This morning started at a teeth chattering -2° C (yes, minus 2)! It should eventually warm up to plus 1° C. Sunny spells through the day do seem to look possible, and at least they will be cheery on an otherwise awful day. By 9pm the temperature may drop to -1° C, and tomorrow may start at -2° C again. Tomorrow will be much like today with sunny spells, but the afternoon temperature may rise to plus 2° C.

    Yesterday was one of those days that was almost good, and at odd moments was good, but sometimes not so good. It was a day where not a lot happened except one important thing - collecting my latest repeat prescription with the usual 56 day supply of pills.

  With signs my latest patch over the crack in my bathtub was leaking again, I didn't want to use the bath for a shower, or to wash my hair. I still wanted to be a bit clean when I went to the pharmacy, and son it was time for the wet flannel treatment. It actually went a bit further than expected. I had washed my face, and wondered if the stubble on the not bearded bits of my face would be soft enough to shave without using shaving cream. They were, although maybe it was not the very closest shave I have had, but it looked pretty clean shaven.

  To go to the pharmacy I put on my thick, hooded, blue winter coat, and wore a pair of gloves. With the hood up, which felt a bit odd in bright sunshine, I kept my ears warm, and the gloves kept my hands warm. I was feeling overall quite warm, almost too warm when I got to the pharmacy in that 2° C air. It was not a bad walk. I seemed to be walking fairly fast, and I was only slowed towards the end by needing to breath so deeply.

  The distance to the pharmacy is about my limit before Angina pains start, and ideally I should have made a point of walking slower, but I didn't really, and as i got there I could feel the very first hints of some pains about to start. I only had to wait about a minute until I was served, and by then my breathing was back to normal. There was the usual fuss of finding my made up prescription, but a minute or two later it was handed to me.

  On this occasion I opened the carrier bag, and checked to make sure it was all there. The last time they had forgotten my diabetic meter test strips. This time it was all complete, and I walked home again. On the way home I could feel I was trying to push myself a bit too much, and I slowed down a bit. When I was about 100ft (or yards - I can never estimate these distances) I had a short pause to chat to the postman.

  I was going to just thank him for delivering my new camera lens, but it went a bit further than than that. At my suggestion the previous day, he had delivered it to my neighbour because I was out. I had mentioned it to my neighbour, and asked if she would be OK taking it in for me if I was out at the pub - which I was. She said she would slip a note through my letter box to say she had it. The postman said don't worry because I would be notified on my mobile phone.

  I told the postman that I never did get the notification, but I did check the main tracking web site on my PC, and saw on there it had been delivered to my neighbour. The postman was interested in this because he was under the impression I should have got a notification sent to my phone. He said no one had said they had got such a message or had not done so. I was the first to mention it. He said he would take it up with his manager, and find out how they knew my phone number to send the message in the first place.

  He thanked me for letting my know, and then we got back to what my original intention was. The postman is a keen photographer, and I had said it was a new camera lens I was expecting. I was happy to report to him that the new lens was very good. I said it was not the sort of lens I would be using very often, but he agreed, that it is still useful have other lens in your arsenal for those rare times when only that lens will do.

  I may have been warm in all the stuff I was wearing, but it was still good to get indoors, and take off the thick coat and gloves. The first thing I did was to do early preparations for my dinner. To do that involved doing some washing up first. With the sink clear of stuff I put some water, two lamb stock cubes in it, and then added a small pack of diced lamb. I put that in the microwave for 20 minutes, and then made up a wholemeal bap with sliced beef, horseradish sauce, and some mixed salad leaves. It was identical to the one I had the previous day, and just as delicious.

  Before tucking in to that bap I put away all my new boxes of pills, and made sure the ones I would need today were on the top. Then I could relax and eat that bap. I had a desire for something more, and I can't seem to remember if I had something after that bap or not. Maybe it was not because I was on a slightly more, but not much more, half hearted quest to control my eating.

  Apart from a bit too long phone call from Lee (he can never ever explain something simply) I didn't really do anything except read and have a snooze in the afternoon. I must admit that I needed a good rest after trying to get Lee to come to the point about what he wanted to know. He was trying to repair an expensive keyboard he had found dumped outside a house. He wanted some technical advice, and so I don't know why he thought I would be interested in how he found it, what colour it was, and how many keys were on the keyboard.

