10:03 GMT

  This morning started at 9° C, and maybe that was a degree or two less than I would have guessed. There have been some sunny spells so far this morning, but the sky looks too cloudy for more then the odd flash of sunshine. When I went out at approximately 9am it was fairly grey, and despite it still being 9° C, it did feel fairly chilly out. This afternoon we may get full sunshine, and that should push the temperature up to 12° C. In full sunshine that may feel OK. With sunset now as early as 3:57pm, we will lose any sunshine, and it looks like it will be clouding over then as well. It should stay dry, and the temperature may still be 10° C at midnight. Tomorrow morning could start at 11° C, and it will probably be raining. The temperature will start to fall to as low as 5° C by midnight, but until the afternoon the temperature will drop very slowly. from 3pm the rain may turn heavy, and it could be a very wet evening.

  Yesterday could probably be described as a good day, or a mostly good day. I think I did all I needed to do, and that was satisfying, although there was other stuff I could have done but didn't.
  This morning I have a very good excuse for such a later start - I've been to see the vampires, and one of them took two test tubes of blood from my arm for diagnostic purposes. More about this further down the page.

  Yesterday morning seems to be a bit of a blur, but I have already described anything worth describing in yesterday's electronic diary. I had stuff to do to prepare for an afternoon's beer tasting, and I got the important bits done, but I didn't feel inclined to do a lot more. I partly blame it on the weather, or at maybe the time of year - when it is cold, dull and miserable - all conditions that don't inspire me with any get-up-and-go.

  I almost didn't have any lunch despite lunch being very important when intending to drink lots of beer later on.....or maybe not "lots" of beer. We do get through quite a lot of bottles, but each bottle is shared by three on most sessions. The more important thing is that some beers can be very strong (one was 11%) and it always seems wise the line the stomach. I did end up lining mine with rice crackers, corned beef and mustard.

  After lunch I felt a strong urge to have a lie down, but I could not enjoy it as much as I would have liked. I would have liked to just lie on my bed, close my eyes, and not have to worry about the length of any snooze I might have. I was also constrained by wanting to have a shower before my guests arrived.

  I was halfway through washing some the beer glasses, lightly rinsed, but no more after last Sunday's beer session. It was while washing those glasses, and a few other items in the kitchen sink, that my first guest arrived. It was fluffy cat. I put some food down for him, and he gave it a few licks before jumping up, and into his box. He may not have had much of the food, but he was happy to have a cat treat stick, and actually had two. After a while he had a snooze while I got stuff ready. That also included getting a few more beers from the box they were delivered in, and in the beer fridges to chill.

  I was not sure Jodie was coming because it seemed to be getting late and she still had not arrived. The reason was because she had gone shopping in Aldi on her way here. As usual, she was not particularly talkative, and spend some time sorting out her lunch. She had bought a huge sandwich, made from some very thick bread, and then spent time deconstructing it and customising it with extra vegetable and or salad stuff.

  It took her half an hour to select a beer to drink, and I felt like I was dying of thirst. I had to suggest a few beers I fancied trying before she accepted one of them. In the meantime I had messaged Michael, and once again he said he would try and join us. That is usually his way of saying he will join us without letting on how enthusiastic he is for a beer.  An even later arrival was Mark. He had just his usual single bottle of 0% lager.

  Michael had a special treat yesterday. I set it up so that he could connect his phone via the dining room PC to the speakers, and play his awful music over the speakers instead of making an awful tinny racket by attempting to use the tiny speakers in his phone (which was a very long, and very ungrammatical sentence, but I think it explains it well enough !). Most of what he played us from his Spotify app was supposed to be really wonderful, but for Jodie and me it was no more than mediocre at best. He seems to now like the Western part of Country and Western music.

  When Mark arrived I turned of Michael, and played some Vintage Caravan. They are a band who have nothing directly to do with the band Caravan, but maybe attempt to emulate their style some 40 odd years after the original Caravan were a very popular progressive rock band. I think we all agreed the album I played was good enough to not be annoying, and some tracks were good (although I must confess I have not heard enough to become familiar with a single song.

