07:44 BST

  A 19° C sunny start, and then non stop sunshine means that today should see at least 30° C this afternoon. The met Office predicts 31° C. It will be another warm night, but tomorrow, while also seeing sunshine from dawn to dusk, may be a little bit cooler - possibly as low as 28° C.

   Yesterday was another day when I just had to do some walking - extra walking over what it would need to walk from home direct to The Jolly Farmers and back again. It was mostly good, but there were some unexpected problems that spoiled it a bit.

  I seemed to be up and writing unusually early yesterday, although back in the days when I used to write this electronic diary at work, it would not be particularly early - I was often as work before 7.30am, and writing was usually my first task if nothing important was going on. You could look at it that I was being paid to spend an hour or two every day to write this stuff. Fortunately my boss did not realise it !

  As well as starting to write early, yesterday, I managed to get myself washed and dressed earlier than most Wednesday, and that allowed me to do an extended walk to the pub. Initially I walked in the wrong direction, away from the pub. It was to Catford Bridge station, but this time it was not to get a train to Ladywell. I picked up two copies of The Metro, and then crossed the railway over the road bridge, and headed for the southern tip of the park.
   It was a 1.618 mile walk to the pub. I managed to do that at a remarkable 2.46mph, but to achieve that I had to make sure I paused the tracker every time I stopped for a rest - and I had to do that a lot, or at least it seemed to be a lot. What I seemed to suffer from most was not shortness of breath. It was also not fatigue aches from my ankles and legs, although they did start to ache a bit on the way home. It was not even angina in the usual way. It was like a heavy feeling in my chest, but not really painful. It felt more like a sort of ache from my Sternum - a sort of muscular or connective tissue ache. I didn't feel worried about it, but I did take a short rest break, and the feeling did recede. In guess it was possibly going to build up into a heart attack if I didn't take my short, probably often less than a single minute, breaks.
  I haven't walked through the southern end of the park for ages. Yesterday gave me a chance to have a look at the orchard. It is a completely public area of the park with quite a collection of fruit trees, and I don't think there are any rules against picking the fruit. Of course the kids probably take a lot of the fruit, and probably well before it is ripe and juicy. The tree above is probably a pear tree of some kind. The pears aren't quite the classical pear shape, but closer to a pear than being an apple.
  I am very sure this is an apple tree, and many of the apples look like they are probably ripe, but they are not very big, and could be one of the sour varieties.
  This is definitely a cherry tree, and most of the low hanging ripe fruit has been plucked and eaten. There are some very nice looking ripe cherries higher up the tree. I don't think there is any official harvesting plan for all the fruit in the orchard, and anything not taken by humans, animals or birds, is probably just left to drop to the ground. There are more fruits than I have shown here, and I believe there are several types of plum trees as well a quince tree - not that I think I would ever recognise a quince fruit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quince It is possible I have seen them and mistaken them for slightly odd looking pears - maybe what I thought of as pears in my first picture.

  It was nice seeing parts of the park I had not seen for some time, but it would have been nicer if I didn't need to keep stopping to let aches subside. It was obviously not that bad, or maybe I am just a masochist, because I shunned taking a short cut through the hospital, and walked to almost the most northern tip of the park before crossing the river at the back of St Mary's church - as I usually do.

  It was fairly quiet in the pub, but that was OK because it made it easier to hear the banter between a few of the sitting-at-the-bar regulars and Ayse, my favourite bar maid. I was obviously feeling a bit physically stressed when I arrived at the pub, but I did seem to recover quite quickly, and I strangely seemed to feel better than usual while I had my usual two pints of Guinness - drunk at a fairly relaxed rate.
  With my two pints finished, and after having a pee, I headed home again. Once again I could have taken a short cut through the hospital grounds, but I chose to initially walk north behind St Mary's church, and only turn south once I had crossed the river.  While passing behind the church I spotted a pigeon stretching all it's feathers out as it laid on the warm ground. I should have used video instead of a still photo to record it. I am pretty sure it was trying to clean off mites and parasites, although I seem to think that usually happens on more dusty ground.

  While walking home I did my now well practised thing of stopping on each bridge that crossed the river, even if I was not actually crossing the river there. The distance between these bridges seem to match my endurance between these rest stops. I also had a rest stop as the exit to the park. All the walking I have done since we started getting some dry and sunny days has strengthened me, and I arrived home not feeling completely drained like I was doing so a few weeks back, although maybe some of the thanks should go to my Adidas trainers. They definitely make walking easier.

  It was about 3pm when I got home, and I don't know how, but I had become fixated on the idea of having fish fingers for a rather late lunch. I have been fairly good at skipping lunch lately, or at worst having something light with a known low sugar content when I do have lunch. Fish fingers may seem innocent, but although I haven't actually checked the box, I think that Birdseye in particular fish fingers have quite a high sugar content. I think the sugar is added to the breadcrumbs around the fish, and it helps glue the breadcrumbs on, and makes the outside brown better.

  I followed the cooking instructions and can only think they were meant for a hotter oven/grill. They were quite pale compared back in the day of frying them until a really golden brown. In that case it probably turned the sugar into toffee, and that is why they were crispy and crunchy ! There might be other things that share the blame for high blood glucose this morning, but I mostly blame the fish fingers.

  I started transferring the pictures from both phone to my PC via bluetooth while the fish fingers were cooking. I started the selecting and editing while they were cooling off in the oven. It was possibly 4pm before I ate them. The ironic thing as that I didn't really want them by then, and could have been quite happy to wait the next 2 hours for my dinner.  Not only did I not really want them, but I didn't enjoy them in the way I had been imagining them on my way home from the pub.