  The really stupid thing is that he had already found the answer to the problem, but somehow needed reassurance that it was correct. The simple thing was that this 1980s era keyboard had an old single density 3.5 inch, 720k floppy disk drive, and the manual which he had downloaded and read the relavant bit out to, said that a disk needed to be inserted with the operating system on before it would do anything. He didn't have the floppy disk, and so nothing worked !

  I think it was at about 3pm that I fancied a snack, and while I could have had some fruit, I decided on some rice crackers and cheese. They would possibly have more calories, much more cholesterol, but far less sugar than fruit. later on I did have one large, but not big, very tasty orange as a sort of starter for my dinner. Dinner itself was the lamb stew I had started a lot earlier, and later added some baby sprouts. With a splash of very hot sauce, it was very tasty, but not completely satisfying in.

  Maybe it was the Star Trek stories I was watching not being very interesting, and not providing sufficient distraction. Maybe it was the illness I seemed to have being enough to get me down even if the symptoms were mild and intermittent, but I had this super crazy idea that I would throw out all my principles and eat some ice cream. The ironic thing is that the alleged salted caramel flavour tastes very unauthentic, and the ice cream was not very enjoyable. I have now eaten the second quarter of that 1 litre tub of ice cream, and maybe it is good it was not a much nicer basic vanilla flavour (which might have even had a lower sugar content if carefully selected), because I was in the sort of mood where I might have eaten a lot more.

  I watched a fair bit of TV last night, and it was more that it was on, than actually enjoying some of it. I finally switched the TV off at 9pm, and quickly went to bed. I was feeling like I needed some sleep. After the calamity of the night before it was good having no problems getting to sleep, and to sleep better than recently. I remember having many dream, but only the general theme of one has left any memory of it. I can't really remember enough of it to trying to describe it, but it was another dream about being back at work....although in this case I think it wasn't one of my going back to work after retiring dreams.

  Only one thing of note happened in the night, and I only know it from the evidence it left. It seems I had a heavy outbreak of sweating in the small hours. I am sure it was not from being too hot because even with the heater on full blast it was only breaking even against the icy air outside. I think it was a fever brought on by the illness I seemed to have even though I could not boast any great symptoms for it. It is notable what seemed to be a fever, I do seem to feel a bit better this morning - just as would usually be the case when a high fever finally kills off a cold bug.

  I seemed to be pack to peeing freely and frequently last night, and maybe because of that, and a small poo (I've had a bigger one since) I seem to have lost 300gm since yesterday. That is not a lot, but anything is good (if only to offset the occasional gains). What I feared was that that loss, plus the back to usual peeing in the night, would usually translate to poor blood glucose readings this morning.

  After eating the ice cream last night I was expecting the very worst, but somehow the Contour meter read 6.9mmol/l. I have not had a reading that low since an isolated one off in last November. The other meters weren't quite that good, but the GlucoRX meter read 7.3mmol/l, and that is still very good. The Sinocare was a bit better at 7.2mmol/l. Now the ironic thing is that I don't know what I did right to get these low readings, and why the late night ice cream didn't ruin everything.

  My blood pressure is in the "Optimum" region this morning, although 110/49 is a teeny bit higher than my typical readings. Overall I do seem to feel better than yesterday morning, but I still feel some random aches and pains - particularly around my upper arms and my elbows. My legs feel a bit stiff too. Maybe it is just back to bad weather symptoms, and the rest of me is in fair working order.

  I tried to cure possible leaks through the patch on the crack in my bathtub yesterday. I fear I will ultimately have to strip off all the duct tape and stuff, and start again because it was obvious there was water trapped under the patch, but it might just hold enough for me to finally wash my hair and have a shower today. It is possible that once that is done I might try and force myself out for a walk or something.

  One thing I do know is that if I go out I will leave the heater on full blast. I don't want to risk another day like Wednesday when it felt really cold when I got home from the pub, and it wasn't until midnight, or later, before I managed to get the room feeling warm again. Maybe if I do go out it might be to go just far enough to take some test pictures using my new wide angle/mild fisheye lens Maybe something like the middle of the park, but to be honest, I have doubts I will go much further than from my bed to the toilet and back again (although I would also go to the kitchen for food purposes).

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