The strong winds should calm down at midday, but the rain, now all shown as light rain, will continue until 6pm. Before 6pm the temperature will be just 7° C, but it will rise to  8° C after. Once again, no hint of sunshine is expected. Tomorrow may be mostly dry until 7pm, and then mostly only drizzle. Once again not a single ray of sunshine is expected. The temperature will probably be the reverse of today - 8° C in the morning, and 7° C after 8am, and for the rest of the day.

  It seems curious to say it now, but yesterday seemed to be a quite good day - despite the loathsome weather. Not going out helped to make the weather of less concern, but one of the good things about yesterday was that my roof stayed on, and remained water tight despite that the the weather threw at it.

  Other good news, except for the postman, was the arrival of a couple of happy letters (well, sort of happy, because I can't seem to think of a better description right now). One was from the hospital with the results of my diabetic retinopathy exam. It was the usual (for the last 10 to 20 years) form letter - they could see some background retinopathy, but it wasn't considered serious. They advised to keep watching my blood pressure and keeping my blood glucose low. They will send out an appointment for another test in about a years time.

  The other letter was, in effect, two letters in one envelope. It was from EDF, my energy company (who I never really chose, but they were the successors to The London Electricity Board, and British gas). It seems that both my gas and electric accounts are, or were when the meter reading was taken, about £300 in credit still. Now the weather is colder and far more miserable, I will be burning that up pretty quickly, and I doubt I will make it through to spring before the credit is all gone.

  Another positive thing yesterday was that I washed the last three items in the laundry bag. It was two t-shirts, and a single pair of underpants. As usual, I left those items soaking in detergent, and came back to them half an hour to an hour later. I think I did the rinses and fabric conditioned in one go without taking a break in the middle. It was very different when I did some laundry later.

  All this positivity, particularly on such an awful weather day seemed unlikely, but I still managed to slightly regulate my eating. I had a lunch and afternoon tea/snack of a single large bap at each time, and the baps were filled with cheese, iceberg lettuce, and a splash of mayonnaise to hold it together ..... well sort of. It was a messy meal both times ! I think it might have been between those two small meals that I started a much more serious project.

  I started to wash a small towel, but it was no ordinary towel. It was the towel that had been protecting my pillow for far too long. It had been saturated with sweat so much that there was a sort of film of oil floating on the water after soaking in detergent for an hour. I must admit I was expecting that, and I planned, and did rinse it a few times before soaking it in another bucket of detergent. The first detergent was bio, but this second soak was in ordinary detergent.

  Even a small hand towel gets a bit heavy when saturated with water, and so I tended to only do about three or four rinses at a time, and would come back to it after a rest. I must admit it was more boredom than running out of strength that kept stopping me. In summer when it was warm and bright, I would have the window open, and there is less reason to be bored, and going off to read something from a book or the internet.

  After I had managed about 6 rinses in fresh water, it still looked a bit greasy. I decided one more soaking in detergent would probably get the rinse water running clear enough. I didn't actually do any more rinses, but I wrung out the detergent, and left the (hopefully) last rinses for today. I really must wash the towel over my pillow more often. I do tend to do it far more frequently in summer when it is more obvious I sweat in the night, but despite it being very obvious, because the towel is wet in the night, it never seems to be essential to wash it so frequently. That is silly, even madness !

  There was absolutely zero on TV that I would watch yesterday, and I ate my dinner just reading stuff on the internet (mostly https://what-if.xkcd.com/ - I am working my way back to the beginning of this amusing internet series). After eating the two large baps, I thought it would be prudent to eat more carefully, and I had two cans of Tesco's very low sugar, and low calories cream of chicken soup.

  I added the last remains, which was still a fair amount, from the bottle of pickled, sliced, red jalapeño chillies to the first can of soup. That was a big mistake. Those chillies a great in a sandwich, and probably a salad, but revolting in soup. I added chilli sauce to the second can, and that was rather nice. I had no more to eat until about 4am this morning - explanation coming up soon.

