The Met Office says it will be misty until quite late in the day. It did look misty when I peeped out from behind the curtains at about 6:30am, but once there was a bit more light in the sky it had vanished - if it was even there in the first place ! This morning it seems to be a few tenths of a degree below the forecast 6° C, but it is supposed to warm up to 7° C very soon. Drizzle may start to fall at 1pm, and the temperature should go up another degree by 2pm, and at 4pm the drizzle may turn into light rain. It is going to be another miserable day with no sunshine. Tomorrow may be another sunless day, but the clouds may be a bit lighter. The temperature sometimes be 6° C and sometimes 7° C, but by midnight the temperature could fall to 5° C.

  The main problem yesterday was the dull and cold weather. I burned a lot of electricity keeping my bedroom, where I tend to spend much of my free time, warm. I was OK when I went out. I wore one of my thick hooded coats, and at one time I was feeling a bit too warm !

  Yesterday morning seemed to be slow, or maybe it went too fast, It depends on your perspective. All I know is that once I finished writing, had my traditional 30 to 40 minute lie down, washed my hair and had a shower, and then blow dried my hair, it was getting late, and I would miss the train I usually get by about a minute. The train was to Take me to Ladywell, and from there, armed with two copies of The Metro (from Catford Bridge station) I walked to the Jolly Farmers.
 
  When I got to The Jolly Farmers (everyone but the sign writer knows it is "Farmers", plural) I found the Xmas decorations were up. Whoever did it did a reasonable job, but I can't say I found there was any "wow factor" to it all, but this is because I am just indifferent to any Xmassy sort of things, and have been for many,many years. I will put up my mini tree and some lights for Jodie and Michael, but otherwise I wouldn't bother. When I was working Xmas was just another couple of days off work, and since retiring it is no different to the endless days that are all the same.

  I had my usual two pints of Guinness, and didn't really fancy any more than that. It was so dull outside that I kept thinking it would be night very soon, and if I didn't leave the pub then I might be late getting to bed. Once I went outside it seemed less like late evening out there.

  It seemed quiet in the pub at first, but it wasn't long before the usual regulars started coming in, and the banter started. Shawn came in with his dog Stella, and while started telling what often seem like tall stories, Stella continued her love affair with Ayse, my favourite barmaid. it is odd that Ayse doesn't really like dogs, but she likes Stella, and Stella likes her because she is the source of treats ! Stella was once barred from going behind the bar, but now spends most of her time there.

  Yesterday's quick crossword in The Metro was once again as easy as it should be. It is just hard enough to tax the brain, but easy enough that many people finish it on their commute to work. There were a few clues where I had to cheat. The were the names of contemporary actors or actresses, and I have very little knowledge of them. Fortunately there was enough information in the clue to enable a simple internet search to come up with an answer. I think I finished the quick crossword before I finished my first pint.

  I then went on to the cryptic crossword as I drank my second pint. Halfway through that second pint I had only managed to solve 3 or 4 answers. I gave up and decided to read some news in the paper. I think most of it just went in one ear eye and out the other. So much of modern popular news is about alleged famous who I have rarely heard of, and I am not interested in - no matter how many movies they have been in, and how many sex scandals that have been in.

  As I mentioned above, once I left the pub it seemed brighter outside, although it was all still very grey. When I had arrived at the pub I was beginning to feel a bit too warm under my coat because I had been doing a fair bit of walking and only interrupted by a 2 minute ride on a war train. I did not feel so warm as I walked back to Ladywell Station, but I didn't feel cold either - except for cold hands because I didn't think to wear gloves.
  I had a 10 minute wait for the next train after missing one by just a few minutes. Even standing around, I still felt quite comfortable in my blue hooded winter coat. I think the last selfie I showed of me wearing it was over a week ago, and on that occasions it was raining, and that coat kept me dry. I think I bought the coat 3 or more years ago, and it was quite cheap, maybe around £30, and it seems it was a bargain. Originally it seemed very tight, but now it seems very comfortable, although getting the zip over my belly can be a bit tricky to avoid catching my t-shirt in the zip.

  As usual, I took pictures of the front and back of every train I saw, but sadly there was no train I had not photographed before. On my way home I called into the little supermarket on Catford Bridge where I bought 4 apples, and a lot of assorted instant noodles, and a big packet of Lay's KFC flavour crisps. I tried some when I got home, and they just have that savoury taste that is usually described as roast chicken, but is closer to thyme and something stuffing.

  Apart from that taster, I made up two small wholemeal rolls with cream cheese, tomato and iceberg lettuce, plus a squirt of mayonnaise. It was about 3pm when I arrived home, and only a few hours until an early dinner. It was the start of what was really slightly excessive eating. That included some small snacks that by themselves were mostly harmless, but added together they were not good for me - mainly in just one respect.

