During the night the temperature rose to 10° C, but at the cost of rain, and some of it seemed a bit heavy. Right now, with 10am fast approaching, we have had some strong hints that the sun will break through to give sunny spells, and with luck they will last until sunset. In direct sunshine (plus indoor through glass) the forecast 10 and even 9° C may feel quite nice. The temperature will slowly drop after sunset, and be down to 6° C by midnight. Tomorrow morning (at 6am) the temperature may be down to 5° C and still dropping. It may hit just 4° C, and it may be raining, but at 11am the rain may start to stop, and the temperature will rise by another degree. The afternoon may be nice and sunny, but after sunset the temperature may drop to just 3° C by 8pm. It will start to rise again before the day is over.
 
  Yet another very late start this morning ! Once again it was due to not being able to get to sleep until gone midnight. This time the problem was mainly heartburn. It was all made far worse because I had been hoping to get to sleep extra early to make up for lost sleep the previous night.

  I must have been typing very fast yesterday morning because I managed to finish writing this electronic diary not too long after 11am. I dare not read what I wrote yesterday because it must be full of typos - often things like complete words missing, or correctly spelled words that have a different meaning to that intended. The spell checker usually catches completely wrongly spelled words, but it would be completely happy with my spelling if I described it as the spear chucker* instead of spell checker.

* Curiously enough, the spell checker doesn't seem to like "chucker", but I feel certain it is the correct spelling of a real word.

  It must have been midday when I felt ready to have a shower, but once I had done that I got dried and dressed ready to go straight out to buy some shopping from Tesco. It seemed to be OK walking to Tesco. By pure coincidence I had chose a time when I missed all but a few seconds of drizzle when I first went out, and it was also dry when I walked home. Soon after I got home it poured down again for a while.

  Top of my shopping list was four heavy 2 litre bottles of Diet Coke. I also wanted stuff like tomatoes and lettuce for sandwiches, and some rolls to make what I suppose are rolls and not sandwiches (but the principle is the same). I bought a couple of ready meals to keep in the freezer until needed, and some cooked and slice meats for my rolls/sandwiches. One possibly brave or stupid thing was more ice cream, but it did seem to have a lower sugar content than the two types of ice cream I already had in the freezer, and so maybe it was not so stupid.

  The walk back home, with some fairly heavy shopping, was not so nice as the walk to Tesco, but it probably was not that bad. I say that because if it had been very hard or uncomfortable, I would surely remember it. All I remember is that I didn't walk as fast as I could have. Nevertheless it was still nice to get home again, and put my shopping down, and then put it away. I then made some lunch.

  It was two tiger rolls, and by themselves they seemed to taste rather nice, but I stuffed them with some slices of pork and egg with a thin spread of mustard. That seemed really delicious, and I felt that it would be difficult to have to wait until today to make another couple up - probably with beef in them. It did occur to me that maybe two of those rolls might be too much, but then again, maybe not when I would soon need to soak up lots of beer.

  I can't quite remember, but I think that Jodie gave the excuse of missing the train again, and having to use the bus to get here very late - almost 4pm. The good thing is that she did approve of quite a few beers that I had bought, and there were even a couple that she had never heard of before. They always go down well when it comes to logging them on Untappd (dot com) on her phone - even if she doesn't actually like the taste - which I think she didn't for at least one of them.

  Michael arrive soon after 5pm, and he was in his now usual miserable mood. He told us yesterday that he has taken to doing the crosswords in The Metro while his wife is having a dementia inspired rant. I still then that the two of them would be happier if he spent less time at the care home, and left her to her own thoughts instead of just getting cross at him being there.

  In some ways Michael's visits are becoming a chore rather than a pleasure. He is always moaning about his visits to stay many hours with his wife every day, but now he is becoming obsessed with the music of Joe Bonnamassa. He can't seem to understand why both myself and Jodie have no special liking for his music, and that I don't have a single record of his in my collection. This has been building up over several weeks now, and at the current rate of progress he will probably start some sort of manic rant about it.

  One thing that I don't think Michael understands is that most of us listen to the music, and not a single instrument. Joe Bonnamassa is apparently a talented guitar player, but it seems his lyrics and tunes just don't have any attraction. The problem is that Michael is, or was, a guitar player, and only listens to the sound of the guitar. He judges all music on that one thing....or so it sometimes seem.

  Many years ago I wrote that Chain had done a great set at Chattfest (in the huge back garden of The Chatterton Arms). I added that the drummer was a young lad that they had roped in as drummer for the day because their usual drummers were not available. A certain drummer I know, who is now Angela's husband, argued that he could play better drums with one hand tied behind his back. Once again the trouble was that the future Angela's husband only listened to the drums, and ignored the guitars and vocals. The drummer of the day did make maybe two minor mistakes, but I and probably everyone else, were listening to the band, and we thought it was wonderful.

  Jodie and Michael left about the same time - just before 7pm. By then I was nicely sozzled, and hadn't done anything to get any dinner prepared or cooked. The booze made me feel stupidly hungry, and I got a bit carried away pulling stuff out of the fridge and freezer. I knew I would definitely be having a couple of cod fishcakes that were reduced in price because they were on their sell by date, but they would need cooking in the oven for 25 minutes.

  I started them cooking, but there was something that would cook faster in the microwave. They were small boxes of Thai inspired food, and the boxes were made to look like the cartons such food seems to come in when ordered in America. Until I opened one I didn't realise there was a small box inside that sat on a bed of rice. The cooking instructions were to microwave the whole box for 5 minutes, and then empty the small box out on top of the rice, stir and then cook for another 3 minutes.

