Yesterday was pretty good. It was dry with sunny spells, and it seemed perfectly warm enough for t-shirt and shorts. The forecast temperature was 20° C, and I think that was about right.
       

  As usual, the BBC and Met Office forecasts are rather different, although both predict rain. The BBC say possibly light rain all day long. The met Office say the rain will be on and off, but some of it could be quite heavy. The BBC predicts a thunderstorm for 3pm, but it does seem to be rare for BBC predicted thunderstorms to happen, although the version of the met Office forecast last night also predicted a thunderstorm today. It doesn't seem to have started to rain yet, although the sky is very murky. Today should reach  17° C. Tomorrow could be similar to today, but a bit cooler with just 15° C expected.

   Yesterday was, on the whole, a good day, but with two not so good things, although it seems one didn't really matter anyway. These things will be explained, some with pictures, further down the page. Essentially, my day started with a shave, shampoo, and shower.

  Suitably clean and fragrant I set out to go to the station to get a train to Ladywell. The walk there didn't seem too bad, but I was considering deliberately missing the train I did get so I wouldn't have to rush over the footbridge to get the London bound platform. Then I realised that provided I started for the bridge straight away, I wouldn't have to rush...well not much, although it was a close thing.
  The train started entering the station while I was still going up the steps to the top to cross the line. The train in the picture about was photographed from halfway up the stairs to the top of the bridge.With the benefit of hindsight, it was worth stopping for a second or tow to get this photo. Train 465038 was one I needed for my spreadsheet. Apart from a few unknowns where the numbers were changed when they had a first class section added, I only need another 2 or 3 to complete my set of these class 465 "Networker" trains.

  I got to the pub between a quarter, and ten minutes before 1pm. Sadly I had forgotten to bring a pen, and I had to read some news instead of doing the crosswords in The Metro. I only read a couple of pages before, to my surprise, Kevin walked in the pub. he had come straight from a clinic appointment at the hospital next door, and was theoretically only staying an hour while the hospital pharmacy made up a prescription. He actually stayed a bit longer than the hour, but maybe only an extra 10 or 15 minutes.

  It was possibly only another 10 or 15 minutes before Dik came into the pub. He had warned me he was coming, and said he had some questions about photography. He said his niece wanted to take up photography. I warned him it can end up as a very expensive hobby because at the start you want to upgrade to better cameras and lenses until you have found a combination that just works for you - and even then you can still lust over better cameras and lenses !

  The real crunch came when he said his niece is only 10 years old, and he admitted that next year she might want a pony instead. My suggestion was to start small. First of all get to know what possibility a phone offers. As well as silly effects, most phones can do the sort of edits that can change a poorly taken photo to a better one - such things as straightening it up, cropping off unwanted bit, or to centre up the main subject as well as things like changing the brightness, contrast, and colour saturation and temperature.

  Next year she will probably need a laptop for school. If it is a normal laptop, and not a "Chromebook" she could install a free photo editor, such as The Gimp (which I use for all my photos). That will give her plenty to learn to get the best out of it, and she could practice on photos taken from her phone transferred to the laptop. The next stop would probably to either get a bridge camera (bridging the gap between a simple point and click camera to a full DSLR camera), or even a cheap secondhand DSLR camera. After that the sky is the limit.

  I realise I am doing this out of order - the first person I saw, and talked to was Ayse, my favourite barmaid. She looked well tanned after spending just a single week on holiday in Turkey. She said she really enjoyed it. After Kevin had left, and Dik and I were glugging our last drink, ready to go as well, Ayse asked me if I would like to sample some of her home cooking. I said yes please, and on my way out she gave me a plastic tub, that once held chicken soup, with her cooking in it.
  One thing I had to do before leaving was to have a pee. This is what I saw sitting on the tiles of the gents. Unless I am mistaken, that is a mosquito, and I had fears it would take a bite of my penis !.....or maybe I exaggerate a bit - it was possible, but very unlikely.

