Thursday 15th August 2024

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Thursday 15th August 2024

08:18 BST

Despite the rather gloomy forecast, yesterday was not such a bad day. I don't think any of the threats of light rain materialised, and there were quite a few sunny spells through the day when none were forecast. The temperature reached a warm feeling 24° C.

The BBC forecast only shows sunshine for half the day, but the Met Office shows sunshine or sunny spells for the whole day. The Met Office also don't show any rain for late this evening. The BBC predict a peak of 23° C, and the Met Office predict a peak of 24° C. Tomorrow may start dull, but there could be sunshine from mid morning, and the temperature should reach 25° C.
° C.
Yesterday was one of those days that was very pleasant until the evening when it all went horribly wrong. The seeds of the horrible portion may have been set 24 hours earlier, but the actual cause remains a mystery. The simple description is that I have been recently suffering from some sort of stomach upset.

Might intention for yesterday was to have a shower, and go for my usual Wednesday lunchtime Guinness in The Jolly Farmers. I did do that, but what I didn't do was leave earlier than usual so I could get in half an hour of train photography. The reason for that was that despite a rather spectacular visit or three to the toilet the night before, it turned out that I did need to go yesterday morning. I just wish my guts hadn't decided to wait until just before I was going out to open up.

I was feeling quite apprehensive that I might need a second visit to the toilet when I finally went out - at about my usual time. I guess I probably left about 5 minutes early, and that meant I could try and walk a bit slower to the station. I arrived there feeling OK, and I had time to wait on the "Down" platform (towards Hayes, Kent) to get my breath back. I am sure I felt quite normal before I went over the footbridge to get the "Up" train to Ladywell. When I got to the bottom of the far side I could feel some mild chest pain just starting.

One thing I didn't appreciate until I was home again, is that apart from that hint of the start of angina when crossing the footbridge, I was held back more by stiff legs, and also an occasional stiff and painful left ankle. I don't think I felt any real angina pains while I was out, although I was trying to avoid them by either walking slower, or maybe stopping for 30 seconds to take a picture. I even had a good excuse to stop and read a text message from Royal Mail saying they would be delivering a packet this morning.

When I got to the pub I found the new beer dispenser, in the shape of a letter box, from The Camden brewery had the Helles Lager on, but the Pale Ale had still not been delivered. I ordered a half of the lager, plus my usual Guinness. Ayse, my favourite barmaid, said a half was a wise decision because it was quite expensive - £6.10 a pint compared to £4.90 for a pint of Guinness. It seemed almost nice, but I was put off my a slight metallic taste - maybe the taste of new metalwork. I hope Michael, a lager drinker, will join me there one day to see what his opinion is.

There seemed to be a lot of entertainment in the pub yesterday. Some of it was the possible tall stories of Shawn, owner of the dog Stella. Some of the things he claims to have done may be the sort of things many of us would hope to do, but I'm not sure I believe all he claims. All the banter distracted me from the crosswords in The Metro. I think I finished all the quick crossword apart from one clue.

I seemed to be making fair progress at first when I started the cryptic crossword, but I still ran out of steam. I even went as far as a third pint of Guinness (on to of the half pint of Helles lager), but it became obvious I had reached an impasse, and after finishing my third Guinness I headed home. I almost decided to walk home. I knew I would have to rest half way if I did.....or at least I assumed I would need a rest. In the end, I got the train as usual.

Maybe it is just as well I got the train, because my final train photograph, of the back of the train that took me from Ladywell to Catford Bridge, was of one of the trains I wanted for my collection. I did have a photo of 707022 when it was working out of Waterloo for Southwestern Railway, but it had eluded me after transfer to South Eastern until yesterday. Maybe it had only recently been transferred. It is a shame that it is a poor quality picture, but I expect I will get a sharper one, one day.

I found my legs were very stiff when I walked home, and I was most happy to reach home. I didn't seem to be developing angina, but I did feel very slightly short of breath, and it did feel like I had walked for miles. I was fortunate that I had a genuine reason to stop and read a new arrived text message from Royal Mail to say that my third and final CD I had ordered from Amazon would be delivered between 10:53 and 13:53 today. In other words it is small enough to be delivered by my usual postman, and so may well arrive soon after 1pm.

