Much earlier versions of the weather forecast predicted some rain for today, but the latest revisions from both the Met Office, and the BBC, say today will be dry, but dull, and occasionally, very dull. The Met Office are a bit more optimistic by saying that today could reach 11° C for a single hour ! However both forecasters agree that apart from that special hour. now predicted o be 4pm, 10° C better represents the best of the day. Tomorrow may start (Met Office), or end (BBC) with some light rain. It will be very dull all day, but the temperature might possibly reach 12° C later in the afternoon.

   Yesterday had all the making of a dull and miserable day, and indeed that does describe the weather, but a few good things, and a bad thing, did happen indoors - where I stayed all day. It was one of those days when I couldn't be bothered to have a proper shower, but curiously enough I did trim my beard, and used the beard trimmer to do a coarse shave over the rest of my face.

  Once I seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that I wasn't going anywhere, and was very unlikely to get any visitors, I decided I need just a "cat lick wash" (basically a quick flick over with a damp flannel). The significance is that it left the bath free to get out my big builders buckets, and wash every last bit of clothing that I wasn't wearing at the time, and obviously needed washing (I didn't wash already clean clothes). All I still had in the laundry basket was a very heavy double duvet cover that I will eventually tackle when the weather is suitable to dry it on the washing line.

  I think it was around 1pm when I carried out what turned out to be an important experiment. I mentioned the day before that I had bought a reduced price pack of Tesco's own southern fried style chicken, and that it claimed to have a lot less sugar in it than earlier versions. I selected two legs and a thigh to cook for my lunch. It was a bit extravagant for lunch, but I hoped it would bring some cheer on a miserable day. It did - at least at first.

  What brought more cheer happened just after I had eaten. I had read that Angela had finally decided to retire, and hinted that she may have already done so. I reasoned that what she meant was that she had handed in her notice, but probably would be working until the end of the month. I sent her a message to say that if she was still at work on Wednesday (today) why not pop into the pub to say a final goodbye to Ayse, our favourite barmaid.

  I was surprised that she replied, I expected to be ignored, but she replied in very quickly to say she couldn't do today, but that she might do next Wednesday. That lead on to a few simple, but rather nice, exchanges of a few messages. I said I would look forward to it, and she replied "me too, will be nice". I replied "good !", and her response rather surprised, but delighted me "I've missed your friendship". There was a few other short messages exchanged, but it is all sounding like she is actually keen to meet me next week.

  I am obviously very keen to see her. It will give me a first hand chance to assess how her marriage is doing. I usually find it very easy to "read" Angela, and see things below the surface that might not be confirmed for weeks, but actually are confirmed. Anyway it has been good to break the ice. Maybe Angela had eventually forgiven me for not going to her wedding reception, and mistook my grumpiness as being a sign I no longer liked her. I hope we are now starting to realise we were both wrong.

  After that pleasant interlude I finished doing my laundry, and hung it up to dry - only on the clothes horse in the front room. I sometimes seem to be losing faith that summer will ever arrive. After finishing the laundry I rested....or some workaholics would say I went into very lazy mode, but that was indeed the intention. I laid on my bed reading, and I may have dozed off for a short while.

  Despite stuffing myself with Tesco southern fried chicken style chicken, if indeed three pieces, two of which were almost 50% bone, was stuffing myself, I began to feel a bit peckish, and wanted a snack to tide me over until dinner time when I would have cooked the rest of that southern fried chicken. I opted for some rice crackers with cream cheese. That always seems like it is fairly safe, and I think it probably was.

  I had already eaten the first cracker when I remembered I had intended to check my blood glucose to see if the chicken really was as low in sugar content as the packet seemed to suggest. I only gave my fingers a quick rinse, and some residue may have spoiled the readings I got on the two blood glucose meters I tried. The results were not good. Both meters showed quite high readings. I didn't actually make a note of the readings, but I think one meter showed I was flirting really close to the danger zone. I finished the crackers as intended, but decided to forego any proper dinner (although I did munch on a small palmful of peanuts later in the evening).

  Once again there was nothing I wanted to watch on TV to round off my evening, and so I again resorted to watching a few old recordings. I did allow myself one large whiskey, but I am sure it was not that, but disinterest that I seemed to almost ignore the clock. One thing I do know was that it was just about dark, which would probably have made it almost 8.30pm when I decided to brush my teeth, and read in bed.

