Today there is a 33% chance of rain at 11am (and a few other hours with a much lower chance of rain), and indeed the cloudy sky does suggest rain as a strong possibility. Although none is shown for today, a thunderstorm seems like it might be possible as the  temperature rises to a peak of 25° C at 3pm. The forecast actually shows sunny spells all morning, but it is too cloudy for that. Later on, maybe after 6pm the sky may clear enough to give full sunshine until sunset. It looks like tonight will be a fresher night than last night, which while not sultry, was no lower than 19° C. Tomorrow could start at 16° C, but sunshine and sunny spells will take the temperature up to 27° C by 4pm tomorrow.
 
  Time seemed to flow very smoothly yesterday, but I am not sure if that made for a good day or not. Some of yesterday was good, and other bits bad.

  After my improved health (based on weight and blood glucose readings) yesterday morning, I guess things went downhill, although I had to wait until this morning to find that out. Back to yesterday, and after my usual post writing lie down, I had a shower (I had washed my hair the night before if I recall correctly). Once suitably clean and fragrant I was ready for visitors in the late afternoon, and a visit to Tesco just before (or just after ?) the afternoon started.

  The walk to Tesco seemed semi pleasant, or maybe not. In fact it just seemed very normal, and so instantly forgettable. What was not forgettable was that Tesco had a load of freezers all fail at the same time. That meant there was no ice cream for sale, plus many other things, but the lack of ice cream was what saddened me. Maybe it was a good thing.....on the other hand, I usually (but not always, and it has been getting worse) respect the negative qualities of ice cream - mostly the sugar content, and the calorie content.

  I managed to be a selection of stuff, and that included what should have been last night's dinner, but wasn't, and I am not sure why. It was a bit of salmon which I was going to grill until the skin was nice and crispy, plus some green stuff, probably watercress, which I forgot to buy, but I do have some alternatives in the "salad crisper" section of my fridge.

  I got all my shopping home in my rucksack, plus one big (Lidl branded) bag for life type of bag. It was a shame I was so loaded down, and didn't have one of my big cameras with me. As I approached Tesco I could hear drums and stuff at the main road end of the road. After I had finished shopping I tried to see what was going on. I could not get a clear view, but I could just make out it was some form of procession. The centre piece was a sort of mobile Hindu temple - at least thatw as the impression I got from some way away, and a not clear line of sight.

  I have done some internet searches to try and find out what it was. They could have been heading for a small Hindu temple in the back streets of Catford, and the design of the "mobile temple", which I think was actually a chariot now I have fond some limited information. The festival being celebrated was most probably Ratha Yatra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratha_Yatra , although I can't seem to pin it down to yesterday's date. It was a very colourful procession from what I could see, and if I was not carrying shopping, and had my big DSLR camera with me I would have got closer up to get some pictures. I am unsure why, but I didn't feel it was threatening in any way unlike a Muslim procession that feels like the march of an invading army.

  I didn't get any pictures, even using my mobile phone, and once I thought I had discovered approximately what was going on I headed to home to put my shopping away, and have a light-ish lunch to line my stomach before the beer drinking started a couple of hours later. I used those couple of hours to do the usual light cleaning of the kitchen (so Jodie could make her usual mess in there as she prepared and cooked her lunch) plus cleaning and polishing the beer glasses.

  I still had time to lie down for half an hour before Jodie arrived. She was followed by Michael maybe an hour later. It was probably one of the better beer drinking/tasting session. We didn't have any of the nasty sort of beers that Jodie likes. and most of what we drunk was fairly mainstream lagers (although not many of them would be available in any local pubs). The downside is that many of them were fairly sweet, as in containing a fair bit of sugar. That would have a negative effect on me this morning.

  Jodie was unusually talkative - she said at least a dozen words !! Michael didn't seem to be all doom and gloom as he so often is. He has had many people tell him that he needs to take some time out for himself instead of spending all afternoon with his wife in the (not really any) care home where they do little to care for her dementia. His son says he has to take a day off now and then, and even the care home says he needs to take the odd day off. Maybe they do care for his wife more than he believes. Anyway, it seems he has a family do coming up which will mean an overnight stay, and he seems to be half looking forward to it.

  One treat Michael got was the chance to taste the smoky jumbo sausages he saw me buying in Tesco last week. I cooked a pair for him so he could try them just with (optional) tomato sauce and hot mustard. I think he said they were good, but not that good. He ate both of them so they could not be that bad. It is up to him if he wants to buy a bag for himself in Tesco.

