I saw no sign of any sunny spells earlier, and I see none now. It is fairly grey outside, and the forecasts suggest it will stay this way for most of the day. There might be a slight hope of some sunny spells later this afternoon. The temperature might reach 19° C (Met Office) or 20° C (BBC). Tomorrow may start very wet, but the afternoon may be dry, although still very dull. It is going to feel colder with a high of just 16° C (BBC) or maybe 17° C in the early evening (Met Office).
 
   I think it is fair to say that yesterday was a reasonably good day. It didn't feature any high power productivity, but I did do a few useful things. Even the afternoon beer tasting session was not so bad. A few beers were actually quite nice. Most importantly it was a day when I seemed to control my eating quite well.

  The one very positive thing I did, after having a shower and washing my hair, was to go out shopping. It was my typical Sunday outing to Savers and  Poundstretcher. I don't go every Sunday, but Sunday seems my most popular time. I was particularly after some new detergent, and fabric conditioner. I have yet to try either, but I hope I have selected some nice smelling detergent and fabric conditioner, although the scents/odours only partly match - both are floral.

  Also from Savers I topped up my stock of vitamin D tablets. I now have quite a lot, and that is because I couldn't get the strength I wanted last time, and bought some weaker strength tablets. I now have two bottles of high strength. As well as providing a lot of protection to the airways, and probably saved me from the worst of Covid, It does seem to help other bodily functions - or so I kid myself. Sadly it does nothing for this latest load of angina pains.

  Across the way, and into Poundstretcher where I bought three packets of very naughty....or maybe not all so naught, crisps. One packet contained Indian pickle flavour puffs. Their sugar content was not that low per 100gm, but with each "puff" being mostly air, the medium sized packet was something like 60gm in total. The two other packets of crisps were more conventional. I also bought quite a few "pot noodles", or to avoid trade names, instant noodles in pots.

  I walked to and from the shops in just t-shirt and shorts, and the going there felt nice. Coming home with shopping was a bit of a sweaty experience, although I think it was much more apparent once I had got home, and stopped moving through the cooling air. It was only as I approached home that I could feel the start of angina coming on. It quickly faded once I was home, and not trying to walk as fast as I could (but really only managing a more moderate pace).

  It was about 1pm when I got home, and once I had put all my shopping away, and changed to indoor clothes, I had some lunch. It was not the healthiest option, but it was nice, and it seems it did no harm....well not a lot of harm. I used two small packets (35gm) of very crisp crisps to scoop up some blue cream cheese. Once again it was not the healthiest option, but I seemed to get away with it.

  I had a very small amount of work to do in preparation to the later beer tasting session, and I spent the time being as lazy as I could manage. That basically meant laying on my bed reading, and I think I might have even dozed off for a few minutes.

  Jodie arrived at about 3.30pm, and then spent a whole lot of time preparing, and cooking her combined breakfast, lunch, and dinner. One of her ingredients was fresh dill, and although it is not a herb that I ever seem to use, I must admit it gave off a nice smell as she prepared it. As usual, while I waited for Jodie to select and open our first can of beer, I opened, and drank a bottle "she had had before", and I was allowed to drink it "unsupervised".

  Once we started the beer tasting properly we had a few beers from the lot she brought last week, and some that had been delivered last Friday. I was a bit dubious about some of the beers that were delivered last Friday, but the two we tried seemed rather nicer than expected. One was novel in so much as it had a most wonderful drinking taste and the most foul after taste !

  Jodie left to get her usual 6.29pm train, and I was soon tucking into my dinner. It was to be the smallest dinner I have had in a long time, and yet it seemed to be satisfying, and it may have set a precedent. It was a Tesco chicken Caesar salad. It was probably a combination of the 25° C heat, and some mild bloat from fizzy beers, but I had no desire to have anything else on top of that salad.

  There was very little on TV last night, and it was barely 7.30pm, with at least another hour of daylight to go, that I started thinking about bed. I did actually prepare for bed then, but that was really no more than brushing my teeth. I didn't even bother to close the curtains, but I did close the window to keep he warmth in. I then just laid on my bed reading for an hour. At around 8.30pm, and with it still almost daylight, albeit rather dull daylight, I closed the curtains, and tried for sleep.

  It seemed to take ages before I fell asleep, possibly as long as an hour. The good thing is that I had no heartburn, and my only discomfort was that I felt quite hot. I didn't even try and pull the duvet over me, but I still felt hot. Once I did get to sleep I slept rather solidly. I think I may have woken to go for a pee at 1am, but my memory feels so hazy that it might have been a dream. I do know that I woke at 4am, and then I definitely needed a pee. It was also getting a bit cool, and I turned the heater on one notch.