  I was starting a new book last night, another Robert Heinlein book, "The Door Into Summer", and I was torn between trying get the book well under way, or going to sleep early. I think/hope that I may have stopped reading in time to miss the first action after the background setting. If so it will be a good place to resume from. It is really no more than a wild guess, but I don't think it was long after 9pm before I was sound asleep.

  The quick version of my night was that I woke up a few times in the first half of the night to go for a pee, but I may not have got up for a pee again until it was almost time to get up. My sleep was getting shallow in the last 3 hours because it was cooling down, and I think it was around 4am when I turned the heater up full. As usual I got extra sleep once I was feeling nice and warm and cosy - while partly uncovered !

  I am aware that I had several dreams, but at least the essence of just one remains in my memory - just ! The dream was set in a small variant of the TV workshop where I spent some good and bad times repairing large screen TVs. The important bit of the dream was when we had a staff meeting on the subject of bonuses. The big boss said that the average for the year was just £200 (although some had got considerably more). He tried to say that £200 was nothing. Maybe it wasn't to him on his executive pay, and juggling multi million pound budgets, but I couldn't help pipe up to say I could get well and truly drunk for less than half that !

  Later on we had one to one interviews about bonuses. I rarely earned any bonus because the types of things I repaired needed far more manhandling, and could be repaired down to component level. Those repairing things like walkmen music players would often just replace the entire circuit board. I was asked if I actually wanted to earn a good bonus, and I replied that money wasn't everything, and that I had a preference of enjoying my work, and took personal pride in my fault finding, and repair technique - the very reason why I was put on the large screen TVs in the first place.

  I was told by one manager that my repairs, in terms of the cost of spare parts, could be one hundredth of some other engineers, but unfortunately the man hours I used swayed the economics to the other engineers. Shame really, but I stuck to my guns and did it my way - mainly because that was all I could do, but also with the knowledge that finding new TV engineers was very difficult. It was probably seen as a dying art, and indeed fault finding didn't seem to be in any sort of educational curriculum.

  This morning I have still not been for a poo, and don't really feel and discomfort from it. I guess that I didn't eat all that much, in terms of physical quantities, regardless of their nutritional amounts, and the same was true the day before, and I didn't have a poo yesterday either. I can't help feeling it is going to be very uncomfortable when things are finally on the move.

  The better news is that my blood glucose readings were very good this morning. Both the Contour and GlucoRX were spot on target for my self invented target of 7.5mmol/l. The Sinocare meter came close to it with a reading of 7.8mmol/l. Not having a proper dinner last night seems to have worked, and it does seem that I have trained myself to act when I see high blood glucose readings, and to do it without feeling hungry. Admittedly I did have the snack fairly late in the afternoon, but I just didn't seem to feel hungry during the evening, and when in bed going to sleep.

  I will admit I did feel modestly hungry this morning, but I restricted myself to just a single, medium sized packet of instant noodles. I did make things a little worse by sprinkling ready made, crispy fried onions on it for extra flavour. Those crispy fried onions do seem like they probably contain a lot of sugar, and one day I really must check the nutritional panel on the label to see if I am right.

  To my great surprise, at 9.28am, there is some hazy sunshine on a day when no sunshine at all was forecast. I can even see some blue sky, and that makes it possible we might get some stronger sunshine. It would be rather wonderful if it could last all morning, and maybe even into the afternoon, but the chances are it is just a flash in the pan. Both forecasts do admit that there could be sunny spells for the last few hours of daylight, but remain adamant that there will be no sunshine this morning !

  Today, being a Wednesday, should be a typical Wednesday. I shall shave, wash my hair, and have a shower before getting dressed to go out for a lunchtime 2 pints of Guinness in the Jolly Farmers.  Although she says she can't do it today, and she may have solid reasons to say that, but I think there is still a 1 in 500 chance that Angela could pop in now that her enthusiasm for it seems to be peaking. Oh well, only a very long week to wait if I don't see her today. Even that she has only committed to "she will try to". On the other hand she only said that before her enthusiasm seemed to increase a lot.

  After my drink I might consider forgoing any train spotting, and walk home (I must remember to put on some comfortable shoes).......err, on the other hand I think I want to go in the little supermarket on Catford Bridge, and so the train might be the better answer. One thing I think is certain is that when I get home I will tuck into the last of that Tesco southern fried chicken style chicken. If it does contain a lot of sugar it will be better toi get it over and done with early so it doesn't make my morning blood glucose readings look too bad. Then I might have a nice snooze to help digest it.
        







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