Today it is back to doom and gloom. The Met Office forecast shows mid grey clouds all day long. The BBC forecast shows light grey clouds. That may be a bit optimistic, and somewhere between the two forecasts may be closer to reality. The chances of a sunny spell for this hour (8am) look highly unlikely. There was a frost early this morning, but it has already melted. The afternoon may see a high of 8° C. Tomorrow will be very dull, and extremely dull late in the afternoon, but the afternoon should reach 10° C, which would be good if it were bright and sunny - which it won't be. Most of the day, like today, will be dry, but from about 6pm there could be rain.
 
  Yesterday should probably have been a bad day, but it turned out OK in the end. I heard from Jodie to say she had a runny bottom, and would not be joining me in the afternoon. Michael was still sick or busy, and so I wouldn't be seeing him either. I had to make my own amusement.

  After I finished writing, and had my usual rest, I washed my hair and had a shower. At that time I still thought I would be beer tasting with Jodie, and possibly Michael too. I didn't really have to wash my hair for what came next, but it was nice to feel clean all over. Once I had dried me and my hair, I got dressed, and prepared to go out into the bright sunshine. I did think that I probably should go further than the local shops, but that was all I did.

  The first shop was Savers where I bought top ups of assorted vitamins I take. I also bought some new hand wash. It was, as pictured on the left, a limited edition of vanilla sugar and whipped cream flavour. It has a picture of a guitar, and a lady guitarist (as a silhouette) on the label, and so I thought it must be good. I am still waiting to finish another bottle of hand wash, but I did give this new one a quick test, and it seems nice. There were a few other things, including bottles of bleach that I bought in Savers.

  As usual, I crossed the way and went in Poundstretcher next. There were a couple of things I hoped to buy in there, but I got neither in the exact form I wanted. One thing was something I was not sure they sold anyway. It was mixed nots to feed the local squirrels. I did find mixed nuts and fruit, and I think squirrels probably eat raisins too, and so that was OK. I wanted some 9 or 10 inch paper plates, but all I could find were 5 inch ones. They are a bit too small for more common uses, but could have their uses and so I bought a packet of them too.

  I also bought a few sugar free drinks, and some sugar free (or no added sugar) biscuits. Sadly they seem to have run out of my favourites. With a few more things in my bag, it was time to walk home again. I had not felt all that great walking to the shops. Maybe it was no worse than usual, but I expected the bright sunshine to make it feel better.

   On the way home I definitely felt like it was hard work. It didn't help that the side of me facing the sun (which was my back on the way home) was feeling a bit too warm at times, while the side in the shadow was feeling too cold. I was wearing a fairly well padded coat, and I should have felt warm, but I didn't seem to. I also seemed to have a few aches, including something like, but not exactly a headache. I was feeling a lot like Michael was describing how he felt when I saw him last Friday.

  I was very happy to get home, and sort of thankful I hadn't decided to take a much longer walk around the park, although it is possible that may have feel different, in a better sort of way, if I had just taken a slow walk around the park. As it was, I was more than happy to be very lazy, and to keep warm. Keeping warm included putting the heater on low because the sun was going behind the school across the road, and I lost the best of the free heat. Thankfully it should not be too long before the sun is high enough to pass over the top of the school.

  One thing I was looking forward to was some lunch. I thought I would be having one or two yummy corned beef and horseradish sandwiches. I don't really know why I changed my mind and initially just had some fruit for lunch. It was because I knew I would be having the stewed beef with leeks and broccoli that was already cooked, and just needed heating up for dinner. At the time it didn't seem important, and like I would have done a week or three ago, I could easily have had that and the sandwiches, but somehow I changed my mind. I didn't have just fruit for lunch. I also had some nuts and a whole packet of just 5 "no added sugar" cookie things.

  After lunch my intention was to lay on my bed reading, and probably have a snooze. I did do some of the reading, but I always felt very uncomfortable - far too uncomfortable to fall asleep.  All the discomfort suggested that something was wrong with me, but in a very weird way it might have because I was actually better than usual. I can't believe that either, and it is only with hindsight this morning that I can think that way.

