This morning started dull, and a bit damp looking after overnight rain. By now we should be well into the forecast sunny spells, but as I type this there have only been a few flashes of sunshine through a still cloudy sky. Hopefully the clouds will soon burn off, and we will get the forecast pure sunshine until sunset. By mid afternoon the temperature should have risen to 25° C. Tomorrow is currently forecast to be very sunny, and with a peak temperature of just 24° C.
° C. 
   I didn't feel all that good yesterday, and it was mostly due to losing so much sleep during the night. The loss of sleep was because I was rather regularly going to the toilet until 3am yesterday morning. Fortunately my guts seemed to have settled down by yesterday morning, and although I was aware of them, they didn't seem to cause me any more trouble.

  I would dearly have loved to have a good snooze after I finished writing here yesterday, but I didn't dare because I was expecting the postman to deliver the third and final CD from the band called Kayak. I had ordered them from/via Amazon, and I could have ordered two more, but one was a stupid price, and the other was a completely insane price. It was sort of handy that yesterday it was one of the faster postman (or one who plans his route to be here earlier), and I only had to wait until just after midday before he delivered the CD.

  That final CD was called "Universal Masters", and was supposed to have been remixes from the original master tapes of some of the band's early stuff. One reviewer on Amazon didn't like the remixes, or maybe he just referenced one particular track. The only thing I think I noticed was that the level of the vocals were a bit higher, and sounded more forward. That was possibly a good thing. I knew every track on the CD except one. It seems like it had never been released on any album before, but maybe had been on the B side of a single. I thought it was rather good.

  After getting the CD I did allow myself to lay back, read for a bit, and I had a short snooze, but I could allow myself to get too relaxed. I was expecting Jodie over, possible early, for a Thursday afternoon beer tasting session. I didn't need to do too much to prepare for that, but I did want to rip the CD to mp3 files so we could listen to the album on the dining room PC while we were drinking.

  Another thing I wanted to do was to make sure I had some lunch before we started drink, and I looked at what was in the fridge that might make for a fairly light lunch, and nothing too likely to tax my delicate guts. I'm not sure if what I did choose was all that light. It was a pack of 10 fish fingers (using some poor substitute for cod) which I deliberately over cooked in the mini grill/oven. I gave them a sprinkle of salt and vinegar when I ate them. They were not that nice, but probably about what a 99p packet from Aldi would be like. I really out to spend double of treble the money for real cod fish fingers.

  Jodie did arrive a bit early, but not by much. I think it was probably nearer to 3:15pm instead of more like 3:30pm (but sometimes even later). I think neither of us was in a heavy drink mood, although that didn't stop me having a full 500ml can of strong Polish beer extra over what she drank. Being a great Kayak fan, Jodie was quite interested to hear my new CDs, but like me, she did not find them terribly exciting.

  We agreed they had the typical Kayak sound, but they had the sound of a band that was coming to the end of it's life, and had burnt out. The CD we did not have time to listen to was released in 2022, and after that the band called it a day. I doubt that Jodie actually heard much of the two album was did play - she was, as usual, deeply engrossed on her phone, sometimes looking at Untappd, the beer logging site, and at other times to Instagram, and other stuff she finds deeply engrossing.

  Jodie did not leave that early. She had planned to meet Alan in a pub in Carlshalton (Surrey) at 6.30pm. It seems to be far away, but a fast train to London Bridge, and then a train to Carlshalton was quite a straightforward route. She was aiming for a the 5:49pm train from Catford Bridge, and so left here at just after 5:30pm. It was quite a quick way to get to Carlshalton, but not recommended unless you have a Freedom pass, or something similar, otherwise going via zone 1 would make it a very expensive option.

