The forecast says there should have only been sunny spells until 9am, but it is 10am as I write this, and there has been almost non stop sunshine. It is getting cloudy now, but there is still plenty of blue sky to be seen between the clouds. The peak afternoon temperature is shown as just 13° C, but I am wondering if it might be a bit higher. On the other hand there is a fair wind and it is coming from the north or north east - a cold direction usually. It should stay dry today. A lot of tomorrows forecast looks like today, but with two important changes. The afternoon could see 15° C, and from 3pm there could be sunny spells.

  I didn't feel that good yesterday morning, and maybe even later in the day, but I did manage to achieve enough to say I had a fairly good day. Although I did end up making a few not very clever things in my food consumption. It wasn't terrible, but did spoil things a bit.

  I wrote yesterday that I had started work before 8am, and it was to finish washing some clothes and get them hanging on the washing line very soon after 8am. I then had a breakfast of a small bowl of instant noodles. Once I had eaten I sat down to write, and as usual, I had a rest after I had finished writing. The next thing was to have a shower. I had thought I might wash my hair, and possibly even have a shave, but a shower seemed enough just for a shopping trip to Aldi.

  I was expecting the walk to Aldi to be quite unpleasant. I was wearing the Tesco trainers that I put better laces in, and they were far more comfortable to wear with those new laces that had some "slip" and made the shoe better mould itself to my feet. There were some times when I was not aware of wearing those trainers, but at other times they still felt a bit stiff. I have to believe they are getting more comfortable as I gradually break them in.

  I bought quite an assortment of stuff in Aldi. Top of the list was 4 two litre bottles of Diet Coke, a 9 pack of toilet rolls, and two 4 packs of Ciabatta rolls. I feared the latter may have sold out, but this time they seemed to have plenty. I also bought a few ready meals, and I might have bought another one or two if I could have got to where I hoped they might have some calories controlled frozen ready meals, but the whole frozen food aisle was cluttered with new stock waiting to be put in the fridges or shelves.

  My timing was terrible because the couple of open staffed checkouts seemed very busy, but it seemed that after I had gone through and paid they went very quiet.  I didn't quite stagger home with a very heavy rucksack, and two slightly heavy bags, but it did slow me down a bit. That probably made me a bit aware of the trainers I was wearing, but even so, I can't say they were painful, just a bit uncomfortable at times.

  I reached home and I didn't feel half as awful as expected. I had no chest pains (angina), but then again I was not walking that fast...although not all that slow either.I am not sure I would have been happy to walk a lot further though. After I put all my shopping away I tested a forkful of some Kimchi that I had bought. Kimchi is something I have never quite learned to like, but the stuff I bought yesterday was not bad. I just have to find something to have it with.

  With that done I had some lunch. It was not a very nice lunch. It was tomato and feta (I think) filled pastry parcels (very similar to samosas). I ate them cold, but it did suggest heating them. I'm not sure if that would have made things better or worse. It might have been better if heated for exactly long enough, and any more ruining them. They were quite greasy, and getting the grease liquid may have been sufficient heating. I strongly suspect they would have been very high in calories, fats and sugar !

  After lunch I went into deep relaxation mode - i.e. very lazy mode - but I only kept it up for less than an hour because I had another idea of something worthwhile doing. It was to wash a couple of t-shirts and some underpants. I put it all in to soak in detergent, and came very close to abandoning it for the day, but I did get back to it some hours later. I did all the rinses, and the fabric conditioner in one go, and then hung it up indoors to dry on the big clothes horse.

  I can't seem to remember is it was before or after when I brought in the washing on the line. It had been out in warm sunshine some of the time, and in the afternoon it had been blown around by the wind. It was bone dry when I took it in. It was probably then when I had a snack that turned into a very naughty snack. It was not intended, but I ate a whole bag of Polish park Kabanas. To make matter worse I squirted some "Carolina Mustard" into a small glass and dipped the Kabanas in it.

   Being an American product, or at least an American recipe, it was possibly 50% terrible corn syrup, and had very little mustard taste even if it was almost a fluorescent yellow colour. It is amazing how something so small could be so evil. I wonder why I ever bought it ? Another case of curiosity killed the cat. With so little real mustard flavour it is not the sort of thing you can use sparingly.

