10:44 GMT

  After a damp start, yesterday featured some nice sunny spells, but with the temperature only peaking at 12° C (according to the forecast, but maybe a degree or two higher in reality), it was not really a warm day - at least a bit cold for walking without a coat ! By 9pm the temperature dipped to a forecast 8° C, but then warmed up a bit.   The road outside is damp from earlier rain, but as I type this it is quite bright outside, and until I got halfway through this sentence there was some weak sunshine. It is now quite cloudy. It is possible sunny spells will return for the afternoon, and the rest of the day will be dry. At 1pm the temperature may peak at 16° C, but most of the afternoon will be just 15° C. As I type this it would seem to be 15° C already. Most of tonight and the early hours of tomorrow should be 14° C, and tomorrow may only rise to 15° C. Tomorrow should be dry with a fair amount of sunny spells.

  Only one main thing happened yesterday, but there were a few less main things, things to do with plumbing, and some of that has continued this morning (hence the late start writing this). The main thing yesterday was going for a walk in the park, and taking many pictures.

  Yesterday was another day when I got up twice. The first was for the usual visit to the toilet, and taking screen shots of the weather forecast. After that I went back to bed for just 5 minutes - a five minutes that was well over an hour long ! After I had finished writing I had my usual rest, Once I felt rested enough I had a quick shower. It was bloody freezing in the bathroom with the window open.

  One thing I started the day before yesterday, was to start trying to dry out the very sodden carpet at the back of the toilet bowl. It is all caused by a leak around the gland nut that attached the down pipe from the cistern to the toilet bowl. As I probably explained yesterday, it was leaking more than I realised, but even worse was the small bowl (actually a Tupperware style box) I was using to catch the drips was full to overflowing.

  I started off using a desk fan to blow air over the carpet to help it dry (after emptying the drip catching bowl). It may have been later in the afternoon, maybe early evening where I used a fan heater on it's lowest setting to speed up the drying. It is working, and this morning some bits of the carpet are just damp rather than seeming to have a thin film of water on the surface. One down side of blow warm air is that it is making a stench of old piss, etc.

  I wasn't using the heater when I had a shower, and it was a bit of chilly experience. This can only get worse because until the leak is completely cured, and the carpet is bone dry, I think I ought to keep the window open most of the time. With plenty of hot water it wasn't too bad, and because it was just a simple shower it was soon over. I got dressed ready to go out into what seemed strong sunshine.

  Sadly the strong sunshine was soon replaced by either hazy sunshine or just sunny spells. I hoped to get away without putting a coat on, and for a time it did seem to be OK, but when I reached Ladywell station I began to feel cold. I had thought I might go home the long way around, but that cold was making me feel like I would soon need a pee. I decided it would be prudent to go straight home, or as it turned out, almost straight home. I did do a very small detour at the end that delayed me getting home by a minute or two.

  Once I got to the end of my road I had the full sun on my back, and that felt rather nice. Sadly it would not last that long, although I did see more short spells of full strength (winter) sunshine.  I saw a few horrors on my walk. Just 4 or 5 houses away one of my neighbours had put that artificial web material all over their front garden. In my opinion it looks a bit crap, but the worst thing is that birds, bats and flying insects can get caught in it, and starve to death unless anyone frees them from it. Fortunately, at this time of years we have few small birds, no bats that I aware of, and few flying insects around here. I did not see anything trapped in it, but a few minutes walk showed me a huge horror !
  Oops, I forgot the order of my photos. I took the one above before I left home. It is a small horror....sort of. That big cloud, hanging over the park, seemed to have a very dark bottom, and I feared I was going to get soaked - and I was stupid/brash/brave enough to dare to go out in just a t-shirt !
  This was the true horror I meant to show. I have never got any enjoyment out of Halloween decorations, or anything else to do with Halloween, but suspending a fake giant spider in a fake giant web, is petty gruesome. If that thing had moved I would probably have done my first 4 minute mile. I can capture most house spiders, and throw them outside, and if there is no option, squish them, but that big bugger in the picture would make a huge mess if squished !
  You can see that it was sunny when I took this picture. It is of the weir at the back of Lewisham Hospital, but after recent rains, the water is so deep that the rocks of the weir can hardly be seen.
  On my previous visit to the park I had seen a gabion being placed on the river bank. It is a steel mesh box filled with rocks, and it is being used to replace a chunk of the river bank that had been washed away during the spring storms. Now it is place the hard standing of the entrance to the "Wellbeing Garden" can be relaid, and the railings can be replaced. By next spring there may be very few reminders of the big chunk of river bank that went missing.
  I did not really plan to do any "train spotting" or rail photography, but my walk took me past the entrance to Ladywell station, and it is a good place for me to take a short break to get my breath back. Incidentally, I was seeing how far I could go on just one small squirt of GTN spray, and on this occasion, provided I stopped every now and then to take a picture, I seemed to stay just about comfortable with no excess feelings of shortness of breath, or angina pains.

  When this train - 465001, the very first of the class 465 trains - arrived in the station I automatically took a picture. One interesting thing for me is the Network South East sticker - the red/blue/grey icon on the other side to the number. It would seem to be a recent addition. Before the first makeover/refurbishment of these trains, the sticker was at least twice the size.
  The last picture I took was of this nice looking dog. One picture I would have liked to take was of a very unusual Alsation dog (German Shepherd). It was honey coloured, and I have never seen anything like it before. Unfortunately I could not get a clear shot of it.