  My dinner also contained one suspicious item that may have added a fair bit of sugar to my diet. That one item was half a big can of butter beans. They were part of a mad idea for a meat free salad. It also included a very dodgy sort of cheese - Pilgrims Choice, ready sliced cheese with paprika in a "Mexican style".  That cheese is an odd substance. It is nice if eaten on an even minute, but not nice if it is an odd minute....or something like that.

  I ate my dinner while watching the BBC 6 O'clock news, and after the news I watched with very little enthusiasm, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek:Deep Space Nine. If I ever have a funeral, and I hope I don't, I would like the Voyager theme music played at it. It is so dirgeful, and depressing, that it seems ideal for a funeral. Personally, I stick to me preference of just being dumped in The River Thames when I snuff it.

  At 9pm I took my book to bed. It was quite a sticky night, and I was not sure if I would ever fall asleep easily. I read until about 10pm, and then turned the light out, and tried to sleep. As well as the sweat and stickiness, I seemed to be close to suffering from some heartburn, and I also seemed to have more chest pain. Once again it felt more like a strained muscle or ligament. Different positions would change how bad it felt.

  I got up again to take a couple of Ibuprofen tablets and also a couple of antacid tablets. Maybe 20 minutes later I was feeling better, but also quite dozy. I went back to bed, and although I know I laid there for at least 5 or 10 minutes, I must have fallen asleep far faster than I believed possible. I'm sure there must have been an earlier time when I was awake, but I only clearly remember waking at 3am to go for a pee.

  I am not sure whether to just blame it on the sheets sticking to my damp with sweat skin, or if I had really been thrashing around as I slept. What I do know is that when I got up I found that one side of the under sheet had become untucked from beneath the mattress, and the mattress was half uncovered. I still seem to think I actually slept well last night. I don't even remember having any time for dreams. Maybe that was a bad thing, and funnily enough, as I write this I have seemed to start yawning a lot !

  I expected to pass a large poo when I went to the toilet after getting up. All I managed was a medium fart. I didn't even seem to pee much. No poo, and only a small pee was not a friendly thing for when I got on the scales. It was not a disaster, but I hoped my extra walking would at least mean I had lost a little bit of weight. In reality it would seem that I put on 100gm since yesterday. Although not good in one sense, it was still good in so much as it is still in the mid blue range of my spreadsheet colour scheme (the colour changes for every full kilogram change).

  The most bothersome thing was my blood glucose measurements. It seems something as insignificant as some sugar infused fish fingers could cause as much damage as I saw, but those fish fingers are the scapegoat of the day. It is probably an indication that I should probably be on insulin now - as I am expecting my doctor to tell me when I see him next Wednesday morning. Until it becomes routine, it is going to be an annoying change to my routine.

  The Contour meter said my blood glucose was 8.7mmol/l, and although slightly higher than I would prefer, it would have been perfectly OK. The GlucoRX meter always seems to be reliable, but it said my blood glucose was 9.1mmol/l, and that is not good. The Sinocare meter was not as harsh as some days, but a reading of 9.7mmol/l is pretty bad, and I think this time it may have only been over reading a bit.

  This morning was one of those mornings where my blood pressure seemed a bit too low, and that was something the nurse was a bit concerned about, and could be another reason why I have been called to the surgery to discuss things with a doctor. This morning I decided to do a double check - two readings, one from each arm, at the same time.
  On the left is the blood pressure meter I use most. It is worn on the wrist, and is easy to put on. Just 15 minutes ago it said my blood pressure was just 94/44 - a quite low reading. That spurred me to check my blood pressure again using the meter on the right. It uses an upper arm cuff that is tricky to put on, and I have to use it on my right arm because an old injury means the shape of the top of my left arm is not nice and smooth for the cuff to compress the arm.

  I then decided to take readings using both meters at the same time. They do not agree that well, but are both in the same ball park figure. The Salter (a well respected name from the days of mechanical weight scales) meter on the left says 108/44, and on the left hand side shows that to be "Optimum". The very slightly higher figure on The OxiPro meter says 111/55, and I think it declares that to be "Ideal". It is probably a good sign that both meters say my heart rate was 51 pulses per minute.  Also of note is that the clocks are set wrong on both meters !

  Today is a dangerous day. Later this afternoon both Jodie and Michael will probably be over for an afternoon beer sampling/tasting session. In the usual course of events I will get drunk to some degree, and then spend the next two days recovering from an eating frenzy...sort of ! Today it could be worse because I also hope to pop out to do some shopping a bit later. That will bring many temptations. On the other hand I may find stuff to eat that is fairly safe, and I can gorge myself on that instead of something potentially worse !

   Finally: It is my birthday in a few more days, and I received a birthday card in the post from my younger sister yesterday. Tucked in the card was a little extra. It was a sheet of A4 paper with a few duplicator quality black and white photos on it.

  I recognised, and already had 3 of the photos, and in slightly better quality, but the one on the left was new to me. It was evidently taken while on one of the two holidays I had (almost have ever had). It would have probably been either 1966 or 1967, and we were staying in a caravan in Leysdown for a week.

  I think it was just me, my younger sister, mum and dad. My older brothers and sister were presumably at home, although maybe the older sister came too. I am pretty certain my dad dropped as there and picked us up again at the weekend, but was back at work in his shop during the week.

  The picture shows my mum, my sister, and me !!