screenshot above that today's weather will come in two halves. This morning should be very sunny, and we will need every ray of that sunshine to warm things up. At around 5am the temperature had fallen to 5° C, and it is still only just over 6° C now. By midday it should peak at 13° C for a few hours, but then fall again as the sun is blocked by first light clouds, and later by heavy clouds. It seems almost certain that some rain will fall late this afternoon, and I have a gut feeling it could easily be more than just a single hour. The BBC forecast thinks tomorrow could start with rain, but the Met Office say it will be dry, but both forecasters agree that there may be no sign of the sun tomorrow, and they both agree it could be quite warm with 18° C possible.

   Yesterday turned out to be a useful, and productive day, although the evening was very bland. After an awful day the day before yesterday, I didn't have a lot to write about yesterday, and I finished a lot earlier than some of my more extended waffling prose !

  An early finish to writing allowed me to take things easy after writing, and allowed plenty of time for a relaxed shave, shampoo, and shower. I still had plenty of time to go out shopping well before the morning was over. I went to Poundstretcher where I resisted buying too much food, but I did by some food. Maybe the main thing I bought was almost the whole reason I went out. It was another pair of very long cuff rubber gloves.

  It was a shame that the first pair, bought maybe less than a month ago, sprung a leak so early in their life. It was a tiny hole where the thumb joins the palm. Cheap and nasty rubber gloves often fail there very quickly, but the short cuff version of the long cuff gloves seem to be very resilient to failing there, and I had hoped the long cuff gloves would last a similar length of time. I did wonder if I had caught the glove on something sharp, and I was thinking along the lines of something like a zip, or a metal buckle of something.

  As far as I can recall I hadn't washed anything with any metal bits for ages and ages - until yesterday when I washed a pair of jeans. I used a pair of Marigold gloves for that, and they suffered no damage even after some very powerful attempts at wringing those jeans out between each wash, rinse and conditioner, plus one final wringing out as hard as I could prior to hanging them up to dry.

  Back to Poundstretcher, and I was happy to see they still had the extra long cuff rubber gloves because so often in places like Poundstretcher they are selling things like end of line stock, and once they have gone, they have gone. On the other hand, it seems they still have some stock left of 1.25 litre bottles of lime Diet Coke, and I bought two bottles of that. Other stuff I bought included some tubs of instant noodles. They seemed to have just one Peking Duck/Hoisin Sauce flavoured noodles, and I had that one for breakfast this morning. It was very disappointing.

  The walk to Poundstretcher was OK, and I don't think I felt any bother form my chest. I did feel some stress on my way home again. It had stared to rain as I left the shop, and so I did my coat up. It is not a tight coat, and maybe one of my better fitting coats, but it still feels constricting compared to just a light t-shirt on a warm sunny day. However I still felt fine when I got home, although it was nice to take the coat off.

  I hadn't really bought anything that might be used for some lunch, and I stuck to my original plan of rice crackers and the last of the pork and garlic pate I had opened the day before. There was a lot less than I thought, and I also had some spreadable cheese on the rice crackers. After lunch I had a short rest before I finished washing the black jeans I mentioned earlier.

  I have a hazy recollection of giving those jeans a very good wash when first bought up to 10 years ago. I think I had washed them at least once since then. I was surprised how much dye was coming out as I washed them. I thought that maybe the detergent turning black was just pure filth, but then I realised that was unlikely - and particularly so when the next three rinse waters turned black, albeit a thinner black. Even the fabric conditioned was fairly black ! It seems odd those jeans are not now grey, but they still look very black !

  I wasted a lot of time later playing on my old Windows XP computer. As I mentioned a day or three ago, I had copied almost a full hour of a 2002 vintage MiniDV camcorder tape to a data file. It was 13GB in size, and ultimately I think it ended up as a corrupt file. I tried to copy it to a 256GB USB thumb, but it said there was no room for it. I gave up on it at that point, but came back to it yesterday.

  I reasoned that if the file could be copied to a hard disk, formatted by Windows XP, then it should be possible to copy it to a thumb drive formatted by Windows XP. It wasn't, and that made me wonder if it was a corrupt or otherwise non standard file. The only way to do it was to copy it from the tape again, but this time set the options to record it as Windows 98 compatible - a maximum size of 4GB. That meant there were 4 files generated that could be edited together with no glitches. After editing I would have used maybe a tenth of the available video, and I would be saving the end result in far more compact mp4 format. I estimate the finish result could be as little as 100MB !

