This morning's temperature is 12° C, and it may stay the same until 11pm when it will have dropped to 11° C. The headline feature for today is rain. Only light rain is forecast, but it could last until 6pm, and maybe longer. Tomorrow could see rain too, but maybe not non stop, and there might even be a tiny chance of some short sunny spells. Most of tomorrow will be around 11° C, but midday could see 12° C.

  Yesterday was another day with a few good bits and mostly dull bits. Today sees some minor excitement. At 9.55am I have to give some blood samples, and so I will probably have to stop writing at some point, and continues when I get home (and have had some breakfast).

  It was my intention of having a shower before going shopping at Tesco yesterday. In the end it didn't feel like I needed more than a quick wipe with a damp flannel, plus a blast of deodorant. I then walked to Tesco, and the walk didn't feel that bad. After my walk to the pharmacy and Poundland, which seemed like really hard work. I expected the worst, but it seemed whatever made my legs feel so stiff had mostly worn off. I am fairly sure it was a legacy of the 'flu jab I had. That is not to say I would have been happy if I had had to walk a lot further than to Tesco and back.

  Once in Tesco I made a beeline to where they keep the hot pepper sauce, and then to where they keep the instant noodles. As well as the usual hot pepper sauce I decided it was time to get another bottle of super hot sauce as well !! Another thing slightly out of the ordinary was buying a "BIG" Soba instant cup noodles (Chilli flavour). The rest of my shopping was pretty much the usual stuff, plus anything interesting from the reduced price cabinet.

  As usual, Tesco keep a few staffed checkouts open, (or I wouldn't shop there), but the few which were open seemed very busy. I'll admit there was only one person ahead of me, but it looked like they had done their best to empty the store out into a heaped high big trolley. Maybe it was good to choose that checkout because I think that one person moved faster than some of those at the other 2 staffed checkouts.

  Lugging my shopping home didn't feel too bad, but I did stop once to get my breath back. I must admit I have had some shortness of breath lately, or to put it a better way, it seems to have returned since my heart valve replacement seemed to cure it. As I sit here typing, I checked my blood oxygen saturation, and (for me) it seems a bit low at just 96%. That is not actually low, but I am more used to seeing 98% or even 99%.

  Once I was home I tucked into some wraps that I found in the reduced price cabinet (I have to call it a cabinet now it has annoying doors on it). I also had my Xmas dinner !
  Two thirds through October and Xmas is now just about over ! I look forward to seeing the shelves filled with Easter Eggs when I shop in there next week.

  With my shopping done there was nothing left for me to do, and so I almost didn't do anything......well, actually I did wash most of the stuff in the kitchen sink. I did leave the Chinese takeaway containers because I still can't decided whether to give them a good scrub and use them again, or to just give them a good rinse and recycle them.

  There was one other thing I did yesterday, and I did it because I became overcome with curiosity. I ordered another camera lens from Ebay. It was for a Sigma 18 to 200mm lens for my Nikon cameras. I do have a Tamron branded lens of roughly the same specification, but Tamron lens are a budget make, and I believe this Sigma lens will be better quality. It is a handy sort of size - the 18mm end of the zoom will be fairly wide angle, and the 200mm a useful bit of zoom. I can imagine using it at some gigs if I ever get to any. I have the same sort of specification lens to fit a Canon camera, and that is quite useful for things like railway pictures without having to carry a much heavier lens with extra zoom. Apart from anything else, £129 is not too bad a price for a camera lens. It could arrive, delivered by my usual postman, as early as tomorrow.

  There was one other thing I thought I did yesterday, and it was a typical, after shopping, eating too much. I am sure I eat a fair bit, but this morning, which I'll come to soon, there were indications I had somehow been more cautious than I thought, although...... After some bad weigh and blood glucose readings yesterday morning, I did bring my Ozempic injection forward a day, and maybe that, as hoped, helped.

  My dinner was just one tiger roll with two chilli flavoured pork sausages in it. It was rather nice - almost too nice and I might easily have had another. I followed that with more mint choc chip ice cream than I thought was good for me. After the usual evening TV I went to bed feeling a bit guilty. On the other hand, my stomach didn't feel like I had eaten excessively. Maybe that wonder slimming drug, Ozempic, that I have very rarely credited with doing anything more than helping control my blood glucose level, is actually modifying my appetite in ways I do not understand, but still positive ways.

  There is not much to say about my sleep last night. I think I remember getting up to pee once or twice. I definitely remember waking up at an annoying time. The annoyance was because I had an appointment to give a couple of test tubes of blood samples at 9.55 this morning. I woke up too early, and while that could have been good, it also meant it could be dangerous to go back to sleep again. In the end I did get another hours sleep, and still got up in time to have a shower, and get to the vampire cave to get my artery pierced by one of the tame vampires there.

  It was another morning where it seemed I would not be having a poo, but after counting out my prescribed pills for the day (some for the morning, and some for the evening) I went back to the toilet and did one very large "stool" and did it very easily. I then weighed myself, and found I had lost 700gm compared to yesterday morning. Evidently I had not been as gluttonous as I thought I had been.

  That was true for my blood glucose as well. Yesterday it was rather high - hovering around the red danger line. This morning it was not wonderful, but it was back to very typical. I had readings of 8.9, 8.9 and 8.2mmol/l. That averages to 8.67mmol/l. That is lower than the last two days, but higher than most other days this month - but not by much. Meanwhile, I've only checked my blood pressure, and I think that 112/69 is good enough, although my heart rate at 86bpm is maybe higher than I would like even if that is safely between the 60 to 100 deemed typical for a 71 year old.

  I have no more plans for today, and I think I can predict another very lazy day, but you never know. It depends on the weather.  Both forecasters I watch predict light rain or drizzle all day long......and yet, my walk to the Vampire Cave ( actually in the roof space of the same building as the group practice and pharmacy) was done with no rain to bother me. I think it unlikely I will be taking one of my cameras for a walk today, but I might open a window and take some pointless test shots of the jungle I call my back garden,