  With no TV to keep me watching the time it all gets a bit hazy now. I think I was reading in bed sometime after 8pm, but I think I got up again to check a few things on the internet. One thing I did want to check was how the trains were running. I had no intentions of going out, but I was just curious as to how they were fairing in the windy weather. All local trains were running normally, but some trains were delayed or cancelled because the effects of the weather in the south west of the country.

  It is probably I was back in bed, and asleep some time between 9 and 10pm. I seemed to sleep well, with no hints of any acid indigestion. It was probably about every two hours that I woke for a pee, but at about 2.30pm I went back to bed after a pee, and could not seem to fall back to sleep again. Some of the problem is that I felt cold, and couldn't seem to warm up even under the duvet. I turned the heater up full, and hoped for the best, but I still could not get back to sleep even when starting to feel warm.

  In the end I got up and sat at my PC to read more stuff, and do silly stuff like look at Open Street Map to satisfy some curiosity about the distances between places that I hope I'll be able to walk between next summer. Sometime after 3am I thought I was starting to feel sleepy again, and the heater had taken the edge of the cold. I went back to bed and tried to relax, and whether true or not, it seemed that at about 3 seconds before I was going to fall asleep again, I started coughing.

  Something, and I think it might have been one of my own hairs, was tickling my throat. I tried drinking to wash the supposed hair away, but that did nothing. As I recall, it seemed to be gone 3.30am when I got up again, and this time it was to eat a handful of salted peanuts. That seemed to stop the tickling in my throat, and after another 10 or so minutes, I went back to bed. I don't think I fell asleep very quickly, but I think I was probably asleep around 4am.

  I seemed to sleep well after that, and apart from getting up to pee at least once, and probably twice, I didn't get up until almost 8am. I know I had some dreams, and I can definitely remember thinking I ought to remember this one because it was interesting.... of course it very soon vanished from my memory as dreams so often do. I can't even remember the where, the who, and definitely what the plot of the dream was now, but at the time it seemed something worth recounting.

  Having got up I had yet another pee, and then weighed myself. Good news - sort of - it seems that in tke last 24 hours I have lost 300gm. I am almost back to the point when I look forward to seeing new lows (or at least lower weights I have not seen for several years or more), but while battling miserable weather, the annoyance of not being able to enjoy any but the very shortest of walks, it seems fantastic that I can occasionally get as low as this morning's reading at the moment.

  Not only is my weight down, but my blood glucose level too. The Contour meter read 8.4mmol/l, and although I would really prefer the figure to start with a 7, it is at least below my old target. The GlucoRX meter read 8.5mmol/l, or spot on my old target. The Sinocare meter only read a little bit higher at 8.7mmol/l. That gives an average of all three of 8.53mmol/l. I have had a couple of readings less that that so far this month, but it is good enough for now.

  My initial blood pressure reading was 116/43. The first figure, the systolic pressure, was still in the "Optimum" range, but higher than usual. It was because when I fist tried to read my blood pressure the meter ended up just say "OUT" - the batteries were too low to operate the meter. I tried again, and I did get that higher reading because of the minor stress of the meter failing. I then put fresh batteries in the meter, and allowed 5 minutes to calm down before trying again. This time I got a nice reading of 103/47.

  So far this morning the trains to Catford Bridge station are running perfectly on time. The significance of this is that if they continue to run OK this afternoon I should be getting a visit from Jodie for a beer tasting session. If she is lucky she might find the rain has either stopped, or is so light I can't see it from indoors, and also, by then the winds should have have dies down to just a strong breeze or less.

  Before Jodie come here I need to wash my hair and have a shower. If I have enough time left I may dare to go out to Tesco. It won't be essential, but it would be desirable. Tomorrow it might be closer to essential. The other thing I have to do, possibly in small stages, is to finish rinsing the hand towel I started washing yesterday. I hung it over the bath to dry yesterday, and I won't have to worry about having to empty buckets of soapy water before I can use the bath tub this morning.