Once
again the forecast is predicting
this morning to be colder than my
thermometers say it is. I rebooted
one of my displays that shows the
readings from 3 different outside
thermometers, and it found the
signal from all three again, and
all said that it was just a
fraction short of 5° C. One other
thing came to me a bit later, and
it was to check a rarely checked
thermometer that has it's outside
temperature sensor connected by a
thin wire that is is clamped by
the window. It too said it was
over 4° C. This leaves me with
little faith in the forecast (the
Met Office also say it should have
been on 2° C this morning). Both
forecasters agree that today will
be dry, but overcast and gloomy,
and my own eyes agree with that.
Tomorrow may be one degree less
chilly than today, but otherwise
the same as today.
Yesterday was a good day
for at least two reasons, but
there were some minor triumphs
too. I must admit it was a day
when it seemed having a shower was
just a tiny bit more than I
thought I needed, but I did have a
wash with a soapy flannel over the
(possibly) smellier areas.
I must admit that the day
started off very relaxed. After I
had finished writing, and I seemed
to take my time doing that
considering how few words I wrote
(just 1,355). It was 11am when I
could finally lay down, read a few
pages, and have a short
snooze....at least I think I had a
snooze, but when I think back on
it I may have only closed my eyes
for a while. It was getting on for
midday when I had my wash, and
then got dressed to go out.
It felt quite good walking
to Tesco until I was almost there,
and then the very cold air started
to irritate the scar tissue on my
chest - from the inside (I was
wearing a warm enough coat to keep
the outside warm). I didn't really
notice it too much when I was
inside Tesco, but it did make the
walk home, carrying heavy-ish
shopping, slightly uncomfortable.
It felt good to get home and into
the less cold.
I say less cold because
there was no heating on
downstairs, and it was only just
over 15° C in the dining room, and
less in the kitchen. I had bought
mostly stuff that I would eat on
anther day, but I did buy a pack
of seeded deli rolls, and some
more sliced beef to make tasty
rolls with them. I was most happy
to have put everything away, the
rolls made up, and up to my warm
bedroom - where I turned the
heater on full because while warm,
I wanted it almost hot until I had
fully recovered.
Apart from a mostly
pointless call from my sort of
acquaintance Lee, who finally
called 24 hours late, I did very
little, but I had a cunning, or
was it stupid plan ? I did mention
in the morning that I was
considering walking to the noodle
shop late in the afternoon. It was
a very unlikely thing to do, but I
actually did it. I checked on
Open
Street Map the shortest
route, and to my surprise the
route I would have taken was about
50 metres longer than the route I
did use.
The walk was slightly
longer than the walk to Tesco (or
Aldi), but most of it was done at
a modestly fast pace, but as I
neared the restaurant I slowed
down a lot because I had over done
it, and was starting to feel
uncomfortable with the onset of
some growing chest pains. It was
only the second time I had been in
the restaurant, but this time it
felt sort of familiar.
It was definitely handy
having taken one of their menus
last time, and this time I knew
exactly what I wanted, and had the
cash ready (they only take cash)
to pay for the food. Once again it
was considerably cheaper than
ordering via Just Eat, but what I
bought still came to a fair bit of
cash. I started off with one of my
favourites - deep fried spare
ribs, It was my intention, and
actually was my starter before
eating a portion of mixed meat
with fried rice.
That was all I ate, and I
left the Singapore Fried Noodles
for today's dinner. I did get some
freebie prawn crackers, but I
expect I'll throw them away - I
sometimes like them, but some can
just be bland and sort of greasy.
I don't expect the one from the
noodle house to be different from
any generic Chinese takeaway. The
one little extra I bought was a
bottle of alleged Chinese beer.
I say alleged, but it does
claim to be brewed and bottled in
China. I admit I expected it to be
in a bottle with an unreadable
Chinese label, but it was all in
English, and was a well known make
that can be bought from many
places -
Tsingtao.
I think even Tesco stock it from
time to time. I have tried it
before, and it is very nice,
except my bottle did not taste
nice. It tasted tainted with a
sort of hint of disinfectant. I
poured half the bottle down the
sink. It was a bit of a waste of
money. If I had been able to buy
it from Tesco I think I would have
only paid half the price I paid
for it.