  One thing I almost forgot was that when I got home I noticed a couple of small packets from Amazon, that I was expecting today, were tucked in behind the black wheelie bin. They contained two pairs of SD memory cards - two big ones for my big Nikon camera (which takes two cards at a time, but only needs one to function*) - and also a new 2TB solid state hard drive to replace the unknown named Chinese on that started to produce file errors after a few months of use.

* The big Nikon D610s camera can use the two cards in different ways depending on what is selected in the main menu. The safest way is to have one memory card as a duplicate of the other. Another option is to use the second card as an overflow if the first card fills up. The third option is for one card to store JPG versions of the pictures, and the other to store RAW versions of the pictures. The latter are uncompressed and are huge files, but more versatile during photo editing. It is very rare that I feel the need to use them.

  I can't remember whether it was before or after dinner that I started copying my /home partition over to the new solid state hard drive, but I do know it ran most of the evening, over night, and only finished about 5 minutes ago ! It takes quite a long time to copy about 1.6TB of data !

  My dinner, eaten while watching Star Trek, was a three part session. I started with the last of the "grill chips2 I have mentioned the last couple of days. I decided I didn't really like them, but rather than throw them away, I had the last of them as part of my dinner - it was quite a small portion of extra well cooked chips - cooked enough to make the top layer almost blackened and very crispy.

  The second part of my dinner was a liver and bacon, with mashed potato, ready meal. It was not very nice, and I don't really know why I bought it because I know they are not nice. It just seemed like a sort of good idea at the time. I guess they are not actually horrible, but just sort of disappointing - particularly compared to what my mum used to make. The final bit of my dinner was a single apple as a dessert. It was a Croatian "Red" apple from the same grower as the Golden apples I seem to like.

  Last night was a bit silly. I was feeling tired, but I didn't seem to try to go to sleep until quite late. The last bit of TV I saw was Have I Got News For You, and that followed QI (or was it the other way around ?). Anyway, it was 11pm when I turned the TV off and went to bed. I read for an unknown amount of time before I turned the light off. I didn't consciously plan it that way, but it worked well because I think I fell asleep with seconds of turning the light out.

  I seemed to sleep well, and maybe I woke less often to pee, maybe.... There is one one bit of dream I remember, and it was about purifying, or something, some sort of pale pink liquid in conical flasks. I can't seem to recall what the liquid was, although there is a hint of an idea it might have been natural either from out of the ground, or something like plant sap. It was left for some time for some sediment to settle, and then the flask was decanted to leave the sediment behind. I don't even know whether it was the clear liquid or the sediment that was the wanted product. It seemed to be a long dream where almost nothing happened !

  For some unknown, and to be honest a stupid reason, I was up early this morning, although by early I mean the sort of time I would get up when the sun rose before 6am. It was not long after 6am when I got up. Had it been closer to 8am I would probably have had another pee, and maybe in the specific case of this morning, have had a second poo, and it would look less like I seem to have put on a lot of weight in the last day. If I had bothered to get undressed down to my underwear, before I ate my breakfast, I may have found I had only put on a little weight, but once the big increase was logged on my spreadsheet, it was immutable.

   Maybe there is something good about that. I was definitely partly constipated yesterday, and that would make me seem heavier. This morning I am not constipated, and I think there is a fair chance it will turn out that I am definitely, definitely not constipated today. There is a chance if I eat carefully today I will find that today's weight was just a blip, and everything will be back to normal tomorrow morning - although of course this is unlikely because booze will be consumed today.

  As is often the case, the very nature of physics and chemistry seemed to be warped again. My weight may be up, but my blood glucose is down. This does hint that my eating yesterday was less cavalier than I thought. The Contour meter read a fairly good 8.3mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read an even better 8.1mmol/l. Only the Sinocare meter gave a slightly higher, and mildly disappointing reading of 8.7mmol/l - but that is still good enough.

  One bothersome thing is that I am still seeing slightly higher than average blood pressure readings. Having said that, 112/47 is still very good. My meter describes it as "Optimum". What bother me is whether this admittedly very small rise is part of a continuing trend. On the other hand, the average morning Systolic pressure so far this month is only about 1 different from the averages of the last 3 or 4 months. I guess it is no bother, but I'll keep and eye on it.

  The main thing today will be a beer tasting session with Jodie, and probably Michael too. It will make for a bit of a busy time for me because I feel I probably should get the little little beer fridge top Xmas tree out, and put some lights up. I know where the lights are, and I have already bought spare AA batteries for them. I think I know where the mini xmas tree is, and it will mean lugging a chair up the stairs to get it from off the top of the cupboard on the top landing. I think my spare Xmas cards, possibly with spare stamps, are up there too.