08:16 GMT

  This morning started with a frost, but it should warm up to 7° C this afternoon, and then to 9° C by midnight ! There seems to be some light haze, but the sky looks quite clear still, and the forecast for glorious sunshine seems like it is going to be correct. The sky will cloud over from mid afternoon, and it may start to rain from 7pm. Only light rain is forecast, and with the temperature possibly as high as 9° C tonight, there is no chance of sleet or snow. Tomorrow may start at 11° C, and rise to 13° C in the afternoon. Unfortunately the slight warmth will come from warm and damp air that will make it gloomy and wet, although only drizzle is currently forecast from 6pm onward tomorrow.

  Yesterday was another day that was a mix of bad and good, although the bad was probably more like bland, and the good was mostly good-ish. On the other hand, I must have been in a fairly good mood/feeling fairly good to have achieved what was revealed this morning.

  After I had finished writing yesterday's piece I had a short rest, and then I had a shower. I then felt OK to go out on a double mission. My first mission was to go to the surgery to pick up a blood test form.  It was a bit chilly, even with one of my leather jackets on (which seemed to fit more comfortably than it used to). I think I may have succeeded in keeping my walking speed down enough that it felt fairly easy walking to the surgery.

  I got the blood test form, and then walked to the Poundshop. I think I may have been over confident on that walk, and started out a bit too fast. Once I am walking fairly fast (albeit not a lot more than 3mph, perhaps 4mph) I find it really hard to slow down. I arrived at the Poundshop feeling slightly stressed, but not in any actual pain.

  When ever I am in the Poundshop I like to have a good look around despite really only going there for some bottles of bleach. There was not a lot to tempt me, but I did buy some chocolate, and I did buy some instant noodles, as well as a few other things.
  I must admit that buying the instant noodles was an experiment that failed. They were £1 each, which is cheaper than branded "Pot Noodles" but a bit expensive for poor quality noodles. I had not eaten any breakfast - a deliberate thing because I wanted to try and stop a slow rise in my weight - and so I was feeling a bit hungry when I got home. I would have these two "saucy noodles" when I got home for my lunch.

  The Teriyaki noodles had the potential to be fairly OK, but they suffered a typical failure of these pre-mixed noodle pots - all the sauce powder settles at the bottom of the pot, and it seems difficult to get it mixed in with the noodles. The result is the top seems bland, and the bottom has all the flavour. The Sweet chilli flavour was the same, but that had a much bigger failing. You can see in the picture that it claims to be "3 chillies" hot, but I would barely rate it as half a chilli.

  I note that the picture on the carton shows the noodles in a bowl, and not eaten from the pot. If I had made it up in a bowl the powdered sauce would have ended up on top of the noodles, and it would be easier to stir it for more consistent results. I may even try that some day, but while they filled a hole with hot food, I doubt I will want to buy more because they were just not good.

  After my lunch I felt like a lie down and snooze. Of course that was the very time that gas bag phoned me up, and blathered on for as much as an hour. I just checked, it was only 40 minutes, but it still felt like an hour, and maybe two ! He blathered on so much that I forget what he actually called about !

  I didn't get my afternoon snooze, and that made me feel a bit pissed off. It felt like the whole afternoon was wasted in a bad way. A long snooze would also have wasted a big chunk of the afternoon, but it would do it in a good way in my simple minded opinion.

  I just realised I am getting ahead of myself, and I need to go to before I had my lunch. I had a good demonstration why the good old telephone can be much better than web sites when it comes to booking appointments. I had to book an appointment with the vampires who would be drawing my blood into test tubes for testing. The way the NHS would have liked me to do it was via their web site.

  I have never visited any NHS websites, but it is my belief they are probably designed by art students and so are "pretty" by their weird standard, but not very functional. To condense what could be a long rant down to a single paragraph, I called the booking line, and I was answered in about 5 minutes. It then took little more than a minute to book an appointment because the lady at the end of the phone was faster than a computer. I go to give my blood samples on Friday morning - unfortunately after my usual Thursday afternoon boozing session !

  The next thing of significance was dinner. I must admit I did have a snack to calm my nerves after talking to gas bag. It was two packets of baked waffle shaped crisps - these are possibly more healthy than usual crisps, but not so nice. My dinner was fairly simple, and initially also probably healthy-ish. It was two grilled quarter pounder burger with some chilli sauce. If I could have cooked them at the same time, I could have eaten the burgers with a small plate of oven chips. I followed that with some chocolate orange flavour ice cream. It is hard to make that dinner sound healthy, but experience showed it might be.

