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Sunday
30th June 2024
08:24
BST
Yesterday may have been the last
day of summer ! It was a very
pleasant day - lots of sunshine
or sunny spells, and with the
temperature reaching 24° C it was nice and warm.
It was
bright and sunny when I first
opened the curtains, but as I
write this it has clouded over,
and some of the clouds are a
dirty grey ! Although the Met
Office forecast shows a dry and
sunless day, the BBC forecast
says there could be drizzle or
light rain towards the end of
the morning. They also say a few
sunny spells could occur in the
early afternoon. Both
forecasters agree that from mid
afternoon the temperature will
be just 20°
C, but with a possible single
hour at 21° C. Tomorrow
could see a sunny start again,
but it will soon cloud over,
and some drizzle might fall.
The temperature will peak at
20°
C.
Yesterday was a day
when my entire effort was to be
able to go out in the evening -
which I did. It was also a day
when I wanted to correct a small
peak in my blood glucose
readings. It seems I managed
that too, although not as much
as hoped. Mostly it was a lazy
day.
I'm trying to think
if I actually did anything of
note until I went out in the
evening. The only significant
thing I can think of what to
clean the camera I would be
using in the evening, and
changing the lens on it to one I
thought might be a better
choice. The initial attraction
was that the lens I used had a
lot more zoom, and that might
have been useful for getting
close ups without getting out my
chair.
The more useful thing
about the lens was it was a lot
lighter than the heavy lens I
usually use now. What I didn't
realise/notice before I got to
the gig, was that the lens was
designed to focus on a smaller
sensor in the camera. My Nikon
610D, being a professional
camera, has a physically larger
sensor. This has many
advantages, and one important
thing is that it is less
noisy/records less grainy
pictures. My problem is that the
lens could not project the
picture onto the entire sensor,
and there is a sort of black
ring around many of the pictures
I took. In some I can crop that
area out of the picture, but for
other pictures I will have to
somehow be "creative". Oh well,
lesson earned the hard way.
Much of my daytime was
spent either resting, reading,
snoozing, and trying to eat
healthily (sort of). I had four
meals including breakfast. My
lunch, which I had fairly early,
was a Sainsbury's Greek Salad
that I added some croutons to
for extra crunch. A few hours
into the afternoon I some rice
crackers and cheese, and then at
about 5pm I had a sort of
dinner. That dinner was two
Tesco (ordinary, not Finest)
Scotch eggs. Maybe that was a
too heavy option considering I
would later be going out, and
drinking lots of Guinness.
I suggested to Michael
that if he was interested and
coming to the pub, to see what
the gig was about, that we could
meet near his house, and we
could then walk to the pub
together. I was hoping he would
come so I would have a bit of
company, and also to guard my
camera kit if I had to go for a
pee, plus to keep my seat when I
went to the bar. The latter was
less important because there
were not that many people in the
pub.
The idea of company
turned out to be very important.
The pub were showing a football
match on their biggest screen to
no more than 4 or 5 people, and
the band were not supposed to
start until 2 hours after their
advertised time to allow the
football match to almost finish.
That was bloody annoying. I was
generally OK on the walk to the
pub, but I was burping up Scotch
egg flavours. During the long
wait for the band I drank about
3 pints of Guinness, and that
third pint was starting to make
me feel very full.
It is lucky the band
managed to do a sound check
where they sung most of a song
by Generation X, "Ready Steady
Go". I didn't know at the time
that the band were basically a
punk rock tribute band, but that
sound check song sounded good
enough to make me want more.
There then followed the long
boring wait of about 90 minutes
for the band to start their fist
set. If it hadn't been for that
soundcheck, and Michael being
there to talk to, I would have
finished my forst pint and gone
home again.
This picture showing the
three band members was actually
shot on my mobile phone. It was
coping with the dim lighting
better than my big camera. The
phone camera made it look fairly
bright in there, but that is
part of the magic of all the
processing my Huawei P30 Pro
camera can do. My big camera had
trouble finding focus in the dim
light, and just plain refused to
take some pictures, but if it
had they would have been well
lit using my big flash gun.
I am surprised I got an
almost smile from Michael. He
thought the band were good
musician, but he hated all the
songs they covered, and declared
that they all sounded the same.
In a way they did, but that was
true of a lot of the earlier
punk genre. I thought I had
tweaked the picture to make
Michael less pasty faced
looking, but maybe I didn't
tweak in enough...or maybe he
really is pale and grey after
spending all day, every day,
sitting in hospitals, or care
homes. He looks like he need
some sun on his face.
