Today's forecast has got off to a fine start. It was wet outside, but not raining, at daybreak, and since then it has been sunny outside. The sky is still nice and blue, and the sunshine should continue for a while yet. Even the latest revision to the forecast still says the first rain will fall at 11am, and maybe this will happen. Maybe there will be non stop thunderstorms from midday until 6pm, but I find that unlikely (and the Met Office agrees with me). The met Office predicts a high of 18° C today, but the BBC, as shown above, says just 16° C.  Tomorrow could be quite damp all day with lots of mostly light showers, and with a max of just 12° C it is going to feel very wintry.

   Like many days, yesterday was both good and bad. Maybe most of the bad was actually the result today, and it didn't seem bad at the time. More about that later. My shave, shampoo, and shower the day before meant I just needed a shower before going out yesterday.

  As usual I went to my regular (with an occasional exception) lunchtime session in The Jolly Farmers. One interesting part of the walk to the station was seeing how much of the lineside trees and bushes have been cut down. Over the weekend, and continuing for a few hours during the next few days, I heard chainsaws going, and assumed that it was to cut back growth by the railways to help the seasonal "leaves on the line" problem. It was indeed, and the workers have cut a huge amount down. Much of it was just bushes and shrubs, but also some small self seeded tress have now been cut down to the ground.

  Until yesterday it was hard to see the passing trains through the chainlink fence on the way to the station. It is easy now, although they didn't do a perfect job, and clear everything from the fence - as it was years ago. Maybe the extra view slowed me down a bit, but it couldn't have been as much as expected. I had planned to get to the station at least 10 minutes early so I could rest for a bit before going over the footbridge to platform 1.  The train I was expecting to miss was running about 5 minutes later, and after a short wait to recover from the walk, I was over the footbridge in plenty of time to catch it.

  When we got to Ladywell, 2 or 3 minutes later, being late meant that the Hayes bound train that I usually wait for a few minutes for so I can take pictures of it, arrived at the same time as my Charing Cross bound train, and I never did get pictures of it. I arrived at the pub at close to my usual time. While I was being served I asked Ayse, my favourite barmaid, about her recent hospital experiences.

  Ayse thought she was suffering from polyps in her nose, but after waiting ages and ages (literally about 4 years (partly thanks to Covid)) the consultant she saw used a camera up her nose to take pictures of what was up there. He told her they were not polyps, but some sort of abnormal growth that was possibly cancerous. After another wait she had a biopsy done, and was told they were not cancerous.

  That seemed the correct way - do a biopsy first before being able to say if they were cancerous or not. It sort of confirmed my idea that Angela was jumping the gun by saying the lump near her tonsils was cancerous before the biopsy. I think Angela has been quite pessimistic too early, but thinking back she has often been a bit pessimistic about several things that turned out to be no problem in reality.

  I had my usual 2 pints of Guinness in the pub, and did all of the quick crossword, but didn't solve a single cryptic clue. I could give the excuse that I was a bit too distracted by all the banter going on in the pub. The pub is so small that you are probably rarely more than 10ft from anyone speaking loudly enough to follow all their chat, and after a few pints there are some in there who seem to speak quite loudly.

  I left the pub in bright sunshine, although it was obvious that there were some terrifying looking clouds to the north and west. Fortunately the south, where the sun was, was mostly blue sky. As usual, the walk from the pub to three quarters of the way down the platform took me near my walking (non stop) limit. It always feels nice, and in the warm sunshine even more so, to wait for 5 or more minutes for the train, and get my breath back (or actually to let the growing angina discomfort to fade away again - I was not short of breath).

  I wasn't really looking forward to the walk from the station to home. It is not so much an angina problem, although sometimes that adds to the misery, but just my legs feeling tired as I approach home. It didn't quite happen like that yesterday. At the last minute I decided to go the long way around, but taking a short break in the little supermarket on Catford Bridge. I was disappointed they had no zero sugar biscuits yesterday, but I did get quite a collection of instant noodles.

  The walk from that mini supermarket to home was slightly tiring, but I didn't feel like I couldn't have walked a lot further. One of the things about my shopping is that I got very little in the way of snacks, and similar stuff, but I did have some new instant noodles and stuff. It was very unusual, and it may have even been the first time, to have two bowls of instant noodles after getting home from the pub.
  One packet I had was a packet of Indomie, beef flavour noodles. That is the same make as my favourite stir fry flavour, but the beef flavour was nothing exciting, and maybe a bit bland. The other one I tried is pictured above - Hot chicken flavour ramen with black bean sauce. Apart from Korean noodles always tasting a bit floury, it was quite nice, but it did have a sort of surprise. It seemed to be a bit bland at first, and so I gave it a sprinkle of just enough hot pepper sauce to perk it up. However, it seemed to have a delayed action fuse. The more I ate the hotter it became ! I think I can leave out the hot pepper sauce next time.

   Before retiring to lay on my bed to read and to snooze, I checked the few photos of trains I took while out. Sadly, none were of trains I had not photographed before. This is not surprising because I have very few train numbers missing now, and it is possible that some of the missing ones no longer exist after some sort of modification and a new number applied. I am sure the one class 376 train number I am missing may be because that train was wrecked in some sort of depot accident, but I can find no proof of that when I search the internet.

