With today being Petts Wood Calling day, I have been paying a lot of attention to the forecast for today. Yesterday morning it was still predicting thunderstorms for today, but at the current time just light rain for 8am, and 1pm is the only rain forecast. Until 2pm it will probably be rather dull, but from then on it should be mostly bright. It may still be a slightly cool day with just 23° C forecast. Tomorrow should be mostly bright, but only 22° C.

  Tomorrow was one of those odd days where I seemed to feel a lot better in some ways, and yet I often still felt a bit crap. Maybe it was not so odd, and it probably happens every time you are in that sort of no man's land between ill and healthy. Some of it was all in the head - I thought I should be able to do stuff, but didn't want to chance it.

  I did manage to do two good things yesterday, although I didn't manage to do them as thoroughly as I should have done. One of those things was to hand wash three small towels. One was actually slightly bigger than a hand towel, and is my favourite bath towel. I had actually started washing the latter towel the day before, but it needed an awful lot of rinsing to be soap free. I finished that one first, and hung it on the line to dry.

  The next one was one the two towels that I now realise I ought to alternate much more frequently, particularly in hot sweaty weather, that I use as protection on my pillows.  It didn't seem to need that much effort to rinse out any soap, but maybe I also didn't manage to get it all that clean of old sweat. Perhaps that doesn't matter in the long run provided I stick to my new plan to swap, and wash those towels much more frequently than I have done in the past.

  The third towel was just a hand towel, and spends it's life as one hanging in the bathroom to dry hands on after using the wash basin. That seemed to have soaked up a lot of soap - which seems odd because I believe I always rinse off all the soap after washing my hands. Anyway, it needed loads of rinses, and I ended up doing a few at a time. By the time the rinse water seemed to be barely acceptably free of soap it was too late to hang it on the washing line. I dried it on the clothes horse overnight.

  The other thing I did yesterday was to keep fair control over what I ate. I had intended to exercise very heavy control, but fair was all I managed. After my breakfast, which was just a single, but big bowl of instant noodles, my next eating was a quite light lunch - light, but maybe not very low sugar. Part of the exercise was to try and do something about my still rather high blood glucose readings.

  What I chose for lunch was ice cream and a couple of flat nectarines. I tend to think of even the most carefully chosen ice cream to be a big source of sugar, and yet my experiences, mostly this year, is that I can tolerate ice cream without really raising my blood glucose measurements. The nectarines were modestly sweet, and so with the ice cream, although very nice, may not have been a great idea.

  One reason for that choice of lunch was that I had weird ideas that I might be able to fast for the rest of the day. That was almost a nonsense from the start, but I did almost start that way. Initially I thought I might get away with it if I had nothing but ice cream for dinner. That was more based on the idea of trying to avoid any indigestion/heartburn at night. The biggest flaw in the idea was that I had been very good and only eaten that one litre tub of ice cream in small increments instead of just going for it, and eating the whole tub in one gluttonous session.
  For a bit of variety yesterday afternoon, I opened and tried all three weird, sugar free, soft drinks I had bought from Aldi the day before. The Peach Limeade was the best of the three, and I may buy more bottles of it in the future. The Blueberry Lemonade was a bit nice and a bit nasty. Initially it seemed good, but halfway down the glass it seemed to be a bit too acid and "fruity". The Kiwi Lemonade was plain weird. I like Kiwi fruit is ripe enough, but the drink tasted like it had a few rotten Kiwi fruit in it. It had a quite nasty undertaste. I'm not sure if I will attempt to finish the bottle, or just pour it all down the sink !

   All that was left in the tub for dinner was a very small portion. I could have added some apple and another nectarine ofn two, but my thoughts turned to other stuff. Initially I thought a small handful of salted peanuts might do the trick, and then In remembered I had bought a small slab (or whatever it should be called) of paté, and I ate all that, minus the thick layer of jelly on top, by scooping it up with rice crackers. I'm sure that didn't work last time, but at least this time I made sure that the paté said it had hardly any sugar in it. I was not sure how it would be in terms of late night indigestion/heartburn.

  I filled in all the big gaps in the day by laying on my bed reading, and snoozing. My evening distraction was watching three Star Trek episodes. Maybe I was in more of a receptive mood because all three seemed watchable, even if not the greatest episodes. When the third episode had finished I turned off the TV, and then had to force myself to do the last three rinses of the last towel. I then hung it up to dry, and then hung myself up to sleep.

  I didn't intend to go to sleep straight after doing those final rinses, but laid down to read, and relax enough for sleep. Once I did attempt sleep I was not disturbed by any coughing, or any digestive distress. It was also not too hot either, although still hot enough for some light forehead sweat, but the important thing was that I was not so wet that the fan actually felt chilly. It is only a guess, but I think I was asleep in about 10 minutes, and maybe still a few minutes before 9pm.

  It was notable that I don't remember getting up to pee very often last night. In fact I think I may only have had to get up once during the night, and then one more when I woke up some time after 5am, and decided it was still too early to get up. On the whole it seemed like I must have got a lot of good sleep, but I still can't work out if I feel any better for it this morning.

