08:47 BST

  What I am seeing out of my front window is very different to what I am seeing on the forecast. That says full sunshine, but outside my bedroom window I can see a mass of very dark cloud, and not even a hint that the sun is still alight. On the other hand, there are some blue areas if I look to the west (where the sun isn't). Perhaps that sinister area of cloud will eventually pass over, and we'll get the sunny spells the forecast promises. The temperature outside is about 20° C, and by 4pm it may reach a fairly warm  26° C. Tomorrow may be very sunny all day long (but that is what they said about the start of this morning, and they were wrong). Once again the afternoon temperature should reach 26° C.

   Yesterday was not as good as hoped for, and in some ways it was a bad day despite beer being involved - that was the cause of some of the bad, but at the same time it was also responsible for some of the good. Of course all these things will be better explained in my full text below.

  I don't think I had fully evaluated how I was feeling yesterday morning before I finished writing. Once I had finished writing I could put more attention on how I felt, and it was not good. It seemed to be partly a legacy of my long walk the day before. A few bits seemed a bit stiff, but it was more than that. I seemed to feel tired, as in sleepy, and also a bit listless like I had no energy.

  One problem became apparent after I had had my post-writing lie down and rest. At the end of my writing yesterday I mentioned one reason why I would probably not be going out for a walk was because I was not sure my guts were stable. I can't seem to remember any specific discomfort to suggest that, but after I finished laying down I felt a slight urge to go to the toilet. I have no idea why it was not a huge urge, because what I did in the toilet was huge !

  I felt it unlikely that I would need to poo again for the rest of the day. That made it safe to go out, but I still didn't want to go far because I still had a sort of tired, lacking energy, sort of feeling. I did feel a bit better after a shower, and decided I might as well go shopping in Tesco if I was going anywhere. Now the odd thing is that I can't seem to remember if it was going there, or coming home, when I felt most tired. It may have been going there when I felt worse.

  I mostly bought salad, and salad accessories in Tesco. One thing I hoped to buy was some of their 330ml cans of own brand sugar free cream soda, but they didn't have any. I could have got some cans of sugar free Lemonade as part of "any 6 cans" for a Clubcard discount. I bought 6 cans of sugar free Ginger Beer. I suspect that Ginger Beer is going to last a long time because it doesn't seem to be anywhere as nice as I thought I remembered it.

  After I got home I had some lunch. I would have skipped it if it were not for needing something so I would not be drinking beer on an empty stomach in the afternoon. I can't seem to remember exactly what I had. I know it involved rice crackers and some so called "burger coleslaw", but I am sure it would also include something a bit greasy to better line my stomach, and that is the bit I can't seem to remember. Whatever it was it would not be a healthy thing.

  There was not much I needed to do before Jodie arrived for the afternoon beer session, and I spent much of the spare time laying on my bed reading. Jodie arrived at about 3.30pm, and found me drinking already. I don't know why I dared to do it, but I started on a can of Carlsberg Special Brew. It was 7.5%, and I was sure it was not nearly as nice as it used to be. It is possible that back in the mists of time, when I would have a couple of cans when I felt the need for it, it was actually imported from Denmark, but yesterday's can was brewed by Marstons from "the original Danish Recipe".


 It is well known that most beers brewed to another brewery's recipe turn out to be completely different, and often undrinkable. When the Youngs brewery was bought, and production moved to Bedfordshire, and the Charles Well brewery, they employed the finest chemists in the land (possibly) to try and match the water, and allegedly did everything exactly the same, and still could not brew beer that tasted anything like that brewed in the original Youngs Wandsworth brewery.

  It seems easy to believe that beer once brewed in Denmark could never be brewed the same in Wolverhampton, and so I reckon the taste has changed from good to bad. The only real good thing is on the back of the can there is nutritional information, and it says the sugar content is 0gm - or nothing ! I have very strong doubts about some of the other beers we drank yesterday.



   I can't possibly remember all we drank yesterday. I don't think there was any other beer I had previously known, and I am not sure I would recognise most of the breweries, but this is what the beer tasting is supposed to be about - trying lots of beers to find good ones to drink again. The flaw in that plan is Jodie rarely wants to drink the same beer twice. She is like a trainspotter of beers. Every beer she tries she logs on the untappd(dot com) web site, together with a rating and comments. She is effectively just collecting beer names.

  Most of the beers we had I didn't like, but only most - I think I actually enjoyed at least one, and maybe two. For some reason I didn't seem to feel very drunk at the end, although I was evidently drunk enough to eat without a care in the world. I did not fancy a big salad, partly made up from some of the stuff I had bought in Tesco earlier. I felt I wanted something hot and tasty. I actually had two lots of instant noodles (but only one packet of each).

  Both flavours were flavours (and makes) I had had before. The odd thing was that the one I thought was going to be most delicious was less delicious than the one I thought would be merely nice. Maybe this paradox was because the first, which should have been best, had prepared my taste buds to be more receptive to the second, and so that turned out to be more delicious. The only trouble was, that even though they were very nice, and should have been filling enough, I found |I wanted more.

  I hadn't thrown caution completely to the wind, and managed to select something that may have been "safe". It was rice crackers (usually very safe in respect of almost no sugar content), and some mackerel pâté*. I was not expecting to have that mackerel pâté yesterday, and I was not sure it would be so nice, but it was. It was a very small tub, and once I had eaten the whole lot, scooped out using the rice crackers, I attacked the rest of the so called "burger coleslaw". I had no idea how much sugar that contained, but I expect it was not trivial. I'm not even sure what the sugar content of the pâté was. Once again, I suspect it had some sugar in it, but maybe most of my sugar consumption was from the beers.

