There seems to be more cloud than forecast, and so far the forecast sunny spells have been very sparse. It doesn't help that towards the east, where the sun is, there are some quite large grey clouds. Hopefully the clouds will thin enough to give the promised full sunshine later on. Even with full sunshine from midday, if we actually get it it, the temperature may only rise to a slightly cool 15° C. It seems like we could get quite a cool, maybe even cold night. Tomorrow is forecast to start at just 6° C, but the day should be bright and sunny enough to raise the temperature to 16° C.

   Yesterday was another one of those days which seemed half OK, but I have little to show for it. I guess I did more than I predicted I would do at the end of yesterday's writing, but there was still a lot of empty day with nothing to show for it. Somehow I seemed to control my eating though.

  The best I could imagine doing yesterday was to go shopping in Tesco. For that to happen I needed to take a shower after not washing at all the previous day. After I had finished writing, had my traditional rest, I did indeed go for a nice refreshing shower. After my shower I decided to put some clothes in to soak in detergent after I realised there was more in my washing basket than I thought there was.

  One factor that made me think twice before doing anything - including sitting down at my PC - was lower back pain. I am not sure when it started, and when it peaked, but when provoked in the wrong way it could be really painful. I am not even sure why it started. I guess it was some heavy lifting the day before yesterday, but I think I first noticed it when getting out of bed yesterday morning. It was quite an unpleasant shock.

  It was fortunate that while adopting a good posture (or what I believed to be one) I was not in any pain, and I had no trouble walking to Tesco and back, and while shopping in there. It is hard to remember doing it, but I think I was automatically taking precautions to avoid provoking my back while I was shopping, and even after I first got home. I didn't even skimp on loading my rucksack up with the usual 4 bottles of Diet Coke, and three jars of pickles.

  One of the things I wanted to buy was a lot of packets of instant noodles. It is very annoying that they are scattered over about three aisles. It wasn't until I thought I had enough instant noodles that I found the Vifon branded instant noodles next to the Polish produce. Had I found them earlier I would have got four packets of the nice tomato flavoured noodles. Much of what I bought I found on the reduced price shelf.

  After getting home, and putting my shopping away, I made some lunch. It was two Ciabatta rolls. I was about to fill them with sliced beef, but I wanted to try some "sandwich pickle" I had bought, and to use up the last of a jar of mustard pickle. I had already put the pickle on one half of the rolls when I thought it would go much better with cheese. The sliced beef went back into the fridge, and out came the cheese. It seems ages (although it probably isn't) since I had cheese and pickle rolls, and I enjoyed them.

  What I didn't enjoy was sitting down to eat them. I had to be very careful about how I sat down, and had to try and keep my back straight without dripping pickle down my front. After eating, and washing my hands because the mustard pickle was leaking everywhere from that roll, I had a lie down. That felt nice, but I couldn't stay there all day. I had to get back to the washing I had left soaking.

   Getting off my bed was a very painful process. It made me question my sanity about doing the laundry. It meant repeatedly bending over the bath to stir, and squish, and squeeze the washing in the big builders buckets, and then lifting the wet stuff out to wring as much water out of it as possible. It also meant lifting those heavy buckets to empty them. I could not leave the washing just soaking for ever, and so I had to try and finish the job.

  Fortunately it was a lot less painful than I imagined. I was very wary about lifting those buckets to drain them. It has been my way for some time now to pour them out into the toilet because it is faster than down the small plughole. I did pour one half full bucket down the toilet, but I thought it was taking too much of chance to do more damage to my lower back. It is possible that the original damage was done when doing some washing the day before yesterday.

  I did have the laundry job and then took a rest. There seemed no reason to try and do it quickly. I knew I could not dry it on the washing line, and so I wasn't racing the sunshine because there was none ! I think it was during that break, maybe around 3pm, but possibly later, that I had a snack, and like the day before, it was some ice cream. I think I may have had a little more than intended, but it was only a little more.

  Sitting down at my computer to eat, and to read, didn't seem to be any more uncomfortable after all the bending and lifting, and that seemed hopeful, although it was still uncomfortable - particularly during the transition from standing to sitting (almost) comfortably. Maybe over half an hour passed before I went back to the laundry, and finished the job. I hung it up to dry on the big clothes horse with a desk fan blowing at it. I haven't checked it, but it should be dry this morning.

