It should be misty now, but it still seems to be clear outside, although the clouds make it a bit dull. Today will most probably be another day with no sunshine, and the temperature will only rise to the same as yesterday, 15° C, and hopefully that will feel just about OK (although at the moment I have had to have the heating in low to stay warm). Tomorrow might, but probably won't start with mist. It is going to be a little cooler tomorrow. Just 14° C is forecast, but there is a small possibility of a few sunny spells in the mid to late afternoon.

  Yesterday must be recorded as one of the better days, although it did invoke my great paradox. More about that later. One thing I didn't do that I said I would, was to have a hot shave, but I did use my beard trimmer without the guard on it to shave well enough to look clean shaven if you don't look too carefully !

  That close-ish shave, that would never pass the kissing test, which I correctly assumed would never happen, was just an extension of trimming my beard prior to washing my hair and having a shower. This time I got the water spot on - initially feeling like it was too hot when it touched my head, but becoming very nice once I got use to it. My repaired patch on the crack in my bathtub worked perfectly, and I think that this time the duct tape does not use a water soluble glue.

  The one downside to that hot shower was that it seemed to take an age until I cooled down - particularly after giving my brain a second boil using the hair dryer. I was still feeling a bit too warm and tending to be slightly sweaty, when I put my coat on to walk to the station. Incidently, my coat was the leather jacket I bought for myself last Xmas. It remains a bit tight, particularly around the arms, and so there is very little air flow, and it can feel a lot hotter when wearing it. It didn't seem too bad yesterday, but it was nice to take it off when I was indoors.

  I probably could have waited at least 15 minutes, if not 30 minutes before I went out, but it is always useful these days to leave some slack so I don't have to rush. I think the plan was to get to the station, pick up 2 copies of The Metro, and take a snap of the London bound train from the wrong platform. The actuality was that I got to the station faster than expected. I had time to wait on the wrong platform for about a minute, and then with the hints of upcoming angina fading away again, I went over the footbridge with no difficulty, and still had another full minute before the train came - the train 15 minutes earlier than my usual train.
  When I got to Ladywell I had plenty of time to look around to see if there was anything worth taking a photo of. I saw the above nuts/fruits that were familiar on a familiar looking tree, but I realised I had no idea what they or the tree were called (and I still don't this morning).
  I have this feeling it is only an occasional crow that like a paddle in the river. It seems a fairly rare sight. Maybe there was something there that attracted this one, or maybe it was ill or something. Two possibilities come to mind. It may have got something sticky on it when rummaging through a litter bin (something usually blamed on foxes), or maybe it had parasites it wanted to wash off when it dipped it's head, shoulders and wings in the water, and splashed about a lot.
  It doesn't require a lot of patience to wait until a squirrel does a nice pose for you - and particularly in a place like around St Mary's church in Ladywell. They are used to being fed by people (although a lot of the time it is actually stealing seeds and stuff thrown ton the birds), and will often turn to face a human to see if they are about to throw some seeds or nuts at them. Sadly I had no treats for squirrels or all the pigeons around the place.

  I was very early when I got to the pub. Ayse was pleased to see me, and looking very brown again after her week in the sunshine in the canary islands (at least I think the island she went to was one of the canary islands). Apparently it is a very cheap place to go to off season, and if you are a smoker, and can get away with getting 4 x 200 packs of the cheap local cigarettes through customs when coming back home, it half pays for the holiday.

  One of the bonuses of yesterday's drink was that I was expecting to see Kevin. He arrived some time after 1pm, and by then I had done all of the quick crossword (which I'll admit I had difficulty finishing) plus solved a single cryptic clue. I had also finished my first pint, and I was at the bar when Kevin walked in. From then on I knew I was in for a dangerous time ! The danger can be summed up quite easily by saying that I ended up having four pints of Guinness, and three double Jameson whiskies.

  Apart from missing the first pint of Guinness, Kevin kept pace with me, and he might have been slightly wobbly when we left the pub. We spent all those hours - it was almost 5.45pm when I got back to Catford Bridge, and almost 6pm when I got home. We had spent the time discussing out healths, who had died - and that included quite a long boring piece about the family I never knew of, of a very old work mate, who had all died from one thing or another.
  It was genuinely late, and being dark rubbed in how late it was, when we left the pub - Kevin heading to Lewisham for a bit of shopping, and me heading back to Ladywell station for a train back to Catford Bridge. I was probably drunk enough that I could have walked back through the dark park, but last time I did that I fell over in the park twice, and twice more when I got home, although a few more doubles from the top shelf probably helped.

