Yesterday was a bit sunnier than the early forecasts predicted, but a lot of the day was still rather dull. It also seemed a lot cooler too.  21° C was forecast, and maybe that is what it was, but there was also a strong breeze, and that wind felt quite chilly at times.
       

  Today should be very sunny, and the BBC forecast is a bit more optimistic than the Met Office forecast in the screenshot above. The BBC say a max of only 23° C, but the Met Office think it will be 24° C. Today might be like the last day of summer, and there may be quite a few days of very drab, and sometimes wet weather. Tomorrow maybe almost totally dull, and there could be some showers, It will also be lot cooler with just 19° C forecast.
 
   Yesterday had it's moments, but on the whole it was a bad day - A day when I was often in some sort of pain. On the other hand I did achieve a couple of useful things, although one of those things was part responsible for some negative things.

   After I finished my writing I had a nice shower, and washed my hair. That, and a rare-ish bit of sunshine left me feeling good. After I had finished showering I got out my big buckets, and left some clothes soaking in plain detergent. I would come back to that laundry later in the early afternoon. After blow drying my hair I got dressed, and ready to go out. I did have ideas for a short walk, but an even shorter walk, to buy some stuff from Tesco took priority.

  I felt a few twinges when walking to Tesco, and that was unusual. As usual there were a few things on an imaginary shopping list, but after that it was a case of looking around to see what was there, with my eye particularly tending to yellow "reduced price" stickers. I found two almost bargains. They would have been bargains if they were half price, but I think both had between 50p and £1 off.

  One thing that had about £1 off it was a pack of salmon with the skin on it. That would make a very nice, and healthy dinner with some salad - and I also bought a basic side salad to go with it. A lesser bargain, and not a healthy choice at all, was a pack of 5 cheese and onion rolls in the form of a sausage roll (but with no sausage in it). I bought a selection of packets of instant noodles - including a couple of big packets (110gm ?) of Kimchi flavour instant noodles.

  One later annoyance was some Tesco own brand "Finest" ice cream. As a general rule any branded Tesco usually has less sugar in it that comparable products from other makers. I bought two 428ml tubs of Tesco Finest ice cream, and I was stunned when I read the sugar content when I got home. If anything it may have been worse than other well known brands. I also bought four 2 litre bottles of Diet Coke, and also 4 little bottles of hot pepper sauce that I crammed into my rucksack with the Diet Coke.

  My rucksack weighed quite a lot, but not really more than I am very used to, and so it should not have had any negative effect, or I can't blame it for a bad walk home. As I mentioned above, I had a few twinges when walking to Tesco, I had full blown angina by the time I got home again. The odd thing is that it wasn't exactly like angina. The pain was mostly in my chest, and it didn't really seem to spread. On the other hand it did feel a lot like angina in the way it faded away as I rested. It might also have been some sort of muscle strain in my chest.

  After putting all the food away I had what was to be a very naughty lunch. Much of the naughtiness was one of the tubs of Tesco "Finest" ice cream I had bought. I was actually eating it as I checked the nutrition figures carefully for the first time. I was rather shocked at what I had bought, and what I was eating. I should have restricted myself to half the tub, but I was reluctant to stop spooning it into my face. On the whole that is a bit stupid because I was not really enjoying it. 

   Maybe I was expecting Tesco "Finest" to be super good, but it was maybe sub-ordinary. Maybe the high sugar content was stopping me enjoying it. Maybe I was thinking that the sooner I ate it all I could put the experience behind me. The flaw with that idea is that I bought two tubs, and the one I ate should have been the tastier. After the negative experience of pain while coming home from Tesco, the disappointment of the ice cream was a further poke in the eye, and I wasn't finished yet !

  I have no idea what twisted logic might have convinced me the best thing to do next was to taste one of the six pack of cheese and onion rolls (in the style of a sausage roll). I don't think I dared look at the nutritional information for them, but I can't imagine they could be anything else but unhealthy in several ways, Having had one I had to reinforce all this negativity by having two more !

  I had a lie down, and did a bit of reading, for about an hour before I went and tackled the laundry I had left soaking after my shower. It was quite a small amount - just 4 pairs of underpants, and my favourite indoor, rather skimpy, khaki shorts. I don't think I needed to, but I took a short break halfway through the rinses and final conditioner. When I was ready to hang them up to dry it had seemed to have got very dull outside, and despite what the forecasts were saying, it almost looked like it could rain. I opted to dry that laundry indoors - and then, of course, the sun came out again !

