09:36 BST

  Apart from the early morning mist, which was very light mist, yesterday was sort of nondescript. The forecast said sunny spells, but I don't seem to remember them as all that obvious. Most of the afternoon was probably just 15° C, but there may have been a brief blip to 16° C. I am very sure it was, as forecast, a completely dry day.
  As I write this it feels a lot like yesterday - grey and dull. This time the forecast does say it will be grey and dull all day long ! While most of the afternoon will be just 16° C, there may be another single hour (like yesterday) when the temperature increases by a singe degree to 17° C in the afternoon. I note that there is a 16% chance of rain at 2pm, and a 9% chance at 4pm. The chances are that it will be another dry day. Tomorrow will be roughly the same as today, although no hours show more than a 0% chance of any rain. Sods law says it will pour down !

  The beer tasting session in the afternoon leaves the rest of the day a pale shadow of the afternoon, and even the beer tasting was not a great event. Yesterday was mostly boring, but boring is not always such a negative thing. It does mean I have more to say about my dreams than anything else, but I'll try and scrape a few words together.

  I could describe yesterday as a very slow day, although that would make it seem like the day dragged, but I don't remember it quite like that. I may have taken a bit longer to write the 2,269 words yesterday, but with no annoying phone calls in the middle of it, it went smoothly enough. I then had my usual lie down to rest my eyes, and maybe rest my fingers from all the typing and stuff. Once again I have no idea if I had a snooze or not. I think I expected to snooze, but it didn't happen, or if it did it was just for a few minutes or something.

  Once I decided I had better be active again I had a shower. I didn't feel I needed to wash my hair again, and so it was probably no more than 10 minutes of hot water and plenty of suds (rinsed off again in the same 10 minutes). I wasn't intending to go out yesterday, and so I didn't dress for going out. It was just t-shirt and shorts for doing stuff indoors. That indoor stuff was the usual cleaning some of the kitchen before Jodie arrived to mess it up again.

  It was not long until lunch time by then, and I had a semi light, but not exactly healthy lunch - not exactly a rare thing ! I had a couple of flapjack bars, a couple of sticks of Pepperami, and quite a lot of a big bag of baked potato waffle things.  of course, in reality, it was less a meal than a bunch of snacks, but it seemed to be good enough to part line my stomach before imbibing some strong beers later.

  As is my habit since retiring, after lunch I lay down for a while to rest after eating. It would be a couple more hours before Jodie arrived, and so I had no rush to do any more than I had done (although, of course, there were many other things I could have done if I had the right inspiration). I spent some time on the internet, and then went down to wait for Jodie inn the dining room, and poured myself a can of Guinness to get warmed up.

  When Jodie arrived I left the beer selection to her. She only selected one semi nasty one, but it was drinkable with no revulsion. As usual she declared it delicious while I thought it was more like home brew made in desperation using whatever was in the larder. At least it was drinkable - unlike some of the seriously sour fruit beers that Jodie loves.

  We did have one beer that was seriously good - for me, but maybe not so much for Jodie. It was an imperial stout, and it was thick and syrupy with some nice flavours in it. It was also 11% ! It might have been my downfall, although at the end of the session I did not feel that drunk - hardly drunk at all in my own warped imagination.

  On Sunday's we don't see Michael. He spends his afternoon with his son and daughter in law, and they often visit his wife in the care home. That meant it was just Jodie and me, and yesterday it didn't include the fluffy cat either. Jodie left to get her train at just after 6pm, and I put the finishing touches to my dinner that had been cooking in the mini oven for the previous 20 minutes.

  Dinner was mainly just a box of BBQ ribs - all to myself...well, 50% of it is just bones with not much meat at all, although I guess if padded out with potatoes and some vegetables it could have fed as many as three small people. My dessert was "Dubai style" chocolate ice cream with pistachio paste in it. It is rather delicious, and it feels like the ground pistachios should provide some fibre, but I don't think they do. I should have had a couple of nectarines for added fibre and stuff.

  I went to bed at not that long after 8pm last night. It was that early because there were no good distractions on TV. I may have had some hints of heartburn, but it didn't seem to stop me going to sleep by about 8:45pm. That sleep only lasted an hour at most, and I got up again to take some antacid tablets. It wasn't typical heartburn, but another case, like a day or two ago, where I was getting some acid tasting burps.

