09:15 GMT

  There was (and still is) a frost this morning, and I am sure at least one of my outside thermometers said it was below zero when I first looked. They now agree on about 2° C, and that matches the forecast. It is very sunny right now, and the full sunshine should last until sunset. All that sunshine may only warm things up to 5° C for three hours this afternoon. Tonight will be another very cold night......or maybe not. I made an incorrect assumption, but it seems some warmer air will come our way through the night, and the temperature will rise again to 5° C by 7am. Unfortunately that warmer air, which could give 8° C by the afternoon, is wet air, and there could be showers for a lot of tomorrow.

  Yesterday was not a good day for a couple of reasons. The main reason was a health problem. I think it was caused by my cold walk through the park the day before. I complained then about the chilly air causing me some chest pains. Yesterday it was almost like I had 'flu. I am sure it was not 'flu, but the aches and pains were quite similar. As well as creaking joints, my whole torso seemed uncomfortable. Some of it I suspect was the effect of the Mounjaro trying to make me feel full, and so not hungry.

  One thing I hated yesterday was getting cold - even for quite short periods of time. It just made any aches even worse, and some of those aches were probably caused by my faulty heart valve. Such aches could feel like a mild heart attack, and in some ways that may have been not far from the truth. I think this could be a miserable winter - more miserable than most ! I am so looking forward to getting my heart valve fixed.

  I can't say I was particularly busy yesterday morning. It was a bit of a struggle between wanting to be very lazy and warm, and doing the important stuff before Jodie came over to taste some of my latest beer purchases. There was no way I could have stayed in bed for much longer than I did, but I often wanted to lay down, close my eyes and snooze. Of course the weird thing is that I started writing earlier than usual yesterday - which contradicts what I wished I could do.

  After I finished writing I had a shower. It seems the fan heater on a long extension power lead is becoming a fixture during these winter months. It only takes the chill off the bathroom, but that it so much better than shivering. It might have been even better if I was washing under hotter water. I could, and probably will turn the gas up a bit, but not much because I don't want very hot water to wash my hair - it feels like it is boiling my brain.

  By the time I had showered, dried and dressed, I was ready for a lie down, but no time for a snooze. I had other stuff to do, and that was mostly doing a pile of washing up in the sink - including the beer glasses rinsed, but not properly cleaned since last Sunday's beer session. In the middle of it I was visited by Fluffycat. He was very vocal, and I assumed he was cold and hungry. His thick fur coat probably meant he was not cold, and he may well have had dinner provided by one or more other neighbours.

  I offered him some of Aldi's more posh fish flavour pouches. He said it was rubbish, and he wouldn't be seen dead eating it. I think what he really wanted was some company. He likes being the centre of attention, but I had gone back to my washing up. After a while he said he was going out again, and he did. I don't think we saw him in the afternoon.

  Jodie arrived at about 3.30pm, and was sadly underwhelmed by my new beer order. Of course there were a few beers that she did want to try, but 2 or 3 out of 28 is not very good ! She will drink others, but she gets no enjoyment out of it if she had drunk them before - mainly because she can't log them again on Untappd (dot com). I think she regards as a sort of game where she has to keep scoring points, and it has nothing to do with enjoying the beer itself. It is why we often have very crap beers - just so she can score points and win a new badge (which is only an image on her phone screen).

  I texted Michael to say we had started drinking, but he replied to say he couldn't make it yesterday. I assume he is having another crisis with his dementia suffering wife, and the care home she is in (and which seems to do very little caring - maybe Michael does not give them a chance). I wondered if he would turn up later like he has done a few times in the past, but we heard no more from him).

  With no Michael I had to amuse myself while Jodie was completely captivated by her phone. I ended up reading the paper, and found stuff to read on my phone. There were times when neither of us would speak for 10 or more minutes. It all seems a bit unsatisfactory. It is much more fun when we are joined by Michael, and Mark and Alan, with a very occasional extra visitor.

  Jodie left at just after 6.30pm to get a train to Clock House station, and then a short walk to The Three Hounds where she was meeting Alan. About half an hour before she left I put my dinner in the oven. I was still getting some discomfort from my belly - it was Mounjaro's way of saying I didn't really need to eat, but to me it felt like the opposite.

  The beers, which included at least one very strong beer, helped some of my other aches and pains. Sitting in the warm (but not too warm because Jodie was dressed for the arctic) also helped the aches and pains fade. My dinner was some BBQ flavoured spare ribs. With extras I think they claim the pack could feed two or more. I ate the whole lot, and I enjoyed it, although.... maybe some variety in the meal would have been nicer.

  After that main course I had some ice cream, and some cake. After the beers and my dinner, and sitting in warm rooms, I was feeling quite good. If I had anything to complain about it was I was feeling tired before I finished watch my usual evening TV programmes. I could have been watching until 11pm, but I think I went to bed at 10pm. That turned out to be a good decision.