One of the first things I did after getting home, was to have a late lunch. It was two of the very small, beer mat sized, cheddar and bacon quiches from Iceland. It is possible my treatment of them contributed to my later troubles. I gave each a very generous squeeze of cream cheese to make them even more cheesy. For some reason it didn't seem to work. But the greasiness of the cream cheese may have had a later effect on my guts,

Even when I was eating my late lunch I was deciding what to have for dinner. I thought that a kebab would be good. Grilled meat and salad is usually very good for my blood glucose, and maybe even help with some weight loss. having set that idea in my brain I had a short snooze before it was time to turn on the TV for some Star Treks. At about 5.30pm I ordered my dinner.

For some strange reason I could not see a lamb shish kebab on the menu, but I did see and order a chicken shish kebab. That made it rather to easy to be tempted to order a doner meat and chips as well. It was about 6.30pm when the kebab were delivered. The doner meat and chips was, as ordered, a small one, and I am happy to say that the portion of chips was particularly small. I am unsure why, but the salad with it seemed very small, but very tasty. The main negative thing was the chilli sauce seemed to be a "sweet chilli" sauce, and so probably contained a lot of sugar. That same sauce was the main thing wrong, or potentially wrong with the chicken shish kebab with salad.

With dinner eaten, and the last Star Trek finished, I saw no good reason to watch any more TV, and although still a bit early, my thoughts turned to bed. It was still rather early for sleep, but I wasted a bit of time checking a few things on the internet before taking my book to read in bed for half an hour or so. One precaution I took before getting too relaxed was to take a couple of Rennies, antacid tablets. I suspected that the kebabs could be source of heartburn.

Maybe there was a hint of developing heartburn, but it never came to anything. However, I was aware of some commotion in my guts, and I wondered if anything came out, which end it would emerge from. I think I did get at least a hour of sleep before waking up to some severe rumbles from my gut - all sorts of blooping, and gurgling - like a volcano coming to the boil !

I went to the toilet, but just passed a small amount of wind. I still wondered if ultimately I would throw up, but that never happened. I think I managed another short period of sleep, but it didn't seem lone before I was back on the toilet, convinced that something was on the move. To keep the unpleasantries brief-ish, I had another false alarm of two before all hell broke out. It was not until 3am this morning that the last of the "rusty water" drained out, and I could try and catch up on some sleep.

I didn't sleep particularly well even after that. I was just getting relaxed when I had a sweaty hot flush, and had to get out of bed to turn the fan on low. Perhaps thirty minutes later I was out of bed again to turn the fan off. At 5am I needed to get up to go for a pee, and after getting back to bed I could still hear some gurgles from my gut, but apparently not from near the "exit".

I managed to sleep through to 7am before getting up still feeling very sleep deprived. I needed a pee, but I was not surprised that I didn't need to poo. What was a surprise is that despite apparently fully emptying myself, I had apparently put on nearly a kilogram overnight. That can't be right, and I can't explain it.

Maybe one good thing is that despite my fears about the chilli sauce on the kebabs being sweet and sugary, my blood glucose readings were OK this morning (that is OK, not good, but equally not too bad). The Contour meter read 8.7mmol/l, and the GlucoRX agreed with that reading. The Sinocare meter read slightly lower at 8.6mmol/l. My blood pressure remains good with 105/51 just now, although my pulse rate is 58 ppm. That is just a couple beats faster than average, and may just reflect my terrible sleep.

This afternoon I should be having a beer tasting session with Jodie. I think she wants a slightly earlier start, and an even earlier finish because she is off to a beer festival (I think) later. That would suit me right now. I'm not even sure I want to dump lots of beer on my inflamed guts. The only trouble will be if Jodie wants to get here extra early. I was thinking I might not have time for a shower before I begin the vigil waiting for the postman, but as I write these words I still have a full hour before the earliest possible delivery time of my packet. The biggest annoyance is that whichever way I look at it, I am not going to have much, or indeed any time for a snooze.

1906 words today