08:57 BST

  Like recent days, this morning started nice and bright, but also fairly cool. It felt like an icy blast when I opened the window a bit in the dining room. If the forecast is correct, and I think it might be, there will enough cloud to give rain from midday, and maybe not stopping until 8pm. The afternoon temperature, in the rain, may only reach 19° C and that seems too cool to go frolicking in the rain. The rain may start again at 2am tomorrow morning. A few hours are currently shown with no rain tomorrow, but the forecast still shows a 21% or greater chance of rain during those dry hours. It seems safe to assume that tomorrow will be very wet. Once again the temperature will peak at 19° C, but half the morning may be just 15° C. More signs that summer is now over, and winter is just around the corner.

  Yesterday was quite a good day, but for a while I thought I spoiled it...and maybe I did slightly, but only slightly. Being a Wednesday it was pub day, and as well as going to the pub I thought I would be reprising my strangely enjoyable walk in the rain I did the day before. The reality was different and better.

  I am unsure why, but yesterday morning seemed to be a very unhurried time, and yet it turned into a rush to go out on time - although there were no deadlines beyond just habit. I think it was a little later in the morning than usual when I went to the bathroom to have a wet shave, wash my hair, and have a shower. It was nearly half past midday when I was dressed and ready to go out. Normally I aim for soon after midday, or a bit later if I getting the 12:34 train, but yesterday I walked.

  While I walked I did feel some fine misty rain hitting my face, but it might have just been earlier rain drops blowing off a tree or something. It was completely inconsequential. That was one of the few minor things that helped the walk be non boring, although much of it could be described as boring - in so much as nothing happened, and I saw nothing to take pictures of. I took my little Nikon S6300 camera with me, but I don't think it left my pocket until halfway through the last sentence (when I double checked that I had taken no pictures on it since last week).

  One minor novelty was that I didn't go via Ladywell Station this time. I took the shorter walk via the hospital entrance where they usually have copies of The Metro to pick up. They did this time, and I grabbed two copies - one for me, and one for Ayse (my favourite barmaid). I've just checked, and it definitely is a shorter walk going via the hospital, but only by 0.2 miles. I thought it might be more than that.

  Many visits to The Jolly Farmers are very good, but yesterday it was a bit dull. I'm unsure why that should be. The usual regulars were there, but it was all less animated than many times before. It seems there are similar days every now and then, but maybe yesterday was duller than most. I still enjoyed my visit there, and enjoyed my usual 2 pints of Guinness. Maybe it was just me. I know that I found the crossword in The Metro to be an unusually hard one, and I may have given up on as much as a third of the clues. I just went cross eyed when I tried to study the cryptic crossword.

  Sometimes I am reluctant to leave and sometimes I might stay for an extra Guinness, or a whiskey, but yesterday I was almost keen to get walking again after I had finished my second pint of Guinness. It was on the way home when I expected to meet more rain, but it was actually sunny at times. I arrived home short of breath, with some chest pains just starting to make themselves noticeable, and I was also very sweaty - but I did feel good in an odd way.

  My walk to the pub took just over 16 minutes, and that compares very favourably with what I used to manage if I was late leaving to meet Angela in there. I used to reckon I could do it in 15 minutes. Yesterday it was just under 17 minutes. I had been careful to pause the tracker if I stopped for a breather, but even so, I only seemed to need to stop a few times. I never time these things, but my impression was that each pause was quite short. being able to average 2.636 mph is less than the 3 mph I used to be able to do for long periods once upon a time, but not that much less.

  On the way home I managed 2.727 mph, but maybe I was pushing myself a bit too hard. By the time I got home I could feel chest pains beginning to start, and if I had pushed even harder I would have had to stop for a squirt of my TNG spray. The odd thing is that I have had very few times when I have needed that spray in the last 3 or 4 weeks.

  I realise it is impossible, but maybe because I have the spray for quick relief, I have been pushing my walking speed up, and for shorter walks it is almost back to normal. It seemed rather good that after pushing myself really hard to keep my average speed up as high as I dared, I was only just starting to get chest pains. This time I was actually really short of breath instead of just feeling that way when I got home. I can't really explain the difference of feeling short of breath rather than actually short of breath, but there is a difference.

  The other thing was that my t-shirt was damp with sweat instead of rain this time. I think the temperature was only supposed to be just 19° C, but there was some sunshine and it seemed to feel a lot warmer. It was nice to get out of my outdoor clothes, and get into just shorts and nothing else. The first thing I wanted to do was to have some lunch. If it wasn't for the cake and ice cream it might have been a very low sugar meal.

  After eating I laid down and read for a bit before dozing off. I think my snooze lasted longer than an hour, but I can't be more accurate than that. What I should have been doing was some laundry I had left in to soak the day before. Prior to my morning shower I had wrung out the detergent, and after I had finished showering I had filled the bucket up with the first rinse water. To my great shame (possibly) it is still there this morning !