I
have yet to go through the
pictures I took on my big
Nikon yesterday, but a quick
peaks shows I probably have
maybe 10, or about 50%, of
the pictures that are good
enough to use. I think if
that is right, it is more
than I thought, although I
may reject some on artistic
grounds. Once I knew the
lens I had chosen was
causing problems I decided
to video a few songs. One
song, and shown above if you
web browser can show video
(and you are patient enough
to wait for it to load), is
of a good song. I have not
idea what the other sing I
recorded was, and I probably
won't use it.
We made it through to
the end of the first set. By
that time I had drunk four
pints of Guinness, and I was
feeling a bit full. Michael
was not enjoying himself,
and the two things together
seemed a good reason to say
our goodbyes, and walk back
home. During the walk I
could feel the beer swilling
around inside of me, and it
was not long before I was
starting to get angina
pains. By the time I arrived
home I was feeling very
uncomfortable. Curiously
enough, the one bit of
discomfort I didn't feel was
any urgency to go for a pee,
but it wasn't all that long
before I did,
I had already made a
loose decision that I
probably would not eat any
supper when I got in, and
oddly enough I felt zero
desire for any. The only
reason I went into the
kitchen was to get a 2 litre
bottle of tap water that was
nicely chilled in the
fridge. I am unsure what the
time was, but I think it
must have been around 11pm
when I got home. I was
tired, but not quite ready
for sleep. I spent a little
time copying the video and
pictures off my phone, and
prepared them for use here
this morning.
I guess it was close
on midnight before I went to
bed. I was in no discomfort,
but it still felt like I
would never be able to relax
enough to get to sleep.
Seemingly seconds later I
was getting up for a pee,
and at least a whole hour
had passed. After 4 pints of
Guinness it was inevitable
that I would need to get up
probably four times in the
night, but although I got
less sleep than was ideal,
it did seem that I slept OK
between getting up for those
several pees.
I can only remember
snatches for what was
possibly a single dream, but
maybe a few shorter dreams
using the same setting. In
the dream I had two cats and
a large guinea pig that
seemed to roam free with the
cats. The cats were most
similar to the two cats we
had while I lived with my
mum, although the dream
seemed to be set in my
current house (with a few
small details a bit
different). The central
story in the dream was about
sending the cats out to
attend to their toilet, and
then calling them back in to
feed them.
I woke up, and got up
at least an hour earlier
than I probably should have,
but it was about my usual
time, and I didn't seem to
be able to get back to sleep
again. I seemed to feel OK,
not great, but OK. It was
one of those morning where I
had barely been out of bed
for ten minutes before I
went and had a decent poo.
As soon as I came back to my
bedroom I weighed myself.
That little bit of exercise
(to the pub and back) plus
being a bot careful with
what I ate, meant my weight
was close to the lowest
reading I managed to get
this month. That was
pleasing.
I hoped, maybe even
expected, my blood glucose
readings to be very good
this morning. They were
good, but maybe short of
very good. The Contour meter
read 7.7mmol/l. The GlucoRX
meter read 7.5mmol/l, and
the Sinocare meter also read
the same. That is two
readings spot on my target
of 7.5mmol/l, and all
readings safely in the
green. My ultimate target is
to get three readings in the
dark green, and hopefully I
will achieve that before the
year is out, but for now, my
rolling average for June is
the lowest monthly average
for at least 3 years. I
think I am doing quite well
!
It is a bit
unfortunate that soon after
I started writing this,
which was after I had eaten
a double portion of instant
noodles for breakfast, I
needed to go to the toilet
again. I did, and it was a
surprising amount of poo.
Had I managed to do that
before eating breakfast I
might have got an even lower
weight reading, but
breakfast ruined that
possibility.
The rest of my
morning could be quite busy.
One of the more important
things is to prepare a new
page in this electronic
diary for the month of June.
I might go for a very basic
page to start with, and add
a bit of decoration when I
have some spare time. The
second most important thing
is to get myself, and the
dining room clean for an
afternoon beer session with
Jodie. That assumes that she
is not too beered out after
her 2 or 3 days at a huge
beer festival in Finland. At
least the trains appear to
be running for her today.
Although it is less
immediately important, the
second thing I do may do is
to go through the photos I
took last night on the Nikon
camera, and do all the
selecting and editing.
Towards the end of the mere
26 snaps I took are a few
taken with no flash, and the
camera sensitivity turned up
full. Knowing just how good
the sensor in my camera is,
I have hopes that those very
dark pictures could look
good once they come out the
other side of the picture
editor. It is a bit of
a challenge, and one I'll
enjoy - if I can do what I
hope I can do.
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