Good solid sunshine is forecast for this morning. There has been some, but as I write this the sun is stuck behind a cloud. Hopefully there will be more sunshine or sunny spells soon. It was a very cold morning with my thermometers showing it to be only just over 4° C. It should warm up to 7° C, and maybe that won't feel so bad when standing in full sunshine, but otherwise it will be bloody freezing ! Hopefully, if it ever returns, the sun will shine through my front windows, and warm the front rooms up nicely. From 7pm we can probably expect drizzle, with an occasional break, until the end of the day. Tomorrow is going to be dry and a lot warmer - maybe 12° C, but it will come at the cost of it being initially grey, and later on, very grey without a single hint of sunshine.

  Most of yesterday was pretty good, although it all went terribly wrong late last night (and into the early hours of this morning). All that going wrong is the main reason why I have started writing so late, but it is also because time seems to have slipped. At 8am I was sure that I would be ready to start writing by 9am, or soon after.

  The main problem I had yesterday morning was dangerously high blood glucose. On any other day, or maybe a day that was warm, bright and shiny, I would have fasted until dinner time, and then tried to be extra careful with what I ate for dinner. Yesterday involved another shopping trip to Tesco, and all the temptations that brings. Later on strong booze would bring different temptations. To my surprise I dodged most bullets !

  I managed to keep my writing short yesterday, just 1493 words (some days it can be double that or more), and that meant I finished writing maybe even slightly early. It gave enough time for a short rest, and then a shower plus washing and conditioning my hair. That felt very good. Once I was completely dry, and had done a couple of small chores - taking the waste and recycling bags out the correct bins outside - I set off to Tesco.

  There were just two things on my shopping list. One was a lot of packets of instant noodles. The other was more Diet Coke. I like to get in excess at this time of the year because shopping gets a bit hectic in the last days in the run up to Xmas, and sometimes that can continue in the days after Xmas. It should have been a nice walk to Tesco in the sunshine, but the wind felt like icy daggers cutting into my face.

  Maybe almost half of my shopping basket seemed to be full of instant noodles, but there was one other thing I forgot to mention in the previous paragraph. I wanted to get, and did get, a couple of frozen ready meals to keep in the bigger freezer compartment of my new fridge. Not so clever on a day I was supposed to be doing my best to keep my sugar intake as low as possible, were some reduced price ready made sandwiches.

  Two of the "sandwiches" were actually wrap, and went under the banner of "Gym Kitchen" - supposedly high protein and low everything else. I haven't rechecked, but I seem to recall they had a quite high sugar content. They are still in the fridge, maybe for eating today. The actual sandwich I bought was a brie and cranberry sandwich on wholemeal bread. Fortunately cranberries are nasty sour berries, and that sandwich actually had a very low sugar content.

  My walk home from tesco was OK because my shopping bag was unusually light - being mostly instant noodles ! Of course my rucksack was rammed with 4 x 2 litre bottles of Diet Coke, and three much smaller bottles of hot chilli sauce. Once I got home, which was about 1.30pm, I wanted some lunch, but I was supposed to be fasting. On the other hand, drinking beer later did mean that it would be good to have something in my stomach. The best compromise was to have a big apple, a single Persimmon, and a small chunk of cheese.

  I didn't think that fruit could really do any good. The traditional thing would be to line the stomach with something nice and greasy - or even a big glass of full fat milk - but maybe that fruit did work. At the end of a reasonably heavy session I was definitely drunk, but not roaring drunk. It probably helped that I did have a few small nibbles while drinking, and one of them was definitely needed after I took my early evening pills, and they included a cod liver oil capsule. That fish tasty was interfering with the taste of the beer !

  Jodie was a little later arriving because she had missed her desired train, and got the bus instead. She then dared to go into Aldi on the way here. She claims it didn't seem to busy in there. Maybe she just got lucky. She seemed to be on good form yesterday. I am sure she said she hadn't had much to drink the day before, and so was ready to tackle some of the stronger beers in the beer fridges. That was absolutely fine with me. 😀

  For this beer tasting session I put on a t-shirt I had found at the back of my old wardrobe (which is actually in the spare room). It was a present from Jodie 10 or 15 years ago. It shows modern and heritage trams from the Helsinki tram system. The t-shirt is in pretty good condition because it didn't originally fit me, and even now it is a close fit, but definitely wearable.

  A bit later we were joined by Mark. He brought me a present of a few large candles. Jodie had also brought a present for me last Thursday, but we decided I would open it a bit nearer Xmas - which was yesterday. It was a bottle of light blue stained salt with a grinder as the bottle cap. It would look good at some sort of formal dinner, but I guess I'll just be using it as salt.

  Mark drove Jodie for a meetup with Alan, and I got my dinner ready. Actually it needed no preparation except for being left outside of the fridge for an hour or two. It was a Tesco "Finest" quiche with mature Cheddar and beechwood smoked bacon. It might have been nice if gently warmed first (but not re-cooked), but it wasn't too bad still quite cold - just mildly bland. The original plan was to have nothing more, but the booze compelled me to have the brie and cranberry sandwich.

  There was no entertainment on TV last night, and the booze was making me feel sleepy. I read in bed for a while, and sometime after 8pm I was fast asleep in bed. I slept apparently soundly until about 90 minutes later when I got up for a pee. When I tried to get back to sleep I guess I had a mild hangover, and I will blame that for keeping me awake, although there is no rational explanation as to why that should make my bed feel lumpy and uncomfortable.