  The main thing I remember from the night was what seemed to be a long dream, although sudden jumps in location mean it must have been lots of little dreams all on the same subject. The dream(s) seemedn to be set after dark, and that suggested maybe autumn or winter, and yet I can't recall any sensation of feeling cold. I have no idea where I had been, but the dream(s) seemed to be about making my way home from somewhere. To make it all the more complicated I am not sure if I can recount all I can remember in the correct order of events.

  I think the earliest bit of dream I can remember was going along some small, unlit side streets. It was that curious mix of fear and exhilaration.  There could have been all sort of dangers lurking in the shadows, and yet it was still exciting making my way through these dark streets. One curious thing is that I didn't really know where I was, but I nhad a very strong idea which direction home was in.

  It is possible my subconscious planned those street to be dark so that there would be a huge contrast when I finally turned a corner and came out into a very brightly lit road. It might have been something like Piccadilly Circus with good street lighting, and even brighter lit shops. One such shop was a very long corner shop that was more like a bar seling desserts - ice creams, waffles and similar stuff.

  I recognised it instantly as the shop that Kornelia worked in. (Kornelia, aka Kay, occasional singer for The Entourage Band, and I have no idea where she actually works). After a time she noticed me, and came out of the shop to say hello. She was dressed in full theatrical mode like she does when on stage, and was close to topless with silver stars over her boobs and a sort of open front dress.

  We only stopped to talk for less than a minute before one of her colleagues came out and called her back into the shop. That colleague also stopped to say hello for a minute, but apart from her appearing later inn the same dreams, I am unsure who she actually was. I carried on walking, and I must have skipped some boring parts of the walk, because I soon realised I was somewhere in Deptford, and over halfway home.

  It was than that I met up with that colleague of Kornelia. She asked if In was heading for Marylebone station no get the train home, but I said no. If I was heading to any station it would be to Charing Cross station to get the first train of the day. She said shame because we could have kept each other company. At that point a 47 bus (a 24 hour service) pulled up at a quite crowded bus stop, and I decided to get the bus back to Catford.

   The bus was crowded downstairs, but curiously not the back of the upstairs. I was just about to find a seat near the back of the upstairs when I noticed a man who somehow had a washing up bowl with him, and was copiously throwing up into it. I decided to stay near the front of the bus even though it was really rather uncomfortably crowded. I think that was about the last thing I remember of the dream, although I could have written a lot more about nothing when I just seemed to be walking from some bland place to another bland place.

  As I mentioned further up the page, I woke up soon after 5am, but decided it was too early to get up. After having a pee I got back onto my bed, and wondered if I should pull the duvet over me. I had left the window open all night, and it seemed to feel almost chilly despite still being about 20° C (although I tend to think as 24° C as being the lowest I can tolerate for sleeping almost naked, and uncovered). I seemed to fall asleep while I was thinking about it.

  Like the night before, I was not bothered by coughing, but unlike yesterday morning, when I woke up coughing up a lot of mucus for a while, this morning I hardly had to clear my throat once or twice. With no heartburn last night, it almost feel like I should describe it as a great night. There was a couple of other good things, but it still feels a lot like I am still recuperating from my long cold.

  The first good thing is that I seemed to lose a useful amount of weight this morning - about half a kilogram - which seems a bit unlikely. It could have been more if I had managed to have a good poo before I got on the scales, but that didn't happen until after I had eaten breakfast. I can't remember what the circumstances were when I recorded my weight yesterday - before or after a poo, before or after breakfast.... Anyway, considering the sort of things I ate yesterday, I am happy with it.

  It is possible I have broken the back of my recent high blood glucose readings. Considering all the ice cream I ate yesterday, plus those sweet flat nectarines, my blood glucose readings were reasonably good. All three meters gave, possibly for the first time ever, all agreed on the same reading. They all read 8.8mmol/l. That is definitely not the new low, or all that low compared to my old averages, but with not a single reading in the light pink (between 8 and 10mmol/l) it is not bad, and lower than 7 out of the last 8 days. If I can get the readings below my old target of 8.5mmol/l tomorrow I will be very happy.
  Today I should be going to Petts Wood Calling. Yesterday I had strong doubts about whether I would feel well enough. Today I am still not sure if I feel that well, but maybe I will make it. At least the latest weather forecast shows reasonable weather - 24 hours ago one prediction was for thunderstorm. Now it should be dry.....
  .....except for light showers at 1pm. I have checked the trains are running, and so there is no problem there I can blame for a non attendance. I am obviously wanted because Jo sent me a text message last night reminding me my name was on the door (free admission and back stage pass) if I could make it. I feel I have to make it, but I don't feel very keen about it. There are several bands I would definitely like to see, and I few I would like to be in the next town when they are on.

  One band I will happily miss, and almost certainly will do, is Cockney Nights. They are a sort of Chas And Dave style duo playing "Cockney, knees up, songs". Ughhhh !!! I think my plan is to try and get there to take snaps of the first band on, and then stay until Chain's set is over, and then I will go home. I will miss not seeing Run For Cover (they are very, very good), but the rest I can live with not seeing.