This morning started off even cooler than yesterday - a mere 12° C. It is currently bright and sunny, but will soon revert to sunny spells, This afternoon may only see 21° C, but that is still warm enough for t-shirt and shorts. I believe we have passed the Autumn solstice, and the days are getting very obviously shorter now, and the nights are getting colder. The small hours of tomorrow morning may be as low as 13° C, but there should be a lot of sunshine tomorrow, and the afternoon may see 24° C. It should feel like summer again....sort of.

  I am not completely sure why I didn't write anything yesterday. I had plenty of time, but I seemed unable to raise the enthusiasm. Maybe the biggest trouble was that I could not start in the morning, as usual, because I had a hospital visit.

  In theory I should be writing up two days worth of stuff, plus the usual stuff about this morning. When I think back to the day before yesterday I find almost an empty space in my brain. I don't think anything happened that was important enough to serve as a hook to hang more memories on. Fortunately what I wrote in the morning gives a few clues. One was that I said I would finish hand washing a sheet and two pillowcases. I definitely did do that, but my final sentence probablys ays more about my day "I may just end up lazing the day away". I suspect that was mostly the truth !

  The big item yesterday was my visit to "The Ambulatory Care Centre" of Lewisham Hospital. The name board outside says it is now called the urgent care centre, but all the staff still call it by it's original, and more descriptive name.
  Taking a picture of a picture is not the best option, and I should have used my flat bed scanner, but this is the cover of my appointment card (which I was given yesterday). I rather like the panoramic picture on the front. It was presumably taken from one of the tower blocks on the opposite side of the main road. It is not a new picture because the tower block, circled in red (top left of the picture) has been demolished. It was on the ground floor of that building where my dear friend Angela had her office, and it was news of it's demolition, and the need to move to a different building, that hastened Angela's retirement (although it was still a year or two after her official retirement age).


  As usual, I walked to the hospital yesterday. At just half a mile between front doors there is no real option to do anything but walk. The walk to my closest bus stop is over half that distance. My walking speed was not very fast, 2.481mph, but quite enough to raise my heart beat, and to get me breathing heavily (but far from gasping).

  At any other times my heart rate and breathing would be of no concern, but I knew that one of the first things they would do would be to check my blood pressure - and they did. My blood pressure was high. I can't remember what it was, but I think it was "high", but not explosive !  One notable thing was something most doctors don't mention, but was yesterday. It was my blood oxygen saturation, and it was nice and high - a sign of good lungs. I mentioned it was one of the bits of me that was still in good condition.


   I've been in the "Ambulatory Care Centre" once or twice before, and knew it to be a very boring experience with occasional bursts of activity. The next bit of activity was to have an ECG. The doctor (or was he a "care assistant" ?) said even he could still some anomalies, but nothing to start the firebell. After another wait I had two or three tubes of blood taken for analysis. Then another long wait for the results to be gathered, and finally called to a cubicle for a chat with a doctor.

  That doctor was still waiting to consult with a Cardiologist, but we chatted about my health and stuff. The initial blood pressure check could have doomed me, but I had an ace up my sleeve. I took a printout of my home blood pressure readings, and it was judged that provided I stayed away from hospitals my blood pressure was very well controlled. I was told at that point that unless the cardiologist had any special objections, I could go home.

  There was some confusion that might have messed things up, and it was about the dose I was taking of the drug Bisoprolol, a Beta Blocker, and instrumental in keeping my blood pressure low. I had been taking the correct amount of tablets, but for whatever reason I thought they were 10mg, or twice the dose I was prescribed. The doctor said that was unlikely because that would be a rare dosage tablet. I said I would double check when I got home, and correct things if they were wrong. In fact they were 5mg tablets and not 10mg, and so my dosage was as prescribed.

  It took ages to get there, mostly doing nothing, but eventually I was free to leave. Everyone seemed happy with how I was doing, but before I left I was given an appointment card for a return visit in a month. During that month they hope I will be able to have an echocardiogram (ultrasound scan of of the heart). It is a cheap, and non invasive way to see the heart working, and it was one a year ago that detected my leaky, and now replaced, heart valve. They have ordered the echocardiogram, and I await an appointment letter.

  Everything went pretty much as expected, and I don't really know why I felt stressed about attending, and I don't know why I seemed to walk as fast as I did to get there. The actual walk was harder than it should have been, but on the other hand I feel I am still recovering from my stay in hospital, and in particular, going from fasting and taking the super laxative prior to my Colonoscopy (which didn't happen), to a diet of hospital food. I had been suffering from uncomfortable constipation as a result, and it was only yesterday morning when things seemed to finally be moving OK - not an ideal condition when I had to visit the hospital.

