Once again it is a bright sunny morning, and once again the temperature was at least as low as 7° C according to my three thermometers. However, today rthe strong sunshine should raise the temperature to 18° C by mid afternoon. That could feel quite warm in direct sunshine, but still a bit cool in any shadow. Tonight is shown as another clear night, but the temperature may not fall so low by tomorrow morning. Tomorrow could start at 10° C, and non stop sunshine until 3pm, when, like yesterday, and the day before, it will give way to sunny spells, should see 19° C. I still maintain it has to be 20° C to be officially warm in my book, but it should still be very pleasant compared to the sometimes almost wintry days we have seen recently.

   I think I could describe yesterday as peaceful, That could be another way of saying that not a lot happened, but it was not a boring day. Although "not a lot" happened, some useful things did happen, and it all happened after I finished the patch on my cracked and leaking bathtub.

  What should have happened was me washing my hair and having a shower. I am not sure why I didn't feel that was important. Maybe my subconscious knew I would not be going anywhere, not even to go shopping, and I was not expecting any visitors. So I stayed (hopefully) just mildly stinky, and that fresh clothes and a spray of deodorant would suffice if I did have any unexpected visitors.

  What I actually did first to check my new patch was not leaking, was to do some laundry. It was only a single item, but I thought it needed special attention because like a towel, it was very absorbent, and also tricky to wring out. It was the red and black fleece jacket (or whatever you call it) pictured on the left.

  What is not easy to see is that it shows a lot of wear in the form of "bobbles" (little balls of fleece). It is mostly visible in the lower half where it has rubbed again the edge of workbench, and maybe even the bar in a pub. I haven't worn it in public for years, and that is only partly because of how it looks. It is also because it can get warm underneath. I do wear it a lot indoors in late autumn before I am forced to give in and put the heating on. Even after the heating is on it is still useful when waiting for a room to warm up.

  I finished the wash after I had given it about 6 rinses, and didn't bother with any fabric conditioner, at just after 1pm, and then hung it on the washing line to dry. It caught a fair bit of sunshine, but at 5pm, with the sun already low in the sky, I checked it. The top was dry, but I could wring more water out of the bottom of the it ! I wrung the bottom out to the best of my ability, and took it indoors to dry on the big clothes horse in the front room.

  I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here. To go back to after putting the fleece in to soak, I left it soaking while I had a hot lunch. It was a big bowl of beef noodle soup, and it had to be made up from dry ingredients in a packet, and simmered for 5 minutes to complete the cooking. I have used it before, but there is a setting on my microwave that I think is a simmering setting. The icon the selector knob points to is just a vague sort of meaningless squiggle. It might be the setting for drying socks for all I know, but I could hear the magnetron pulsing on and off while on that setting.

  The recipe for the soup actually started off tipping the mix into boiling water, and I got that from the kettle. It was after that I used the microwave on the squiggle setting. I think it was probably the best setting because the soup didn't seem to boil, but was boiling hot when I took it from the microwave. After all that trouble I expected it to be really good. In fact it was rubbish - not actually unpleasant, but sort of bland except for the noodles which were just an inch long, and more like cardboard. I shan't be using them again.

  After the usual post eating rest, and maybe even a snooze, I decided that I still wasn't going to go to Aldi (one of yesterday's possibilities), and so I still didn't have a shower, but I did give the patch on the crack in the bathtub another test (which it passed 100%). I washed a hand towel. Now that did need a lot of rinsing - possibly 8 rinses, and if I had the energy, patience and tenacity, I would have done another 4 or 5 to get the rinse water completely clear.

  I felt I didn't need to, and couldn't go that far. The rinse water was reasonably clear of froth and bubbles, and I gave the towel a good wringing out - the best I could manage. I hung it on the big clothes horse in the front room where the fleece was already drying. As usual I had a desk fan blowing at them to help the drying along. This morning I found both were perfectly dry, and ready to use.

  One thing about yesterday was that I had been running the heater on just a single kilowatt from about 3am, when I was feeling cold in bed, until I had got up and put some more clothes on. After that I relied on the sun to warm my bedroom up. It did help a lot, bit I still had to wear a thick t-shirt all day to stay warm - warm enough when very inactive - such as laying on my bed snoozing.

  My hot soup lunch helped warm me a bit, and I wanted a nice hot dinner to keep me warm after the sun was too low in the sky to warm the room any more. I could have had cans of soup, or even cooked the lamb steaks I have in the fridge, but I had a wicked (as in sort of evil, and devil may care, or something) idea that I wanted hot fried noodles with some sort of meat - in other words a Chinese takeaway.

  The trouble with many Chinese takeaways is that many have a very high sugar content (and incredibly hgh if a "sweet and sour" dish). However the food from the Tai Won Mein Noodle House seems to be OK in terms of sugar content. I must admit it is a very expensive hobby, but last night I ordered two expensive main dishes. One was a mixed meat and fried noodles, which was my dinner last night, and another Singapore fried noodles, which will be tonight's dinner.

