07:53 BST

  Today may peak at 26° C, but only for two hours, and one of those hours might feature rain. Apart from late evening, it is forecast to be a very dull day. On the other hand, I can see some small bits of blue among the grey clouds, so we may get an occasional short sunny spell sometime. In the latest revision to the forecast there is now a thunderstorm predicted for 7pm, although with only a 17% chance of rain predicted it seems more likely it will be dry. There is a small chance of rain later tomorrow afternoon, but most of tomorrow should feature at least sunny spells, and the temperature should reach 28° C, but maybe only for a single hour. After tomorrow we could be facing three days of thunderstorms. No doubt that is when the hosepipe ban for the area will be announced.

  There were a few minor negative things about yesterday, but generally it was one of my better days. It was all due to forward planning, and then making up for when the initial plan failed. These things, and more will be revealed and explained in my writings for today.

  Having yesterday start bright and sunny, and some of the sunny spells were almost long enough to be called "sunshine", put an extra sparkle on the day. Losing a few hundred grams, and fairly low blood glucose readings (albeit not as low as a few recent days) put a good shine on the day....or maybe it was a good shine on my mind. Although the best was yet to come, it was already feeling much, much better than the day(s) before.

  The day before was so dull that I wrote a lot less than usual. That meant I had more time to relax, and then get ready for the day. I was intending to go to The Jolly Farmers to see my favourite barmaid, Ayse. I always like to shave, wash my hair and have a shower on such occasions, and yesterday I had a wet shave instead of a rub down with my electric razor. It turned out that I was glad I did so, although I don't think it would have made much difference except for my self esteem.

  Yesterday it was the turn of my main phone, the Huawei P30 Pro, to embarrass itself. Last Wednesday it had worked OK, but my new Honor 200 Smart phone decided I had walked twice the distance than it really is from home to the "curly whirly" footbridge over the railway in the park. Yesterday it got it right. It said it was 0.283 miles instead of over half a mile. In consequence it seems to have calculated my walking speed correctly. 2.526 mph seems about right to me.

  I had intended to compare these figures on my Huawei P30 Pro phone, but while it agreed that I had been walking for 6 minutes and 42 seconds, it said I had walked zero miles at 0 mph. The trace actually started after I had paused the tracker while I had a short breather (and had a squirt of TNG spray), and then un-paused it when I continued my walk.


  The complete walk from home to the pub, via Ladywell station, where I diverted to pick up two copies of The Metro, was measured as being 0.886 miles, and that agrees with the last couple of times I did the same walk. My walking speed of just 1.982 mph seems a bit slow, but it easily rounds up to 2 mph, and that is fairly typical. However, I know there were times when I stopped to take a picture, of just looked at the ducks on the river, and I forgot to pause the tracker. had I done so I may have pushed that figure up closer to 2.5 mph - which I have been achieving recently.

  It was very quiet in the pub when I arrived, and maybe that was to my advantage. Ayse could spend a bit more time on out usual brief chat when I arrive. I told her the good and bad news *, and that included showing the small fading red spots of where the spider bit me last week. As far as I can tell, those puncture marks are the only legacy of the spider bite. I was worried that the venom would dissolve the inside of my finger so that if the spider was not dead, it could come and suck the semi-digested juices from my finger.

* I must interrupt this dialogue to share the news I heard before I left to go to the pub yesterday. It was a phone call, via Whatsapp from my friend Patricia who is currently in Argentina, and it seems she may be staying there longer than she had intended. She has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Fortunately it was caught very early, and that should make treatment a lot easier, and hopefully more permanent. At this this time Patricia has not had a biopsy. She has that tomorrow (Friday), and there is always hope that it turns out to be a very benign cancer, or even better, not a cancer at all.

  Back to the good news. As Ayse pulled my pint of Guinness I got her week late birthday present out of my rucksack and presented it to her. She was impressed that I had wrapped it (even it it was really Xmas wrapping paper, but I don't think she bothered to look that closely at it as she ripped it off the box. When she found that it was a one litre bottle of Tequila Rose in the box she rushed through to my side of the bar and gave me a hug and kiss on the cheek. Only one tiny think spoiled it an made it only 98% wonderful, and that was that I was not ready for it, and was still trying to close the zip on my rucksack.

