Yesterday's forecast for today said the day may start with sunny spells, but the reality is that it is grey morning, and the latest forecasts says it will stay that way all day, a;though the Met Office forecast still says there should be sunny spells from 9am (now !) until 3pm. From the look of the sky, which has the colour of dense grey lino, that seems highly unlikely (but fingers crossed !). The afternoon temperature should reach 15° C, and with no supporting sunshine it will probably feel quite chilly. The very early hours of tomorrow may feature mist, and by 6am it could be thick enough to be called fog. It won't disperse until 10am when we should have sunny spells until sunset. The Met Office says no mist or fog, but does admit to the last few hours of the morning having sunny spells. From midday they say thick, dark grey clouds for the rest of the day. The temperature tomorrow could rise to 15° C, and if The met Office turns out to be closer to reality, 16° C.

  Yesterday was one of those days when not a lot happened, and the day ended badly. Once I had finished writing, and having a short rest, I did the most important job of the day - to finish washing a couple of t-shorts and some underpants that I had left soaking in detergent the day before.

  The day before yesterday I was feeling off colour in ways that I cannot easily define - some mild aches and pains, but mostly just a feeling of lack of energy, and a lack of desire to force myself to do much. Yesterday I seemed to feel far better, and "back to normal", whatever that is, seemed to be how I felt. Finishing the laundry I had ignored the day before seemed far easier than expected, and I finished the job without taking any breaks.

  Much later in the late afternoon, maybe even very early evening, I did some repairs to my patch over the split in the bottom of the bathtub. The big patch cut from a rubber glove still seemed water tight, but the protective duct tape over it seemed to have a water soluble glue - which is useless for duct tape. I very easily pealed off any bits that were not already flapping about, and then carefully cleaned and dried the area. The duct tape I used was bright orange, and that be a bit bright, but I think/hope it may use a more water repellent adhesive.

  One delay it repairing that patch was because until recently I seemed to get chest pains when bent over the bath tube, to reach the bottom. Yesterday I had no such pains. I can almost believe something has changed for the better, but quite what is a mystery. It will be interesting to see if I feel any different, in a better direction, when I walk to the station to go go out for my usual (but not the last couple of weeks) lunchtime Guinness in The Jolly Farmers. I heard from Kevin yesterday, and he expects to join me today.

  One of the things I wanted to do yesterday was to eat in such a way that maybe I could lose a little bit of weight, and also get lower blood glucose readings this morning. Somehow it actually worked - a teeny, tiny bit. I thought I would fall at the first hurdle when my lunch, and a mid afternoon snack, was a few wholemeal rolls. Lunch was two cheese and onion rolls, and the snack was two pastrami and mustard rolls. The cheese and onion was more tasty, but the pastrami did not leave a lingering onion taste in my mouth, and that was part of the reason for having that later snack - to stop the lingering onion taste.

  I kept my dinner very simple, and I think it might have even been smaller than I might have chosen if I had made it myself. It was a small tub of Tesco, ready to eat, roasted chicken thighs. I zapped them in the microwave for about 3 minutes, so they were nice and warm and the grease was running freely. They were almost as tasty as I hoped for, but only after a sprinkle of hot pepper sauce. I did have some no sugar vanilla wafers after as a dessert.

  The only problem is that greasy chicken, and with only the wafers to slightly soak up the grease, would eventually give me terrible heartburn. I was stone cold sober, but last night seems very hazy in my memory. I think I tried for sleep at about 9pm, and I think I did fall asleep for as much as a couple of hours. It was when I woke up that I had the terrible heartburn, and the acid reflux seeming to come up high enough to only just miss burning my throat.

  It is probably that it was affecting me before I woke up, and maybe I kicked the duvet aside, and managed to chill a few bits of me (the heating was off at this time), or it was something else, but I most definitely hurt in several places. The worst was my right elbow, and to a lesser extent my right wrist. I put support bandages on both while also taking antacids, and paracetamol tablets. Not only was the top end of my digestive system complaining, but the other end gave hints that some action may take place there as well.

  The lower end never did do anything, but it still involved sitting on the toilet in a cold bathroom for several chilly visits. It is possible that once some of the worst had settled down a bit, I may have managed to get a few short sleeps, but essentially I didn't get any proper sleep until about 3am. Even then I woke up several times, and each time I went for a pee, but it seemed like I did not pee much, in terms of volume, all night.

  After thinking I had not peed much in the night I expected not to see any weight loss this morning, and probably quite the opposite. I slept right through to 8am before I got up, and then I did one of the bigger pees of the night, and I also did a medium sized poo. When I got on the scales I was delighted to see that I had lost a whole 100gm compared to yesterday, and I am now back down to what seems to be a barrier I can rarely cross.

  I thought that maybe the seemed lack of pee might suggest my blood glucose might be nice and low this morning. It was lower, but only by the thinnest margins. The Contour mete read 8.3mmol/l, and at least that was less than my old target of 8.5mmol/l (I am aiming for 7.5mmol/l currently). The GlucoRX meter read 8.6mmol/l, or just over the old target. The Sinocare meter read 8.4mmol/l. I tried the new Exactive meter again this morning, and it seemed to be almost following the trend with a reading of 8.7mmol/l. That meter does not feature in my average for the day which was 8.43mmol/l. Yesterday that average was very slightly higher at 8.53mmol/l. Knowing how all these meters rarely agree except in the broadest of terms, I guess that small difference is actually meaningless, but at least it looks like it is lower.....

  This morning I will definitely need to have a good shower, and to wash my hair after doing neither yesterday, and I think I'll have a wet shave too - even if there is no one to kiss ! After that, and some time to cool off, I shall go out to the station to make my way, via Ladywell station, and a small bit of train spotting, to the pub where I should be joined by Kevin. I have no reason to think that today;s walking will be any better than last time, but I do have a crazy idea that it might be. Maybe I'll be comfortable walking all the way until I go over the footbridge, and that last effort brings on some angina pains.

  One possible reason for the walk being easier, or involve less angina pain was that my blood pressure seemed to be higher this morning. That was only because I just slammed the pressure cuff on and hit the start button with no preparation. That gave a quite high (but still safe) reading. After leaving it for a minute or two, and taking a couple of deep breaths to relax myself, the second reading far far better, down from "high normal" to "optimum" at 107/48.