It
is still raining this morning, and
in my opinion some of it was
fairly heavy, but it does seem
lighter as I write this. It should
stop by 1pm when the temperature
has fallen from a start of
(allegedly) 10° C to 5 or 6° C. By
midnight it could be down to 3° C.
The forecast says 3 and 4pm will
feature sunny spells. It doesn't
look like the sun will ever push
through the murk I see in the sky
at the moment. Tomorrow may see
some of the afternoon featuring
sunny spells, and maybe even an
hour of full sunshine, and that
may push the temperature up to 5°
C, but the morning may start at 2°
C, and it could be down to 1° C by
midnight.
Yesterday was a
day that was OK apart from some
hubris, and an anti-climax. It did
not get off to a great start
because all the sleet and snow we
had has soaked into the ground,
and the water feed to my house is
currently several degrees cooler.
The main consequence of this is
that I only had less than tepid
water to shower in. I opted for a
simple flannel wash.
There was very little I
wanted to, or even needed to do
yesterday morning, and I mostly
did nothing but read and relax. I
think I even had a little snooze.
When the afternoon approached, and
I had declined to have a full
shower in below tepid water, I
went and did a little tidying up
in the kitchen. I also started to
prepare and pre-cook my dinner. It
was the same as the previous night
- stewed diced beef with broccoli
and finger chillies. I used a lot
more of the latter, and this time
I could taste them, but it still
didn't seem to be spicy enough to
be hot.
As I predicted early
yesterday morning, my latest order
from Amazon had reached the local
depot, and at midday I was
officially advised that it as out
for delivery. I have to say I was
not expecting it as early as 2pm,
but that was when it arrived.
After holding my breath, waiting
for all the good stuff, it was
actually an anticlimax when in
arrived. It was all there, and as
ordered, but....
There were two main halves
of my order. One half was some AAA
and AA Duracell batteries that
were alleged to be on special
offer. At just a tad over 60p per
battery I suppose that was quite
cheap. The only problem, although
not actually a problem, is that I
didn't need them yesterday, or
today, and maybe not for some
time, but it is always handy to
have some around. Their
best-before-date is 2038, and so
there is no rush to use them.
The other half of the order
was some books - as per the
picture above. I must admit I was
not sure exactly what to expect,
but I've been reading Randall
Monroes
comic
strips for ages, and so I
had a fair idea. The main
difference is that on the printed
page the information is a lot more
dense, but that is good. My main
problem, and why it was an
anti-climax, was that I have
several more books in the
Bill
- The Galactic Hero series
to read before I can pay much
attention to these new books.
At just after 3pm, earlier
than recently, Jodie arrived for
some beer tasting. I think she was
tired after spending the night at
Alan's place because the sleet and
snow the night before made travel,
and in particular, walking on
slippery roads, too difficult. She
seemed a bit off her beer, and
after a couple of good beers she
almost lost interest in some less
good beers. Then there was
transport troubles to make her
rather moody.
Her original plan was to
meet Alan in a beer place called
Craft Metropolis, and to get there
means getting a bus from almost
outside Clock House station to go
up the hill. The trouble was that
the road was being dug up for gas
mains problem, and the buses were
on diversion. There was very
little information as to where the
bus were being diverted, and where
the closest place to Clock House
station was to get the bus. In the
end, after a lot of sulking she
managed to agree with Alan that
they would meet in Croydon.
I must admit that I lost
some interest in beer while we
were drinking, and it was because
I was not feeling all that good. I
felt tired, and some bits of me
ached - particularly my middle
back for some mystery reason. I
also had a few mild aches from a
few random muscles. It was all a
bit ominous ! I still managed to
drink enough beer to get mildly
drunk - maybe very drunk would
have had better analgesic effects.
I had almost been very
careful about what I ate during
the day. My lunch was a single bap
filled with ham and tomato, and
that was nice and tasty. A bit
later I though a bit extra to help
soak up the beer would be a good
idea. I had some cheese and rice
crackers - that being a known
fairly safe thing. While drinking,
faced with watching Jodie munching
through her dinner/lunch, I ate
one small (25gm) bag of crisps. It
was called "sizzling bacon"
flavour, but it was just "smoky
bacon" flavour given a fancy name.
