Last night was mostly clear, and I would have expected the temperature drop even further, but from the small hours everything was wrapped in a blanket of mist. At 8am it was almost thick enough to be called a light fog, but it very quickly dispersed after that, and now, just an hour later, it is clear, but rather grey looking outside. Much of today may be grey, but there could be a solitary sunny spell later, and then more sunny spells from 3pm. 5pm may even be 100% sunny, but of course the sun will be setting and we will maybe only get half an hour of bright sunshine shining just over the roof tops to the west. The afternoon should see 16° C, but another mostly clear night will see the temperature drop to just 11° C by midnight. It could be down to 10° C at 6am tomorrow, but tomorrow could be very sunny, although the maximum temperature is only forecast to reach 16° C again.

   After trying to convince myself I was going to go out for some railway exploration yesterday, I never did go out in that sense. That may have been a good thing because the day didn't turn out as well as expected. I did go out, but only as far as Aldi.

  I may not have made it to the station, but I knew I would be going somewhere, and so needed a rather overdue shower, and also washed my hair. By the time I has done that it was starting to get a bit late, or nearly midday. I was further delayed by a message from Kevin that came out of the blue. He has been poorly lately, and like me, has only gone out for essentials. He tells me he seems to be starting a good patch, and so may join me for a drink in the not too distant future. I wonder if he is thinking of meeting me in the Jolly Farmers this lunchtime. If so, I hope he gives me some advance warning. Ayse, my favourite barmaid, is still on holiday, and I may not go for a lunchtime drink today.

  Prior to me having my shower I had made preparations to go out on a journey that may have taken me as far as Watford. I had checked the possible routes to there and back, and had checked my camera was charged and ready to go. There were two things that were holding me back. One was simply that it seemed like it was getting a bit late. I may not have got a train from Catford Bridge until about 1pm. I know that is not terribly late, but Ideally I would have been doing it as early as 11am, and in an ideal world, but 10am.

  The other thing that held me back, and was part responsible for it getting so late, was that although I seemed to have passed an adequate amount of poo, it felt like there was a fair chance there was more to come. I thought I might be OK to go to Aldi, and that is what I did. I did need to top up a few items and it would have to have been Aldi or Tesco sooner or later.

  I set off for Aldi in bright sunshine, and that felt rather nice. I got as far as the road where Michael lives and realised I had forgotten to take a Pound coin with me for the shopping trolley. I noticed Michael was in his front garden, and diverted to go and see him, and ask for the loan of a Pound Coin - which he was happy to do. That saved me breaking my nails trying to get the "Trolley Token" off a tight key ring.

  One curious thing is that going to Michael, and chatting to him for a few minutes reset my body. From there to Aldi was probably a minute less than the full journey from home, and it made quite a difference. Spurred on by the bright and warm sunshine I kept up a fair pace, and arrived at Aldi feeling fine. It is surprising how much difference a single minute can make !

  Aldi was curiously quiet when I got there, and there was not a manned checkout open, although fortunately there was when I was ready to leave the store. I had been intending to not buy that much in terms of perishable food, although I guess if you include some fruit, it was more than I originally thought I would buy. I definitely did not want to buy much meat because I knew I had some waiting to be used in the fridge. In fact I later realised that I only had one pack of diced beef in the fridge.

  I doubled the amount of meat with an single pack of skinless and boneless chicken. A lot of what I bought was stuff with a long shelf life, and that includes a pack of apples. They could definitely do with a lot more ripening. They currently taste very raw and acid. Once again I was also annoyed, or maybe just disappointed, that there were a few things I was going to buy again, but they seemed to have run out.
  The very special, and rather unexpected buy, was not one, but two packets of frozen sprouts with bacon, maple flavour, and butter. I was actually looking for other possible low calorie/low sugar foods in the freezer section when I came acros the sprouts. The maple glaze means they are not very low sugar, but sometime you have to put up with that for special luxuries, although now I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will be very nice. I would have preferred chestnuts to maple glaze, but even as they are, they may be good enough to be an entire meal one day. I was lucky to get both packets in the freezer by moving things around, but it was a bloody tight squeeze. Sooner or later I will take one pack out and cook it for dinner some day.

  My walk home from Aldi was not so good. It was under a dark and gloomy sky when I was expecting it to still be sunny. It still felt pleasantly mild, but the grey clouds looked very miserable, and it seems it might rain. It didn't until an hour or two later, and it seemed to be more like a passing shower. I didn't even notice raining until I saw that it was wet outside. There was still an occasional sunny spell, but most of the afternoon seemed dull. I think I am glad I didn't go out with my camera on the trains. Oh, and the feared for visit to the toilet for a poo never happened !

  Half of my lunch was from Aldi, and half from Tesco. The Tesco portion was two Tesco "Finest" Scotch eggs bought at reduced price because they were on their use by date, and 3 or 4 days past that yesterday. The Aldi half was a very ripe, sweet and sticky persimmon. I still have two more from a pack of three, and I must try and eat them no later than lunch time because they do seem incredibly sweet. The final bit of lunch was a single apple - a very hard, sour and acid apple. It is either a horrible type of apple, and not a Cox as shown on the shelf label, or it needs a lot of ripening.

