Yesterday's weather forecasts were just a rough guide to how the weather might be. In fact they got many things wrong. Although there was some rain, it was a mostly dry day. The dullness and rain forecast from early evening turned into nice sunny spells. The forecast of just 18° C for a couple of hours towards the end of the afternoon was about right.
       

  Both forecasters (BBC and Met Office) predict today would feature sunny spells, and perhaps even hours of solid sunshine all day today. For all that, the temperature may only reach 19° C, which seems very low for July. Tomorrow terrible, out of season weather resumes. Tomorrow may start of very wet, and also rather cold at just 13° C. It should slowly warm up to a mere 18° C, but it may rain all day long, although much of it may only be light rain.
 
   Yesterday may have ended as a disaster, but it was otherwise quite a good day. One of the good things about the day was that by just spending very little money, I made someone very happy for a while. More about that later. I think that was my only achievement yesterday.

  Everything seemed to go very slowly yesterday morning. It seemed very late before I had a shower, and then it was a lot later than desired/planned before I went out for my Wednesday lunchtime pilgrimage to The Jolly Farmers pub. My usual train is the 12:34, but the train I actually got was the 13:04. My timing was such that I photographed more trains than usual, but not a single one was one I had not photographed before, and so my pictures were useless. It is lucky that digital photography almost costs nothing when compared to film photography.

  I didn't take my usual walking route to the station. I walked via the little supermarket on Catford Bridge. There were two things I wanted from there. One was a couple of different packs of real Turkish Delight, and the other was two special vegetables whose name is on the tip of my tongue. Although common in Mediterranean areas, they are rarely seen in English supermarkets.

  When I got to the pub, Ayse, my favourite barmaid, asked how I was, and I replied I was facing a terrible dilemma. Her face dropped until I said I was not sure what was best - 6 days early, or one day late. I'm not sure why I started off in a sort of cryptic way, but maybe it was to make the big reveal better. I then said that I decided 6 days early was better, and handed Ayse a birthday card, followed by the Turkish Delight, and  the two vegetables whose name still can't seem to surface in my brain.

  Ayse was delighted with her card (before she saw it - it was nothing bad, but very sort of bland) and delighted with the two vegetables. I knew from several years ago, that Kohlrabi (the name has finally popped up in my brain), a root vegetable with a taste like raw cabbage, was a common breakfast ingredient in Turkey where Ayse was born. After pealing and slicing, they sprinkle it with salt, and possible lemon juice. Ayse regards it as a treat, and possible a rare treat because none of the big supermarkets stock it, although most of the "ethnic" shops around here sell it.

  I didn't have much interaction with Ayse because I was sitting at a table doing my crosswords. She was kept occupied by all the old blokes who sit at the bar. (I say old, but I am probably older than at least half of them). Despite that, I still felt a sort of warm glow, and I stayed for a third pint of Guinness as I tried to solve a few more cryptic crossword clues. I think I managed to solve more than usual, but it was still a pretty poor show.

  After a pee I left the pub to head for home. before leaving I wished Ayse a great day next Tuesday (which is actually her birthday), and she thanked me again for the presents and the wishes. Just before I got to the door she called out to me and blew me a kiss. In such a dreary world that meant so much to me, and sort of lightened my step as I headed for Ladywell station.

  When I had set out for Catford Bridge, breaking my walk for maybe 2 minutes, while in the little supermarket, seemed enough to make the walk almost painless. The final bit of going over the footbridge to the far platform did invoke the start of angina pains, but it was very minimal. Maybe Ayse's blown kiss made the walk to Ladywell station less painful, but sadly I probably tried to walk from Catford Bridge to home a little too fast, and I was in moderate discomfort when I arrived home.

  There were just two things I wanted to do when I got home, and one was a quick look through the photos I had taken of all the trains I saw to see if I needed any of them - I didn't ! The other thing was to have a sort of lunch. I had bought from Aldi a sort of small tray of Mediterranean snacks, and I ate the whole lot. It had two types of salami in it, some cheese cubes (Cheddar !) and some mini breadsticks. It looked quite big, but that was mostly because the salami was curled up to make it look more than when it is packed flat. It took very little effort to eat the whole lot, and still want more. Although the latter was probably inspired by the effects of three pints of Guinness !

  After that I had a lie down, read for a bit, and I think I had a snooze. It wasn't long before the first Star Trek of the evening at 5pm, and from then it was not long until dinner time. It may have been inspired by my end of June idea that I was due a nice takeaway, and to hell with the consequences. I decided I would definitely have a takeaway last night, but rather than an Indian, or Chinese, my original choices at the end of June, I decided I would stick to the known healthy - grilled meat and salad, aka kebabs.