  It was not all that long to wait for dinner time. I had dinner at about my usual time of 6pm. It was two "fish pie" fishcakes. They were not all that good. The crispy outside of the fishcakes shared some similarity with sawdust, and the inside was any very cheap fish off cuts/leftovers. The idea seem like it could be good, but the reality disappointed. I topped it off with 5 "no added sugar" butter biscuits. They had been open for some time, and past their best, and although they may have had no added sugar, I suspect they still had a lot of sugar in them.

  Saturday night can be really good on TV, and at other times pretty terrible. Last night was not awful, but still not good. I found stuff to watch until gone 9pm (I think). I then went to bed to spend what turned out to be quite a long time reading my latest book - Andrew Smith and "Moon Dust". In the book, Andrew Smith who seems to be a journalist, and not a scientist, decided to track down the last 9 survivors of the moon landing. The other had all passed away from age or illness.

  Unlike the last book I was reading, about the Mars rovers, but this new book has very little science in it, and is all about emotions and stuff. It should not be a riveting read, but I think I was probably reading for over an hour before I tried for sleep. I found I could not fall asleep straight away, and it may have taken almost an hour before I was deeply asleep. One think keeping me awake was bottom ache. I thought I needed to go for a poo, and I did go to the toilet to try to, but it eventually resolved as just gas !

  I only remember in a sort of robotic way getting up to go for a pee several times in the night. I seem to remember dreaming a lot, but there is only part of a dream that I remember. One different sort of memory is probably half dream. I am sure it happened twice. I was waking up because I needed to go for a pee, but before I was fully awake I seemed to be dreaming what I would do, and on both occasions I had this half waking dream of leaving my bedroom and turning left. Back in the real world, left would only go into a cupboard that is blocked by t-shirts hanging on hangers, a waste bib, and my laundry basket. the toilet is actually straight ahead.

  The other part remembered dream is too patchy to make a lot of sense, but whether dreaming or half awake, I filled the gaps in as best I could to make a sort of extremely brief story. The dream would seem to have started with overhearing a couple of woman talking, perhaps in a pub. One would seem to be someone who worked for a local council, and was someone to do with arranging flats or homes for the homeless (although this bit is vague in the extreme).

  She was telling of a very difficult customer.  The customer, evidently also a woman had tried 4 different flats and said she could not live in any of them, but had tried them for at least a few weeks. Apparently she had just complained that there was no way she could live in the fifth place. This time she had offered one special reason. Apparently a man had given her a look she didn't like, and there was no way she could live anywhere in the area. Quite what the look was is unknown, but it could have been as innocent as just checking out a new face.

  I was very, very slow to get up this morning. I needed a pee at 6am, and before I went back to bed, I checked the weather forecasts from both the BBC and The Met Office, and left them both up so I could take screenshots of both later on. I then went back to bed for an hour. I didn't seem to sleep for most of that hour, but I sort of revelled in the idea that I had no need to get up before midday at worst. In the end common sense took over, and I got up, very slowly at 7am.

  I went for another pee, and I thought I would have a poo, but nothing happened in the latter department. When I got on the scales I found my bad eating meant I had put on 400gm. That was mildly annoying, but not as bad as I feared. I did have a tiny poo a bit later, and even did a very small trickle of poo. It made no difference when I got on the scales again.

  The change in my blood glucose was more profound this morning. The Contour meter read 9.3mmol/l. That is almost dangerous. The GlucoRX meter was a bit kinder with a reading of 8.5mmol/l. Until this year when I often seemed to do better, that was actually my target. So I can't say it was that bad. Unfortunately the Sinocare meter full agreed with the Contour meter that my blood glucose was 9.3mmol/l.

  Once I have finished writing this I look forward to a nice rest, and maybe even a snooze, but sooner or later I must wash my hair and have a shower. The main, and possibly only event today, will be an afternoon beer tasting session with Jodie. I doubt I will stay sober enough to fully control my eating, but I will try to, and at least my dinner is sort of pre-chosen ince yesterday - one of the ready meals I bought.

  One thing I partly forgot, but also didn't really know where to tuck in the above narrative, concerns the change in weather, and in particular how it changed to colder yesterday.  I had had my bedroom window all afternoon yesterday, but at about 6pm I started to feel a bit chilly, and I realised it was not just me when the fan heater suddenly started up. For the previous 24 or maybe 36 hours it had not been turned off, but was held off by it's built in thermostat. I have never had a lot of confidence in that thermostat, it is not even calibrated, but it worked splendidly last night.