It is nice and sunny as I write this, but it is slightly diffuse sunshine because there is a lot of thin, semi transparent, cloud in the sky. It will only raise the temperature to around 20° C this afternoon, but that will still be very pleasant, particularly in any sunshine Tomorrow may start rather dull, and just 13° C at 6am. There may be a few sunny spells during tomorrow morning, but it will soon turn cloudy, and late afternoon may see some light rain.

  Yesterday did not include my fantasies, but was still good to a limited extent. I guess that was balanced by a bad night, but more about that later. Those fantasies were to do with going out for some railway photography. I did not go out at all yesterday.

  My first achievement was not doing some laundry, but it was starting to do some laundry, and finishing it ! I deliberately just selected a small amount of stuff to wash - a single t-shirt and maybe 5 pairs of underpants - and while I did not do it in one go, I started it soaking, and came back to it in an hour or two before completing the whole job. It is some time since I have done that !

  My other great achievement was finishing a job I had started at the start of August. Back in August I had gone to Pettswood Calling - a one day music festival. I enjoyed it, but it was incredibly tiring, and I think I only managed a 7 hour stint. I took loads of photos, and most of them I selected and edited before sharing them with Pettswood Calling. Some of my photos are used in the Gallery section, and maybe some taken this year will be used for next years update of the website. I didn't finish all the pictures of the last band I photographed. I think I did about 12 photos before fatigue set in, and I intended to continue the next day, but the next day some distraction took place, and the same for the next day. Gradually I started to forget i had a job to do. Then came days wasted in hospital, but the day before yesterday I did a few more photos, and yesterday I finished the job.
  This was one of the pictures I edited back in August. It shows Des Hanna of Run For Cover (and also Glamstar - the glam rock face of the same band of musicians).
  This photo was one I edited yesterday.  It shows Run For Cover's other guitarist, Michael Chapman (with the bass player in the background). For some reason, probably the different quality of light outside my window as the seasons move on, I expected these two pictures to have a different "feel", but it seems my colour balancing (only partly done in the camera) is more consistent than I expected.

  There was one other useful result yesterday - an order I made from Aliexpress (dot com) was delivered. I didn't know it had been delivered until I got an email to say so, and I had to go and search the front garden with a torch to find my packet. Those scum bags of couriers, probably Evri, didn't even try and ring my doorbell, and just dumped the packet behind a big flowerpot/planted near the front door. The item delivered was a Powerbank - essentially a couple of powerful lithium batteries in a box with electronics that can act as a charger for a mobile phone. It is quite a heavy lump, and claims to be 20,000maH (or 20AH - small car batteries are around 30AH - but they are 12V and not 5V).

   The Powerbank started out as showing 74% charged when I put it on charge, and it only reached 100% this morning. I must admit I only bought it because it seemed quite cheap (£15.39 including postage). I think there will actually be few times when I will need to use it for a mobile phone, but it could be handy, and there are other things it could power.

  Possibly the only other thing I did yesterday that was sort of important, and was also a bit nebulous, was to eat carefully - just about. I included some fruit in my diet, and that seemed to have the benefits hoped for this morning. My dinner was a beef ragu (at least I think that is what it said on the label) - a ready meal that came with sweet potato mash. I did follow that with some ice cream. I think lunch was ready made chicken sandwiches.

  I did not feel like doing anything energetic yesterday (although doing my laundry by hand probably burnt off an extra calorie or two). One thing I would have liked to have done would have been to travel all the way to Carshalton to watch Chain playing in the Windsor Castle Pub there. Had it been a lot closer I might have attempted it, but getting to the venue would mean a few changes of train and about a 15 minute walk through the village. A couple of years ago it would have been a great adventure, but my pessimistic view is that such things are past me now.

  Instead of going out it was the usual story of watching the evening news on TV, and then some more TV programmes before heading for bed at 11pm last night (which was a bit later than many nights recently). I seemed to fall asleep easily enough, but I definitely did not have a good night.

  The problem these days is that I am sensitised to any odd feeling in my chest that might indicate more heart trouble. I think the trouble last night was stomach bloating. It is one of the side effects of Ozempic (and Mounjaro) - keeping food in the stomach for longer periods to (allegedly) make you feel full, and have no desire to eat more. Pouring fizzy drink (Diet Coke) on top just made the bloat worse. During the day it would hardly be noticeable, but in the quiet of night it was giving me mild chest pains. It should be remembered that the stomach itself is much higher up the body than the belly.

  I think I did get to sleep for an hour or two before getting up for a pee. When I went back to bed I was laying in bed, and I could feel a very mild ache from my chest, but worst of all I started to listen/feel the beat of my heart. It reminded me strongly of the first night I tried to sleep in hospital after my new heart valve was fitted. On that occasion the fitting of the new heart valve felt like it had slightly bruised my heart, and that left a very dull ache in my chest.

  On top of that, I could not help by try and feel the new heart valve actually working. All my concentration was turned inwards. I could no more feel it working than I could feel the other heart valves working, but it was a big distraction then, and it was the same last night - with the added distraction of wondering if all was well with my heart.

  I became a bit more comfortable when I burped a few times, and then more after taking an antacid tablet. It seemed like I would never get to sleep, and it was only when I woke up at about 6am that I realised I had gone to sleep, but I had still lost 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Just to add to the problem I could not make up my mind if I was too hot or too cold. It was a cold night, and I turned the heater on low for most of the night, but initially I seemed to be too hot.

  After all that it was actually disappointing to wake up at about my usual time. Ideally I might have slept through to 9am - although that happening is extremely rare (although I think I may have managed it once or twice after coming out of hospital after days with hardly any sleep in there.

  On the other hand, waking up this morning did bring some fair news. My weight was unchanged - not good news, but at least it was not bad news. My blood glucose was very good, and only one day so far this month was very slightly better. The average of all three readings was 7.63mmol/l, and with my self set target of 7.5mmol/l I was very close to being on target. My blood pressure is pretty fair this morning. It is 127/70 with a heart rate of 78 bpm. I think a lower heart rate would be nicer, but it's not too bad.

  I am not sure what I am doing today. It might be nice for a walk in the park, but maybe I might be in the right mood for doing a few more items of laundry. First of all, I look forward to a lie down, and maybe grab an hours snooze if I can.