The forecast sunshine for this morning has now become rather murky looking cloud, but there is still a chance of sunny spells at 11am, and full sunshine from 1pm. By 3pm the temperature may rise to 23° C. A clear night means tomorrow may start rather cool, but it should be another dry day, and with the temperature rising to 23° C again.

   I didn't hear any more from Angela yesterday. I was hoping that she would say her hospital appointment was at least OK, and maybe that she might reveal something about her diagnosis of cancer. I think I was very lucky that she messaged me in the first place as she obviously wants to keep it all very private.

  As I suggested yesterday morning, I did indeed have a wet shave, a shampoo, and a shower soon after I finished writing yesterday. I started, and so finished writing early yesterday (but not as early as today). That meant there was no rush to have my shower, etc, and no great rush to go out shopping at Aldi. I think it was already 11.30am, and maybe later before I stepped out my front door, and headed to Aldi.

  It wasn't a very pleasant walk to Aldi, but it was interesting. I seemed to feel mostly OK, and I think I walked at a good (but not magnificent !!) pace to Aldi, and didn't feel the need to slow up until the last 10ft when I started to get those first hints of angina pop up. Of course my walk around inside Aldi was a lot slower with frequent short stops as I perused what was on the shelves.

  In one respect I was not happy with what Aldi had to offer. There were a few things I had bought in there in the past, and admittedly some were "specials", that I could not find again. That was understandable, but there were some things, like man sized tissues, that they have offered for decades, but could not be found anywhere. I still managed to fill up my small shopping trolley with other stuff - and most of it was mostly safe stuff, aka low sugar.

  A hunt among the freezer section found their meagre offering of low calorie meals. I think that like Tesco, they only had two to offer. I bought what seemed like the best one, and I'll describe it further down the page. One thing I wanted was sugar free dandelion and burdock fizzy drink. I know that is seasonal, but I was lightly peeved that it was obviously the wrong season. On the plus side, they did have Cholar (or however it is spelled) bottles of chilli sauce. I bought one ordinary and one chipotle chilli flavour.

  My rucksack was quite full and heavy, but my two shopping bags were fairly light. I might have got everything almost in one bag, but it was easier to carry with two balanced bags. It was all enough to slow me down a bit as I walked home, but it probably only extended my walk by a minute (perhaps 7 instead of 6 minutes, but I never timed it). I caught some sunshine on the way home, and I was starting to get wet with sweat as I got home.

  One thing I bought was a mixed "rainbow" salad. I didn't buy it with any thoughts about when I would eat it, but as I put my shopping away I suddenly remembered that the last salad I bought I put off eating it for too long, and it was starting to wilt and go horrible. This time I decided I would have it for lunch with some also freshly bought corned beef. It turned out to be nicer than I imagined it would be.

  Of course after eating lunch I had to have my traditional lie down. I read for a bit, and I probably had a short snooze, but sooner or later I knew I had to get back to some laundry that I left soaking in detergent after my shower. It was only three items - a small hand towel, a face flannel and a single pair of underpants. It didn't take long to finish the job, but the towel needed more rinses like all towels do. I hung it all up to dry on the clothes horse in the front room, and it was all bone dry this morning.

   This was Aldi's, or one of two flavours, low calorie, and low(ish) sugar, ready meals. I made this my dinner yesterday, or actually it was closer to half my dinner. I ate it while watching One of the Star Treks on offer yesterday evening. Like the Star Treks, it was not that good. (The Star Treks were all repeated repeats).

  It was more like the sort of meal my mum might have made having never had a Chinese meal in her life, but with some idea of typical ingredients. Most of it was noodles and gravy, and the gravy was more like "Bisto" for beef - for a meal which had chicken in it !

  It claimed to be only 300 calories (and 5.6gm of sugar), and that was rather good, but it didn't seem to be filling in any way, although all that gravy should have made it feel moderately filling. I thought it was foolish, but maybe it wasn't, to make up some instant noodles to top things up. Even those didn't seem to make me feel satiated, but I thought I ought to exercise some restraint, and leave it at that for the night.

  There was nothing on TV after the Star Treks being shown on Sky Mix, and like many recent days I thought it would be more comfortable to get into bed, and under the duvet to read for a while in the warmth of the duvet. I probably read for about 45 minutes, and it soon became just a tint bit too warm under the duvet. When I checked my thermometers I saw it was still 22° C in my bedroom. When I tried for sleep around 9pm I only kept one arm and one leg under the duvet.