  I'm sure I had another snack after that, but I can't remember what it was. Maybe I am remembering that I wanted a snack, but somehow resisted the idea. There are some clues this morning that may support that idea. I think I just lazed away the time until it was time to watch Star Trek: The Original Series at 5pm. As 6pm approached I gave my dinner a zapping in the microwave for the suggested time.
  Dinner was fresh off the reduced price shelf in Tesco earlier on. This "Tesco Finest" chicken, prawn and chorizo paella was reduced from £4.79 to £2.71, and that felt like a fair price for it. It was quite nice, but not wonderful enough for full price. One useful thing is that it reports that the whole meal only had 2.3gm of sugar in it. On the other hand, although looking quite big as presented on the shelf, it was not a very big portion inside the packaging.

  During a not very interesting bit of the BBC 6 O'clock news I went down into the kitchen for some dessert. It was two almost fully ripe nectarines, a single apple, and 4 starting to go stale, sugar free oaty biscuits. Somehow that seemed to be enough to satisfy any desires to eat more for the rest of the evening. I hope something similar works tonight when some booze and fresh air will be involved.

  After the news I watched Star Trek: Voyager. That ended at 8pm, and I had thought I would watch more TV, but after a few bad nights I was starting to feel quite tired. I went to bed bed to read for about half hour. I have finally made it to the short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" in the book of Philip K. Dick short stories. It was this story that formed the basis of the movie "Total Recall". As expected, the movie deviates from the original story, but so far it doesn't seem by much.

  I think I was maybe less than a third of the way through the story when I felt tired enough to try for sleep. It seems I was indeed very tired because I seem to remember just about nothing after turning out the light. I remember very little of my dreams. One dream was about repairing an old valve TV, and another was about a circuit board intended for something else that was a useful general purpose 12V power supply.

  I have better memories of waking up at the usual every 2 or 3 hours to go for a pee. They were memorable in that getting out of bed was very painful, There was less pain getting back into bed. After getting up, quite early, but with many hours, probably the full 8 hours maybe behind me, it was uncomfortable getting out of bed, and it seemed very uncomfortable sitting down on the toilet. Fortunately what I did once sat down, both peeing and pooing, was not painful.

  I was not sure what to expect when I got on the scales. Experience has taught me that I usually over eat after going food shopping, and so I would not have been surprised to see my weight had gone up. Evidently I was not forgetting eating some (unknown) things, and I had somehow eaten quite safely. Having said that, I only seemed to have lost 200gm this morning. That is not a lot, but it does take me down to the sort of weight when something goes badly wrong, and twice as much weight it piled on. Maybe that is more likely tomorrow after a boozing session with Jodie, and possibly Michael, but today will involve some booze.

  Today it was the turn of my right index finger to give up a tiny pinprick of blood for testing my blood glucose level. Being my most used finger it has quite tough skin on it, and it needs a much deeper pinprick to get a good flow of blood. This morning I didn't set the pricker depth deep enough, and I had trouble squeezing enough blood out. That may be why the first test shown a very dangerously high blood glucose level. I threw that away and tried again, and then the next three reading reading, on the three meters closely agreed that my blood glucose and low.

  The contour meter read 7.5mmol/l - spot on my latest target ! It was that meter that first ave a reading of 10.4mmol/l ! Maybe that super high reading was actually correct, but the other two meters agreed it was actually nice and low. The GlucoRX meter read 7.8mmol/l. The Sinocare meter typically read a bit higher, but 8.0mmol/l is not a lot higher than the other two, and so it looks like my blood glucose is actually nice and low this morning.

  My blood pressure seems unusually low this morning. On my first and only reading it was just 91/42. I do wonder if that is not a little too low, but apart from my lower back pain, the rest of me does seem to feel pretty good. The big test will come later. After my post writing rest I intend to wash and condition my hair (if leaning over the bathtub is not too painful) and have a shower. I will also use my new electric shaver to give a quick whizz over my cheeks - for cosmetic reasons - that shave will not be good enough to pass the kissing test - not that there is any chance of being kissed today.

  The big test of my health will be when I walk to the station. I'll be going there to pick up two copies of The Metro, and then getting the train to Ladywell. From Ladywell there is the short-ish walk to the pub where I will usually have two pints of Guinness, and attempt as much of the crosswords than I can manage. Despite walking home being the most healthy option, I will be getting the train because I want to buy some fruit, and maybe other things from the little supermarket on Catford Bridge.