  I think it was when I went down to the kitchen to start cooking the burger that I hear a meowing outside. It was Fluffycat wanting to come in. I let him in, and gave him some food. He ate half of it before curling up in his box. He seemed very relaxed in that box, and was purring loudly. He didn't even try to attack me when I was stroking him. I expect that if I had dared to stroke his tummy he would have let me know that was definitely off limits (unless I actually liked my hand being chewed on !).
  He was so relaxed that he didn't mind me taking my dinner upstairs and leaving him on his own. He usually likes to be the centre of attention, but maybe he was happy to be out of the cold, not that I had any heating on in the dining room.

  I looked in on Fluffycat several times, and he would roll over and dare me to give him a belly rub - which I didn't because I learned my less ages ago. Later on I would find him almost asleep, with just one ear pricked up for safety.  It was starting to look as if he was going to stay in all night. I started watching the news on TV while I ate, and then watched my usual fare of Star Treks and topical news quizzes. After a while I realised I could keep an eye on Fluffycat using my "Cat Cam" in infra red mode because I had turned the light off in the dining room.
  Fluffycat seemed quite content to curl up and sleep while I was upstairs, and the light was off in the dinning room - except for the invisible infra red illuminators on the camera. I started to wonder what I should do. I was happy for the cat to stay, but I had no litter tray for him. It got to 10pm, and he had been (apparently) sleeping for about an hour, but then he got up and had a good stretch before giving himself a good clean. He then went and ate the rest of the cat food I had put down for him.

  It was almost as if he knew I was watching him, because after eating he went and sat by the door into the kitchen. I went downstairs, and open the door into the kitchen, and then opened the back door into the garden. He barely hesitated before stepping out into the cold night. I have no idea where he went, or what he did. He has a very thick fur coat, and so the cold would not have worried him much. (If, as seems almost certain, he is a Norwegian Forest Cat breed, he is adapted to live in snow filled forests). Maybe he wanted "last orders" from his real home, maybe he just wanted to have a crap, or maybe there was hunting to be done in the dark.

  I was sort of relieved that I didn't have to worry about him being in my house all night, and I could relax and go to bed at 11pm when QI finished on TV. Once I was in bed I think I fell asleep quite quickly. I remember very little about the night. I have maybe a couple of very foggy memories of getting up to pee, and I am sure I had a dream, or maybe two, but neither left any memories for me to describe.

  This morning I made sure I got up fairly early, or at least not to go back to bed when I woke up at a time of my subconscious choosing. This was important because I have to washed and dressed (including washing my hair) to get to Lewisham Hospital for a diabetic Retinopathy scan just after midday. That timing is convenient because I can got straight to the Jolly Farmers, just next door to the Hospital, when the scan is done.

  After getting up I went straight to the toilet for a pee, and went there again maybe half an hour later for a poo, and a bit more pee. I then weighed myself. My claims that my dinner was sort of healthy (maybe only in one specific way)  were confirmed when I found I was 700gm lighter than yesterday morning. That was so good that I wonder if the Mounjaro is finally working for me....or maybe it was because I have started to try and manage my diet in the way I used to when losing weight.

  My blood glucose measurements were magnificent this morning. The Contour meter read a fantastic 5.9mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read an even more fantastic 5.4mmol/l. The GlucoFix meter was not as good but 6.3mmol/l is still very good. The average of all three was 5.87mmol/l, and I don't think I have ever seen it that low before. These are the sort of readings a "normal" person might expect. It is, or course, a stupid idea, but I think I shall attribute it to skipping breakfast yesterday.

   I am partly doing it for that reason again today, but mostly because I don't want to feel bloated when I walk to the hospital, and then on to the pub. The difficulty after than is not giving in to a ravenous-plus appetite when I have walked home through the freezing park with 2 or 3 pints of Guinness swilling around in my stomach.

  Actually there is one other factor that I must acknowledge. One of the ways that Mounjaro is supposed to reduce appetite is by making you feel fuller by not emptying the stomach (and it seems the bowel too) for a time. That, by itself, does not make me feel like I don't need to eat, but burping up the taste of the chocolate orange flavour ice cream this morning serves as a far better reminder than there is stuff in my stomach that needs to empty before piling in more on top of it.








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