  After lunch I laid on my bed and read. I am very sure I had a snooze too. Apart from reading it was a fairly boring afternoon. I even resorted to two 25gm packets of crisp to scoop up some strong vintage cheddar cream cheese. That was a very unhealthy snack, and it left it's mark, although it was actually one of several things that left it's mark. Finally dinner time came around, and I was hoping it would be very tasty.

  I omitted to say that I had spend a little bit of time preparing my dinner earlier in the afternoon. I cleaned some baby potatoes, and put them in a casserole dish with beef stuck and diced beef. I gave it all a 15 minute blast in the microwave for an initial cook. Later on I added half a small bag of green beans I had bought in Aldi, and gave the entire thing another 10 minutes in the microwave. For extra flavour I added a very generous splash of Scotch Bonnet chilli sauce.

  Cooking the chilli sauce with the other ingredients diluted the heat a lot, but it still added some flavour. The potatoes were nice, but the diced beef would have been nicer if I had cooked it in the slow cooker for most of the day. I would hope that would have tenderised it. The way I cooked it left it a bit tough and chewy. To finish dinner I had a large orange as a dessert. It was a Tesco orange, and I think I have already moaned that they are rubbish, so I just leave this as an imaginary 5 paragraph rant about how useless these Tesco oranges are - not a patch on the nice ones from the mini supermarket on Catford Bridge.

  As usual, I watched some Star Trek while I ate, and as usual, the three episodes I saw were very mediocre. When they finished at 8pm I decided I had seen enough TV for the day, and thought about bed. Before it got too late I sent a brief message to Angela to say that I hoped her treatment went OK, and that I hoped she could relax and get a good night's sleep. I didn't expect a reply,but 20 minutes later I got one.

  Angela said the main problem was trouble on the trains, and she arrived late, but still got her radiotherapy. It seems that was not bad enough to comment on (although I doubt it could ever be the opposite and be nice). She also said that she has been warned that week three may see some of the less pleasant side effects of the radiotherapy. That makes he feel a bit apprehensive, and I will try and send he more positive messages to help her along during week three.

  I don't do all this stuff for personal gratification, but I have to admit that some of her comments do give me a very nice warm feeling inside. Her last massage to me last night said "Thank you so much. Your words and support help me more than you will ever know, and I appreciate this so very much xxxxxx".

  I spent a fair amount of time reading yesterday night because I was getting very near the end of the book, and I read through to the end before I tried to get to sleep.The only trouble was that I found I had passed through the point of maximum sleepiness, and found it took a long time to get in the right mood for sleeping. It was possibly near to 11pm before I fell asleep.

  One asleep I seemed to sleep well - mostly. Of course I was up every 2 or so hours for a pee, but I am so used to that now that I sometimes to the toilet when it is not strictly needed. I did try and sleep with the heater off, but during my sleep I must have kicked the duvet off, and then woke up shivering ! I think that was around 3am when the body is at it's lowest metabolic rate. I was tempted to put the heater on full blast, but putting it on low, and covering myself up seemed to be good enough, even if a little slow.

  I had two dreams that were worth recounting, but I find I can now only remember one of them, and some of that dream seems to be a bit vague. The bit I do remember was standing on a railway station platform waiting for a special train. It contained a marriage party, and it had been arranged to stop at a very specific spot so the doors were right opposite what I think was a bus. The train arrived, but all those in the marriage party were so involved in photographing, and videoing each other on their mobile phones that after a few minutes the train closed the doors and left with them still on it.

  This morning, maybe as a result of getting cold in the night, I woke up with lower back (or was it kidney or something) pain. Fortunately it was not too bad and seems to have faded away now, several hours later. I am almost tempted to say that otherwise, I felt fairly good this morning.  I have to say I was disappointed that after all the peeing in the night, and a decent sized poo soon after getting up, I seem to have put on some weight this morning - only a matter of a few hundred grams, but if I do that too often....

  I seems to crazy rule was working again this morning. I had obviously eaten wrong yesterday, but while my weight had gone up, my blood glucose readings were down again. The Contour meter read 7.6mmol/l, just 0.1 above my current target of 7.5mmol/l. The GlucoRX and Sinocare meters read nicely under the target. The GlucoRX read 7.0mmol/l, and nearly in the dark green area, and the Sinocare slightly higher at 7.4mmol/l. That all averages to 7.33mmol/l, and only two other averages this month were smaller. The smallest average was 7.2mmol/l, and so not that much smaller.

  Even my blood pressure is almost back to normal after a very small, and generally insignificant small rise. This morning it was 108/48, and I don't think anyone in the medical profession, with the possible exception of a mortuary assistant, could say anything bad about that.

  As I write this the sun is out again. It has gone in a few times, and maybe today is not going to be a great day for photography of trains and stations. Having said that, the Met Office forecast is a bit more optimistic than the BBC forecast, although the Met Office does note one rather negative thing - some light rain around 2pm. I'm not seven sure I want to go to The Jolly Farmers today, unless I get a call from Kevin asking if I am going today. I hope he doesn't assume I'll be there because I might not. I might possibly go for a little walk. or I might do nothing today, although "nothing" might include editing a few TV recordings that have been waiting for attention for ages now,