  I ordered two small kebabs based on my notes that the restaurant I was going to order from, and which noted that even a small kebab is quite big. I must admit that making one of them a donor (aka mystery) meat with chips was not a wise choice. On the other hand, experiments have shown that I can easily tolerate small portions of chips, and that kebab, although a very large small, did not have many chips in it.

  It was a great delight wolfing down all that lovely food, and I did it while watching Star Trek episodes. After the third Star Trek episode (Voyager) I turned off the TV, and laid on my bed to quietly read before turning the TV back on for QI and Have I Got News For You. I must admit that I was feeling a bit bloated by then, and I knew I was going to suffer from indigestion later. I decided to take a dose of Milk Of Magnesia before it got too bad in the hope I might nip it in the bud.

  That never worked, and as soon as I was in bed, and trying to sleep I got the full heartburn experience, except it was not quite right for heartburn. That was confirmed by taking another dose of a different antacid, and it only helping a tiny bit. It  didn't feel like heartburn, and it didn't feel like angina, although it had elements of both. It felt exactly like it probably was even if far worse than experiences years ago. It felt like a hard lump trying to escape through my chest like the famous alien creature from the film Alien.

  I tried other remedies, including a 300mg aspirin tablet dissolved in water. That did make a slight improvement, but all I could do was to sit up in my desk chair for a couple of hours until all that food moved a bit down the digestive tract. Instead of getting to sleep very soon after 11pm, it was more like 1am before I felt able to try and ignore the lesser discomfort, and finally get to sleep.

  I seemed to get 2 hours of what must have been poor sleep until I woke up mildly needing a pee, and still feeling the pain in my chest. Now the odd thing about getting up at 3am was that there was evidence I was still almost asleep. As I walked from the bathroom to bedroom I thought I noticed I had left the light on in the dining room downstairs. I felt too tired to go and turn it off, but when I was back in bed I was feeling cold. I wondered if I should get up, and go downstairs to see if the cat wanted to come in.

  Before I fell asleep again I may have woken up enough to remember that I haven't had a cat for 10 or 15 years. The other thing was that when I really did get up this morning, rather later than usual, and when down to make my breakfast, I found the door to the dining room was closed, and the light was off. I really must have dreamed what I thought I saw at 3am. It make me wonder if I even had a pee then. I am pretty sure I did get up at least once, and probably twice for a pee during a night of seemingly lumpy sleep. I feel sure that I was dreaming a lot last night, and yet I can't remember a thing about those dreams - unless my 3am was a dream !

  Despite eating far too much last night, but maybe not that much before the evening, I didn't seem to do more than fart when I went to the toilet after getting up. One consequence is that it looks like I have put at least a whole kilogram of weight on, and maybe even 1.5kg. That is rather a lot for just 24 hours, and I expect a lot of it is poo waiting to be expelled - even if I don't really feel like I need to go.

  Another aspect of my state of health this morning is that my blood glucose readings have gone almost dangerously high. I don't think I can attribute that to anything in particular that I ate. The small amount of chips could have contributed to the problem, but past experience says not that much. The salami and stuff snack I had as a late lunch said it's sugar content was zero, and Guinness has no sugar in it (or at least cans of of it say zero sugar content).

  The Contour meter gave the lowest reading, and it was still an appallingly high 9.0mmol/l. The other two were in close agreement of terrible figures. The GlucoRX meter read 10.0mmol/l - right on the red line, and the Sinocare meter came very close with 9.8mmol/l. With figures like this I ought to fast for most of today, but circumstances make that impossible. Plus for the moment I can't help thinking that there is more to this than just eating something that was not a wise choice.

  It is one of those spikes that suggest something is wrong with my body. Maybe that feeling of a lump trying to burst out of my chest was actually a tumour. Maybe a slight sensitivity to things making me cough recently is an attenuated Covid infection. I am inclined to say that I feel really rough this morning, and indeed I did, but I have just gone down to the kitchen to get a drink, and I seemed to have a lot more energy than usual. I almost felt like running up the stairs, even if I couldn't actually manage it.

  The circumstances that make fasting unlikely, and maybe inadvisable, are to do with a Thursday afternoon beer tasting session. I feel sure (although maybe not 100% sure) that Jodie is now back from her 3 day craft beer festival in Finland, and hopefully has had time to dry out enough to savour some loony strength beers.  I will need to eat something for lunch that will buffer the deluge of beers this afternoon.

  If I can, I will just have a couple of cans of soup for dinner tonight. One of them should be a super low sugar content Tesco cream of chicken soup, and another could be another fairly low sugar content soup. After that I expect I might be OK for an early night. I might be more than OK, and really need an early night. Apart from washing up 3 or 4 bits in the sink, I can't imagine doing any more today, apart from having a shower.