  I did that with the first one, and it was sort of nice. For the second one I topped the top box out, as one frozen lump, onto the rice, then blasted it is for the full 8 minutes inn the microwave. It seemed just as nice like that, and maybe even better. They were medium small portion, but maybe the two could have added up to enough for dinner, but I was still cooking the cod fishcakes. After the spicy stuff they tasted a bit bland. It is a shame I didn't have them for dinner today with maybe some mixed vegetables.

  I had eaten quite a lot for dinner, but I still wanted to try one of the small tubs of ice cream I had bought. I didn't bother to weigh it, but I scooped out about the same amount as had weighed approx 100gm of the previous ice cream I had the day before. Last night's ice cream should have had a lower sugar content. It was also a lot nicer because it did use a lot more diary ingredients instead of palm oil.

  After I had all my dinner I was feeling a bit full. I hoped that it would all settle down by the time I tried to get some sleep. It did, and it didn't ! By 9pm I had run out of TV, and went to bed. I read for maybe 15 minutes, and then turned the light out. I felt uncomfortable, but the booze made me sleepy enough to get an hours sleep before waking up feeling even worse. It was mainly heartburn, but I also had a few mild aches and pains that together were annoying enough to help stop sleep.

   As a side note: I mentioned to Jodie that I had been suffering from a sore throat for a few days, and she told that was the symptom that started off the lurgy she had last week. I could probably look forward to a heavy head cold plus a chesty cough starting any minute. In theory, my large does of vitamin D should keep my respiratory tract clear during a cold, but nothing, apart from Ibuprofen and/or Paracetamol can stop the muscular, and joint aches that are also part of the symptoms. I now seem to be over the sore throat, and most muscular and joint ache has been fading away in the last 24 hours.

  Last night I was still able to snatch a few tens of minutes of sleep with help from antacid tablets, Ibuprofen and Paracetamol. It was not until almost 1am before I started to get some proper sleep, and after that my sleep was probably quite normal, but with one exception - I didn't seem to be peeing much.  I don't think I dreamed much, but I do remember some of what seemed like a long dream in the last hour or two of sleep before getting up.

  In the dream I seemed to be visiting a new railway preservation group. They had premises at what was supposed to be Grove Park. They had not yet opened to the public, but I knew someone who worked there. We went in via there main building - something that seemed bigger than an old station building. There was something like a hall in it, and it had been partitioned off into small cubicles with a bed in each. The partition walls seemed to be mostly heavy curtains, and some looked like they could have been carpet. Each cubicle had a bed, and they were for volunteers who came from far and wide, and would stay they from days to weeks to get work done.

  Before I lost sight of the man I knew I asked if it was OK to go out on the track to look at some of their rolling stock. He said "go for it" and I never saw him again after that. I have no idea how the transition happened, but the next thing I knew I was probably on a trolley being pushed or pulled along an inspection pit under a 4 car train. It was an ex southern region third rail electric train, but they had no third rail to power it.

  Alongside the train was another that had been refurbished to a very high quality finish. It was owned by a Scottish preservation group, and was already in public service doing special railway tours. There seemed to be a lot of friction between the two groups, and there was much cursing when the signalman delayed it's departure onto the mainline.  Meanwhile, I was chatting from someone from the main on site group, and it was about getting the trains electrically power. I was asked if I could make a converter to convert maybe a huge 50 volt battery to the 750 volt the traction motors would need. I gave an emphatic NO, but I did say that maybe I could just about manage a converter powerful enough to operate the lights.

  I think that dream just seemed to fade out with no easy to describe end. When I finally got up, at gone 8am, I went for my first pee of the waking day, and it still didn't seem to be as much as expected, and I couldn't manage a poo. When I weighed myself I found I had put on another 500gm. I am still in my typical weight region, but it is getting a bit serious now. Later on, after breakfast, I did have quite a large pee, and also a medium poo. It is, of course, only a wild guess, but if I had managed that before I weighed myself, and before I had eaten breakfast, that gain my have only been a couple of hundred grams.

  My blood glucose level was up this morning, but not to any worrying amount, although quite a difference to my very nice low figures yesterday.  The Contour meter read 8.1mmol/l, and that is still fairly good. The GlucoRX meter read 8.5mmol/l. and that is still perfectly OK, but the Sinocare meter read 9.0mmol/l. That is still not terrible, but it is undesirable for just crossing the threshold between an OK 8 something to a not OK 9 something...but only just.

  Today I don't feel too bad in one sense, but I do feel tired, maybe weary, and lacking in energy. The good thing is that nothing really hurts this morning - including my throat. It seems I have probably got over the bug that gave me the sore throat and possibly some of the muscular and joint pains. It is a shame that I feel like I have little energy and enthusiasm to go out and take pictures in the sunny spells (that are now happening as the forecast promised).

  I had been imagining I would be going out, camera in hand, for a train ride or two. I have a particular desire to take the train between Moorgate and Finsbury Park - paying particular attention to Essex Road station. it must be over 20 years since I last went there, and it seemed an interesting place. It was a small, hardly used station, but around the platforms was a lot of old stuff left from previous railway schemes. It probably has flats built on it now, but it would be interesting just to check to see what it looks like. It is a shame I only seem to have one single photo, taken on a film camera, showing the main entrance and nothing more. Maybe today would have been the day I got a lot more pictures.

  Oh well, the next thing I will do is to have a lie down, and read for a bit. I would not be surprised if I had a long snooze. After that I may consider the idea of going out again, but if I do, I doubt it will be further away than a local park. One last thought....I have just realised that my throat is still not completely free of any pain. I just swallowed, and I did feel a very mild twinge.