The weather forecast for today has changed beyond recognition over night, and not for the better. It seems today will be completely dark grey, and it is going to be very damp. The road is very wet outside from some earlier rain or drizzle, but it doesn't seem to be raining as I type this. Until 6pm the forecast shows a mix of light rain or drizzle, but 6pm may see heavy rain - perhaps for just the one hour. It is going to feel quite chilly in the grey light, and a temperature forecast to only reach 15° C.  We are truly in Autumn now !  Tomorrow could be a lot like today, but much of the afternoon could see 16° C. It is also possible that we might see a few short sunny spells, and because this is a BBC forecast, there could be a thunderstorm at 9 and 11am. The Met Office forecast for tomorrow doesn't mention thunderstorms, and says the day might even get off to a dry and cheerful start. Tomorrow the truth will be revealed.

   Yesterday was not a great day. As well as the weather being grey and horrible, I felt sort of depressed and/or unmotivated. The weather was the cause or catalyst for this, but there was another reason I'll mention in a paragraph or two.

   On such a horrible grey day, and a day when I expected to not go out (although I did consider it for a while), and when I expected to see no one, the idea of even having a shower was a bit alien, but I did have a full shower, shave and I washed my hair. The main reason for doing all three was that it would save time today - a day when I will be going out, and I will be seeing people.

  One reason for some of my depression yesterday was Angela. It feels rather wonderful that she has taken to confiding in me about her medical condition - a cancer scare. After my early morning messages from her she sent another message later in the morning to say that she was expecting to go home again later in the day. I haven't heard that she did, but I presume that it happened.

  I find it tricky to balance optimism with reality when it feels like I don't know the full story, or at least the history. Angela seems very adamant about the treatment she can expect, almost down to dates and stuff, and yet what she has just had was a biopsy. That is needed to confirm that she has cancer, and what sort of cancer it is. I think I mentioned yesterday that it is possible that what she has is a non malignant growth that is not classified as a cancer at all. That could even be a wart from infection by human papillomavirus. There is a lot to read about these things here.

  It may be a bit of a wait to find out the result of the biopsy. I think it is almost certain that Angela will tell me the result. While it is rather wonderful to be back in contact with Angela, and a confirmation that we still have quite a deep bond to each other, it is also a bit sort of sad. I had just about filed Angela as a memory to be cherished, and slowly to to be forgotten in day to day thoughts, I am now back to the unpleasant experience of thinking of her all the time while knowing there is no future in it at all.

   Another rather negative thing about yesterday was that it was cold. From time to time I felt quite uncomfortably cold. I could have, and later did wrap up a bit warmer, but it still made me feel hungry for hot food. For lunch I had two cans of soup, and while I did choose soup with a lower-than-some sugar content, and I didn't go for the very lowest. One can of lentil and bacon soup, plus one can of chunky vegetables and lamb, soup did warm me up quite a bit. A very generous sprinkle of hot pepper sauce also gave the feeling of being warmed up too.

  My planned dinner, which was to be quite big, may have deterred me from having too much in the way of snacks during the afternoon, although I did eat a whole packet of three bitter orange chocolate covered biscuits. They are known to contain only small amounts of sugar, but it was a still a bit risky - particularly knowing what would probably come a bit later That does not include the large amount of whisky I had later afternoon and early evening).

  My dinner was supposed to include two big beef burgers from a pack of four, but they didn't seem so big when I was putting them in the grill pan. I ended up having all four of them with a side helping of a heap of mixed vegetables. The mixed vegetables was the typical peas, carrots, sweetcorn, and diced string beans that is sold frozen in bags by most supermarkets under their own brand name, but probably all from the same source.

  The final touch was a medium sprinkle of grated cheddar that melted over the mixed vegetables. I only used as much grated cheddar that it helped bind some of the vegetables together, rather than swamp them. I feel sure that dinner had some negative health aspects, and the most noticeable was the terrible heartburn it gave me when I was going to bed. Although much of the grease came out into the grill pan when cooking those burgers, I guess the melted cheese put most of it back again.

  I had spent a lot of yesterday just reading, and so watching some Star Treks was a welcome diversion - even if most of the 4 different Star Treks I watched were not great episodes. I suppose I could be generous and say that most of the episodes I saw were good in parts, but other parts could almost be loathsome. At 8pm, after Star Trek: Voyager had finished, I went to bed - mostly because it was warmer under the duvet.

  Although I may have had a sort of full feeling when I went to bed, it was some time later when I was stricken with awful heartburn. It often seems that turning onto my left side multiplies the discomfort by a actor of ten or more. Trying to sleep on my right side is far worse. I did have quite a few large whiskies before bedtime, and that has blurred my memory, but I think I might have managed to get an hours sleep before waking up in a great deal of discomfort.

  It was pretty obvious that my discomfort was heartburn and bloat. I resorted to sitting on the side of my bed, and I started to burp up a lot of gas that tasted of my dinner. Some antacid mix made that worse before it made it better - but only slightly better. I had to resort to sitting in my desk chair in front of my PC. Sitting up always seems to be a good part cure, but the only cure is time....and more antacid mix.

  There were a couple of times where the discomfort seemed to diminish enough to try for sleep, but going back to bed just made it as bad as ever. I tried going back to bed two, or maybe even three times, but it was not until I had almost fallen asleep in my desk chairs a couple of times that I had to give up and get back in bed. That must have been almost 3am this morning. I did get to sleep then, and it was probably helped by having put the heater on low soon after midnight because it was getting very chilly sitting around doing nothing but reading on my PC screen.

  After such a late night it was good that I slept late this morning. It was almost 7.30am when I woke up, and it seemed like it was time to get up. It was handy that after getting up I went to the toilet for a pee and a nice big poo. I then got on the scales, and I guess I was a little surprised that my weight had not gone up in any measurable way, although sadly it had not gone down either. I thought after all I thought I ate yesterday, I had not put some weight on.

  I don't recall peeing all that much in the night, and that is both in frequency and quantity. It seemed hard to beleive that it was because my blood glucose was nice and low, but that was the reality. The Contour meter read a nice 7.3mmol/l - below my new target of 7.5mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter gave a magnificent read of just 6.7mmol/l - into the dark green area of my colour coding of my spreadsheet recording my daily readings. The Sinocare meter also gave a reading in the dark green of 6.9mmol/l. That's two readings in the dark green - now that is a rarity ! I last managed that back in June !

  My blood pressure is again slightly higher than my typical average, but on a second attempt it was only a tiny bit high, and the meter still diagnosed it as "Optimum". ( I have to confess that the first reading was up in the "normal" area !).  Everything looks good, but I am not sure I feel all that wonderful. I have a horrible feeling my angina might play up today when I do the one important thing today - going to The Jolly Farmers to see Ayse (my favourite barmaid), drink a couple of pints of Guinness, and do as much of the two crosswords in The Metro as I can manage. Oh, and also do some minor train spotting on the way to and from the pub.