This morning is fairly bright, and now there are some sunny spells to make it seem brighter. Those sunny spells are forecast to be very sparse, and while this afternoon may reach a very nice seeming 25° C, there will be few sunny spells, and I suspect it might be quite muggy feeling. Tonight may be a degree less cool than last night. Tomorrow morning could see a couple of light showers, but most of the day is only shown as cloudy. The afternoon may reach 23° C. There may be sunny spells after 6pm tomorrow.

  Yesterday was not very good day. In fact I seem to remember it as being rather dull (weather wise and otherwise). However, I must have got a few things right during the day according to what I have seen this morning (described towards the bottom of this page).

  It was probably getting on for midday, and maybe even a bit after it, when after I had my usual post writing lie down, and then had a shower. I probably should have washed my hair as well, but my hair is so unruly now, as I lose more and more, that I doubt it would have made a difference. At least my body was clean and fragrant when I went to Aldi to buy too much shopping.

There were a few things I specifically wanted from Aldi, but most of my shopping was a free for all. I ended up spending far too much money, and filling my shopping trolley too high. I know I had 8kg of Diet Coke (4 x 2l bottles) in my rucksack, and my wildest guess suggested two bags each with at least 3kg in these. That adds up to far more than a trained SAS soldier has to carry (30kg or more), but SAS soldiers are not usually 71 years old with a history of hart troubles.

  I will admit it was a struggle to carry my shopping home, but I only stopped once to get my breath back, and I did not feel I was about to die when I got home. In fact I recovered quite fast, but I'll admit I topped up my recovery with a snooze after I had had some lunch. Lunch was ready made sandwiches - not always the most healthy option, but there are far worse choices.

  One thing I did after I had my shower was to put in two hand towels to soak in bio Detergent. One hand towel was from the kitchen, and it was greasy and ideally it should have had a boil wash.Unfortunately I have no facilities for a boil wash. The plan was to finish washing those towels before dinner time, but predictably enough, they got let to be dealt with today. (I have given them two rinses so far).

  Apart from the snooze I have already mentioned, I probably spent a lot of yesterday afternoon just quietly reading. There was other stuff I could or should have done, apart from finishing washing the two hand towels, but to be honest I just could not be bothered. I did do a bit of photography - which translates to taking one single picture !
  I took a picture of these now very ripe looking cherries on next doors tree. They looked good when bright red, but look even more delicious since they started turning a more purple colour. The sad thing is that I don't think the man next door can be bothered to harvest them. The tree was planted by his ex-wife, who came from Thailand where I think cherry trees are more loved. If I was 60 years younger I might climb over the fence for a bit of scrumping.

  Incidentally, the picture was taken on my Olympus X-42 camera. It is a very good camera, particularly for it's age, but it suffers from a big flaw. The sensor is not very sensitive, and even though it seemed fairly bright to my eyes, the camera had to increase the exposure time to 1/80th of a second, and that made it very sensitive to the slightest camera shake. The picture looks out of focus, but it is mostly motion blur.

   As 6pm approached I started to get my dinner together. It was a couple of fish cakes with the rest of the sweet potato mash I had made the previous day. I also added baked beans and a good shake of hot pepper sauce. Evidently the novelty was wearing off because it did not seem as nice as a very similar dinner, in fact almost identical, the day before. One thing I bought in Aldi was more sweet potatoes, but I think I'll leave them for a few days. I also ate quite a lot of (alleged) low calories salted caramel ice cream for dessert.

  TV entertainment last night seemed fairly unsatisfactory for some reason, although I was watching my usual stuff. Maybe they were all bad episodes - all TV programmes have bad episodes, but I think I may have been unlucky to have all bad episodes lined up in a row. I should have turned off, and just read in bed. I did read in bed for a short while when I finished with TV at about 11pm.

  After putting the book down, and turning out the light, I seemed to fall asleep almost instantly - or at least I can't remember and delay in getting to sleep. It was a mostly uneventful night. I know I got up to pee once or twice (any I would not dispute a third time). I most definitely had a dream, and while I can't recall every detail of it, I can remember quite enough to describe a lot of it.

  The dream was slightly odd because it put me in the role of an inventor, and then apparently running a company to exploit my invention. The invention was not exactly high technology. It started out with two lengths of roof guttering. The idea was to make a new type of vent, and a fairly long one. Embedded in the wall was the two lengths of guttering, and with each being a half circle, you could rotate one to open up a long slit, or to close the slit up.

  Of course the production version didn't use guttering, or at least it didn't seem to. One advantage of this air vent was that by rotating the two halves you could direct the incoming air up or down. It could also be used as a rubbish disposal device. By turning it round it could drop stuff outside into a waiting bin (somehow !). The really exciting thing was that the company (which I don't recall having a name) was apparently in negotiation with NASA to develop a space-worthy version, made of stainless steel, that could be used as a sort of airlock on spacecraft (somehow !!).

  I think I felt quite refreshed when I woke up this morning. Of course that feeling has almost faded out already. After my second visit to the toilet, which included passing a fair sized poo, I found my weight was 800gm less than yesterday morning. That was a very good loss, and it was done with almost no effort. In fact considering I had more ice cream, and even three tiny chocolate bars last night, it is probably not short of being a miracle.

  The paradox continues - weight down, blood glucose up ! Well I suppose the three mini chocolate bars last night were the actual culprit that sabotaged my blood glucose, but it was still fairly good. I got readings of 8.2, 7.6, and 8.7mmol/l. That gives an average of 8.17mmol/l, and while not as good as the previous 4 days, it is still better than all of May, and better than maybe half the days of this month.

  This morning my blood pressure is 113/65 with a pulse rate of 74 bpm. That seems pretty good if it is not too low, and almost exactly the same as yesterday. On the 1st of July I have an appointment with, I think, the pharmacist at the group practice to discuss my blood pressure, This all came about because I told the Kings College Hospital Cardiologist that I had odd spells of high blood pressure. I have now worked out the cause - it is chest pain caused by ribs and cartilage, and a left over from when my chest was opened up for my bypass operation. The cause is the pain, and the effect is my blood pressure rising - not the other way around.

  This morning I feel fairly OK, but I am not sure I feel good enough for a little adventure I was planning. My plan was to go and take some pictures on the C2C (aka as the old London, Tilbury and Southend Railway). I can travel as far as Rainham (Essex) on my Freedom pass all for free. That railway is alleged to have some new trains, and I would like to get some snaps of them. I am unsure if I will be going out of not. At the current time I need to get the big bucket with the two hand towels I am hand washing, out of the bath so I can have a shower, and ideally, wash my hair too. By the time I have done that, particularly if I go ahead and complete the laundering, it may be a bit late, and I might have lost interest. I'll just have to see how it goes. There is always tomorrow, or the days after that.