 This is my complete walk. It seemed to be quite long, but 1.412 miles is not really very long at all. My average speed was just 1.6 mph, and it was probably the last bit of the walk that increased the average. By the time I was leaving the park my desire for a pee was getting hard to ignore - thanks to the cold breeze. By then I was getting a bit tired, but I may have pushed myself to something closer to 3 mph for that last little bit before I reached home. I barely made it up the stairs in time !

  After I had had my pee I began to appreciate being back in the warm more - although much of the house, but in particular the kitchen was far from hot. It was still better than being outside with no coat. I had intended to wear my newest leather jacket, but I feared, and with good reason, that the sunshine we did get, landing on that black leather, would soon start to cook me. Maybe if I ever do lose the large amount of weight that the Mounjaro injections are supposed to cause, there will be more room for air to circulate inside the jacket, and that would keep me a bit cooler.

  The other thing I did when I got home was to have some lunch. The only trouble is that I can't think what it was. I do remember considering some hot soup, but I think it was something I had cold. I also remember I ate it with my fingers, and I had to wait until I had finished eating before I could give my hands a good wash with soap and water before handling my camera (and mobile phones).


   Thinking of that grease makes me think my lunch started off with a small pack of sweet potato pakoras - small round balls of fried sweet potato mash, seasoned with Indian spices. It is a paradox that sweet potato has less sugar in it than ordinary potato - allegedly ! They were fairly nice, but as alluded to earlier, rather greasy.

  Once my hand were washed I took the memory card out of my camera (the Canon EOS 600D DSLR camera) and transferred the pictures to my PC, and I also copied the screenshots from my mobile phone as well. I then went through what I had taken, and edited the pictures to show here. After that I had a lie down, and I am very sure that included a snooze.

  With the snooze over, I did not have that long to wait until it was time for dinner. I had bought what I hoped was a special treat for a forthcoming dinner, and it was last night when I had it. It was (not very) minted lamb shanks in a (not very) minted gravy. Maybe it was just me, but I got very little mint flavour, but the lamb was quite nice. I guess it was one of those things you see in a supermarket, and have to try it, even if only the one time.

  I could have had ice cream for dessert, but I had anther "treat" for dessert. When in Aldi I bought two bags of apples, and some very small "easy pealer"  oranges. I had one apple from each bag. One was a nice, but not as nice as hoped for, Cox apple. The other was something like a "Mayo" apple  - It looked a little like a Jazz Apple, but didn't taste like it. I suspect it is a new variety. I didn't think much of it. The little oranges were not terribly exciting either.

  The was a reason for the fruit, and it was to increase the fibre in my diet in the hope that it will make the more than occasional constipation I get as a side effect of the Mounjaro injections, a little less uncomfortable. That fruit seemed like it did it's job this morning.

  Last night, apart from eating, I mostly spent watching TV. There were a few episodes of The Simpsons, and at least one was one I had never watched before. I suppose it was because it was a Sunday that QI and/or Have I Got News For You was only about an hour early. (I must admit I had never noticed either was shown on a Sunday night before). It meant that I was able to watch both, and still go to bed at 10pm. During the week, if I do opt to watch both, I don't get to bed until 11pm.

  I don't remember much about going to bed last night (and I didn't touch a drop of booze). I am sure I didn't do any reading. Maybe I just turned the light out, turned over, and instantly fell asleep. I have no idea if that is true, but I can't remember any different. I do have hazy memories of getting up a few times for a pee, and on one occasion having to turn the heater up because I was feeling cold.

  I got up quite slowly and fairly late this morning, although I was up early enough to take screen shots of the weather forecasts before I went back to bed. When I did finally get up I went to the toilet for a pee, and then I went back to the toilet maybe 15 minutes later when I did a substantial poo. That was all enough to just end up showing a loss of 200gm since yesterday morning. It was not much, but as I have to keep reminding myself, it all helps even if the help can mysteriously disappear in a day or two. My records still show I have gained weight since going on the new wonder drug Mounjaro - and I have been trying to get back to how I was losing weight before I went on it.

  The good thing is that Mounjaro continues to give me much better control of my blood glucose level. The effect is waining now, but tomorrow I start the next does level up - 5mg instead of 2.5mg. Maybe that will give me the kick I need to start losing weight. If not there are another three strength levels that I will be prescribed as part of the standard treatment (i think).

  My blood glucose measurements were good this morning, but nothing to get excited about. The Contour meter read 7.3mmol/l, and that is good, but not great. The GlucoRX meter read slightly better at 7.2mmol/l. The GlucoFix meter read higher, instead of lower like it used to, with a reading of 7.8mmol/l. The average of all three meters was 7.43mmol/l, and that is good, but my average for the whole of October was just 6.81mmol/l. For September it was 8.17mmol/l, and so 7.43mmol/l is a useful improvement.

  It is now stupidly late. I started writing late, and it seems I have written a lot more than I thought I would. My original plan was to wash my hair and have a shower. I may still wash my hair, but maybe I won't bother with a shower. If I do go out today it was only going to be for another walk in the park, but it is feeling a bit late for that. Not only that, but the sky is now almost all mid grey. No rain is forecast for the rest of the day, but I am not confident that is right. I think the next thing I will do is to have some lunch (possibly cheese on toast), and then have a nice snooze. What I do after that is anyone's guess !









  2,617 words today.