My dinner was the same as
the night before last. It was
another meal of stewed diced beef
with broccoli and green finger
chillies. As I remarked near the
top of the page, this time I put
in enough of those finger chillies
to actually provide some flavour
(but hardly any heat). It was
theoretically a nice safe meal, at
least in terms of calories and
sugar content, but maybe not in
other ways.
There was nothing on TV to
distract me last night, and so I
was contemplating going to bed as
early as 7.30pm. I was not feeling
all that good. There was some beer
induced sleepiness pulling me one
way, and some aches and pains
pulling the other way. I laid on
my bed to read, but I felt really
uncomfortable. One discomfort was
neck ache. It felt like a tendon
was being stretched to it's limit.
It was easy to blame it on my
pillow, or how I was laying on it,
but nothing had changed since the
previous night when I felt
comfortable.
I did manage to get to
sleep not that long after 8pm, but
it was born of pure tiredness.
After an hour or so I woke up, and
I was still feeling uncomfortable,
but this time there were added
hints of acid indigestion. One
very obvious thing is that my
burps still tasted of those bloody
smoky bacon crisps. Had I realised
that "sizzling bacon" was just
another name for smoky bacon
flavour, I would not have bought
those bloody crisps.
I had another of those long
evenings where assorted
discomforts kept me awake. At one
time I thought it might end up
with vomiting, it didn't, at
another time I thought I would end
up with doing a poo in the small
hours, I did ! None of the aches
and pains, and discomforts should
have been bad enough to keep me
from sleep, but when combined They
kept me almost from sleep until
gone 1am.
I say "almost" because I
did get another hour or so of
sleep at around 11pm, and I was
quite disappointed to wake then. I
would have expected it if it
involved the need for a big pee,
as it does many nights, but last
night it was only a trickle. I was
probably drinking more water than
I was peeing in those early hours.
Much of it was because the Acidex
antacid stuff can leave a dry
powdery feeling on the lips, in
the mouth, and throat. The later
often made me cough.
It wasn't until I was
waking from deeper sleep in the
later hours of the morning, that I
did much in the way of peeing.
After the beer and the water I was
drinking, it seemed to result in
water retention. That is the only
explanation I can think of for why
I seemed to have put on 1.3kg of
weight since yesterday. I am not
sure I even ate anything near that
weight during the day.
Fortunately my blood
glucose readings do confirm that I
was fairly good at minding what I
was eating. This morning was the
lowest average of all three
readings this month. That is not
to say I am all that happy with
those readings. Ideally they would
be a fair bit lower, but readings
like 8.3mmol/l on the Contour
meter was not too bad. The GlucoRX
meter read 8.5mmol/, and as I keep
saying, that used to be my target
until sometime last year, and
maybe only for a couple of months,
I realised I could do a lot
better. The Sinocare meter read
8.0mmol/l, and that was
unexpectedly good.
Last night, for a one off
reading when feeling particularly
bad, my blood pressure hit a
systolic pressure of 157mmHg. That
is very high, but half an hour
later, when I was feeling less
stressed, I got it down to 125mmHg
- which is fairly normal by any
metrics. This morning my blood
pressure is still very slightly
high, but still in the "optimum"
area as diagnosed by the blood
pressure meter. My first reading
was around 116mmHg and I thought I
could better than that. A second
reading produced 112/52. In this
case the systolic pressure was
lower, but the diastolic pressure
and pulse rate were slightly
higher.
On a cold wet day there is
no reason or desire to go out. I
shall stay in and amuse myself.
One thing I will do is to keep a
look out for the postman. Although
I have had no notifications, it is
possible the new camera lens I
ordered just after Xmas should be
on it's way by now, and might
possibly arrive today. Once I have
seen the postman I will be free to
have a shower - hopefully it
warmer, or even hotter water since
turning up the gas pressure
(although the trouble may be low
water pressure - it might have
been turned down when snow or ice
is expected). I may also wash
three white t-shirts, but other
than that I will be doing very
little !
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