  One other little job I did was to take out the recyclable waste for the green wheelie bin, and to dispose of some very smelly vegetable peelings, plus a bag of broccoli that had been in the fridge so long that it was starting to decomposer. The latter was really stinky ! After going from the kitchen to the wheelie bins out the front, twice, I had another angina like twinge. The odd thing was that I am sure I had not been doing enough "work" to need extra throughput through the heart, and it was further proof that it probably was not angina.

  With that last little job done I switched to lazy, and maybe stupid mode. It was still a couple of hours until dinner time, and I decided I was going to finish off the rest of the cheese and onion sausage-style rolls. Once again I ate them cold, and I wondered if heating them up, as per the suggestion on the packet, would make then nicer or nastier. Sometimes these things taste better cold.....but not always.

  Last night was to be another evening of being almost glued to the TV. I started off on Sky Mix, and three repeats of medium OK Star Treks. While watching them, and getting a bit bored with Star Trek: Voyager (as I do more often than not) I went down to the kitchen to prepare my dinner. I grilled the salmon I had bought, and removed all the cucumber from a ready made side salad. I thought I was going to tip the salad on a plate, and put the cooked salmon on top of it. I then decided that I may as well save on washing up by using the plastic bowl the salad came in as a plate.

  Before putting the cooked salmon on the salad I sprinkled some dressing on the salad. It was a very nice meal, and the first all day that could be labelled healthy. It is what probably saved me from a horrendous blood glucose reading this morning. While sitting there eating dinner or watching TV I felt generally OK. I didn't fancy the look of Have I Got News For You, and so I turned the TV off at 10pm and headed for bed.

  I spent a little while reading in bed, but I don't think I read more than 2 or 3 pages before I started to feel very sleepy. I was also starting to feel my chest begin to ache. I turned on my side to try and sleep, and either the chest pain grew stronger, or with no distractions away from it, it just dominated how I felt. There was no way I could get to sleep like that. I got up again, and say at my computer desk.

  I started with some antacid tablets, and this time they did nothing. I then tried some Paracetamol, and that might have helped a tiny bit. The next thing to try was a 300mg aspirin tablet dissolved in water. That seemed to help, but still not cure. If it had worked better I would have been more convinced that it was a heart/angina problem. It seemed probably that the problem was muscular/skeletal, and in particular, inflamed scar tissue (from my bypass operation back in 2013). Aspiring is also an anti-inflammatory, but I had only taken half a dose. What would be better was Ibuprofen, and two tablets of that seemed to give the best relief I could hope for.

  It still wasn't complete relief, and I found it more comfortable to sit upright at my computer desk. That did make me wonder if my malady was something else beyond what I had already guessed at. Maybe something inside my chest affected by gravity - perhaps even the way my stomach dangles inside me, or something even weirder. I think it was around 1am when I almost fell asleep at my desk, and quickly went back to my bed. I finally fell asleep, but only for an hour or two. When I woke my chest was still hurting a bit.

  I did get back to sleep in a fairly short time, but I am sure I did not sleep well at all. I must admit I can't remember the rest of my night in any clear detail. I can't even remember how frequently I actually woke up. It felt like I was probably waking up quite frequently, but I can't remember doing so. I am fairly sure I had many dreams, but it seems none were vivid enough to be remembered. I finally decided to get up just before 7am.

  As I write this I seem to feel modestly OK, but I did feel quite rough when I first got up. It felt like I had slept on a pile of rocks....or something like that. Fortunately there was some good news. All my stupid eating doesn't seemed to have caused too much of a disaster to my blood glucose readings. The Contour meter read 8.3mmol/l, and while not great, is not so bad. The GlucoRX meter read 8.6mmol/l, and while not terrible, it is heading that way. The Sinocare reading was a bit of a surprise at just 7.8mmol/l. That is actually very good.

  Even my weight does not seem so bad. I'll admit it has gone up a couple of hundred milligrams, but it now seems to be averaging a few kg lighter than the previous months. Even my blood pressure is rather good this morning - just 111/58, although the diastolic pressure (the second figure) does seem to be a little higher than usual for the last day or two. That may indicate a growing problem, or may just be a transient problem, but either way I am unsure what it may signify.

  There is one definite thing I want to do tonight, and that is to have a look in at The Black Cat where a band names The Anthems are supposed to be playing. They might be good, or they might be terrible. The place could be packed out, or it could be empty. There is only one way to find out....

  For most of today I can imagine I will be very lazy. I hope to catch up with some lost sleep if nothing else, but I also want to conserve my energy for going out tonight. I hope that I don't sieze up, and can start up properly at about 7pm so I can go out. What could easily happen, as it has happened for most evening for the last 6 months, I get too comfortable, and just give up and go to bed early.


 





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