  It was, as the nurse forewarned me, a common side effect of Mounjaro - the so called wonder slimming drug that doesn't seem to work for me. I got back to sleep, and slept soundly for a few more hours, but then I started to dream. The dream didn't wake me up, but when I did wake up, possibly before a natural end of the dream, I went into the semi awake state where I could analyse the dream, and even explain or expand some of the ideas in it.

  In the dream I was walking somewhere in the Downham area, where there is a huge post war housing estate. I passed a huge school that may have pre-dated the housing estate. It was a school, that really specialised in technology and engineering.  There was such a school in Bromley, but I think it has closed down, and possibly been demolished. This is probably because Bromley is very much a Tory borough, and they would rather teach their kids wholes trades like being a Civil Servant rather than anything that involves having to think and understand stuff, and getting your hands dirty.

  It was subversive thinking like that, that caused me to start thinking and comparing the school in my dream to my own secondary school. I was doing a lot of thinking like this when I was awake in the night, but probably only barely awake, and halfway between being awake and still dreaming. My old secondary school may, or may not have been described as a "Comprehensive school".

  There were various streams that featured different things to learn. Basically it was just three streams - the semi thickos were taught stuff to do with their hands. The middle stream which was basic reading, writing and arithmetic for those destined to work in shops or middle management. Then there was the cream who were nurtured, and expected to go on to university to study things like human studies so they could get jobs as civil servants or something.

  I entered the school as part of of the cream. This was based on very good exam results in Junior school, and continued because of very good results at the end of every term in secondary school. It was not based on class work, which was usually awful or homework which was rarely done. I am maybe lucky that I think the selection was done by other teachers and not, for instance my French teacher, who thought I had the IQ of less than a goldfish.

  The teachers who did know me never suggested I should stay on the the 6th form, and then go on to university. They knew that my learning was very selective - if I hated the subject, not a single thing would stick, but if I liked the subject I would just soak it all up. I am proud to say at the "O" level exams at the end of the the 5th year, I got distinctions in things like physics and chemistry, and only just missed a distinction in Maths. There is an unconfirmed rumour that I got the lowest score in the entire history of the school for "O" level Religious studies.

  Back at the school in my dreams; the later stuff I added about the school, in that semi awake, semi dreaming state, was that it had a very clever headmaster who would keep an eye on current employment statistics, and modify the syllabus to take into account the needs of potential employers. I imagined that when British Rail was being modernised, and "Network South East" was being invented, he saw opportunities for his pupils to become apprentices for railway work, and they all got suitable hands on experience of things like heavy metalwork and stuff.

  The thoughts about apprenticeships was another major difference to my old school. I seem to recall the headmaster at my old school had "B.A." after his name - Batchelor Of Arts. I think he looked down on apprenticeships because they were done by people with dirty hands, and though all work should be done by those with a pen in their hand instead of a spanner. (That made him a bit of tool in my opinion).

  I have no idea how much sleep I might have lost through what could be described as day dreaming (even it it was at night, and wasn't exactly dreaming), but I did seem to sleep a bit later this morning. It was already late (as in just past 6am) when I decided to turn over and try and get more sleep. It didn't really feel like I got any sleep, but I did notice the time seemed to be whizzing past.

  When I finally got bored with trying to sleep, and got up, I went to the toilet, and expected I was going to have a poo as well as a pee. I didn't poo, and I didn't seem to pass much pee then, and even in the night. The end result was that when I weighed myself I found I had put on a whole kilogram. That seems impossible, but I don't think the scales lie ! So much for losing weight. I should now start fasting until I see the nurse in a weeks time, but I can't be bothered.

  One reason for not bothering is that I can still report that Mounjaro, may not be doing anything to help me lose weight, but my blood glucose is again really nice and low this morning. The Contour meter read a rather wonderful 6.9mmol/l. The GlocoRX meter erad even better at just 6.8mmol/l. The new (or not so new now) GlucoFix meter read the highest at a still good 7.4mmol/l. That all averages out at slightly higher than most averages this month, but still fantastic compared most months except last July when it was very slightly lower. The difference then was that I was having to try very hard, and now I don't even bother try to eat less sugar.

  I have no idea at all what I am doing today. It is still very dull and uninspiring outside, and I doubt I will be going out anywhere even if I ought to if I am going to shift that weight gain of one kilogram soon. Tomorrow and Wednesday things get far more interesting. Tomorrow I inject my third full dose of Mounjaro, and on Wednesday morning I have my appointment with the cardiology department - and then go straight to the pub next door !!