  Dik and I left the pub at the same time, and we walked toether down the main road. He peeled off left to cross the road, to head for his home,  a little before I went right to head for my home. It felt like we kept up quite a pace as we walked together, and by the time I reached the end of my road I was in in a fair bit of pain. I think I had to stop twice in the last 5 minutes of walk to my front door. Before entering my house I stopped to chat with my neighbours for maybe 5 or 10 minutes. After 3 or 4 of those minutes all the pains drained away, and I felt fine.
  Once indoors I opened the tub that Ayse gave me, and the picture above shows what was inside. I am unsure how to spell it, and can't be bothered to check it, but I think the general name is something like dolmadoes, although that may just be the stuffed vine leaves. They were stuff with rice, and served on a bed of rice, but there were also two round courgettes (I think), one green, and the other yellow, that were stuffed with a very tasty rice with ground lamb. After 3 minutes in the microwave it made for a very delicious, and fairly substantial post pub snack.

  I had a bit of a snooze after eating, but also read for a while. It seemed like dinner time arrived far too fast, and yet I didn't want to delay it because I have learned the hard way that eating too late, and not long before going to bed, causes indigestion problems and heartburn. It still wasn't quite dinner time (about 6pm), and I had time to grill some diced chicken, and some uneaten diced new potatoes I had prepared for the day or two before. I had that with a pile of mixed salad leaves with some baby plum tomatoes. It wasn't nearly as nice as I hoped for, but it was pleasant enough.

  My original after pub plan had been to have another third of a tub of the ice cream I had bought from Aldi. I guess I could have had some after Ayse's home cooking, but somehow it didn't feel appropriate. The idea of having more ice cream kept preying on my mind. The original idea was to eat it as early in the afternoon as possible to allow more time for the sugar in it to be processed before I checked my blood glucose in the morning.

  After my good enough, but mildly disappointing salad, the idea of having ice cream kept popping up in my head. Considering that when I bought that ice cream it was with the understanding that it would probably blow my good blood glucose readings out of the window. It didn't, but trying the same thing late in the evening seemed like playing with fire. I must admit that limiting myself to just the next third of the tub was bloody hard work, but I did it. Once again it was utterly delicious.

  In another couple of hours I was in bed, and reading for a while. I don't think it was long after 9pm that I was asleep. The weather forecast predicted a cool night, and so I turned the heater on low, and left it on all night. I seemed to sleep really well, at least I think I did. I woke a couple of times for a pee, but I seemed to get back to sleep after it within minutes. The only time when I had some insomnia was after waking just after 5am. It was as if I should be getting up, as indeed I would have done during my ten years of work at my final job.

  I think I did get back to sleep after a while, and didn't wake again until about 6.15am. I was partly woken by needing a pee, but mostly from habit. I had not only a pee, but a small poo too. That seemed a fair start, and I weighed myself. It seemed I had put on another 100gm, and after all I ate and drunk yesterday, that did not seem unreasonable, but on the other hand, as I write this I have just had a second poo, and I feel sure that would account for the extra 100gm. Unfortunately I have eaten breakfast, and so a second go on the scales is pointless.

   Despite all the good and not so good food eaten yesterday, my blood glucose readings, while not as excellent as yesterday, are still pretty good. The Contour meter read 7.7mmol/l, and the GlucoRX meter read a slightly better 7.5mmol/l. Only the Sinocare meter let me down, but only by gnats whisker with a reading of 8.0mmol/l. My average of all three readings was still in the light green 7.73mmol/l. It seems that I am going through a phase where even very sweet ice cream is only making a tiny dent in my daily readings.

  One job I was intending to do, and still might manage before midday, is to pop around to the pharmacy to pick up my repeat prescription. I am hoping that the changes to the dose of two of the medicines, as intended by the cardiologist, have made it through the system, but I fear they haven't. That is going to mean trying to get a reminder through to a doctor at the group practice, and this time I haven't got a letter from the cardiology department to back me up.

  This afternoon should be a beer drinking/tasting session with Jodie. I think this time we will be trying one or more, quite strong, Imperial Stouts. There is a chance that this may be a more typical Thursday where I get quite drunk !


 





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