  When everyone had left, Michael to his home, and Mark and Jodie to a pub where I think they were meeting Alan, I put my dinner in the oven. It was a beef lasagne. It was quite nice, and would have been a lot nicer if I had cooked it earlier so it had time to cool down before I started eating it (and burning my mouth). I am not sure if it was classed as serving for two, or for one. If padded out with other stuff I guess it may have served two, but I just ate the lot by myself.

  I then topped it up with some ice cream and cake. I can't remember if I still felt hungry, or if I was just being greedy. After booze I may well have been thinking I was hungry, but there was actually method to my madness. The lasagne seemed to be the sort of thing that could give me heartburn when eaten late in the evening. I hoped the ice cream and cake might stop that. It didn't, although it might have helped.

  I passed a lot of the evening watching the usual things on TV, but I think I thought I was ready for bed at 10pm instead of 11pm (which is getting a bad habit lately). By the time I was ready to try for sleep I was burping a lot (thanks to Mounjaro), and one or two burps seemed to be a bit acid. I don't think I was getting any actual heartburn at that time, although it was obvious the potential was there. I delayed trying for sleep until I had munched through a couple of Gaviscon antacid tablets.

  Once asleep I seemed to sleep most OK. I got up to pee a few times, but with the fan heater keeping the chill off the bathroom (not that last night was that cold), it was an almost comfortable and forgettable experience. had I started writing this when I first got up, as usual, I could probably have described something about a dream or two. All I can remember is that I had a dream that seemed worth writing down, but I cannot remember a thing about it.

  Once upon a time I used to be able to get up at 5am, and get washed and dressed (and sometime shaved) in time to catch the 6.33am train at Catford Bridge. These days getting up is a slow process by comparison. It takes 5 to 15 minutes to make the transition from the luxury of sleep and dreams to the harsh reality of the real world. Then it takes time to examine each and every ache and pain to see if there was anything bad enough to affect what I was doing, or if there were any new aches and pains, and finally to consider if any of them were now bad enough to warrant the services of a surgeon or Voodoo practitioner.

  Fortunately there were no new aches and pains, and the usual one were, as usual, ignorable if there were some good distractions. The good distraction for this morning was the fact that I had to be at the Group Practice for a 9.05am appointment with a vampire (aka a phlebotomist) who drew two test tubes of blood from my right arm. It is usually, but not exclusively, painless, but maybe I am getting sensitive in my old age -  the initial insertion of the needle did seem to be a bit painful for a second or two.

  I had managed to get to my appointment 5 or 10 minutes early, and I was probably called in about 3 minutes late. 10 minutes later I was on my way home, and looking forward to some breakfast - which was a single 100gm packet of instant noodles.

  I skipped over the usually important things for some reason. To back track, I went to the toilet twice before I weighed myself (and then had a third, small pee before I went out into the cold morning). My weight had gone up since yesterday morning, but only by 100gm (but that may have been the weight of the last pee I had before going out). Gaining weight is not the intended action these days, but I though a gain of just 100gm after drinking booze, and being careless about what I had eaten, was actually quite good going.

  My blood glucose was also pretty good this morning. The Contour meter read 6.8mmol/l, and that is very good, The GlucoRX meter read 6.1mmol/l, and that is even better. Even the GlucoFix meter read 6.9mmol/l - also pretty good. That all gives an average for today of 6.6mmol/l, and I only bettered that by a bit 3 times this month. It is all rather splendid after eaten such forbidden things like ice cream and cake last night.

  The morning is now officially over. All I have to do now is go to Tesco, avoid a stupidly long face to face conversation with gas bag, who has already made a long phone call this morning, and the day is mine to do as I please. That will probably involve a nice long snooze, and other forms of relaxation. It may also involve eating more ice cream and cake, but not until this evening !

  One last bit of news came yesterday (or was it the day before that ?) and I don't seem to have mentioned it. I had a message from Angela warning me that The Life Of Brian gig that should be happening on Saturday night was going to be cancelled because Miranda, Angela's daughter, and lead singer, had tonsillitis or something and so can't sing. This is bot good and sad news. It is good because it frees up mu day tomorrow. I was worried how I would find the energy to get to the Petts Wood Xmas lights live stage in the afternoon, and then Blackheath in the evening. Now I don't need to make any decisions. I can go to Petts Wood (assuming the trains are running OK) on Saturday, and spend as long or as little as I fancy. Past years have always been really good for photography (apart from the transition from natural light to the stage lights). 








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