The forecasts didn't tell the whole story about yesterday's weather. They basically underestimated the amount of sunny spells. It may not have been as good as the day before, but it was still a summers day - warm and bright. maybe it got close to being described as hot. The temperature rose to 24° C, and in raw sunshine that did feel hot !
       

  Both forecasters say the sun should break through the cloud by early evening, but today will be mostly dull, and in the latest revision the met Office is showing two hours of light rain at midday and 1pm. It was very cloudy overnight, and so this morning started off a bit milder than recent mornings, but today's temperature may only climb to 22° C, but not until early evening. Tomorrow sees a return to something more like high summer with plenty of sunshine, and maybe 25° C.

   After a terrible night's sleep I did not feel like doing much yesterday, and indeed I did very little, but the day still seemed to pass quite smoothly, and maybe even quickly. I did have one important thing to do, but I couldn't raise the enthusiasm until early afternoon.

  I had a very lazy morning where I spent a fair bit of time just reading either from a book, or from a screen. Once again I can't seem to say whether I definitely had a snooze or not. I think I probably did, but it was the type where I was just resting my eyes during reading, and suddenly it seemed like the morning was passing faster than I thought. I guess snoozing is a sort of nothing sensation unless you have something like a memorable dream, or woke up by falling out of bed - neither of which happened.

  At lunchtime I had another one of the "three for a fiver" savoury slices. This pair (there are two in the packet) I cooked as per the recommendation on the packet. I guess it was a bit nicer when hot and steaming, but if anything it drew more attention to how little filling there was in the sort of, but not really, puff pastry envelope. Incidentally, yesterday's flavour was "chicken tikka" flavour, and indeed you could almost imagine it had been within 100 yards of real Chicken Tikka.

  After allowing half an hour, maybe a bit longer, I gritted my teeth, and went to finish washing the small bath towel I had left soaking in Bio detergent, and a small amount of Dettol for over 24 hours. As seems usual for towels, it needed many rinses to get all the detergent out (or at least most of it). By that time the sun was out again, and at full strength. I hung the towel on the washing line in the garden, with the sun directly shining on it. It was not a lot more than 2 hours later that I brought it in again, hot and dry !

  The next thing of not was at about 4pm when I had what could, probably incorrectly, "afternoon tea". It was sort of halfway between a meal and a snack. It was savoury flavoured cream cheese from a squeezy tube squirted onto some rice crackers (about 10 of them). They were sort of tasty, but probably not very healthy. Any lack of sugar in the rice crackers was probably ruined by the cream cheese. I don't think I dare to check the ingredients because there is probably a whole load of stuff used to make it that it is better not to know about.

  My whole intention yesterday was to be careful about what I ate. I wanted to try and keep my sugar consumption low, and in that I did sort of achieve it, but not enough to make the hoped for difference. I also wanted to avoid anything that I thought could cause another night of terrible heartburn. In that I did succeed. My dinner was nothing but ice cream - maybe a bit too much of it, but I did want enough to make me think, even if it didn't really feel it, that I had had enough dinner to satisfy.
  The ice cream was the plain vanilla version of the ice cream I bought from Iceland, and part described yesterday. The first thing to note is the claim of only 99 calories per third of a tub. Round that up to a nice simple 100, and multiply by three for the whole tub, and it seems my entire dinner was just 300 calories. That is quite a low amount, and could be the basis of a weight loss diet. Maybe all the cream cheese, and the tikka slices negated that idea.

  Also on plain display, on the side, where I didn't notice it while buy this one of two tubs, is the statement of "Low Sugars". I was not convinced by that claim when I saw the ingredients list. It included fructose as a sweetener. That is basically sugar from fruit, and as far as I know, the body treats it just as any other sugar. Some alarmists say it is actually worse for you. Anyway, I ate the whole tub, and maybe it was not so bad, as I will show when I get to my blood glucose readings later.

  Despite feeling I ought to be feeling really tired after my bad night's sleep, it seems I was actually not feeling very tired. I stayed up to watch both QIXL and Have I Got news For You, although I was getting keener and keener for the latter to end because I started to yawn a lot. I didn't wast time once it ended, and went straight to bed. I carefully laid down, and expected some sort of acid reflux, and heartburn, but I was free of all that last night, and I felt quite comfortable.

  I doubt it took more than 5 or 10 minutes before I was fast asleep. My bedroom felt ever so slightly too cool to sleep without either the heater on very low (lower than it can go really), or to pull the duvet over me. I did the latter, and it didn't feel too warm, and I didn't sweat all over my pillow like the night before. I can't clearly remember it, but I think I got up twice in the night for a pee.

  The second time was probably at about 4.30am. It was light outside, and it took a bit of patience to get back to sleep. It half felt like I could have got up then, but I considered that to be a stupid idea. I thought it less stupid to get up an hour later when I woke up again. I was almost half up, and had kicked the duvet aside, and had turned so that I wasn't on my side, or on my back - as if I was half way to getting ready to sit up - but I decided to "rest my eyes". The next thing I knew was that it was about 6.20am, and that did feel like a good time to get up.

  I don't think I could confess to feeling good, but on the other hand I didn't seem to feel all that bad when I got up. Nothing much really hurt, and I didn't seem to feel sleepy - although while sitting on the toilet, waiting for something to happen that didn't, I did indulge in some quite impressive yawning. With nothing doing in the toilet department I expected a bad weight reading, and got it. I currently seem to be about a full kilogram heavier than the low of a week or so ago. Maybe time to get back on the salads again.

  I was very curious to see how what I had eaten had done to my blood glucose readings. I was quite disappointed they were not a lot lower. The Contour meter did have a reading in the green, but 7.9mmol/l is not that impressive. The GlucoRX meter read 8.0mmol/l, and that is rather ordinary, also a fraction about a reading in the green. The Sinocare meter read 8.2mmol/l, and while still under my old target, I would have hoped for something a lot better.

  I am not sure what I am doing today. My original plan was that if it was bright and dry I would be going to see just one 30 minute set on the live music stage at The Manor House Gardens festival. The band I want to see is on at 4.20pm (if the thing runs to time). I would get there by the same route as last year - a 202 bus from near Catford Bridge station, and then a 5 minute walk from the nearest bus stop near Lee Green.

  I have to balance several things. Is it worth it going for just half an hour (the rest of what is on the stage has no interest at all) ? It probably would be worth it if it was warm and sunny, and maybe it will be, or maybe not. At the moment it seems I am in the middle of a weather front. When I look out my bedroom window, to the south, I see grey clouds and it seems very dull. Looking to the north I see a mixture of white cloud and blue sky. The forecasts, particularly by The met Office, keeps changing. They now say 4pm with feature full sunshine, and it will be a warm 21° C.  couple of hours before that it might be raining. The BBC continues is prediction that it will be dry all day, but it will also be quite dull all day.

  I think my only option is to try to be ready if I make a last minute decision to go to the festival for just half an hour - although it will probably be safer to get there half an hour early in case the band are on early, and be prepared to stay an extra half hour if they are on late. Maybe I might end up just going to Aldi today !

P.S. The weather is really crazy today. We have just had 5 minutes of full sunshine, and some continuing weak sunshine from an apparently grey sky ! I somehow doubt that today's weather forecasts will only ever be correct after the weather has already happened !


 





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