Neither the BBC, nor The Met Office managed to produce a forecast that came any where reality yesterday (although hastily applied revisions did try and keep up). After a brief sunny start, which was forecast, it was just dull until nearly midday when we had several hours of mixed light to medium heavy rain. That only appeared in the forecasts after it had started. From about 5.30pm the clouds went away to give a rather nice sunny evening. I'm not sure that ever appeared in the forecasts. The temperature did reach just 18° C, and that was as forecast.
       

  There was some light rain early this morning, but at the moment it just seems dull. Drizzle followed by light rain, lasting maybe 3 hours in total, may start at midday. After that it may stay dry until late evening. The Met Office broadly agrees with this, although they do say the temperature could reach 19° C, but the BBC say just 18° C. Apart for a cold start and finish tomorrow, just 13° C, tomorrow could be a bit closer to how May, or maybe October might seem. Lots of sunny spells and also some hours of full sunshine, but still only 19° C.
 
   Yesterday was probably another day where I was ultimately a bit bored, and/or depressed. This angina problem, knowing I can't walk for more then 6 or 7 minutes without getting unpleasant pains, is starting to get me down. Maybe today, and perhaps tomorrow will be more cheerful days.

  As I suggested I would, I did go to Aldi to get some shopping once I had had a shower yesterday morning. The single reason I went to Aldi was to buy a birthday card. I couldn't find one I thought was really good, but I did find one that was "adequate" for the purpose. I wonder if I might have found a better one in Tesco. They do seem to devote more shelf space to assorted greetings cards. Once upon a time there was a WH Smiths in Catford, and also a shop whose main product line was cards, but now the two supermarkets in town are the only options....or so it seems.

  Of course, having gone inside Aldi, I would not come out with just a single birthday card. I ended up spending quite a lot of money in there, although that did include buying a bottle of Aldi's own "Highland Black" whisky. I am unsure why I bothered with the whisky because I seem to be going through a phase of not enjoying whisky. I'm not even sure I am enjoying beer much recently, but a few pints of Guinness still goes down nicely.

  Other stuff I bought was a spare 9 roll pack of toilet paper, something like 6 assorted cans of soup (getting ready for winter !), and several bottles of assorted sugar free fizzy drinks. Two were 2 litre bottles - one was orange drink, and the other lemon and lime - two were one litre bottles. One of the latter bottles was of blood orange flavour drink, and I didn't think much of it. The other was strawberries and cream flavour, and I ended up drinking the whole bottle yesterday. It was/is almost an excuse to visit Aldi again soon.

  The walk to and from Aldi was pleasant in so much as I had no angina pains, although a few minutes of light rain on the way home spoiled things a bit, although it possibly made me walk faster, and even that didn't cause any angina pains. I guess I was still rather happy to get home and get my heavy rucksack off my back, and two slightly heavy shopping bags put down. Incidently, some statistics: The walk to Aldi took 5 and a half minutes exactly. The distance is only 0.23 miles, or 0.37km. My walking speed averaged 2.5mph. The distance going home was obviously identical, and I suspect my time and walking speed were very similar.

  Two very naughty things I bought were two filled white bread sub rolls, and they had a high sugar content. That would not have been so bad if I had enjoyed them more. I did enjoy them for my lunch, as one of the first things I did after putting my shopping away, but I suspect some guilt about them spoiled the taste. After stuffing my face with them I laid on my bed and started reading. I don't really know if it happened, but my intention was to probably have a snooze too.

  The next thing I did was to wash a small hand towel that I had left soaking in Bio detergent after I finished my morning shower. Just one single, and easily handled item should have been an easy job, but it wasn't. Maybe it just felt a bit boring, and I couldn't wait to finish - more so considering towels always need a lot of rinsing. It should not have been boring. It should have been a good thing because it was basically one of the few things of a practical manner that I did yesterday.

  That reminds me; one of the things I forgot to mention about Monday, the day before yesterday, was that I did something very important, even if it amounted to little more than a few mouse clicks on my PC, followed by a wait for a while. It was to make two backup copies of all my pictures on my main PC. While I am out today I may leave a backup operation running, making a backup of my entire /home directory where all my information is stored. It is usually a very long process, and I might only have time to make one backup copy.

  I didn't really do much for the rest of yesterday afternoon. at some point I think I had a snack of two small packets of crisps, but that, with hindsight, was foolish considering what I would have for dinner only a few hours later. Now that Sky Mix (Freeview channel) is showing three lots of Star Trek, starting from 5pm, my evening tends to start at 5pm too, and yesterday it also meant me dinner started as much as half an hour before 6pm.