  I did end up snoozing for some time, and maybe I only woke up because I was feeling cold. By then we had lost the sunshine that helped take some of the chill off my bedroom. I was very tempted to out the heater on, but hoped some hot dinner would warm me up. I had planned a very strange dinner. It was based upon an unopened bag of frozen prawns that he been kept frozen rock solid at the back of the freezer.

  I allowed those prawns to thaw out through the day, and they did smell very fishy, but there was no hint of any off smell. Of course they were still 2 years after their use by date, but I relied on smell (and later taste) to convince me they were OK. I added them to a heap of almost fully cooked mixed vegetables, and then cooked the mix for another 4 or 5 minutes in the microwave. That made the prawn shrink down to shrimp size ! It was not a nice dinner, but it was not horrible either. I made the probably wrong assumption that if nothing else, it was probably a healthy meal (assuming the prawns weren't "off").

  I was so confident that that dinner was so innocent that it would be OK to top it off with 6 small, "no added sugar" choc chip cookies. That may have been the biggest mistake of the day.  One thing I did not expect was the heartburn that dinner gave me. It was not as bad as some, and I did get it under control without losing too much sleep. I was reading in bed soon after 8pm, and I probably managed to get to sleep around 11pm.

  One very curious thing about last night was how little I peed. I still went to the toilet 3 or more times in the night, but it was more force of habit than real need. I think it was every time that I went I only seemed to pee about half the usual amount. It was almost as if everything I ate was low sugar, and not just the prawns and vegetables that I hoped would be low sugar.

  I seemed to sleep OK most of the night, although from about 4am I seemed to have difficulty staying asleep. I may have got little sleep between 4am and 5am, possibly 5.30am. I then did manage to sleep normally until about 6.30am. I know I had a selection of dreams during the night, but I can only remember some of just one dream. It is easier to describe the theme of that dream rather than try and work out some sort of storyline. It was another dream where I was working beyond the time when I could have retired, although it was still before my official retirement age. I can remember wondering if my finances were good enough to see me through a few years before I got my state pension. It is actually what I did in reality, although I can't recall reaching a conclusion in the dream.

  This morning there was plenty of wind, but no poo when I went to the toilet for my usual pee. Even that seemed less then usual, and almost a sort of after thought. I then weighed myself, and seemed to have put on a lot of weight - more that should be possible in 24 hours. It could be water and poo retention of something. Time will tell.

  It might still have been possible to get good blood glucose readings, It has happened before when my weight has gone up, but not this time - not by a long chalk ! The first reading on the Contour meter was a disaster. The meter read 10.1mmol/l - into the danger zone ! The GlucoRX reading was 9.2mmol/l, and so just barely acceptable. The Sinocare meter read just 8.6mmol/l. I am at a loss to explain how one finger can produce so different blood samples. Maybe I should have done them all again using a different finger, with the needles set to go in a bit deeper for more free flowing blood.

  Going back to early yesterday evening, In had a message from Patricia. She skipped London, and went straight back to Argentina after leaving Italy. Her message started with a picture of her blood pressure meter. It read dangerously high. I immediately checked my blood pressure, and I did it with no preparation apart from the fact I had just eaten - which sometimes helps a lot. My read was 111/48, and that is very good.

  Patricia's nigh blood pressure was partly due to news of her sister, and her ongoing struggles with her abusive husband. The (hopefully) good news is that it is finally in the hands of lawyers, and so may finally come to some sort of conclusion. I was reminded of this as I checked my own blood pressure just now. I took two readings, and recorded the second. The first was perfectly OK, but the second reading was very slightly better. It was 109/47 - rather excellent for someone diagnosed as hypertensive !

  As I write this it is 10.40am, and the sun is still shining, but there are now some clouds to be seen in the still mostly blue. This is very good for a possible reason. Before I started writing, and even before my breakfast, at 8am I got another message from Angela. She complained she was in a lot of pain. I asked if she had been prescribed any pain killers, and it seems she was prescribed Oramorph - a morphine based pain killer. Evidently her doctors knew her biopsy would leave a very sore area deep in the back of her throat.

  It is very hard to top a morphine based pain killer, and so I suggested she needed a distraction. I suggested that because it was bright and sunny, she should take a walk in her local park. It should look lovely as the trees put on their autumn colours. She complained she looked dreadful, and I did my best to basically say "nonsense", and said with a bit of lipstick, and just her usual make up, she would look fantastic as ever.

  She just replied "xxxxxxxx" and so I guess she appreciated the compliment. I rather hope she did go for the walk because I feel sure it will help to distract her from the pain. In a way it will be like when I have to get up again after going to bed with bad heartburn. I keep thinking that her husband should be providing all the support I do my best to give her, but he is failing badly. I always did think he was a cold fish.

  The main thing on the menu today is a Thursday afternoon beer tastings session with Jodie, and possibly Michael. Both small fridges are full of beers, but some are supermarket beers - probably mainly for me and maybe Michael. It is probably getting near the time to order more beers. I  might even do it before mid afternoon, and Jodie's arrival. I'll probably get told off for ordering without consulting Jodie, but I am trying to shift the emphasis to more traditional beers. I definitely want to get a few spare bottles of super strong barley wine among the other beers. The last bottle I got was 14% and very very delicious - even if it was close to lethal !