  I was feeling fine until I went to bed. After laying down I began to feel my stomach was a bit full, but only of gas from the beers and the Diet Coke I was drinking. It was the sort of discomfort that a good burp would cure. I did several small burps, and was starting to feel much more comfortable until the last burp. That was like the beginning of vomiting. I felt a surge of acid tasting stuff coming up my throat.

  I soon realised some of the discomfort was actually acid indigestion - heartburn ! Instead of getting to sleep early I had to stay up chewing Gaviscon tablets to stop the heartburn. It was maybe as late as midnight before I could sleep. Once I was asleep I was mostly OK, but I woke up at least 3 times to go for a pee in the cool bathroom. I had set the thermostat on the heater blowing warm air into the bathroom to not warm it quite as much to save a bit on my heating bills.

  I can remember two dreams last night. The first was right in the middle of my sleep. It was a slightly odd dream in so much as it was like watching a documentary rather then something I was experiencing directly. I sometimes think it might have been narrated by Stephen Fry.

  The dream concerned being in a Russian prisoner of war camp, or some such similar thing. Food seemed plentiful, but it was only of one thing - a very hard biscuit in a round shape. The commentary likened it to "ships biscuits" in the days of sailing ships. Biscuit that were baked so hard that they had to be soaked in water, or if possible, some sort of soup, before them could be eaten. I think they were supposed to includes all sorts of vitamins and stuff. They were baked so hard so they were almost indestructible - but did not taste nice.

  The second dream I remember, although many details are now rather hazy, also was about food. I seemed to be at a place of work that also had something like a school playground. It was dinner time (a middle of the day dinner rather than en evening meal). I had to cross the playground (the only significance of that was to show there was a playground there) to get to a shop that sold stuff to eat as well as other stuff - including cups of tea (YUCK !).

  I guess it was more like a cafe and general store...or something. I did not have much money on me, but I thought a can of Diet Coke and a Twix bar would be all I needed. I entered the shop and had a look at what was on offer. I could not see a simple and small "choccy" bar, and decided I had better ask one of the ladies at the counter. I started off asking for a can of Diet Coke, and the lady asked if I wanted my usual - a cheese sub roll with extra slices of ????? I never did work out what the extra slices were of, and I never got to taste the item because I woke up then.

  It seemed a bit early to get up, but I did need the toilet, and went for a pee, and also a poo. I then went back to bed, but I don't think I slept for more than 5 minutes. I seemed to be feeling slightly hungry. That must be why both my remembered dreams featured food. In the mean time I had taken screen shots of the weather, and I had weighed myself. I seemed to have put on more weight than I liked.

  Fortunately, when I decided that I should probably get up, maybe a bit after 8am, I needed another pee, and I also passed more poo. I started to think that some of my discomfort yesterday was because my digestive tract was actually rather full. There was some further clues pointing that way. Just 5 minutes ago I went to the toilet and passed more poo. The very slightly odd thing is that none of my three visits to do a poo were of hard poo, or very loose poo. It was just three lots of "usual".

  It is a shame that I have had breakfast, and there is no point in weighing myself now, but i can still speculate that if I had been able to pass that poo before breakfast, and to weight myself, I might have easily shaved off more than 100gm from the 400gm of weight I have officially recorded to have gained since yesterday morning. That is not good, and yet because beers were involved, it probably wasn't too bad.

  My blood glucose is actually very slightly down on yesterday morning (with yesterdays readings in brackets) The Contour meter read 7.6mmol/l (down from 7.9mmol/l). The GlucoRX meter read 6.7mmol/l (down from 6.9mmol/l). Finally, the GlucoFix meter read 7.8mmol/l (the same as yesterday). These are all mostly OK readings, but it is a shame that the GlucoFix meter was so high compared to the GlucoRX meter. The latter at 6.7mmol/l was particularly good.

  It is now rather late in the morning (11:15am), but that does not matter much. Not much is happening today. In fact nothing is happening today unless I instigate it. It is bright and sunny at the moment, and for the last hour or two the sun has been keeping my bedroom quite warm enough without using the heater. I intend to take advantage of that by having a lie down one I have finished this writing. I won't be bothered if I ended up snoozing for an hour or two.

  There are two things I might do today, although I don't think I would do both. Maybe the more likely thing is to wash a few clothes. The less likely is to go for a wander in the park, camera at the ready for anything that attracts my attention. I think I subconsciously wrote "a wander in the park" instead of a walk in the park because I don't think I want any execise in the freezing air (all three of my outdoor meters were agreeing it was 3.1° C outside 10 or so minutes ago). Just a very slow wander would probably do, although the more I think of it the less I think it is likely to happen. Today I may achieve greater feats of laziness !








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