08:33 BST

  Yesterday was not as warm, and not so sunny as the previous day, but it was still nice day. The afternoon reached 20° C, but only for a single hour. By 3pm it had clouded over, but it was bright white cloud.By midnight the temperature had fallen to 9° C, and fell more later.
  The forecast shows today as being cloudy (except for a sunny spell at midday - if indeed it happens then). The cloud is generally thin white could, and at time it almost looks like the sun is about to break through. The afternoon is only predicted to reach 12° C, but with only a gentle breeze it should still feel OK for shorts and t-shirt if I go out. Despite the whole day being shown as cloudy, not a single drop of rain is forecast. Tomorrow looks to be a complicated day. It should start at a quite mild 10° C. There could be two peaks in the temperature - one at 10am when it could reach 12° C, but there could also be a drop of rain at the same time. The other at 4pm when it could reach 13° C. There could be sunshine and sunny spells from 4pm, but the sun will be too low to help warm things up.

  Yesterday was another of those days that was both good and bad, although more of it was probably just bland. There was also bad news, but nothing terrible. I did do something good, but also maybe foolish.

  Once I had properly got up I had a shower yesterday, although I did not feel the need to wash my hair. Maybe I didn't wash my hair because it was already getting late. I got myself dressed, and it seemed that I would be fine in shorts and t-shirt, and then headed up the road to Aldi.

  Going to Aldi was both good and bad. As I noted at the end of my writing yesterday, there was nothing I was very desperate for, but a few things that would be very useful. I also admitted that I could be tempted to buy stuff that it would probably be better not to eat. I half listened to me advice, and didn't buy much that would be bad for me, but I did buy some stuff like cake - nice, but naughty unless eaten with great care.

  My shopping bags were quite heavy because among the stuff I bought was a 12 pack of sugar free Tango with the flavour not obvious on the outer wrapping. It was peach, and not wonderful, but fairly pleasant. I also bought two 4 packs of Aldi own brand lagers (two different types). To keep the weight down a bit I only bought two 2 litre bottles of Diet Coke instead of four bottles.

  I wore my green Adiddas "Court Shoes" trainers for this shopping trip, and they seemed quite comfortable on the relatively short walk to Aldi and back. By the time they are starting to look worn out I am expecting them to be very comfortable.

  I can't say I would have been happy walking much further by the time I got home, but I did still feel perfectly comfortable when I arrived home. I put away my shopping before tucking into a slightly late lunch of a couple of packs of sandwiches. One was egg and bacon, and the other was "Jamaican style" jerk chicken. I still can't quite work out what jerk chicken is supposed to taste like. The sandwiches were slightly spicy, but tasted quite a bit of grated carrot and some sort of green leaf.

  I didn't seem to have anything to do after I ate lunch. If I had looked hard enough there were plenty of things I could have done, but I decided to lie down and read rather than look for work. Inevitably that lie down turned into a snooze. I don't think I had a long snooze, but I can't say for definite. It could have lasted much of the afternoon. One thing I did do during the afternoon was a bit of photo editing - mainly just straightening up a wonky picture, and shrinking it to fit here.




  I am not entirely sure what a Play Street is. I assume it harks back to a time when we kids were taught how to cross the road safely, and to watch out for cars when in the road. There are more parked cars these day, but the actual traffic down this road is probably as light as when I was a kid, although it does depend on the time. When I was in Junior school there was always a bit more traffic in the rush hour as those few people who owned cars would go to work and then come home again. The "rush hour" now is when all the parents insist on driving their noisy little tykes to and from school. Most kids going to the local primary school probably live no more than a mile away, and they could easily walk, and if anyone bothered to tell them how to cross roads safely, could walk by themselves.

  Now this idea by some political party, who could do with being educated using a bit of 2 by 4 around the head, seems beyond stupid. The school it is outside had two playground areas, and 3 or 4 minutes away there is Ladywell Fields that the kids could spend all day in playing by themselves. By the time I was about 6 years old I knew Ladywell Fields, aka "the park" like the back of my hand, and felt very comfortable exploring it by myself on some occasions. Now kids can only be trusted to play in the middle of the road with the traffic barred, and CCTV and armed guards (possibly) keeping a very close eye on them like they were prison inmates. I am glad I am old enough to remember freedom.



  It was early afternoon when I got a phone call from Jodie. She said she couldn't join me for the usually regular Thursday  beer tasting session because she didn't dare move too far away from her toilet, She had a bad case of "the runs", and did not sound happy about it at all. I decided it might be a good excuse to cancel the whole thing. With Michael being the only other regular, I sent him a message apologising that I was cancelling the beer. I know that he sees Thursday afternoon as a good time for him to unwind from all his troubles (mostly centred around his wife who is in a home with severe dementia), but I was not feeling all that good either, and I fancied just resting and being lazy.