  I found I didn't seem to feel as drunk as expected. It didn't feel like I was wobbling as I walked to the station, and from Catford Bridge station to home, although I was definitely being very careful looking for uneven bit of the road and pavement. However there was one clue I was fairly drunk - I gave in to an insane, or at least very naughty, desire to go into the fried chicken shop for chicken and fried for my dinner.

   After nothing to eat since my breakfast it was very nice to get home, and tuck into hot food without having to cook it first. Once again I found 4 small bits of chicken in the box when I had only ordered 3 pieces (and I think I only paid for three). Maybe it was my timing, or just my friendly aura, or something that makes me get an extra freebie in there. It is not as if I am a regular customer these days.

  I found those 4 bits of chicken, plus the single portion of "fries" to be very satisfying. It made me think that if I had been home three hours earlier, as I would have been if drinking on my own, I would have had a later lunch, plus a dinner, and combined they may have been more than the chicken and chips. (More as in more calories and more sugar content). While I ate I watched a bit of TV, but as soon as I finished eating, which was just as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was finishing, I turned the TV off, and checked, selected, and prepared the few photos I used today.

  It was not long after 8pm that I brushed my teeth, and retired to bed to read. I didn't read that much before I kept feeling my eyelids drooping. I put the book down, and it could not have been very long after 8.30pm before I was fast asleep. The next thing I remember was waking up again, for a pee, at just after 1am. That must have been one of the longest non stop sleeps I have had in ages.

  Even after that nearly four and a half hour sleep, I didn't pee much when I went for a pee, and the same when I woke up again about 2 hours later. It was not until 4am when I had what seemed like the big pee I was expecting. It was almost as if my blood glucose level was nice and low. At some point in the night I had a mildly unpleasant dream. It could be called a nightmare, but it seems even in the dream I knew it was fiction, and a sort of extension of the book I had been reading,

  The book, "Deathworld 1" by Harry Harrison, is about a planet where ever single member of the native fauna and flora was deadly to humans, and was sort of making a concerted effort to rid the planet of the Human intruders. My dream contribution to the story was about a creature that looked like a huge blister on the back of someone's acoustic guitar. Once burst it leaked very strong acid over the players belly.

   I finally got up just after 6am, and headed straight to the toilet. I did another big pee, and a very large poo. When I got on the scales I found I had lost 700gm, and I was 2kg lighter than at the start of the month, although my weight on the 1st of the month was one of those occasional peaks. Nevertheless, a 700gm loss in 24 hours was very satisfactory, and seems to have broken the rules about what some (miserable bastards) would say about drinking so much booze followed by greasy fast food in the form of chicken and chips.

  Once upon a time until I discovered what I thought of as science was all wrong, I would associate weight loss with low blood glucose. How wrong I was ! The morning the Contour meter read a terrible 10.5mmol/l - well into the danger zone. The other two weren't quite so bad. The GlucoRX meter read 9.6mmol/l, and even that is not really acceptable. The Sinocare meter had a chance for a gigantic reading, but this time it was only 9.9mmol/l, or only just less than being in the danger zone. I guess it is high irony that I start getting high blood glucose readings now I have booked my blood tests for the 12th of November.

  Two things may or should happen today. There is some element of doubt as to when Royal Mail (and apparently not Parcel Force) will deliver my new potato bin. The last tracking info I saw was that it had arrived at Croydon, and would be sent to my local delivery office. I am guessing it will be delivered by my normal postman around midday, and at that rate it sounds like it is a lot smaller than I was expecting.

  This afternoon should be a beer tasting session with Jodie and Michael. The downside is that Michael will be bending my ear about either his broadband or his mobile phone service. After years of trying to get him to say which he really means, he cannot seem to differentiate the two. That is one big headache when I just want to get drunk. Today we should be trying the three Devil/Beezlebub themed brews I bought without realising how that would be very appropriate for Halloween - which is today !