   It was getting late in the afternoon when I remembered I had dinner to prepare, and some washing up to do. I started my dinner by cooking some diced beef in stock in a casserole dish. Nearer the time when I would eat it, which was a bit late last night at about 7pm, I added some sliced potato and broccoli. For some reason I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped I would. Somehow the broccoli taste seemed to clash with the beef instead of, and I thought usually happened, it enhanced it. Oh well, at least it was moderately healthy.
 I wonder if there was something affecting my taste buds yesterday. By early yesterday evening I dared to taste the third of three "own brand" Tesco sugar free colas. This third one, as pictured above. I expected to taste disgusting, but I was very wrong. While chilled it tasted like brown soda water. That wasn't good, but neither was it bad. This morning it has warmed up, but still cool-ish, and has developed some taste. It is not that bad, and tastes similar, but a bit better than the "Stockwell" cheapo Tesco own brand sugar free cola. Actually I can't make up my mind if one is better than the other. I guess I will probably buy them alternately when I go in Tesco. While neither has the original taste of proper Diet Coke, it does make me wonder what is in Diet Coke to make it cost at least 4 times the price !

  Last night was yet another night when there was nothing on TV until much later in the evening, but even then, nothing that would make me want to stay up late.. For some entertainment I turned to my archives, and watched a couple of episodes of Yes Prime Minister. I was probably in bed before 9pm, and I read for about half an hour before turning out the light. It didn't seem it would take long before I was fast asleep. I was wrong ! I was just starting to feel comfortable when I realised I was very uncomfortable in the lower gut department.

  I went to the toilet, and very soon things were moving - a lot, but it seemed to be almost normal. I went back to bed, but before I had even pulled the duvet over me before I had to rush to the toilet again. This time it was not normal. It was fairly loose diarrhoea, and there was a lot of it. After that I didn't dare to to sleep for 20 minutes in case there was more to come. Fortunately there wasn't - I must have been pretty empty after that lot. Even this morning I can't think of anything I might have eaten that could have caused it.

  Once I was asleep it almost seemed I stayed asleep until just gone 4am. That would be a record in these times. Maybe I do have a dream like memory of getting up to go for a pee, but it is such an insubstantial memory that I can't trust it. Even dreams I am sure I had seem very hazy now. One dream seemed to be about being escorted onto a small (50 seater) plane by two very attractive woman. One oddity about the plane was that the sides seems to be decorated in the same style as many Wetherspoon pub name boards. I have no idea why I was getting on the plane, but despite my escorts, it wasn't under any duress. The last thing I remember is the sight of me sitting in the plane, and wondering if I had time for a pee before take off.

  It was handy waking up at just after 4am because it seemed like an excellent time to turn the heater on full. At that time the outside temperature was only about 5° C, and it was getting quite chilly in my bedroom. I didn't sleep that well, or so it seemed. It felt like I didn't get to sleep at all, but suddenly it was gone 6am - time to get up. I thought I felt fairly good except for one thing. It was quite a tender spot on my left inner thigh, right next to my testicles. It had started to become sore a few days ago, but this morning it was very tender.

  I knew exactly what it was, and knew how it would end. It was a typical diabetes sufferer's boil, and usually happens after prolonged high blood glucose. I didn't think my blood glucose had been that high, or for too long. I knew how it would end. It would be as a nasty mess. What I didn't realise was that I had popped it as I got out of bed. After sitting down at my PC to take, and record my temperature, I got up and saw blood on the chair. I went straight out to the bathroom, and used a flannel to mop all the blood up, and to squeeze out more, including blood clots. It was extremely messy, but the soreness soon went away once the pressure had been relieved. It may well seep for a few hours yet, but the worst is over.

  It made me wonder just how high my blood sugar had gone this morning. As far as I was aware, I hadn't eaten anything that bad, but maybe a few things were a bit marginal. This morning all three meters gave similar readings. the Contour meter read 8.9mmol/l, and the GlucoRX read exactly the same. The Sinocare broadly agreed with a reading of 8.7mmol/l. Until I started getting runs of readings starting with a 7 I used to think that anything starting with an 8 was good, but no longer, and it seems that boil on my inner thigh confirms it. I need to take steps to get my blood glucose a bit lower !

  The highlight of today will be a visit to The Jolly Farmers. I hope Ayse is there, and I hope there is some good news about her recent visit to hospital. If she is not there I may only stay for a single pint - unless the crossword seems easy enough to come close to finish both the quick and cryptic crosswords. After I get home I shall try and stick to just some fruit for a post drinking lunch.  
      







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