08:53 BST

  Yesterday featured a lot of sunny spells, and even some non stop sunshine. The forecast rain didn't happen (although there was only a 33% chance of it). The afternoon reached 15° C for a single hour, but the wind made it feel a bit cooler when outside. By midnight the temperature had fallen to 8° C.   It is nice and sunny as I write this, but in a few hours the sunshine may turn into sunny spells. From 1pm there may be light rain, although the chance of rain only peaks at 54% (at 6pm) and is as low as 35%. Maybe there will be less rain that the forecast suggests. The afternoon temperature may reach 14° C, and if it is dry, and there is a bit of sunshine (which seems possible) it might feel OK. Tomorrow may start at just 6° C, but sunny spells are shown for the whole day, and the afternoon could see a quite warm 16° C.

  Yesterday was quite a good day, although there was a sting in the tail (that will be explained later).  My morning featured advanced forms of laziness....at least I think it did. The afternoon featured a little bit of work to ready the place for the usually regular Sunday afternoon beer tasting session.

  Towards the end of yesterday's writing I did predict that rather than rushing out for a walk in the park (which would probably never happen quite like that at any time) I expected to have my usual lie down after writing, and if it happened, and it did, a snooze.

  One other thing I wrote yesterday morning was that I was feeling something like, but not actually, constipated. It was a feeling that lasted all morning, and I said I would take measure to add some extra fibre to my diet. That included a couple of nectarines with some ice cream, and also some tinned peas with my dinner. It was not a lot of extra fibre, and it was probably not the cause of a few problems this morning - which I shall describe later.

  By the time Jodie arrived, at roughly 3.30pm, I had done enough to make the dining room and kitchen look OK if you didn't look too hard ! Once she arrived I sent a message to Michael. He very rarely joins us on a Sunday, but after cancelling last Thursday's beer session, I thought it would be nice for him to offer him a second chance.  I think that after an hour or two he replied he would try and join us for, as suggested, a quick one before we finished.

  To my surprise, Jodie was fairly talkative for the first half hour, and maybe a bit longer. Of course once Michael arrived there was non stop chat - mainly from Michael. I can't say we had any great beers, but a few were quite pleasant, and none were horrible (to my taste buds). Jodie left to get the 6:17pm train, and Michael stayed another 15 minutes.

  After Michael left I had my dinner. It was an experimental dinner, but nothing exceptional. Earlier on I had cooked a few sliced up potatoes, and once cooked I mashed them with butter and a bit of white pepper. I then shredded some Savoy cabbage, and cooked that on top of the mashed potato. I didn't stir the cabbage in initially, and I am not sure I even did it later. I ate it with 6 well grilled slices of bacon. It made a nice combination, and of course the cabbage, plus the potato skins (only washed and scraped rather than peeled) added even more fibre to my diet. That should be a good cure for constipation.

  I spent the rest of my evening watching TV, but I don't think I stayed up as long as I could. I think it was QI that seemed like it might have a few dodgy guests on the panel, and I opted to go to bed before that started. I did read in bed, but not for long. The silly thing is that I can't remember if I fell asleep instantly, or if I laid in bed for ages waiting for sleep. I do know I got up a few times to go for a pee.

  I also know that as morning approached I did have a little trouble getting back to sleep after waking a few times. I knew I was not feeling all that good, but I was not sure why. It was several hours later when I got up, and went to the toilet, and found out why I did not feel good. The first feeling was that I was constipated again, but then, all of a sudden, whoosh ! It seemed I had the exact opposite of constipation.

  Once I started it was difficult to stop. It was lucky I still have a fan heater blowing into the bathroom, and I decided to turn it on one of the times I got up in the early hours. It is only on low, but it did make it more comfortable for sitting on the toilet for longer than usual. On at least two occasions I thought I was finished, but I had to rush washing my hands so I could sit down again, and do more.

  One useful thing is that nothing happened, apart from a pee, the first time I went to the toilet. I weighed myself then, and I was not happy with what I saw. I seemed to have put on a whole kilogram since yesterday. After quite a few, quite productive visits to the toilet I weighed myself again. A usual, even a fair sized poo makes as little as 100gm change to my weight. This morning, because my poo was maybe 75% water, I found I had passed about 700gm. That meant my weight gain since yesterday was only 300gm. Any gain is still bad, but it could have been a lot worse.

  During all this I checked my blood glucose, and it was actually quite good. The average of all three meters was 7.57mmol/l. That was a fraction higher than yesterday's 7.50mmol/l, but still less than the previous 4 or 5 days. It is a figure I am quite happy with, and I doubt I will see it much lower until, and if, some hot summer days get me out doing more exercise, and eating less - the latter not always easy if I have had loads of warm fresh air, and several miles walked.

  My plans for today are quite simple. I think I'll have a shower, and wash my hair. I probably don't need to because I don't feel like going out at the moment - although I am feeling much better as I recover from "the runs". After I have used the bath for washing me, I'll get the big buckets out and wash a few t-shirts and some underwear. I don't think it will be a huge load, but it will get a couple of my favourite t-shirts clean, and ready for use (once dried and aired). Other than that, I may have a fairly, or maybe extremely, lazy day.

  One bit of news just in: I have just had an email from Amazon to say the new mini oven and grill I ordered has been despatched. That does mean it is too late to cancel it - which may be a shame. This new mini oven has a capacity of 23 litres. That is smaller than many - which can be 30 litres or more. Yesterday, during the beer drinking, I found the user manual for my current mini oven/grill. It states it is a 9 litre model. The one I have ordered is going to be considerably bigger. That could be useful sometimes, but I am not sure I have room for it without a bit of re-arranging in the kitchen.





 On the left is screen shot from a well known social media web site. It is of my photo that Miranda chose to use as her profile picture. The really significant thing is down in the bottom left corner. It shows that is has got 75 likes. That is not a huge amount compared to some other stuff, but for a profile picture it is fairly impressive. Most of the credit must go to Miranda for looking so good, and not much credit to me. I can see it is a slightly poor photo. Just look at her face. It is over exposed and looks shiny like it is made of plastic. The overall focus is not pin sharp either. On the other hand, many photos I see are taken on mobile phones. While some mobile phones can look good, many don't. Plus without a nice bright flash gun, many photos I see are dark, and sometimes grainy. I suppose the big truth is that it is not how the photo is taken, it is how the subject looks.







 
   1512 words today.