  Once Jodie had left I prepared my dinner. It was quite a small, and simple salad of some ready cooked "fajita" chicken lumps with some salad leaves, a few baby tomatoes, and the last two "fiery" beetroots. In fact it seems so small that I had a dessert of a whole (small) tub of Iceland's "My Protein" low calorie and low sugar ice cream. I ate while watching Star Trek - one of the four episodes of four different Star Treks shown last night. None were particularly good episodes, but none of them were particularly bad either.

  the last Star Trek finished at 8pm. There was some potential TV on later in the evening, but I was already feeling a bit tired. I was soon in bed reading after having brushed my teeth first, and I only read until just after 8.30pm. I am fairly sure I was fast asleep by 8.46pm. I woke up exactly an hour later, and struggled to realise why, after what seemed like a great sleep, it was not light outside. The reason was very simple. It was 9.46pm, and not 9.46am !  It must have taken me a whole 5 seconds to work that out.

  I'm struggling to remember if I woke up for any special reason. I guess it was probably for a pee. It might also have been because I was farting a lot last night. My guts had been bubbling and glooping a lot in the night, but it seems it was all wind, although I do remember rushing to the toilet when I was worried that one particularly smelly fart my have been a "wet fart". Thankfully it was not !

  At a guess it was around 2am that I had a memorable dream....except it was not memorable because I have completely forgotten it now. Later in the night I had a good reason to forget a dream I was having when I woke up. I woke up because of cramp. I leapt out of bed to put weight on my very painful left leg, and that action was so important that the dream didn't survive being awake for mere seconds.

  As far as I can tell, I got a really good sleep last night. I know I woke up at least 3 or 4 times in the night, but I seemed to fall asleep again with seconds of closing my eyes. I almost felt good when I got up this morning a little after 6am. Another bit of cramp as I woke up spoiled things a bit, and only farting instead of having a poo was another disappointment. Even without doing a poo, my weight seemed to have dropped a little bit this morning. It is not the lowest I have seen in the last couple of months, but I think I have now had quite a run of slightly lower weights, and this suggests a possible permanent change for the better.

  My blood glucose readings this morning were fairly good, although I had hoped for a lot better. The Contour meter was the best with 7.8mmol/l. If all three meters agreed with this figure I would be quite happy, but the GlucoRX meter read 8.1mmol/l, and the Sinocare meter agreed with that. Only three daily averages this month have been lower, and not by much. I guess today was still pretty good. My blood pressure seems pretty good this morning. In fact it is probably excellent. Admittedly it was on the second attempt that I got a reading of 99/47.

  Now an then I like to confirm the blood pressure readings I get from my wrist blood pressure meter. The Meter I use to confirm the readings is my OxiPro BP1 meter. It is not so easy to use because the cuff has to be strapped onto my right arm (my left arm has a funny shaped muscle, and the cuff cannot grip it properly). That means using my left hand to put the cuff on, and the difficulty of doing that can raise my blood pressure by itself. After allowing a minute to calm down, and taking a nice deep breath before taking a reading, I got the figures seen in the picture on the left. 103/53 is a little bit different to 99/47, but it is still in the good area, although on this meter it is just inside the "Ideal" area. That seems good enough to me.

  I have already done one of today's jobs. It was the tedious job of re-doing the patch over the split in my bath tub. One little thing I did (actually last night while letting it dry out) was to drill a couple of small (1/8th inch) holes at each end of the split. That will hopefully stop the split getting longer. Once again, also last night, I put a fillet of silicone sealant along the crack.  This morning I used lots of Duct tape to cover the silicone sealant, and either side of the crack. I don't know how long the last repair lasted, but it may have been over 6 months. Hopefully this latest repair will last as long, or longer. The ultimate repair is to get the bath tub replaced, but that will probably be rather expensive, and the disruption horrendous. I am most definitely not looking forward to the day when that is the only option.

  Hopefully I can have a shower this morning without any leaks, and maybe after that I can wash some clothes. If the sun eventually does break through.....err, it looks like is has done now, it should be a good day to dry clothes. I might even do some clearance work in the garden. I did think about going out somewhere, but maybe "somewhere" might only be to Iceland. I feel it would be good to get a few more of their "My Protein" low calorie and sugar items. I can also get some more zero sugar biscuits. The chocolate oat biscuits should go really well with a nice glass of cold milk. I really must check the nutritional information before getting carried away, but I am wondering if I could have milk and biscuits for an occasional meal. In theory it should be easy on my guts if they play up again. They seem OK this morning.