  When I left the hospital I turned left instead of right. I was determined to have one pint of Guinness in The Jolly Farmers - which I did - just one solitary pint. I was hoping for some news about Ayse (my favourite barmaid), but there seemed to be none. I have no idea if her husband is still alive, and I have no idea if she will ever return to work there.


  I know I intended to start my tracker to measure the walk from the hospital to the pub, but it seems I didn't. Maybe I was just too high on the fresh air of freedom !

  What I do know was that after my single pint of Guinness it was 0.706 miles to home. I was quite surprised to see my (average) walking speed was 2.331mph. I found I was tiring as I walked towards home, and I stopped for a couple of breathers to watch the river flowing by. If I had paused the tracker on each occasion my average speed would have been higher. It seems I had a (extremely poor) excuse for my actual walking speed to tire me. Once again, I can't help but think that somehow I must learn to walk slower !




  I was very happy to get home, and to open the fridge to get the two packs of sandwiches I had bought for the occasion. After I had filled my face I laid down to snooze......except I don't think I did snooze. I started off reading, and having finished Isaac Asimov's second foundation book while at the hospital, I started the third of the original trilogy (he wrote more later). Maybe it was too distracting to let me sleep.

  It seems odd that I don't think I slept/snoozed much yesterday. I know I definitely felt like I should, but it seemed I might have saved my tiredness for the evening. Nothing notable happened in the afternoon. I did have a very fragile plan to go to the open mic night in The Partridge pub (in Bromley) in the evening, but I ended up reading in bed the same time as the event started (8pm). My next intention was to turn the TV on at 9pm to watch a repeat of Have I Got News For You (or maybe it was QI). Instead of turning the TV on I turned out the light, and went to sleep.

  I did not sleep well last night. The first 5 hours were fine, but my sleep became very light in the small hours. I was in that half state of almost asleep and almost awake. I can remember listening to music that my PC was playing. It was one of my 1000+ mp3 collections. I am only guessing, but I was probably asleep for some songs, but not others.

  One particular song kept me awake longer than others. The song was "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone" (or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJV2pWFyfn4 if you like You Tube). The song has a melancholy feel, and I can remember hearing it played on the VHF/FM service of Radio Northsea International during a trip to Holland made with friends Ivor and Pam (who took turns driving). It was one of those silly adventures, and the aim was to see where the Radio Northsea ship was serviced from - which was Scheveningen. We did our best to sleep in the car (A Triumph Herald Estate) which was not very big for three adults. It was dark outside, and the song came floating across the airwaves. To add to the atmosphere there was a lighthouse just a bit up the coast, and it was definitely flashing, and I think it was sounding it's fog horn (it was autumn and fog was possible).

  Apart from a great chunk of nostalgia, hearing the song last night (or maybe it was the early hours of this morning) triggered another memory. The thing about the song is that there are gaps in it that could have been filled with something, but the produced made the correct decision not to fill them. It reminded me of David Gilmore talking about "Us And Them" on Pink Floyds "Dark Side Of The Moon Album", He said something along the lines of that he deliberately leaves gaps in songs so that stuff can be inserted in later, and in the case of "Us And Them" it was the echoes that gave the song such a great feel.

  I spent a fair time this morning trying for more sleep, and didn't get much. I probably didn't actually get up early, but I felt like it would have been nicer if it was at least an hour later. This morning I am now starting to feel a bit better, but I did not feel all that good earlier.

  The worst physical thing is that I seemed to have overdone the eating celebrations yesterday. I seem to be 1.7kg heavier than yesterday morning. That is a stupid and unbelievable gain. I know I have yet to pass a poo this morning, but I did have a fair clear out yesterday. I don't exactly feel uncomfortable, and yet I do. Some of it is probably in my head.

  Yesterday my blood glucose was down far enough to be just about back to normal-ish. This morning my blood glucose is a fraction higher, 9.23 instead of 9.20mmol/l. That tiny bit means nothing, and I think I am happy with my blood glucose this morning. Once again it is odd that my blood glucose has remained stable while I seemed to have eaten enough to put on a huge amount of weight.

  My blood pressure is slightly up this morning, but only to probably neared where it should be. It is 120/75, and my blood pressure meter puts that a fraction higher than "Ideal", which sounds good to me.

  The main thing on today's menu should be a beer session with Jodie and Michael, and maybe others. The bath is clear of buckets of laundry, and so I will have a nice shower once I've had a possible/probably snooze once I have uploaded all this writing to my web server.