* That reminded me. The mystery part of my lunch was some farmhouse pâté  scooped up with yet more rice crackers.

  All there seemed to be on TV last night was another long string of Simpsons episodes, although later there was a couple of episodes of Have I Got News For You. It was mainly the repeated, and mostly from not long ago, episodes of The Simpsons that often failed to grab my attention. I found myself reading stuff on the internet instead of watching TV. I watch TV on my computer, and I can switch between 4 desktops at the click of a mouse. If one screen bores me I can click to another displaying, for instance, a web browser.

  One distraction was inspired by the thought that all I had eaten and drunk yesterday was going to put some weight on me. I wondered how many of my old pairs of shorts still fitted well enough to be comfortable. I had two surprises. I have more pairs of shorts than I realise, and all seem to fit with no struggle at all. Even the pair that fasten with a popper instead of a button seemed stable when I tried those shorts on. The last time I tried them, maybe a few summers ago, the popper unpopped if I allowed myself to breath out.

  One forgotten pair of shorts were just like the new cargo shorts I have recently ordered (and which may be delivered on Thursday). The big difference is the air I recently ordered were black, but the similar ones I found at the bottom of a storage box are light grey. One curious fact is they smelled of tobacco smoke, and the chances are I have not worn them since before 2013. Maybe I couldn't wear then since then, but yesterday they seemed a very comfortable fit. I intend to wear them today if I managed to get out.

  I'm not sure if I managed to watch both editions of Have I Got News For You last night. The guests may have put me off the second, but what really made me annoyed was once it was gone 9pm they started showing those blood adverts featuring that awful look bloke who looks like a total spiv, front the Betfair gambling services. Those adverts really churn my stomach.

  Talking of churning my stomach, I found I was burping a lot in the late evening. All the fizzy canned beer was probably the main cause. It was enough to give strong hints of heartburn starting. I was also feeling a few aches - and maybe the worst was my right shoulder. I ended up doing what is now very familiar - getting up again, sitting at my PC while taking a couple of Paracetamol tablets, and chewing a couple of antacid tablets. After half an hour I went back to bed, and on my way I turned the fan heater on cold because I seem to find the random rattling noise of the fan is sort of soothing.

  I managed to get to sleep fairly quickly, but it felt like I was waking up more frequently than just waking for a pee - which of course I did several or more times. I have a very vague recollection of waking up from dreams a few times, but I can't seem to recall anything about those dreams beyond a funny idea that on at least one occasion I had a dream where nothing at all happened. I can't imagine what that dream could have been about.

  I was not too surprised to see I had put on quite a bit of weight since yesterday, and that was after a pee and small poo. Initially it looked like I had put on over a kilogram, but now, after several more visits to the toilet, and at least two of them involved passing more poo, I have revised my weight gain downwards to just 500gm. Maybe it is cheating because that was after my last visit to the toilet was around 11am. On the other hand, I had not had any breakfast at that point to confuse things.

  The reason for no breakfast is my blood glucose jumping from nice and low to very high. It is why I was saying so much about sugar content when writing about the beers and my dinner (and also possibly my lunch). This morning the Contour meter read a fairly terrible 9.2mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter was actually better at only 8.8mmol/l. That is a bit high but acceptable. The Sinocare meter reading was a very bad 9.3mmol/l, and not that much higher than the Contour meter - which makes a change.

  I do not feel all that good this morning, and it has (almost) nothing to do with my blood glucose, or weight.  Some it could be the remnants of a hangover. A lot of it may have been to do with my sleep. It feels like I slept in a cold draught or something. A few more things seem to ache or feel stiff than just the discomfort I was feeling in my shoulder (and upper arm to some extent) last night. It can't really be called bad, but my neck does feel a bit stiff as I write this.

  Maybe there are more reasons in my head for not feeling good this morning. I am thinking quite a lot lately about the pros and cons of the Sunday and Thursday drinking session. They can have quite a negative effect on my health. They can both set my weight loss, and blood glucose control back a few days. Sunday's in particular are not all that enjoyable. Over a 3 hour session I probably only get about 15 minutes of Conversation with Jodie. Mostly she is only paying attention to her phone.

  Thursdays are not quite as bad because Michael provides a lot more chances to have a conversation when I can get a word in edgewise. Occasionally there are other guests who liven things up a bit. I suppose I am drinking too much because I am bored. I feel loathe to cancel even Sunday's because otherwise I could go a whole week without talking to anyone - which could be good as well as bad. A bit earlier I was called by Lee who was blathering away for ages. If only he could come to the point without just plain blathering it might be nice to talk to him, but he is forever talking in irrelevances.

  I have just broken the first part of my plans for today. I had intended to fast until dinner time, or at least late afternoon, but I have already given in and had a snack. It was after my last visit to the toilet, and afterwards found my weight gain since yesterday was not a complete disaster, but can no be re-classified as just rather annoying. I had a handful of salted peanuts. That amount possibly had about 1.2gm of sugar in it, and that is not going to damage my hopefully falling already, blood glucose level.

  I really ought to go out for a walk today (and try the shorts I appear not to have worn since before 2013), and get some fresh air and exercise. The only trouble is that I don't feel like it. I don't even feel capable of it. Experience shows that if I could bring myself to start I would probably start to feel good about it, and might find I could do another 3 mile plus walk again, but taking that first step is hard !