  After Jodie and Michael had gone, I looked forward to my dinner, although it was not quite what I was expecting when I open the box, and put the contents in the mini oven to cook. It was "chicken kebabs", and they turned out to be little more than bits of chicken on wooden skewers. I had cooked them while we were drinking, and when I looked at them when cooked I got the feeling they would be rather dry by themselves. There was just two in the pack and I scraped the chicken off each skewer into deli rolls with some pickled sweet chillies. I ended up with two rather tasty rolls for my dinner.

  Later on, while watching TV, I scoffed a whole semi big bag of beef flavour giant  hula hoops. They were not like the usual hula hopes - a ring of dense potato pastry. The pastry (which I admit is not the best description, but it is the best I can come up with on the spur of the moment) was puffed up and extremely light. I am not sure if these giant rings had any more material in than the standard sized hula hoop.

  I think I turned the TV off early last night. There didn't seem to be anything on after 10pm (or was it 9pm ?). I thought I might spend a bit more time reading in bed, but I quickly felt like some sleep would be nice. As far as I can recall/guess I fell asleep very quickly once I had turned the light off.

  I only slept 3 or maybe 4 hours before I got up to have a pee, and also it felt like I was ready for a poo.  I had gone several days without doing more than an occasional very small poo. At about 2am this morning it felt like something quite hard was trying to shift. It was quite an uncomfortable experience, lasting over an hour, but I finally pushed out a very hard poo. It didn't feel like that was all there was, but it was the best I could manage.

  I went back to bed, and at least I felt mostly comfortable, and managed to get some fairly good sleep. I think I may have got up at least once for a pee, but it is all very vague now. The same is true of any dreams I had. I feel like I had at least one dream, but I can't be sure because I can't seem to remember a single thing about it.

  I seemed to get up earlier than usual, or maybe it is just that I didn't go back to bed after going to the toilet. I had a pee, and with some struggle I managed to pass another fairly big, very hard poo. While it was a far from comfortable process, it did feel satisfying in so much that I made the incorrect conclusion I had now had a pretty fair clear out. Any satisfaction evaporated when I weighed myself. I don't think I ate any one thing that was bad for me, but it was obvious the cumulative effect of lots of small things, plus the beer (possibly a major culprit), was that this morning I seemed to have gained 1.3kg since yesterday morning. That is rather excessive, and I should have skipped breakfast today, and maybe every other meal too.

  My blood glucose was very high this morning.  All three meters were in close agreement, and all gave very bad readings of 9.2, 9.2, and 9.1mmol/l. I think the beer must take centre stage as the culprit this time. I have not had any ice cream to blame it on, although I did have a couple of chocolate bars (a Caramel bar, and a giant KitKat bar - the latter not being as nice as hoped).

  My feeling is that I should be doing a lot of fasting today, and that rather rules out what I was intending to do. I was going to go shopping in Aldi. There are a few things I would like to get from there, including toilet rolls or maybe giant rolls of kitchen towels (both for different things, but neither is essential at the moment, and the main criteria was which would fit into one of my shopping bags best). I was also hoping that Aldi's fridges are working (unlike Tesco's fridges) and I was going to get a few 500ml tubs of plain, or probably plain, ice cream. I have this crazy notion that I might control the amount I eat in one sitting if it was from a small tub instead of a big 2 litre tub). Having ruled out Aldi, I think I may go for a walk in the park instead - even if there is a bit of light rain (and I did see a few spots of rain on the window 20 minutes ago).

  There is one confounding thing - it is possible I might be expecting a package delivery today. The tracking info from Aliexpressn can often seem rather vague. On the screen shot on the left it says that last Friday my package arrived at a local airport. I assume that was local to China. Then the date jumps from the 22nd to the 28th May, and it says my package has left the sorting centre. I am presuming that this was at from a UK airport. I am also guessing that it is in the hands of Royal Mail, and maybe because they don't, or can't refuse to carry small Lithium Ion batteries - which is what my order is for - spare batteries for my Canon 600D camera.  If it is Royal Mail doing the final delivery then the package(s) should be light enough for the ordinary postman to deliver. It is possible they could arrive very early this afternoon - around 1pm would be fairly typical. I would like to stay in until I have had some evidence that the postman has passed my house. Maybe I am going to end up being very lazy, and fighting the food demons or something.