The sky is cloudy this morning, but some sunshine has seeped through, but maybe that was the last until possibly late afternoon. The afternoon may reach 19° C, without any sunshine it should be comfortable, but no more. Another shower is forecast for 11pm, but I'll probably be asleep then, and it won't matter. Tomorrow may feature a lot of sunny spells, and with a warm wind from the south we could see a pretty fair 24° C in the afternoon.

  Yesterday was another day where I had to amuse myself the best I could. I can't say it was a very productive day, but it was not wasted either.

  The highlight of yesterday would usually have been a beer tasting session with Jodie. Last Thursday I thought she said she would not be visiting because of engineering work on the railway stopping any train service between us. I thought I heard trains, and checked the National Rail webs site. It said there was indeed engineering work, but it only affected trains that would have gone through Lewisham station. Apart from trains being diverted around Lewisham, it was a normal half hourly Sunday service at Catford Bridge.

  I sent a text message to Jodie to tell her the good news. She made a voice call to me in return, and she did not sound good. She had come down with a snotty cold, and apart from any other reason for not coming over, she had decided to care for her cold in the best way she knew to get over it quickly. On Thursday she will be in Finland, and so obviously she would like her cold to have dried up by then. She says she should be back in time for beers on Sunday - if the trains are running.

  Once I had heard from Jodie, and confirmed I would not see her, I could relax. I had all the time in the world to clean and polish the beer glasses (although I did rinse them before leaving them beside the kitchen sink after we last used them). I didn't need to clean the kitchen work top either. I still had a shower because I thought I was going shopping. I didn't ! One thing I did do was to finish hand washing about 10 pairs of underpants, and hanging them on the big clothes horse to dry.

  That just about rounds all I did yesterday. Of course I did more - some little odds and sods, and I did spent a fair bit of time scouring the internet for some files I wanted. "Scouring the internet" is often like diving into a big hole. You never know what else you may come across. When it works well you can learn stuff you didn't know you wanted to learn, and even if you don't learn anything there is still other amusement to be had.
  During the evening I learned even more. I learned that I could almost enjoy drinking Cognac, and I learned a reason why I probably should not like drinking it. I started drinking it instead of beer, but maybe from the time we would usually stop drinking beer. in other words, I was sipping it while watching TV in the evening. I didn't try drinking it with my dinner - an Aldi ready meal of Chicken Jalfrezi followed by some ice cream. I did try some Cognac on the ice cream, but I didn't think it that nice.

  I guess I was getting mildly tipsy when I put the bottle away, and went to bed. It was enough of a buzz to realise that stopping then was a good idea. Everything was fine when I turned off the TV and went to bed. I read for maybe half an hour, and then, before I turned out the light to go to sleep, I went for a pee. So far so good, apart from a feeling that I needed to burp - several times. The final burp happened as I bent over to pull my pants up after peeing. That burp brought up some nasty stomach acid.

  It was perilously close to throwing up, and the first thing I did was to chew on a couple of Rennies to reduce the stomach acid. That calmed things down a bit, but left me with a dry mouth. I had to go down to the kitchen to grab a couple of bottles of chilled water. I still didn't feel quite right, and on top of that, interrupting my sleep late at night can badly upset my routine. I tried to sleep with a washing up type plastic bowl by my bed - just in case. I didn't need it, but I think it was 3am before I managed to get into a deep sleep.

  I probably woke up around 7am, and while my stomach felt fine, my head didn't. I don't mean I had a hangover. In fact I don't think I had a hangover at all, but I did feel very sleep deprived. To add to the gloom and doom, I weighed myself and found I seemed to have gained over a kilogram. It was after I had eaten breakfast that I did a large poo, and that may have helped a little bit if I had managed to poo before eating.

  I have concluded that some stuff I ate was high in calories without being high in sugar. The only thing I can think of like that is either peanuts or cheese, and I did have small amounts of both. While my weight had gone up, my blood glucose readings were rather good this morning. The average of all three readings I took was 7.7mmol/l - very slightly above my target of 7.5mmol/l, and among the lowest (but not the lowest) average this month.

  My blood pressure may be very slightly low again this morning, but 108/64 is probably good enough. My heart rate was 72 bpm, and is not too high, although my blood pressure meter did detect some flutter. That flutter detection does pop up now and then. Maybe the echo-cardiogram I should be getting some time in the coming weeks, will reveal some other anomaly to be fixed somehow.

  There is only one thing I want to do today. It is to go shopping in Aldi. I could go to Tesco, but I still want to hunt for the lamb curry ready meal that was included in an Aldi advert in the paper recently. For some time now I have not seen any curry ready meals that were not chicken. Chicken is nice enough, but lamb can be much nicer. Other than a shopping trip I have no idea what I am doing. Some time this week I hope to be meeting Jo, probably in Bromley, to give her a thank you gift for meeting me at the hospital several weeks ago - which was ultimately a wasted journey for her !

  I think it will be an afternoon shopping trip. The first thing I will do is have my usual lie down, and snooze (if it happens) once I have uploaded this to my web server. Then I will have a shower, and maybe wash my hair too, but it probably doesn't need washing just to go to Aldi (but would when I meet Jo - whenever that is).