  I had two dreams, or strings of short dreams that seemed like one. One was set in something like work, but it mixed up many things situations. Some of my fellow workers were actually musicians I know, and others were from the three main employers I ever worked for.  In one situation I was going for a bath or shower, and it was in a very big room with partitioned spaces for both toilet cubicles and baths/showers. While in there I saw two people, both musicians, one male and the other female, and both known to have partners, go into one of the toilet cubicles while giggling.

  It seemed obvious they were going to have sex in the cubicle. It seemed as if the rites of spring were in the air because when I late passed though the workshop area I saw others kissing and cuddling, and one man, who I had suspected of being gay, when mincing across the floor to join two other "happy" blokes leaving the premises. The last thing I did was to head for home.

  I think I may have been heading towards a tube station for part of my journey home. I remember walking past a pub, but it didn't look very welcoming. I then reached quite a long flight of stairs that probably lead up to the tube station. It was then that I realised I had left my flip flops on instead of putting on my proper outdoor shoes. I still did my best to run up the long flight of stairs. The dream faded out as I reached the top, but at that point I was not even breathless, let alone suffering from angina pains.

  That dream seemed to take place nearer the start of my sleep. The other was in the last hours of sleep. It was railway themed. I was with one or more people who I thought of as friends, although I couldn't name them. We were waiting at a station for the appearance of a vintage train that had just been refurbished, and brought up to modern safety standards. It had come out of a depot, and was only using the station to reverse so it could go back to a different siding in the depot.

  The next bit is a bit vague, but it was as if we had been invited to get on the train so we could give it a better look back at the depot. Whether we were invited or not, the dream continued in the depot with one oddity. What was originally a four car train was now a single car. I was trying to take photos of it from all angles, but I seemed to be having a lot of trouble operating my camera. The siding the train was on was in part of the depot reserved for lectures and training.

  There were lots of interesting stuff on the walls in that area - pictures, charts, slogans and logos. What I really wanted to do was to also get pictures of the other trains, the ones which were in everyday service. They seemed to be hidden by a huge silvery grey curtain that was at least 30ft wide, and possibly as tall. I did notice a join where I might poke a camera through, but one of the depot mechanic warned me off the idea. Apparently it was "not allowed !!".

  On reflection, despite everything being on a huge scale, not a lot really happened in the dream even if it did feel like it might have lasted a full hour. Somewhere in the rail depot a bell rang. My brain interpreted it as my doorbell, despite my doorbell actually being a chime, and I instantly woke up at almost exactly 6am. I had certainly had my 8 hours sleep, and probably a bit more, and so I fully woke up feeling really quite good in an instant.

  I had a great belief that my blood glucose readings might have been nice and low this morning despite having some doubts over what I had eaten yesterday. It was as hoped, rather than believed. The very worst reading was from the Contour meter. It read 7.9mmol/l. It was still in the sevens, and that put it in the light greens. The GlucoRX meter 7.0mmol/l, also in the light green, but just a tenth away from being in the sixes, and the rare dark greens. Even the Sinocare meter gave a great reading of 7.4mmol/l - once again in the light greens.
  Things are looking good after the ridiculous highs on Wednesday 8th May. Another plus point this morning is that my weight has dropped 300gm compared to yesterday, and yesterday showed a nice drop compared to 3 to 5 days ago. I need to do more of whatever it is I have been doing.

  Today has been, is, and probably will be a rather dull day, and it will not be very warm. That means I am unlikely to go out further than Tesco today, but going to Tesco is almost definitely going to happen. I will be wearing a different pair of shorts for it. Last night I did something I do a few times most years - go through my trousers and shorts, and see which are still a good or better fit. The most remarkable/surprising thing is that I could do up one of the two pairs of red jeans I own. The other I would really have to struggle to do the top button up, and it may prove impossible for some time, but the other pair I could do up without extreme effort, and at a pinch I could wear them to a gig, but I think they would still be too tight to do any photography.

  I do seem to be able to wear every single one of my pairs of shorts. A few would be a bit uncomfortably tight, but at least that is an improvement on not even being able to get the top button anywhere near the button hole. Today I shall be wearing a pair of blue, Marks & Spencer branded shorts, and they seem to be a very comfortable fit. I am sure that a summer or two ago they were rather too tight to wear. I have also punched two more holes in the belt. One would be maybe a little too tight, but still usable, and the other is just in hope for the future.

  Top of my list from Tesco is a couple of their ready made salads, and maybe some ingredients for home made salads. I also want a couple of low(ish) sugar Oppo tubs of ice cream to replace the last one I had in the freezer, and used a few days ago - without raising my blood glucose into the naughty zones. One other thing I may get is a bottle of milk. I have been thinking of turning some dinners into more like a supper of milk and sugar free cookies/biscuits. I hope they would be just as satisfying without any acid reflux/heartburn problems late at night.
        







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