I'm very sure it was not 5° C at 8am, but more like 2° C. There was a very thick frost this morning because of the sky being clear for most of the night. The sky should stay clear until 9pm, and there will be non stop sunshine for all daylight hours. The temperature is forecast to peak at 1pm, and then it should be 9° C.  With the temperature now (9.43am) still a smidgen away from 5° C, it is possible today's high may not be as high as forecast. There will be some cloud from about 9pm, and the temperature should rise again. The temperature at 6am tomorrow morning is forecast to be about 9° C. It will probably be all dull tomorrow, but a maximum of 13° C is about the best compensation for that we can hope for.

  Yesterday started as a disaster - huge weight gain, and horrendous blood glucose readings - but I did get things under control for a while, and indeed I did get things very much under control later for some good readings this morning, but the bad effects were still apparent in the afternoon.

  The first thing I did yesterday was not to have any breakfast. I had to omit my usual cod liver oil capsule in with my morning medication and stuff, because I can't stand the taste of burped up cod liver oil. Burping the taste of spicy instant noodles is the cure, but not having anything for breakfast  meant that I had no defence from the cod liver oil capsule. The curious thing is that I didn't feel hungry during the morning. If it wasn't for that cod liver oil capsule I could easily skip breakfast like I used to when I was working.

  I didn't attempt to re-do the patch over the crack in my bathtub yesterday, but I did put a few more strips of what seems to probably be a better quality duct tape over the places where I thought the water was getting through. I had a quick shower after that, and I didn't notice the carpet getting damp. I know it is probably a very temporary  repair that I will have to do properly some time, but for now it seems OK.

  At midday I checked my blood glucose readings again (although I only used the two reliable meters, and ignored the joke one). I hoped for some improved, and I was stunned when I saw just how improved things were. The Contour meter, 11.4mmol/l at 7am, was right down to a perfectly acceptable 8.5mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read 11.1mmol/l at 7am, and at midday was down to a quite good 8.2mmol/l at midday.

  On the basis of those readings I felt safe to have some lunch, which as I mentioned yesterday morning, was almost essential before drinking beer in the afternoon. I had two wholemeal rolls (the smaller type, and not baps as I was going to buy). I filled those two small rolls with tomato, cheese and ham. With hindsight the ham was superfluous, and would have been better on it's own with some mustard. The only trouble is I really messed it all up by also having two small packets of crisps to scoop up some BBQ chicken flavour sandwich filler.

  Maybe I didn't really mess things up with that unhealthy extra on top of the two roll. Maybe the two rolls by themselves was enough to give me a slight feeling of bloat. It would have been no problem at other times, and I might have snoozed it away, but it blunted my appetite for beer.

  I think it was getting close to 4pm when Jodie arrived for our beer tasting session. I think she had stopped off on the way to get some shopping. I am not really aware of the reason, but it may have been that she over did it the night before, and so she was not a terribly keen drinker yesterday. That made two of us, and I think we only got through about 4 bottles of beer between us. I also had a can of Polish lager to myself, but I almost had to force the last couple of mouthfuls down.

  I did seem to get quite near to vomiting a couple of times, but fortunately nothing happened. Not only was Jodie not in a beer drinking mood, but she was very uncommunicative. She spent ages doom scrolling on her phone. Things may have been a bit more lively if I had remembered to remind Michael that we were drinking. He knows he has an open invitation to join us every Thursday. I don't know if he just forgets, or is too shy or something, but unless I send him a reminder he doesn't show, and I felt I had left it too late to remind him.

  Later on I was glad he wasn't there. I felt too rough to want to drink a minute later than needed. It was fortunate that Jodie was picked up a little bit before 6pm by Mark, who was taking her to their mutual friend Arm who was celebrating his birthday for the third day in a row ! I was more than happy to get my dinner ready, and it was a very strange dinner. I wanted something very light, and I was going to have a can of chicken soup.

  The potential trouble with chicken soup is that it is slightly bland, and I would have perked it up with some extra hot, Scotch Bonnet, based chilli sauce - not ideal when your guts are feeling fragile. The main course of my dinner was actually a tub of Iceland's "My Protein", low sugar and calories, ice cream. It was an odd thing on a freezing cold night, but indoors, in the warm, it went down well. After that I had a palmful of peanuts, and a small lump of cheese.

  I ate while watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It was one of their better episodes. I then watched Star Trek: Voyager, and to my surprise it was also a fairly good episode. That finished at 8pm, and by 8.30pm I think I was asleep in bed. In the first hours of sleep I was dreaming about the book I have been reading, and in particular the couple of pages I managed to read before I just could not keep my eyes open.

  It was quite strange dreaming because I seemed to be going over what I had read, and I was trying to remember what happened next (I had read the book before 3 or many more years ago). I don't think I was dreaming I was reading the book, and it seemed to be a dream about just thinking and remembering. As far as I can remember I didn't see or hear anything, and it was all inside my head. I almost wonder if it was technically a dream, but I am very sure I was not awake because I am very sure I woke up to go for a pee.

  I don't think I woke up to go for a pee more times than usual, and it may have been less than usual, but the quantity of pee passed seemed to be a lot more than usual. This would turn out to be a good thing - maybe with also a slight negative. After getting up, and going for my "official" morning pee and poo (if I could do the later, which I didn't) I weighed myself, and found I was a whole 600gm lighter than yesterday. It is still not as low as it should be, but it is the same as my average for this month, which might be good.....or bad.

  I did note that my pillow had got damp from face sweat a few times in the night, and that would be another fluid loss. It is possible I may have been very slightly dehydrated this morning, and that can make my blood glucose readings seem to be higher than they should be. this morning the Contour meter read 9.6mmol/l. That is still too high, but at least it is a lot less than yesterday morning, and below the red danger line. The GlucoRX meter read a slightly better, but still too high 9.4mmol/l. As usual, on it's second to last day of use, the Exactive meter had a reading that was very different to the other two. It read 10.5mmol/l, and well into the danger area. Tomorrow I will use that meter one more time, and then it will be (possibly) permanently retired.

  I think I still need to be a bit careful with what I eat today if I hope to get lower readings tomorrow - which I hope I will. At least I don't have to worry about my blood pressure. This morning it was very slightly higher than the average with a reading of 109/45. Not quite as good as one of my super low readings, which might actually a be a good thing and not a bad thing, but it is most definitely in the meters "Optimum" diagnostic function.

  With it promised to be an all sunny day, albeit rather cold, I would properly feel under some pressure to go out and frolic in the sun, but maybe not today. Tomorrow I will be going out to take some snaps of the few bands who will be on the live stage of the Petts Wood Xmas lights ceremony. One thing makes it even better this year, and it is not the bands who will be playing, that would be almost the opposite of good, but the fact that it seems the trains to Sevenoaks are being diverted to run via Petts Wood - so I have a direct service to and from Petts Wood.

  The only fly in the ointment about tomorrow is that is, or hopefully was, when my latest order from Amazon, more blood glucose meter test strips, were due to be delivered. Upon checking I find that my parcel arrived at the Dartford depot at just gone midnight this morning. There is no reason they won't be out for delivery a bit later this morning, and I will get them some time this afternoon. I'll have to stay in to wait, and luxuriate in the hot sunshine coming through my bedroom window and onto my bed.