  I don't really know why I was not feeling too good. One thing that is annoying quite frequently now is the effect of my Mounjaro injections. One way they are supposed to help you lose weight is by slowing down the release of food from the stomach. it is supposed to make you feel less hungry, or maybe not even hungry at all. That does not work for me, but the food still stays in my stomach for longer where it is prone to fermenting. I can burp up the taste of the previous meal even the next morning sometimes. On some occasions I can even burp up a tiny bit of sick - which tastes foul, and can burn the top of my throat.

  That stomach trouble was one reason I felt a bit off colour, but it was mainly because I doubted the wisdom of pouring beer on top of it all. Later I would find that was in incorrect assumption. I did have a few other aches that were bothering me. One is fairly persistent now, although I am taking steps to reduce it. It is my right elbow. It is the site of an ancient injury, and for a month or two I was going around with a part dislocated elbow - and that was despite a doctor looking at an xray, and declaring it to probably be just "soft tissue damage". I am also getting occasional pain or stiffness from the right wrist around the place where I was opened up for a small catheter to enter during my heart valve replacement.

  I must admit I was quite happy to be very lazy late yesterday afternoon, and during the early evening. I mainly relaxed, but I did make a couple of corned beef with horseradish sauce rolls for my dinner. The rolls were found in Aldi, and while they were not the crusty rolls I would have preferred, they were soft "deli rolls" - a finger, or "sub", roll. I had never noticed them in Aldi before, but I think they are on my shopping list now because they were quite nice.

  I also consumed just two cans of the lagers I had bought in Aldi. If it was not for this stomach problem I could have guzzled more cans, but two, one of each type, seemed about right. Both lagers were "Aldi own brands", and one was nice, and the other almost nasty. The nasty one seemed to have been made with very bitter hops. Those bitter hops, which I think are American varieties, seem to be used in too many beers these days. Bitter, as a beer style, should be bitter, but it should not be acrid !

  As usual I watch my usual selection of TV programmes last night, and then I went to bed. I think I went to bed at 10pm, but it might have been 11pm. I read for a while, and then began to feel really sleepy. That was my cue to turn the light out, and to fall asleep quite quickly. I mostly slept well.

  I did wake up a few times for a pee, and I awoke, at least I think I did, during a dream. It was one of those dreams that seemed to survive waking up a few times to think about it before the dream continuing. It was an anti-American dream, but not that anti. It concerned a new island that had formed when the water level in one of the big lakes up near Canada, rose enough to encircle an area of dry land.

  This new island had a small herd of (wild ?) horses on it. There was possibly just enough vegetation on the island to support the horses, but ideally they should be rescued and moved to better pastures. That presented a big problem because of weird American laws. The new island was designated Federal property, and in a convoluted way that the British Civil Service would have found admiral, their American counterparts found an old law that they copied and pasted into the deeds (or whatever) of the new island.

  The old law was to appropriate tracts of land for prisons, and without realising it they had classified the new island as a prison. That meant that anyone who attempted to remove the horses would be guilty of helping a jail break, and the penalty could be the electric chair or life in prison. Quite what they would do to any horse that discovered the channel to the closest bit of mainland was only 3 or 4 foot deep, and once one horse had tried wading through it, the rest would follow, is anyone's guess.

  This morning I seemed to wake up late. I did wake earlier, but I seemed to be in no rush, and so turned over and went back to sleep again. When I did get up I found I could still taste the last thing I ate yesterday whenever I needed to burp. I also felt semi constipated. I did do a small poo, and so I was not technically constipated, but I was aware that there was probably more to come. Fortunately I did have a second poo, and also a small pee, before I had breakfast, and when I weighed myself the second time I found I had only gained 400gm. Of course any gain is bad, because they all add up, but fortunately I lost more than 400gm the day before, and so the overall trend is down recently, but only by the skin of it's teeth.

  My blood glucose was definitely not good this morning. I am tempted to put some of the blame on the lagers I drank yesterday. I know I ate other sweet stuff, but nothing out of the ordinary, and I usually get away with the ordinary. The average of all three meters was 8.67mmol/l. That is still almost safe, but quite a bit higher than yesterday's 7.7mmol/l. It was mostly on account of just one reading. That reading was in the mildly dangerous zone at 9.3mmol/l. Maybe I should have tried a second reading because the other two meters gave readings of 8.0 and 8.7mmol/l, and they are almost acceptable.

  This morning, despite it probably not being a good idea, I had two helpings of instant noodles. Both were "Pot Noodle" style, but smaller than typical actual Pot Noodles. One was a "Singapore style curry" flavour, and not very nice. The other was a Teriyaki flavour, and was nicer. Both had one failure - most of the flavourings stay on the bottom of the pot, and it seems like a lot of hard work to try and stir them enough to get the flavouring through all the noodles. maybe "hard work" is not exactly true, and "without splashing stuff everywhere" is more true.

  The whole of today revolves around the concept of going to The Swan pub in West Wickham tonight to see The Life Of Brian. I really want to go, but I have doubts that the lure of bed will be stronger than going out at around 8pm tonight. It is a modestly easy journey. A Train to Eden Park station, and then a bus from right outside the station, up the hill to the pub. If I can make it to the station then I will be fine for the rest of the night, but getting out the front door will be really hard.

   2391 words today.