I left maybe almost an hour
for the mixed meat and fried rice
to go down before having a minor
triumph when having a dessert of
ice cream. It was very tasty, but
somehow I had the will power to
restrict myself to just one eighth
of a 900ml tub of Tesco vanilla
ice cream. As can be seen in the
picture above, the way the tub has
been filled neatly divides it into
eighths. Incidently, I also bought
another tub of ice cream. It
didn't have a well known name (I
can't even remember it now), but
it had a lower sugar content (per
100ml) that the Tesco ice cream,
and it was a 2 litre tub. That 2
litre tub cost approximately half
the price of the Tesco tub. I am
hoping that it is just as nice.
There was some good stuff
on TV last night. Sky Arts showed
3 or 4 documentaries about Pink
Floyd. I seem to think it was
possibly less than 2 months ago
that they last showed them, but it
seemed OK to watch them again -
except the final one which was
about a psychodelic happening in
London in 1967 (or 1968 ?). It
featured Pink Floyd, but many
others too. If I hadn't spent so
much time watching before it
started I might have watched it,
but I was also feeling tired and
sleepy by then (10pm ?).
I went to bed, and instead
of falling to sleep I laid in bed
feeling either too hot or too
cold, finding lumps in the
mattress and pillow that
weren't there before, and assorted
aches and pains I had not noticed
before. One thing I didn't seem to
have more than the very feintist,
super mild, barely noticeable,
indigestion. I still got up and
took a couple of antacid tablets -
just in case - and I also took a
couple of paracetamol tablets.
One problem was that
because the night was not as cold
as forecast, my bedroom had warmed
up almost, but not quite warm
enough to sleep uncovered, but far
too hot feeling if I pulled the
duvet over me. I think I fell
asleep fairly quickly when
experimenting showed that the
correct amount of duvet was to
pull it over one leg, one arm, and
lightly pressing on my back when
sleeping on my side.
Once asleep my night was
fairly uneventful. I woke up every
2 or 3 hours to have a pee, and I
think I had a selection of dreams.
One was noteworthy, although I
can't really describe the details
because the most interesting
details were on a small, maybe 5
inch TV screen. I seemed to have a
small portable TV that had an
extended tuning range, and I
seemed to be able to tune into a
camera in a nearby house where a
housewife seem to be putting on a
porno show. I guess I can't
describe it because although I
could see "everything" I was only
imagining the bits I wanted to
see, but didn't.
This morning I had quite a
lie in. It was not that I really
needed it, but more that I could.
It was also that everything that
seemed to make me uncomfortable
when first trying to get to sleep
didn't seem to be there, and I
felt wonderfully comfortable
laying in bed this morning. That
is until I started to get hints of
cramp starting, and I then very
quickly got up before I had to
endure the agonies of cramp.
It was quite surprising
that I didn't get up earlier
because I think I had gone well
past my 2 hourly appointment with
the toilet. When I went after
getting up it seemed like I would
never stop. Sadly it didn't
include having a poo, but I did
pass a lot of wind. One good
thing, although it is easy to
guess what would have been better,
was that when I weighed myself I
found I was exactly the same
weight as yesterday morning -
which is a shame because that was
a lot higher than desired.
In some way it was quite a
surprise that my weight had not
gone up because I did have a bit
of a feast yesterday evening. It
may not have changed my weight,
but it did push my blood glucose
up, and two readings were into the
nines, and that is too high. The
Contour meter read 8.8mmol/l. That
is OK, but I would always wish for
less. The GlucoRX meter read
9.1mmol/l, and although on the low
end, it is the start of the
slightly dangerous area. The
Sinocare meter roughly agreed with
a reading of 9.3mmol/l. The best I
can say is that I hadn't crossed
over into the real danger zone
that starts at 10.0mmol/l. At
least myblood pressure is very
good again this morning with a
reading of 108/50.
I have no idea what I am
doing today. Jodie is off to a gig
this afternoon, and so we won't be
doing any beer tasting. One
novelty today is that engineer
works mean trains from both
Catford Bridge, and Catford
stations are going to Victoria
today. I could get the train from
Catford station to Victoria, and
then get a train back to Catford
Bridge. It probably seems
pointless to most people, but for
me it would be a novelty, but best
of all, using my Freedom Pass it
would all be free. If it were not
such a grey day I might have done
it, but I don't think I will this
time - even if it may well be
years before such an opportunity
presents itself again.
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