  I seemed to fall asleep easily enough. One oddity (for me in my current state) was that I think I only woke up to go for a pee twice in the night. I did wake up around 2am (I think), probably suffering from the hot pepper sauce I had added to both halves of my dinner. It was either that or some sort of hot flush for other reasons, but I went to the toilet for a pee, and I felt very warm. I was very lightly sweating, and my pillow was very damp. I had a short period of insomnia as I cooled off a bit, and went back to sleep partly covered with the duvet.

  I remember one dream during the night that was not pleasant, but not scary, or anything like that - although it did seem to involve spiders for one brief segment. In the dream I was in my kitchen trying to do some cleaning/tidying up. They may not have been in the kitchen at the same time, but it was suggested we go to the pub once I finished. I washed up a few glasses, and that didn't take long, but then I saw a large(ish) spider on the floor near the back door.

  I wanted to try and get it out the back door, but then I noticed it had got tangled in some hair. It was my own hair that had fallen on the floor, and there seemed to be quite a lot of it. (As a side note, I have never seen any in the kitchen, but when I hoover my bedroom it always surprises me how much of my own hair there is on the carpet). Not only had the hair in the kitchen trapped the spider, but it seemed to have trapped a few more insects too.

  I think I got rid of the spider and insects, but I don't remember doing it specifically because I was distracted by more annoyances. It seemed that many people were calling on me, and a few were people I didn't like. the all wanted to go to the pub. This annoyed me a lot because I don't really like big groups of people in a pub. I prefer maybe just 2 or 3 well known mates. I don't remember any more dream after I started getting annoyed. Maybe there was no more dream to remember.

  I think I woke at almost exactly 6am, but there seemed no urgency to go for a pee, as is usually the case. I managed to turn over and get a bit more sleep, but it was only about 20 minutes later when I did get up. I went for a pee, and produced more than I thought I would (but sadly no poo). When I got back to my bedroom I got on the scales after checking the calibration. I was startled to see I had lost a whole 900gm - and that was without having a poo. Maybe everything I ate yesterday had less calories than I thought. I am now at almost the lowest weight I have been all year - except from a few rare exceptions - like today could be.

  I'm not sure if it is cheating, but I double checked two blood glucose readings this morning. The first reading, as usual, was the Contour meter. That gave a very good 7.7mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read a still fairly good 8.3mmol/l on a 1st and 2nd attempt. The Sinocare meter gave quite a high reading, and so I did that one again with a fresh pinprick of blood, The second time it agreed with the Contour meter with a very good reading of 7.7mmol/l.

  My blood pressure has it's ups and downs, but is usually in the "Optimum" area (which is one better than normal). This morning it is still "Optimum" but a bit close to being "normal". It is, or was, 110/52. A systolic pressure of 110mmHg is only a tiny bit, just a few mmHg higher than my average, but it doesn't seem to be anything to be worried about, about, although I will try and remember whether it makes my walking later on better or worse.

  Today should include two lots of walking. The first will be to Catford Bridge station, and then from Ladywell station to the pub, and then the same in reverse. This is to get to The Jolly Farmers pub for my usual 2 pints of Guinness, and a look at the crosswords in The Metro. I am hoping that Angela will join me, but I am not optimistic that she will. It will be a shame if she doesn't join me so I can get an update on her cancer diagnosis and prognosis.

  The second lot of walking today will be a second attempt to get up to Dik's house to do the band photos he wants. Last week it was raining - and so called off because it is going to be an outdoor photo shoot. Today is forecast to be dry, warm and sunny. The great difficulty will be trying not to eat (ideally) anything at all after getting home from the pub, because I'll need the very minimum in my stomach if I am to be able to walk up the hill to Dik's place. At least it will all be downhill on the way home again.

  A few nights ago I had a dream that I tried to describe. It was about being in a place that was a lot like a telephone exchange, and could have been one, but the equipment was very unfamiliar except for the "light straw" colour paint on the cans/modules, on the equipment racks. I said it was very much like an old electro-mechanical telephone exchange, like many I used to work in, but there was no selector mechanism. At the time I was trying to describe this I had no ready prepared picture of what I was trying to describe.
  This is a picture I took using my old Practika SLR camera in about 1982. It shows racks of 2 motion, group selectors. The switching section is at the bottom under the pale yellow (actually "light straw") cans. The equipment in my dream was similar, but there was no mechanism under the can (or inside it).