  At half past midnight I think I had got myself in that sort of half awake, half asleep state. A few minutes more and I would have been soundly asleep. Just before that happened my phone when beep. It was a message from Angela. It seemed a very odd time to ask how to get to Luton by train, but I gave her the basic answer of a Thameslink train from Catford station, and warned there would probably be a simple cross platform change of train at Blackfriars station.

  That seemed to be all she wanted to know, and thanked me. If I was a bit more awake, and at my PC instead of being in bed I would have offered to check the times of trains and such like, but I turned over and tried to get back to sleep. Instead I laid in bed intrigued as to what she would want to go to Luton, and and why she only thought of it in the middle of the night. As far as I am aware, she does not know anyone in Luton, but maybe she does.

  There was no real reason to think it, but I had an idea she would be travelling by herself. If her husband was involved I would have thought they would have driven there. Maybe if I do see her at the MT Pockets gig on the 28th of this month, I might learn more about it. As I slowly tried to get back to sleep there were some difficulties. One was simply remedied by going for a poo. It is not much fun at that time of the night when the toilet seat is icy cold, but it was a start to get things moving after some mild constipation during the day.

  The other problem was that I started to get some mild acid indigestion that was giving me very light chest pains. The only option was to take some antacid stuff, and sit at my PC waiting for it to work. I helped that along, plus other aches and pains with a couple of Paracetamol tablets. Eventually I started to feel OK, and I went back to bed. It took a fair time until I was getting into that no man's land between wake and sleep......

  .....and at 2.36am my phone went bleep again. This time it was a message from Kevin. I think he probably has similar, but extra problems to me, and spends many hours awake in the night. His message said that due to health problems, ageing, and similar problems, he didn't expect he would be able to meet me for a Xmas beer until after Xmas, and suggested the 30th December as the earliest most likely time he would be able to meet.

  I didn't answer Kevin until this morning, and instead concentrated on getting back to sleep - which I think I did not too long after 3am !! From then the night proceeded as normal. I had some dreams that I can only part remember, and I had to get up for a pee near 6am. Before I got back to bed I refreshed the weather forecasts so I could take screenshots later when I got up - which was around 8am.

  One dream I had was quite fragmented and I can only give an overview about it - except the end (which was probably a different dream anyway). In the dream I had met up with what I thought was Angela, but it was actually her daughter, and she wanted to go to Luton as well. I don't know where I met her, but we walked a fair way to a railway station that seemed to feel like it was in the Brockley sort of area.

  The station was very strange because it was a terminus, and the train had to go through a right angled to enter it. The actual, single platform was in a building quite unlike a railway station, and to fully enter a couple of railway workers had to open big doors to let the train in. I guess that had the advantage of it being warmer in there in winter.  We seemed to have a long wait for the next train, and so went upstairs where there was a bar.

  It was in the bar where I realised it was Angela's daughter Miranda instead of Angela. We had a drink or two, and a nice chat, and the heard the train arrive. At that point Miranda said that what she had probably needed was a nice drink, and didn't need to get the train after all. We both left the station, and seemed to split up. I walked in what I hoped was the direction of home. As I walked I got talking to a young woman wearing a green plastic coat (like a sort of imitation leather coat).

  After a while we came to a big building on the corner of a road. She smiled at me, and said we both had to go in. There seemed to be some sort of disco on the ground floor, but she headed up a narrow staircase to the next floor. I was just about to go up when an older woman came down blocking my way. She asked where I was going, and I said I was supposed to see the woman in the green coat. The older woman said that I could not see her without an appointment. I tried to explain that it was she that said I should follow her.

  The dream sort of faded out at that point, and maybe I was half awake because I am sure I still had my eyes closed as I tried to work out what was going on in the dream. I concluded that maybe the upper floor of the big building was actually a brothel, and the woman in the green coat was possibly a sex worker. I sort of hoped that wasn't the case, and then came up with a completely imaginary idea that it was not quite a brothel. It was a sort of bar where drinks were served to couples in bed together. I must admit I liked the sound of that, and made the bold assumption that the woman in the green coat fancied me, and wanted to have a naked drink with me in bed.

  Last night, as already mentioned, I had a poo, and this morning I have had three more - not very big, but also not very small. Sadly the most recent one was after I had eaten breakfast, and there is no way to guess how it might have affected my weight. Although I seemed to eat almost sensibly yesterday, I do seem to have put on 300gm this morning.

   I may have eaten a bit too much, or perhaps I can blame it on all the beer, but it does seem that I had better luck controlling my sugar intake. The Contour meter read 8.1mmol/l, and that is quite good. The GlucoRX meter read 8.6mmol/l. A tiny bit higher than desired, but of no great consequence. The same was true of the Sinocare meter which read 8.7mmol/l. It is a shame my blood pressure didn't go down a bit more, but 114/51 is still classified as "Optimum" on my blood pressure meter.

  Today I had fantasies of going for a walk in the bright sunshine. I was thinking of trying for a complete, but very very slow 3 miles, but two things mean that won't be happening today. The first thing is that there is currently no sunshine, and from the ghastly grey look of the sky there probably won't be any today. The other thing is that I am now expecting a beer delivery today. It was actually ordered by Jodie, and being sent here so she doesn't have to carry it herself. It is apparently expected between 13:41 and 14:41 this afternoon. Those times sound like they will be delivered by DPD, and sometimes they can arrive as much as half an hour before the estimated time. I now have under two hours of being very lazy as I wait for that ring on the doorbell.