We end April with yet another very nice day. Today should see an afternoon high of 25° C, and possibly even 26° C. Tomorrow should be the same, but the temperature could peak at 27° C.

  Yesterday was generally pleasant, albeit with one particular negative thing. I ended up doing far less than I thought I would, but I did do two things that I thought deserved a bit more effort. Sometimes it is nice being lazy when it is warm and sunny, and I certainly seemed to enjoy it yesterday.

  My morning started off very typically. I finished writing, had a rest, and then I had a shower, and it was only a shower because I did not feel I would be on show at any time. When I was washed and dressed I went out. My principle destination was the station so I could pick up a copy of The Metro. I did have thoughts of going further, but it felt like 16 (and a half) minutes of walking was good enough for me yesterday.

  It was sort of good that I managed to keep up an average speed of 2.444 mph, and it might have been a fraction faster if I hadn't stopped to see what happening at some roadworks. One carriage way westbound going over Catford Bridge was coned off. I fear that it is another bit of daft engineering to slow traffic, or introduce ways of fining motorists. I am not a motorist, but even I object to the powers that be, making motorists live miserable.

  That 16 minutes and 29 second of fresh air and exercise made me feel very hungry. It was my intention to have just one Ciabatta roll filled with some fish, and maybe a packet of crisps, or even nothing more. It all went wrong when I realised that one very small can of Mackerel in oil was easily enough for two rolls, and so I had two rolls. It was basically just the fish and bread as the main ingredients, but I did add some white pepper, a sprinkle of chilli sauce, and a squirt of mayonnaise on one half of the roll. I have to say it was a delicious lunch.

  What I should have done next, albeit after a short rest, was to get back to two towels I had left soaking in detergent. I did get back to them, but I had a problem - the return of a stiff back/lower back pain. It made leaning over the bath, with my two big builders buckets in it, rather uncomfortable. I think I may have pushed myself to do 5 rinses, but that was enough for a while.

   I would return to that washing two more times, and each time I would do another 3 or 4 rinses. The water still looked a bit soapy, but I hoped it would be good enough when I gave up and hung up the two towels to dry. The original intention was to hang them on the washing line in the hot sunshine, but I didn't finish until just after 8pm.  I hung them on the small clothes horse in the warm front room with a desk fan blowing at them.

  Before I could have used the washing line I would have needed to cut a path down the garden path so I could walk down it without being stung by nettles or scratched by thorns. Of course I could have put on boots and long trousers, but that didn't feel in the spirit of things. Meanwhile, the garden continues to shoot up in this warm weather, although no rain may be holding it back a bit.

  At 5pm I started to watch an episode from Star Trek: The Original Series. I only watched it because it was something to do. I remembered the episode probably from many previous repeats. It is difficult to say if it was good or bad episode, particularly when I was often concentrating on the crossword puzzles in The Metro. I also concentrated on eating a nice, but naughty snack of a couple of packets of crisps.

  Just before the BBC 6 O'clock news I had my dinner, although it was not dinner in any conventional sense. It was possibly slightly less than two scoops of vanilla ice cream. It was partly because I knew I would enjoy it, and partly because I couldn't be bothered to get anything out of the freezer, or maybe open up a can. I followed it up with a dessert of 4 or 5 "no added sugar" butter biscuits.

  After the news I watched Star Trek: Voyager. That finished at 8pm, and I was almost on the point of preparing for bed, but I had to go back to my two towels, and give them another 4 rinses before hanging them up to dry. After that I was almost feeling ready for bed, and I did brush my teeth ready for the moment, but I stayed up reading a few things on the internet, and then quite a few pages from the book I am reading.

  It must have been getting on for 10pm when I turned out the light, and nothing happened. I thought I was feeling so tired that I should have fallen asleep in minutes. I was certainly feeling weary, and resting was nice, but I had had a few snoozes during the day, and so maybe my need for sleep was less than I thought. Once again I gave in and took a couple of Paracetamol to reduce some aches and pains to make sleep come easier half an hour or so later.

  Once asleep I seemed to mostly sleep OK. I did wake up around 1am, or maybe 2am, feeling cold, and altered the thermostat on my fan heater for a bit more heat. I can't put any times on it, but I think I woke at quite irregular times for a pee in the night, and sometimes I didn't seem to pee all that much - which I thought was rather bothersome at the time - mainly that draining off a lot of pee gives a lighter weight when I get on the scales.

   When I got up I was generally happy with what the scales read, but even happier after a second visit to the toilet after I had counted out my medication for the day (which includes some vitamins and stuff I like to take). The final reading, after a second small pee, took my weight down to similar figures after a long walk and feeling dehydrated - basically the reading was in the next kilogram down. I have only achieved that 4 times this year, although I note I did it fairly frequently, or better, in the second half of last year. I still have to try and put a lot more effort into it !

  I was slightly worried that I might be a bit dehydrated this morning after not seeming to pee much last night. That would make my blood glucose seem to be higher (I guess it actually is as a percentage of my blood), but it looked fairly normal when I checked. The Contour meter read 8.2mmol/l, and that is very typical. The GlucoRX meter read a very good 7.8mmol/l, and the Sinocare meter was on my side again with a reading of 8.0mmol/l.

  My blood pressure is up a little this morning for some reason, but the meter still classifies/diagnoses it as "Optimum". It is 113/48. I still have the evening readings to add to my spreadsheet, but I doubt they would make any difference to my end of month average. This month's average is 106/48 with a pulse rate of 55. Last month was 108/48 with a pulse rate of 56. Apart from the occasional higher blood pressure reading, which tends to get almost flattened out in the average, it seems my blood pressure is pretty stable month to month. Of course these figures are at rest. You, and I don't want to know what they might be in the middle of an arduous walk !

  Today the big plan is to go to the pub at lunchtime for my usual couple of pints of Guinness. The one break with tradition is that today I think I am going to walk all the way. If I can walk there and back in one session, just the walk there should be a lot less taxing. I'm not sure about going home. It always feels that just 2 pints of Guinness seems to make walking a lot harder. I'll see how I feel at the time.