  I ate the mixed meat fried noodles while watching Star Trek. Curiously enough, both Deep Space Nine and Voyager were both watchable episodes, although I was tempted to turn off when I recognised the start of Voyager. I thought I remembered it to be a really tedious episode, but it wasn't that bad. Meanwhile, the mixed meat fried noodles was extremely nice, although it did seem to be rather greasy.

  I was worried that all that greasiness would give me heartburn, and so I washed it down with a nice soothing glass of milk. I think that worked OK, although I did end up have a slug of antacid mix when I seemed to be getting a few symptoms after going to bed. The only trouble with the milk is that it does have a fair amount of natural sugars in it, and drinking it so late means it probably spoiled my blood glucose readings this morning.

  After Voyager finished at 8pm, I turned the TV off, but I thought I might watch an episode of QI at 9pm. I didn't watch any more TV because I was finding it much warmer under the duvet, and didn't fancy getting up again. I read until almost 9pm, and then tried for sleep. It was then that I briefly got out of bed to have the antacid mixture. It must have worked well because I think I was fast asleep by about 9.30pm, although it may have been as late as 10pm.

  Last night was like the last few nights. I know I had some nice, even enjoyable dreams, but I can't remember anything about them. Not even the dream that I was determined to remember because it was so good, or interesting, or.......That's the trouble, I can't remember even why I thought I should definitely remember it. About all I can say is that it probably was not a sexy dream because I usually remember those, or at least remember waking up just before the good bit !!

  I do know, at least I think I know, that I was up having a pee every 2 or 3 hours. I also definitely know because the evidence was there when I got up, that at around 3am I was feeling cold again, and turned the heater on low to take the chill off the room. It is odd that this morning was at least as cold as yesterday morning, and yet the heater on low seemed to warm my bedroom up more than yesterday.

   I turned it off soon after getting enough clothes on to go down to the kitchen to prepare my breakfast (which was a single, but big packet of instant noodles [around 120gm]). The heater has been off since, and I am sitting here with no t-shirt on, and still feeling comfortable. I don't think the bright sunshine will be helping much at the moment, but I am relying on it to get my bedroom nice and warm later in the day.

  Despite thinking I would have a poo when I got up, it seems I only did a pee. I don't feel constipated in an uncomfortable way, but I suspect I will have "gone" in the next few hours. It is a shame that it wasn't when I first got up because the scales told a sad story this morning. I didn't think I had eaten all that badly, and my blood glucose readings agree that I must have eaten almost OK yesterday, and yet my weight would seem to have jumped up almost by 700gm this morning.

  My blood glucose readings are nothing to celebrate, but they are fairly good. The Contour meter read 8.3mmol/l, and that was under my old target. The GlucoRX meter was the best with a reading of 7.7mmol/l, and that is only a bit over my new target. The Sinocare meter was a bit better than the Contour meter with a reading of 8.2mmol/l. These readings are good enough, but I still aspire to get readings closer to, or below my new target of 7.5mmol/l, but it is really difficult when angina and other signs of decrepitude stop me taking the exercise I need.

  This morning my blood pressure seem to be a tiny bit higher, but still in the optimum area. At the rate of increase it could be another couple of months before I need to even have the mildest concern about it.  Overall I seem to feel fairly OK this morning. Yesterday I was suffering from an odd sort of mix of lower back pain, possibly hip pain, and lower abdominal pain. I have no idea what the cause was unless it was prostrate cancer or something weirder. This morning it is all but gone. I can feel some just detectable tenderness when I bend forward (such as when using the wash basin in the bathroom), but it is no bother, and I am guessing even that will have gone by later today.

  Today I really must have a shower, and probably wash my hair. After that I may go out, but probably not to buy shopping. One brief amusement yesterday was taking a few test shots using my new 800mm super zoom lens. I didn't get any memorable shots, but a few came out almost OK. The reason I was doing it was the bright sunshine. To lessen motion blur, which can be truly awful at such a high zoom amount, I was able to use a shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second. That almost freezes anything.....almost......

  One problem yesterday was I was taking the pictures out the front of the house, and I was almost shooting into the sun. It occurred to me that there is one target that would have the sun on it, and is really quite distant. It is the view of Ladywell station as seen from the footbridge over the railway in the park. If I can walk that comfortably from home, and get a few good shots, I might be tempted to walk a bit further. One great thing about that zoom lens is that it takes ages to line up a good shot. Doing the manual focussing, maybe several times to get it right, and then trying to hold the camera and lens steady, might mean a stop of over 5 minutes, and that is ample time to relax and let any growing angina pain go away.

  If I do get out with my camera, and I do walk further than just to the footbridge, I probably will feel I have done enough for the day, but it could also mean that I might think I am capable of walking just over half a mile. That would be the distance needed to walk from Addiscombe tram station to The Cricketers in Shirley where Chain are playing tonight. The chances of me going are statistically close to zero, but not actually zero. Of course one thing I am forgetting is that if I do go I won't be able to have my Singapore fried noodles for dinner tonight. I am looking forward to those noodles, and I guess that takes my chances of going invisibly close to zero.