The forecast for today has gone through many changes in the last 24 hours, but essentially it still remains as "not very nice". I expected today to start only a degree or two away from a frost, but the lwoest I noticed was 8° C, but the forecasts aid 7° C. The main thing that has kept changing is the amount of rain. I think we can be sure there is going to be some today. The very latest revision shows light rain from 11am to 3pm now. There could be sunny spells from 5pm until sunset. It will be another cold day with a maximum of 13° C.  Tomorrow could be grey for a lot of the afternoon, but at other times there could be sunny spells. It may be a while one degree warmer than today (14° C).

  I thought I felt fairly good yesterday, and that was a good improvement over the day before. It didn't last. By 10pm I was feeling pretty bad. The reasons for this will be explained later in today's narrative (or whatever this verbal diarrhoea is called).

  One important fact about yesterday was that I was semi constipated. I did two two poos, but that was not enough. I mention this now because it would have repercussions for last night, and this morning. Other than that I started the day feeling mostly OK, and looking forward to a possible good day. I have to admit that almost contradicts what I said yesterday morning, and I guess that was more accurate, but it was influenced by feeling some guilt about high blood glucose readings.

  I had a pretty normal morning yesterday. I sat at my computer writing yesterday's piece for a couple of hours. Then I had a rest. I was not looking forward to the next bit because the bathroom window was open, and now and again there were some quite chilly breezes blowing through the 6 inch open part of the window. I could have closed the window, but I thought I would be brave and wash my hair, and have a shower without closing it. It was not as bad as I feared, but it was rather nice to get back to my warm bedroom to get dressed and blow dry my hair.

  That took me up to lunchtime, and despite my high blood glucose readings I could not resist a couple of Ciabatta rolls. There was an ulterior motive for this - I needed something in my stomach before pouring beer into it later. I filled both rolls with sliced beef and salad leaves. One of them also had the traditional horseradish sauce, but the other was an experiment. I added some Kimchi instead of horseradish sauce. It wasn't bad, but I don't think that is the thing I have been looking for to help me use up the jar of Kimchi.

  After I had eaten my lunch I had a nice lie down, and read for a while. I can recall my eyes starting to close, but I don't think I allowed myself to have a snooze, but I can't be positive about it. I had to get myself back in action a bit later to do some washing up left in the kitchen sink, and to tidy up the dining room table ready for Jodie to mess it all up again. After finishing that, and having quite some time waiting for Jodie (she missed her train again), I had another look at the cryptic crossword in last Thursday's Metro newspaper. I couldn't finish it, but I did manage over half of it.

  Jodie's arrival brought a complete farce. She usually fusses around preparing her lunch, plus a ready to eat snack for later in the evening. Yesterday she took things to extremes. First there was preparing some asparagus, and cooking it. Then there was some leftover from her dinner the day before - some battered strips of aubergine. They came from some sort of café or somewhere, and were apparently too greasy, and they had gone "floppy".

  They had to be grilled, and she tried to get at least some of the batter off before adding it to her plate of stuff. All this faffing around was almost normal, but she stepped well out of normality when she decided she had to wash the non-vegan mayonnaise of a small tub of potato salad. That was a very messy business ! When all that was done everything on her plate must have been stone cold, but she hadn't finished. The final ingredient was some five bean salad. She had left a small container of it in the beer fridge, underneath the ice compartment, and it had frozen solid, and so she had to thaw it out before adding it to her her plate of weird food.

  Finally we got drinking, although I did open a can of beer that I knew she would not need to taste before I drank it all.  Jodie was going to another gig last night, and so was drinking quite slowly, and I think I filled in with another beer or two while waiting for her to catch up. For several reasons I would have liked to have not got too drunk yesterday, but while I was possibly closer to sober than some past occasions, I was still quite "happy" at the end of the session.

  Jodie left at about 6.30pm, maybe a bit later than anticipated, but I knew far enough in advance that I could put my dinner in the mini oven/grill for it's 25 minutes of cooking time, and allow it 15 to 20 minutes to cool off a bit before eating it. It was a calorie controlled (308 calories I think) cod in white sauce with peas and mash. Not eating it while too hot made it taste a bit better, but it was still far from filling - at least to the extent I was looking forward to.

  I would probably done better if I had had some ice cream, or even rice crackers and cheese, but I decided that some seafood sticks should be fairly safe. I never realised just how wrong I could be. Pictures on the left is the nutritional panel on the packet. These figures are for just one stick, but I ate the whole pack (maybe 16 sticks) because once started I felt compelled to carry on to the bitter end.  That added up to loads of sugar and calories.