  My dinner was rather excessive, but it was done in smaller increments, and somehow that didn't make it seem that excessive. One "trouble" was that I had two fish things in the fridge, and I don't like to chance keeping fish in the fridge too long (except when frozen). One thing was smoked mackerel and black pepper. The other was scampi. Despite it once being a staple of pub food, and even some restaurants, since or before the 1960s, I was a bit unfamiliar with it.

  I think I can remember feeling "so is that it ?" the first time I had scampi. It may have sounded exotic, but it seemed to be no more than rather tasteless prawns in batter. I got suckered in while in Tesco, upon seeing a reduced price sticker on a pack of scampi. My plan yesterday was to have that scampi with some yoghurt based coleslaw, but when I saw how insubstantial that pack of scampi was, I decided I would have a starter of the smoked mackerel with black peppercorns - also with the yoghurt based coleslaw.

  Apart from the batter on the scampi, it was all mostly healthy, and hopefully quite low in sugar. The one negative thing was the lingering smoky fishy taste. I probably gave half an hour to let the fish settle down, and then attacked a newly bought tub of salted caramel flavour ice cream. It claimed to be low calories, and the sugar content looked to be moderately low for an ice cream.

   I watched all three Star Treks on last night, and all three had semi good stories. I then took an hours break to do some reading before turning on the TV again to watch both QI (XL ?) and Have I Got News For You.  The latter finished at 11pm, and so I was pretty late to bed last night. Once in bed I read a few pages before trying to go to sleep. I was surprised that with some many hours since I last ate I seemed to get heartburn once I laid on my side to try and sleep.

  It was fairly mild heartburn, if indeed it was heartburn, but still too distracting from getting to sleep. Once again it was get out of bed, and take some treatments while amusing myself looking at my PC while waiting for them to work. The great trial last night was Milk Of Magnesia, and after while it did seem to help. I still wasted over an hour, but I think I was in bed, and fast asleep before 1am.

  When I first got in bed the room temperature was about half a degree more than the limit for feeling too warm under the duvet. By the time I went to bed again it had cooled down enough that I slept the rest of the night under the duvet (apart from the 2, maybe 3 times I got up for a pee). My bedroom felt very cool when I finally got up, and I came very close to giving in to temptation, and turning the heater on. After a while I became acclimatised to the cool temperature.

  While I know I got up to pee a couple of times in the night, it didn't seem excessive, and that was a clue that maybe my blood glucose had not risen too far. Soon after I got up I had a fairly decent poo, and another pee. Upon weighing myself I found I had not put a single gram on - as far as the resolution of my scales could show. That was rather pleasing. All I could hope for was that my blood glucose had not done anything silly.

  My blood glucose readings were up this morning, as expected, but rather less than expected. All were in the "neutral zone", and two were not far from the light green zone. The Contour meter read 8.2mmol/l, and that is under my previous target, and so must be considered good. The GlucoRX meter read a little better at 8.1mmol/l. The Sinocare meter read 8.5mmol/l - or spot on my old target.  My blood pressure was 102/48, and that is very good,

  With generally good measurable health indicators, it just makes it all the more annoying that I still have this angina problem, and can't walk very far without encountering pain.  Tomorrow could be even more annoying because I think that much of what I am likely to eat today might possibly lead to a very slight weight loss, and hopefully lower blood glucose readings tomorrow - yet none of it will likely make any difference to this angina problem. (Admittedly, if I could lose about 20+ kg it could make a useful difference).

  Today's great enjoyment will be spending an hour or two, drinking 2 or more pints of Guinness in The Jolly Farmers. Although it won't be until next Tuesday, or the day after I am likely to see her, I shall be giving Ayse, my favourite barmaid a birthday card. If I have time I might pop into the little supermarket on Catford Bridge, and buy her some Turkish delight.

  One thing about today is that I am likely to be going to, and coming home from the pub in the rain.  If it was bright, sunny, and warm, I might have intended to walk all the way home after the pub. It seems to me that the chances of getting a new train to photograph gets slimmer and slimmer every day. Today if it isn't actually raining, it will be too dull to make walking in the park enjoyable, and I might as well break the journey in two by getting the train.

  Two little bits of news, one from yesterday: While looking on Amazon for new supplies of blood glucose test strips, I looked at their "Deals Of the Day" and found a battery operated strimmer. I already have a supposedly good strimmer (a Bosch), although unless I am using it wrong (possibly) it doesn't seem that great, and it is always a bind to stretch out a long extension cord into the garden. Hopefully, this battery powered strimmer, that uses blades rather than strimmer wire, will make keeping the garden more under control, a bit easier. The other good news came through as a text message about halfway through writing all this. It seems I have had another premium Bond win - the first in 3 or more years. I am certain it is under £100, and is probably just £25, but I won't know until I get a letter in the post from them. I do know that if it is £100 or less I ticked the box for it to be reinvested, and the txt message says it was.