It is certainly very dull now, but maybe it will get a bit brighter after 11am. The Met Office describes every hour of today as being "overcast". They are a bit more generous with the temperature and predict a single hour at 15° C, but 14° C for most of the afternoon. The BBC say 15° C for three hours this afternoon. The Met Office say all of tomorrow will be overcast with heavy grey clouds, but the BBC say light grey clouds. Both agree on a max 13° C tomorrow. 

  Yesterday could be described as a quite sort of day with very little happening. I didn't go out anywhere at all, and I saw and spoke to no one all day long. One consequence of that was that I never got around to having a shower yesterday. Not showering is getting a bad habit, although I do make sure I am clean and washed if I have a reasonable idea I will interest with anybody during the day.

  In my haste to finish writing quickly after an extremely late start, I missed one important fact about the day before yesterday. I did wash, and I did go out, and it was a double visit to the shops. I did my usual - first in Savers, and then cross the way into Poundstretcher. Most of what I bought in Savers was in pill form - either vitamins, pain killers, of hay fever tablets. I did buy one bottle of aniseed flavoured antacid as well.

  I had my usual rummage around Poundstretcher. The biggest thing, and in some respects the most important thing I bought was a new set of bathroom mats. They are the same exact design as the existing mats, but a lot brighter and cleaner. There is one to go next to the bathtub, and hand basin, and the other goes next to the toilet pan. Changing that latter one will make the whole bathroom smell a bit sweeter !

  The most important thing I did yesterday was to hand wash two pairs of long loungepants, and two pairs of underpants. As usual, I left it all soaking in detergent, although in this case I didn't have a shower first. It was several hours later when I went back to it and did the three rinses. When it was all in the third lot of rinse water I had a great excuse to take a break - I needed a pee. I spent 10 or 15 minutes on my PC after that, but then went and did the fabric conditioner before hanging it all on one of the small clothes horses to dry.

   One challenge yesterday was to eat very carefully. I was hoping to get my blood glucose readings a bit lower after a couple of days of them being very high. I 2/3rds achieved that, but more about that later. My breakfast was the usual instant noodles. For lunch I had rice crackers with cream cheese. I later had a small snack of a single packet of crisps, and a medium serving of Twiglets - a medium serving being not a few and not a big heap, but a small pile....or something like that.

  My dinner was two cans of soup selected to have only small amounts of sugar in them. After years of avoiding Heinz soups with the idea that they all contained huge amounts of sugar. Some most definitely do, but their Scotch Broth reports a low sugar content, as does their pea and ham soup. I am wondering if they might have made a big effort to reduce the sugar content in their soups recently after other companies, including many supermarket own brands, have taken the lead in reducing sugar content.

  Last Wednesday I wore my new leather motorbike style jacket to the pub. I had not lost the weight I had hoped to lose since I bought that jacket around Xmas, and although I can zip up the front, it still feels a bit like a straight-jacket. I would be happier if the arms were a bit roomier too. Yesterday I had another look for leather jackets on Amazon. I discounted anything made in China, and similar area because their sizes are a lot smaller than western sizes. Last spring I bought a leather jacket two sizes bigger than my almost, just about, fitting one, and it came from China. It was 2 sizes smaller, not bigger. It was the one I swapped for the leather trench coat style  coat.

  I found an apparently English sold leather jacket, although it was almost certainly made elsewhere, but I am hoping that if being sold by an English company they will make sure that 2 sizes bigger really is two sizes bigger. It was about £90, and so semi cheap compared to some, but a lot more expensive than those dodgy Chinese coats. The peculiar thing was that Amazon didn't seem to acknowledge my order, and so several hours later I logged in again, and it seems the order was OK. At just gone 9pm last night I got an email to say it had already been despatched, and I should be expecting it today ! Not bad for free delivery. I just hope it fits as I hope it will.

  I seemed to feel OK last night - no indigestion problems, and curiously very few, and then only very mild, ache and pains. It meant that when I finally tried to get to sleep I fell asleep quite easily. That was nice. I still probably woke up for a pee every 2 hours, but otherwise it seemed like I slept well. At 6am this morning I reluctantly became half awake, but I seem to recall I was thrashing around a bit, and I am not sure if I was trying to fight myself awake, or to deeper sleep, but I became fully awake and got up.

  I can remember tiny bits of dreams, but not enough to really describe any more than some snapshots. I seemed to be travelling on buses in not familiar parts of London, but the only real memory was going down the stairs on a crowded bus, and nearly trampling people as I tried to push my to the doors. There should be a lot more, but I think that is all I can describe.

  After getting up I went to the toilet, and I had a pee, but it seems I didn't need a poo. I have an annoying idea I may be having a mildly constipated day. When I got on the scales I seemed to have lost 200gm, and that is a very reasonable amount. If I could do that every day I would be losing 1.4kg a week, but sadly that never seems to happen. It is down one day, and up the next. The best I can manage is sometimes the downs can be bigger than the ups. Today I seem to be just a 300gm above my average for the previous 2 months.

  Regulating my eating yesterday has made an improvement in my blood glucose readings, but not as much as hoped. The Contour meter read 8.5mmol/l, and that was spot on my last target (which I have now made 7.5mmol/l after an earlier run of better readings). The GlucoRX meter read a slightly better 8.3mmol/l. I could accept those two readings as being very normal, nothing to worry about, but not the reading I got from the new Exactive meter. It did a typical Chinese meter thing with a very different, and higher reading. It was 9.4mmol/l, and if their is a grain of truth in that, it is a lot higher than desirable. Once again I feel the Chinese meters us a different way of reading blood glucose - one that may be a lot less tolerant of other chemicals in the blood.

  It seems I have been very naughty and not recorded any blood pressure readings for 3 days now, and I have no idea why. This morning I have corrected that. This morning it is another almost boringly low reading of 108/51. Maybe there is a clue there - my readings are invariably boringly so similar that maybe that is the reason why I didn't bother to record those that I seem to think I probably took yesterday the day before, and just the afternoon of the day before that.

  Today it is possible that I might go and get some shopping from Tesco. There is nothing essential I need, but there would be in a day or two if I don't go. With the outside world looking cold, grey and miserable, I have no desire to go further than Tesco, and with the next 3 or more days looking to have very similar weather I may as well get it over and done with. The only restraint on today is waiting for the Amazon delivery. I have a feeling it may be earlier than typical, but we'll see.