  After some hours of doing nothing of note I did decide that even if Jodie and Michael were not here, I was still going to have a beer. I fancies something strong, and opened a half pint bottle of Chiltern Brewery's Barley Wine. It is 8.4%, and although not as wonderful as some barley wines, it is still pretty good. I had a second bottle on standby, but when it came to it I didn't want it. The barley wine had seemed to taste rather sweet, as if it still had a lot of unbrewed sugar in it. I almost didn't care, but evidently I did care about keeping my blood glucose low, and maybe particularly after a short run of very good readings.

  My dinner was, in theory, very low in sugars, and in practice it was. Probably the half, quite big, leek would have been the culprit if it had a high amount of sugar in it. The diced beef should have been sugar free, and the broccoli likewise. I ate my dinner while watching something on TV, and I think that something was an episode of The Simpsons. There seemed to be a lot of episodes of it on last night on the E4 channel, and at 8pm they showed 2 brand new episodes.

  I didn't actually watch those new episodes, but I did record them, and will have to top and tail them, plus remove the adverts before I watch them sometime. At 9pm I stopped the recording, and turned the TV off. I got into bed, but it felt a bit too abrupt to be relaxed enough to go to sleep. I read for maybe half an hour, and then I think I fell asleep quite quickly. I had a very typical night. I probably woke every two hours to have a pee, although once again that was probably more habit than a genuine need to pee every time. Several times in the night each pee was only about (or felt like) a half size pee.

  I know I had dreams last night, but only one sticks in my memory, and it is such a sparse memory that it was either quite a boring dream, or there was a lot I have forgotten. The dream was set at a big, and almost empty venue where I was going to watch a gig with a woman. She was curious in so much as she seemed an amalgam of several women I know (or have known). I think there was a support act on quite early. It was just a woman and her guitar.

  She played just a few tunes. Maybe it was just a sound check or something. It seemed like it might be a long wait until the main band were due on, and I was worried about the times of the buses home. It seemed like we had got their via a tube train, and so I am not sure why we would need to get a bus home - not that the bus would take us home. There was a bus stop just a few minutes away, and the only bus that stopped there was a 201. That is not a bus I have ever heard of before.

  I tried to look up the bus timetable on my mobile phone, but all it would show was the time of the next bus. The really peculiar thing was that I had to turn to the next paper page to see the result - a mobile phone with paper pages !! Nothing much happened from then on, apart from we moved to some seats nearer to where the band would probably be playing. At that point I complained of getting cramp in my leg. I stood up to walk around, and at that point I woke up - with cramp for real.

  Fortunately the cramp faded in seconds once I stood up. I went for a pee, and also had a poo. It was an annoying one because it slipped out fast, and seem to have gone around the U bend before I could see it. I had weighed myself before going to sleep last night, and so I did have an inkling that my weight might be lower this morning. It was ! This morning it seems I had lost 700gm, and I was back to how I started last month - before it all went horribly wrong, sometimes with no apparent reason.

  I didn't expect my blood glucose readings to be good this morning based on how frequently I needed to pee during the night - even if most pees had seemed to be of a smaller quantity. I was very wrong. My readings were really excellent. The Contour meter read 7.7mmol/l, and that is very good. The GlucoRX meter read 6.6mmol/l, and that is truly excellent. The Sinocare meter was not quite as good, but 6.9mmol/l is still excellent. This morning two of the readings were in the very rare dark green on my spreadsheet, and the other was in the light green. A set of readings not seen for ages and ages !
  I have to admit I am rather proud of these readings. It may have been possible that if I had taken a second reading using the contour meter it might have been as low as the other two. If there is one bad thing about them it is that I now feel compelled to equal or better these readings, and the difficulty is that I am not really sure how I managed them.

  There is one thing on my activity list for today. It is to go to Tesco and hope they still have some of the very basic microwave ovens they have been selling. My current microwave oven still works, but it is now so rusty inside that the motor that turns the plate is being part stopped by the rust, and it smells like it is starting to burn up.

  The microwave ovens that Tesco had, and hopefully still have, are perfect for my needs. They have a basic mechanical timer, and a basic power setting dial, and nothing else. I do not want fancy timers, and stuff like that. All that fancy stuff is just more stuff to go wrong, although if the painting inside is as bad as it is in my current oven, it will probably die from rust before the electronics fail. Even so, having to push buttons and other mucking about, instead of just dialling the wanted time on a rotary dial, is just so much easier. I still like modern technology, but only if it serves me, instead of the other way around !