Earlier forecasts for today promised much doom and gloom, but this latest forecast shows no more than some drizzle right now, and then the rest of the day will be very grey followed by medium grey. After this morning drizzle it should stay dry, but the temperature may only peak at 5° C for just one hour, and most of the day will be just 4° C - except around my house where my 5 outside temperature sensors seem to be registering at least 5° C as I type this. Incidentally, it was definitely a few degrees too warm during the night for the originally forecast sleet showers. Tomorrow may start with a couple of hours of sunny spells, but most of the day will feature light rain. The afternoon may be a bit warmer at 8° C.
 
  I did one important, and significant thing yesterday. It changed my plans for the whole day. I did not do anything of the things I predicted I might do yesterday - no out on the trains with my camera, and not even any visits to the local shops. In fact I didn't even take some rubbish out to the bins.

  As I reported yesterday, I didn't have a first-thing-in-the-morning poo. That meant my weight was probably higher than it really was, and it also left me feeling a little uncomfortable. I did eventually go around mid morning, and felt better for it. I then went another three times, and each time was more and more productive. What turned out to be the last one was at gone midday, but I didn't know it would be the last then, and so I felt reluctant to go out - just in case.

  I had to find other things to do for the rest of the afternoon. That turned out to be ripping my original Season 1 DVD box set of The Simpsons. I can't really remember when and where I bought it, but I think it was possibly from a second hand or charity shop. Owning the DVDs meant I didn't really need mp4 versions of each episode, and I have doubts I will ever watch them again, but it does make my mp4 digital file version look a bit more complete - all thought I think I still have about ten seasons missing.

  The Simpsons are currently up to season 32, and I am collecting those as and when I can, but I am also collecting stuff from season 29 because that is what the E4 channel are currently showing to pad out their schedules. Ripping the season 1 DVDs is something that does not take much of my time. The PC does it by itself once I have set the options, but even that takes a little bit of time. More time is used up by editing the file names to meet my standard way of naming them.

 Other stuff I did was eating. I tried to be quite restrained about that, but on what was mostly a cold and dull, and semi boring day, it was not easy restricting myself. It was very early in the afternoon when I had lunch. It was one single bap with sliced beef and horseradish sauce. It also included some iceberg lettuce, but that bag of chopped lettuce had been in the fridge for too long, and many bits were going brown at their edges.

  It was an hour, maybe two, before I made up another bap. This one was cheese and tomato with mayonnaise. I must confess I often forget how something as simple and traditional can taste so good. I did indulge in a few snacks before I had my dinner. One was a small amount of salted peanuts, and another was some sugar free biscuits. As 5pm approached I had no more desire for snacking because dinner was getting so close.

  My dinner was a shepherds pie (almost) ready meal. The instructions on the packet said oven cook, and not microwave cook. Fortunately I was aware of this before yesterday when I almost went to microwave it for a quick dinner. I guess oven cooking was the best thing, and particularly when I gave it an extra 10 minutes at full power to start to brown the top of the mashed potato.

  As shepherds pies go it was a poor imitation. The mashed potato topping was average in the extreme, but I am not sure how to describe the filling. It was sort of tasty, but it seemed more like thick gravy with things like reconstituted split peas in it. There seemed to be hardly any obvious meat in it. As I said, it was sort of tasty, but I think I may alternatives rather than buy another. In fact I am sure that Tesco's non frozen Shepherds pies are better - and I am sure they are microwaveable too.

  There seemed to be enough watchable TV on last night to keep the worst of boredom away, and I think In was in bed, reading, very soon after 9pm. I must admit I was paying no attention to the time, but I think I spent over half an hour reading in bed, and maybe more. I guess I was probably asleep sometime after 10pm, and I think I fell asleep very easily once I turned the light out.

  I seemed to sleep very well, or even too well considering it was gone 8am when I finally got up. I think I did one bit of sleep that lasted nearly 4 hours without waking for a pee, and generally I didn't seem to pee as much as some nights. I must have dreamed last night, but I can't remember a single thing about any of them. The biggest disturbance in the night was when I woke up feeling cold sometime after midnight, and I got up to turn the heater up.

  This morning was like yesterday morning, I got up and had a pee, but could only fart instead of having a poo. Incidentally, I forgot to mention the one thing that got me out of bed when I did, and very fast. I woke to agonising cramp in my left calf muscle. Anyway, as usual I got on the scales and was pleased to see that I had lost 600gm. Much of that was probably all the poo I did yesterday.

  Sometimes it is a red herring, but last night's apparent less peeing did indicate my blood glucose was a bit lower this morning. The Contour meter read a near excellent (for me) 7.6mmol/l. The GlucoRX and Sinocare meters agreed on 8.3mmol/l, and while not as good as the Contour meter, and not really reason to celebrate, that is still fairly good. In the last 4 days my average of all three meters has come down from 9.07 (really quite bad) to 8.63 to 8.30 and now 8.07mmol/l. I seem to be winning - for now.

  My blood pressure is very slightly down this morning. That is surprising because I feel mildly stressed this morning because of my late start to writing, and having to finish in time to have a shower and get out to get the 13:34 train to Ladywell. This morning I read 110/47, but at least that is a tiny bit better than yesterday's 110/51. It is the diastolic pressure that is very slightly less, 51 down to 47, such a small difference as to be meaningless unless clutching at straws !

  The main thing today is my regular Wednesday visit to The Jolly Farmers for a couple of pints of Guinness. Last week I walked home from the pub. It was a bit milder last week, but today it is pretty chilly, and I think I'll be getting the train back to Catford Bridge. I might possibly do some shopping on the way home - if I can be bothered to carrying a strong shopping bag to and from the pub.