Two instant facts about the weather this morning - 1) The Met Office says there will be mist all day long. Here at home I can see a bit of a light haze that reduces visibility down to probably a mile (except the furthest thing I can see from home is around half a mile away !). 2) Maybe I am getting used to it, but it somehow seems a bit brighter than yesterday. As can be seen in the screenshot above, the BBC forecast for today is all black clouds, but I think they are only semi dark grey. The mist may be extremely light drizzle falling, although only 3pm shows a mere 12% chance of rain. Most of today will be just 8° C. Tomorrow may be a lighter grey, but it should be dry. The temperature may start and end at 6° C, but there could be a couple of hours at 8° C.

   I guess I should describe yesterday as quite a good day, despite it being another day that had a very bad/annoying ending. I actually did very little, and so most of my narrative starts at about 4.30pm. Only a few things happened before that.

  The few things I did before Michael arrived for some beer drinking were mostly a few preparations for beer drinking in the afternoon. That was the usual polishing the beer glasses, and have a semi fair lunch to help buffer the beer intake. That lunch was just a single wholemeal bap filled with cheese and tomato. I seem to be getting good at being able to enjoy just a single bap, and feeling satiated by it. I almost, but not quite felt full. There could have been an alternate reason for that.

  I was ready to start drinking at 3.30pm, and indeed I did start then with just a simple medium strength pale ale. I was expecting Jodie to arrive. We both knew there were no trains yesterday, but Jodie had said she might get the bus over. Evidently she didn't. I was a bit surprised that she could curtail her enthusiasm to fondle (and drink some) the beers she had ordered, and had delivered here on Xmas eve (or the day before ?).

  I must admit I don't know the exact time Michael arrived, but I am sure it was between 4.30pm and 5pm. He was his usual jolly self ! Actually he was a bit less miserable than usual because he had had a day out having Xmas dinner with his son. After Michael had gone through the usual litany of all that was bad in his life, we got down to talking about old men's health problems and other scatological stuff !

  Michael left in plenty of time to see all of Star Trek: Voyager, and half of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Meanwhile I tucked into my dinner. I had cooked it while we were still drinking. It was grilled/roasted sprouts with bacon, maple flavour and butter (or maybe some different fourth thing). As an experiment I sprinkled some grated cheese over it all - not a lot because I wanted to retains something vaguely healthy about the meal.

  The cheese did make it more tasty, but it was still somehow unfulfilling for a dinner. I added a desert of crackers and cheese, and that seemed to seal the deal.  After I had finished watching Star Trek: Voyager, and seem to have failed to retain any details of the story line (it was that good !!!), I went to bed to read for as much as an hour. At first I felt quite relaxed, and thought that maybe I might put the book down before 9pm, but I felt some mild and vague discomfort that got a bit worse once I no longer had the distraction of reading.

  Last night it was not acid indigestion, although I did have a bit of almost ignorable ordinary indigestion, but something a bit like a bloated feeling, but not exactly right for that. Yesterday I commented that I had taken a couple of laxative tablets because it seemed like a whole day had passed without having a poo. The most likely reason was that I had eaten so little the days before. Those laxative tablets promised relief in 6 to 12 hours.

   It seemed more like 26 hours before they started working. I just could not get comfortable in bed, and ended up sitting in front of my computer until, ultimately, 3am. It was maybe 1.30am when those laxative tablets finally kicked in. The good thing was that there was no need to run to the toilet - a moderate walk was just about fast enough. I am not sure how many times I went, but it started off with a substantial amount, and then reduced on every subsequent visit.

  By 3am I hadn't passed anything for at least half an hour, maybe 45 minutes, but I wanted to feel safe, and stayed up to about 3.15am before I went to bed. It was one of those occasions where I thought I would never get to sleep, but the next thing I knew was that I was waking up - to go for a pee. One curious thing is that I didn't really pass much pee until I had finished pooing. In the next (just under) 5 hours before I got up, I probably did 90% of all the pee I did all night.

  All that peeing and pooing didn't really cause any weight loss, and that was disappointing. On the other hand, after 5 or 6 glasses of beer (most about a pint), and some of the stuff I had eaten (the wholemeal roll, and the cheese and crackers) I was a little surprised there was not a small weight gain. I didn't count it in my spreadsheet, but before I had breakfast I did have an extra pee, and if I had included that I would have actually lost 200gm. I decided to "bank" that 200gm in the hope it will be added to any weight loss I might manage today.

  After all the beer I drunk yesterday, most of it being English ales, which often have un-fermented sugars left over, I didn't have a lot of hope for my blood glucose readings, and indeed they were a bit higher than the day before. However, they were still reasonably good. The Contour meter read 8.3mmol/l, and that is semi good. The GlucoRX meter read 8.0mmol/l, and that is actually good. Only the Sinocare meter let me down, but 8.8mmol/l is still nothing to worry about.

  This morning I don't feel that great. For a start it feels like I am owed 3 to 5 hours sleep. My gut still seems a bit "itchy". It seems to be some residual wind, but it could be yesterday's lunch still working it's way through. Maybe some joints feel a bit stiff, and even slightly aching this morning, but even that may go, but could get worse after a snooze - depending on what posture I am in when I fall asleep. The good thing is that my blood pressure is still nice and low this morning. It could be lower still, but I thing 109/47 is still very good.

  There are two things I might do today, but it might depend on how bored I feel. I would like to go shopping in Tesco today. It is not essential, but there are a few things it would be handy to have, and there could be some heavy post-Xmas discounts, although in reality, in the Catford branch, the discounts will be very miserly, and it will probably all be half calorie and high sugar Xmas food.

 The other thing I may do is some laundry. Once again it is not essential, but the laundry bag/basket/something sort of halfway between the two, is starting to fill, and getting on top of the job may be a good idea. At least it would provide some very mild exercise on a gloomy day where I wouldn't dream of going out for exercise, and it might fill in a potential boring hour or so.

  Before I finish.....

  Yesterday evening I sent a message to Angela to say that I hoped that her day had been better than Xmas day (when she spent the early hours, and maybe more, of the day in A&E of Lewisham hospital. She replied that she still felt very ill, although the way she said it suggested that it was a more general thing then the specific thing that sent her to hospital. I replied to remind her that tomorrow night is when MT Pockets are playing in The Partridge pub, and how I was sure it would help cheer her up, and make her feel better if she could overcome the first hurdle of getting there. I also said that she was not to push herself too hard, and more importantly she had a 150% reason to be very selfish, and she should not let anyone push her into things she does not really want to do until she is 110% fit and healthy. One of her replies is shown in the screenshot picture above. I am not sure that I deserved it, or even understand it, but to be told I write beautifully was quite a boost to the ego.