  The next thing Ayse did was to put the bottle in the fridge, and saying that we would share a tot of the Tequila Rose before I was going. Normally Ayse is in fairly good spirits, but yesterday she was positively bubbling. As I said above, I think it was in part because the pub was so quiet that she could spend more time with the few of us there.  More people did trickle in, and I expect it started to get semi busy in there later in the afternoon.

  I had my usual 2 pints of Guinness, but didn't manage to do much of the crossword in The Metro, and read very little of the news in it. There was too much going on to concentrate on the paper a lot of the time. As I got to the end of my second pint of Guinness, Ayse got the bottle out of the fridge, and poured 4 small shot glasses of the Tequila Rose for herself, me, and two other regulars who I know (or know their faces).  We all wished Ayse a happy birthday (albeit a week late).

 Before I actually left I called Ayse over, and said I wasn't really ready the first time, and this time it was a warmer hug with my arms around her. It was really marvellous that she didn't even think twice about it, It was warm and genuine. It was also a very rare treat these days.  I left the pub feeling really good. I would have been happy to walk home through the park, but I wanted some shopping in Catford, and so I caught the next train.
  This rather pale coloured robin did a nice pose for me on the railings as I was walking to the pub. This was one of the times I was not walking for a few minutes, and when I didn't get a chance to stop the tracker. If I had on this occasion, and a few others, I might have got my walking speed up closer to 2.5mph.
  Another picture taken while walking to the pub - when I was at the station picking up copies of The Metro newspaper. If I recall correctly, this was the sixth class 376 train I have photographed in it's new "Southeastern blue" livery. They look so smart, but I wonder if in a few years after all 36 of the trains have been in their new livery, I will look back with nostalgia at the old plain white livery.

  I was unlucky enough to get a train back to Catford Bridge that seemed to be full to the brim of extremely noisy, and extremely stinky school kids (in truth I might have just been unlucky to have picked the most rammed full carriage. It made the 2 minute ride to Catford Bridge very unpleasant, Even after I got off the train, the school kids followed me off the train, and then blocked the pavement all the way to the little supermarket around the corner from the station.

  I managed to just about fill up my rucksack in the little supermarket. I bought a few beers, and a couple of cans of sugar free soft drinks. Then there was quite a heap of instant noodles. One was a five pack of Japanese instant noodles. They were very cheap - just about Poundstretcher cheap, and it might be because they are not that nice - and the curry flavour that I bought yesterday (and had for breakfast this morning) was a big disappointment. I think the last ones I bought may have been chicken flavour and were semi-nice.

  There were a few other things I bought. They included two small pots of coleslaw, and two lots of flatbreads - one was cheese and garlic flavour, and the other was something and pumpkin seeds flavour. It was easy enough to carry it all in my rucksack, and I doubt it would slow me down, but as usual, it seemed hard work walking back home from the shop. I don't know if it was of the two pints of Guinness swilling around in my gut, or just the fact that by then I had been on my feet for a fair time (I stood up on the train). I could barely make it home without having to stop for a breather, but I gritted my teeth and managed it non stop.

   Before doing anything else, I dashed up to the toilet for a pee when I got home. I then changed into my indoor shorts and took my t-shirt off. Then I went to put my shopping away. With that done I could have some lunch. It was mostly some of the cheese and (not very) garlic flatbreads used for scooping up coleslaw. I think I must have had something else, but I can't seem to remember what.

  While it seems my health, with regards to walking and stuff, has got worse in the last couple of years, I seemed to have improved in other ways. Once it seemed very usual to come home from the pub, have a bite to eat, and than lay down, and frequently snooze before I could do anything else. Now I seem to have the strength, or stamina, or something, that means I can go through and edit any useful photos I have taken before having a lie down, and even then, yesterday it was mostly to read more of my book rather than snooze.