  It may have been the straw that broke the camels back. I was feeling almost OK earlier in the evening, a lot of which I used to idly watch the James Bond film "Octopussy". It would not be my first choice of entertainment, but it was about all there was on TV last night. As the film came to the climax I found I was getting bored of it, and found myself looking at a few websites instead, although I continued to listen to the sound.

  It is hard to say when I started to feel uncomfortable, and when that discomfort had got bad enough to spoil any idea of going to sleep for a few hours. It gradually got worse, but as usual it peaked when I laid down, and tried to sleep. It was obviously indigestion, but I soon took precautions to stop it turning into acid indigestion. I was still belching a lot, and one one occasion I came perilously close to throwing up.

  As well as troubles at the top end of my digestive tract, the lower end was feeling uncomfortable. At the top of the page I said that I only managed two quite small poos in the morning. Late at night I was feeling constipated. I seemed to pass wind quite easily, but nothing more despite spending a few long waits in the cold toilet (I had closed the window by then). From maybe 10pm I was also troubled by a small, but not insignificant hangover.

  It was almost 1am before I got to sleep. Some earlier attempt had also been spoiled by my bed feeling too cold. I had been semi stingy with the heating prior to this, but by 11am I had set the thermostat high enough that I don't think the heater went off all night. This was not actually that surprising considering how low the temperature got outside in the night. By morning the heater was barely able to keep pace with the fall in temperature outside.

  Once I got to sleep, sometime around 1am this morning - or so I think - I can't seem to remember all that much about the night. I seem to think that I didn't seem to pee all that much, although I was probably still waking every one or two hours. I think the last sleep I got may have lasted a bit over three hours. I am tempted to say I didn't dream at all last night, but I know I did, and it's just that I can't remember a single thing about any dreams.

  I was shocked when I got on the scales straight after getting up. It initially looked as if I had put on a full 2kg in 24 hours. That should have probably been impossible, but I think it was a lot to do with water retention, and poo retention. The latter didn't last long. 10 minutes later I was back on the toilet, and this time I quite easily passed a very large and very heavy poo (I knew it to be heavy because it sank to the bottom of the pan). With a bit more pee I was suddenly 400gm lighter. I am hoping there is a lot more to go during the course of this morning (although I have now had breakfast, and it would take an awful lot of poo now to make me change my weight record for today).

  Prior to this morning my lower legs were looking sort of lean. This morning they are back to looking like they are swollen from water retention. I am not sure what causes it. One culprit could be my kidneys not working correctly. That could be serious if true, but I don't think it is that. It could be a circulation problem, and is often worse in my left leg - the one that is missing an artery - that was used for my heart bypass operation.

  The impression that I did not pee as much as I thought would happen in the night might possibly be a clue that my blood glucose was modestly low, but that seemed unlikely. However 2 out of 3 says it was low. Both the Contour and GlucoRX meters said my blood glucose level was just 8.0mmol/l this morning. That is actually fairly good, and with two meters agreeing it should be right, but the Sinocare meter said my my blood glucose was a terrible 9.5mmol/l. I have a theory that the Sinocare meter uses very slightly different chemistry, and it may be sensitive to alcohol or it's decay products, and the other two meters are not.

  The original plan for today was to get to the Petts Wood May Fayre for a few hours this afternoon. There is a live stage as part of the entertainment, and one band on that I know. That one band are one I can't get excited about, and a couple of others may have been good for (photographic) target practice - which is what the band I do know would really only be. It would be good to get some practice in after not taking any band pictures for months and months, but....

  There draw of the event is not very strong, and it is a 2 train journey to get to Petts Wood. It is an all open air event (although the stage should be covered to keep equipment dry), and with rain almost certain, even if less than forecast, that is a big put off. Most important is that I do not feel comfortable today. Despite one rather good poo so far today, I still have a feeling akin to constipation. I predict that sooner or later I will need to go for a pee again, and it could be at short notice. That is not ideal when I am miles from my own toilet, and while the Daylight Inn has a pretty fair toilet, it is quite small.

  It looks like I will be staying in all day, with not a lot to do. One thing I could do, and probably will is to give the hand towel from the kitchen a really good wash. It seemed quite smelly when I used (and replaced it) yesterday morning. There are probably more small jobs like that I could do. It would also be a good opportunity to have a few snoozes today to catch up with what feels like quite a bad sleep last night (plus to make up for getting to sleep so late last night).