  I think all that fast(ish) walking earlier had left me exhausted or something. Even now, just writing about it makes me feel weak with hints of chest pains just detectable. It also left me feeling hungry, even if I wasn't. I can't remember if I had any snacks or if I managed to hang out until dinner time during the 6 O'clock news. All I know for sure is that I didn't do anything more energetic than blinking for the rest of the day.

  It makes it sound like I might have regretted that walking, but in fact I felt good about being able to do it, and I was even having thoughts about trying to get in a mile or two day - an idea I have not actually dismissed yet, although time may be the limiting factor. The most significant bits of my dinner was a Shepherds Pie ready meal, and some ice cream, and the very last slice of angel cake. There was more, but those were the worst bits.

  After the news I watched some TV, and a few bits of it were entertaining. Star Trek: The Next Generation should have been good because it was the first time they met The Borg. I don't think the idea had been fully developed by then, and so it seemed slightly boring, and a bit inaccurate if the later meetings are taken as the baseline. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was one of those episodes that was dull enough that it left no memories.

  After Star Trek I turned over to watch QI and Have I Got News For You. I guess it was just me because both seemed sub par. Finally I went to bed and made a big mistake a bit later in the night, although it was one of those nights where I was probably half asleep a lot of the time and the actual clock became a bit meaningless. The big mistake I made was thinking about an erotic dream I had sometime in the last week or two.

  I can't remember the dream, but I remember it felt good and exciting even if little actually happened in it...or did it > I don't know because I can't remember it. I had the probably foolish idea that I fancied another erotic dream, and began to try and work out a plot (not that erotic dreams or porno films actually have a real plot). I needed inspiration for me dream partner. At first I remembered some real life erotic happenings, but I could only remember some very warm feelings about those times, and I wanted something more - no matter how fictional.

  I think I gave up and fell asleep, but I woke up after midnight, and started to try and fix some ideas in my head that I hoped would come through in my dreams. It should have been easy, but somehow it wasn't. Ideally I wanted the dream(s) to be based on someone real - even if the closest we ever got was either side of a TV screen. The mistake I made here was casting the net too wide, and pulling in memories of all sorts of things - even inanimate things. For the next two hours or so I was caught between two worlds. I was dreaming, but not asleep, and I was asleep but still conscious.

  I never did find the seed for an erotic dream, but I seemed to think of many good and bad memories. I can't say I was awake or asleep for the next couple of hours, but I think the overall effect was that it was like having a long period of insomnia. I was in bed for about the right amount of time, but I feel like I have missed out on a lot of sleep this morning. Of course it is very possible that the idea of seeming to dream while awake was in fact a dream itself. I can't think of any way of knowing in the cold light of day.

  What I do know is that when I went for a pee after getting up I did pee quite a lot, and my stomach was gurgling like I was about to suffer from diarrhoea or something, That never happened, and maybe that is a shame because a good clear out might have meant I seemed to have lost more than the 400gm I seemed to have lost since yesterday morning. I thought I had eaten too freely yesterday, and weight loss was the last thing I expected.

  My blood glucose was good, but not great. It was also a bit weird in that each meter had a very different reading, and it is hard to get a consensus of a true idea of my blood glucose level. The Contour meter read 8.0mmol/l, and that is just plain OK, and completely forgettable. The GlucoRX meter read 6.8mmol/l, and that is a very nice low reading. The Contour Plus meter read the same as the Contour (not plus) meter, 8.0mmol/l. It is possibly the only time those meters have ever agreed with each other. The GlucoFix meter read 7.3mmol/l. That is very good, but so different to the others that I have doubts about it.

  The other significant reading this morning is my blood pressure, and at 115/45 is very good for a first attempt - good enough that I am not going to waste time trying to relax more and get a lower reading. All this means I should be feeling good this morning, but I am not for a variety of mostly small reasons. One significant reason is that I still feel like I have a stomach upset brewing, or maybe it is brewed but is not ready to show. It is lucky that I am unlikely to need to go out today.

  My plans for today should be very simple, but if I find I have more time available I might complicate things. The simple plan is to start by finishing the laundry that is sitting in it's first rinse water. If I can find the right mood it should not take long to get that done and hanging up to dry - once, and if I find the right mood. Later on I have a few things to do to prepare for another Thursday afternoon beer tasting session.

  Like the last time, I am going to pad out my drinking with either chilled water and/or soft drinks. It needs some practice, but I think it almost worked out good last time.  If, in the unlikely event, I find I have more spare time than I predict, I might go out shopping - to Savers and to Poundstretcher. There is stuff in both shops that would be useful. If I think I have even more time I may possibly go for a walk, and possibly a walk in the rain if it starts early enough.