  I feel sure that I would probably have had a snack a bit later, but I can't seem to remember doing so. Perhaps I might have had some ice cream, but I know I decided against that. As 6pm, and the BBC 6 O'clock news, got closer I got my dinner cooking. It was a pretty crappy beef and dumpling ready meal from Tesco. As I ate it I couldn't help think about stuff I read about the food for the astronauts on the moon landing missions back in 1969.

  On live TV, direct from the space capsule, I am sure I can remember the astronauts praising the cooks, but it was different story in some of the books I have written long after those Apollo moon landings. In those the astronauts described the food as nutritious, but bland (or words to that effect). The same was true of that beef stew ready meal. It had everything in it except deliciousness !

  My sweet/dessert/after was a small pile of cheese and jalapeño Cheetos. It was a case of curiosity killed the cat. I knew they were a dreadful American invention, and probably full of high fructose syrup. The nutritional information seemed to omit sugar, and elsewhere is said no appreciable added sugar (or words to that effect). I was curious and decided to try them. I poured a small pile on a plate, rather than trust myself to eat direct from the packet. They were not very nice, and this morning I saw a fair suggestion that my fears about their sugar content may have been well founded.

  Star Trek: The Next Generation, on after the news, was another not terribly gripping plot. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was good in places, but I would not have missed it if I had turned off. When it finished I was feeling too tired to watch either QI or Have I Got News For You, whichever was on first, and I went to bed at 9pm. I started to read, but after about a single page I could barely keep my eyes open.

  I put the book down, turned out the light, turned over, and then completely failed to fall asleep. I felt so wide awake that I very nearly got up again. I didn't, but I spent a bit of time re-arranging my pillows. I also decided that maybe I would put the fan on low. I knew it would call down a lot later, but it was initially warm. It might have felt otherwise at the time, but I suspect it was probably not very long before I was fast asleep.

  I did wake up in an hour or two when I needed to turn the fan off, and have a pee. It didn't seem that I peed all that much at all last night. That should have suggested a very low blood glucose level, but it wasn't ! By 4am my room thermometer said it was still 26° C, but I felt cool, although maybe not chilly. By 5.30am the room temperature had only dropped half a degree (although it was considerably cold outside), and I almost did feel chilly - certainly cool enough to put the heater on low until I got up.

  At this point I was going to say something about my dreams, but all I seem to remember was that it was another series of dreams with a common theme. It seems I have no recollection of that theme, nor of anything else about those dreams. One thing I think I am sure about was that no dreams featured Ayse in them, hugging me or not. That was a shame, and I suspect that if she did appear in a dream I would have a big reason to remember the dream.

  With the heater on low, my bedroom was almost a bit too warm at 6am, and I did not want to get up. I laid on my bed for over half an hour before the desire for a pee got me up. No poo this morning, and that was not surprising because I did an awful lot of it yesterday...and awful lot !! After peeing I weighed myself, and I was a bit disappointed to see I had only lost 100gm. Oh well, at least it was a loss and not a gain.

  The seemingly lack of peeing last night suggested that my blood glucose would be nice and low this morning. It was just about good enough, but not much so. The Contour meter read 8.6mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read 8.7mmol/l, and so did the Contour Plus meter. It is hard to say what I did wrong, but I feel sure those Cheetos must shoulder a lot of the blame - as an American product (even if possibly made in the EU or UK) would be. I can only hope that after an afternoon's beer drinking I can do better tomorrow morning.

  The main thing on the agenda today is that afternoon beer tasting/drinking session with Jodie, and probably Michael. I shall try and do what I did on Sunday - stick to lower alcohol beers until one super strong one at the end. Before all that I may go shopping in Aldi if I manage to get ready in time. There is nothing I desperately need, but there are a few things it would be good to get - mostly special, and with the hope that they have not sold out too quickly. I also want some of their sugar free soft drinks, but last time they have millions of bottles of that foul, disgusting root beer (aka liquid Germolene), and very few of of anything else.