I'm not sure the forecast is 100% correct for today. We seem to have had more than sunny spells, but less than full sunshine so far this morning. I would describe it as lots of hazy sunshine. The sky is still mostly milky white, and one interpretation of the forecast could be that it will stay that way for most of the day. So lots of hazy sunshine all day. Oh well, that is better than nothing, and there is always the hope that big gaps in that that thin misty cloud might open up to allow stronger sunshine through. This afternoon may reach 18° C. Tomorrow could see strong sunshine for the morning, and up to 2pm. After that there will be sunny spells. From 8pm there could be light rain for the rest of the day.

  Yesterday was one of those days where not much seemed to happen, but it did, and it did in a couple of ways. It was also a day when I seemed to control my eating better than some days, although the real hero is probably the (prescribed) Furosemide tablet I took in the evening. It is a powerful diuretic (i.e. it make you pee a lot).

  I am unsure what made me do it, but it was something I had been meaning to do for some time. I guess that recently the need to do it had become acute. It was to re-install the operating system on the old iMac I use mostly as a music player in the dining room. A few recent updates had caused some problems to the point when it would just not boot. Even before that there was a good reason to re-install.

   One update had a silly effect on the Bluetooth system. No matter what I did I could not convince the Bluetooth system that it was a computer. It reported to my phone that it was a headset - and you can't transfer pictures to a headset ! The operating system that I had originally installed was MX Linux, and apart from the updates causing problems it seemed to be generally useful, albeit sometimes feeling a bit slow.

  The operating system I installed yesterday was Linux Mint - the same operating system that I am using on my main PC (that I am typing these words into right now). It was a fairly simple process, but made much easier by familiarity with it. One tricky part for the novice is partitioning the hard disk. The installer will do that for you, but I prefer my customised way. Apart from that it is just a few clicks to tell it useful stuff like where in the world you are so it shows the correct time, and uses the correct keyboard layout, and then it just gets on with it by itself.

  The bit which takes a bit of time is configuring the desktop so it looks like Windows XP - which I find looks more pleasing than other options. Making some icon look like Windows versions, such as making the audio player Audacious look and act like Winamp, does mean a journey into "forbidden" areas of the hard drive, but once again I am very familiar with it so it is no problem at all.

  The whole operation took much of the afternoon, and the longest thing of all was copying the backup I took of all the music stored on the old operating system back to the new system. There was about 140GB of music files, and some were not easy to replace because they were ripped from CD's that Jodie had bought, or were even given to her, at some of the gigs she goes to. It think I am safe to say here that most of those are not to my taste at all, but it keeps Jodie amused while we are having a beer tasting session.

  I am happy to say that the fresh install still seems to be working perfectly this morning, and it was time well spent. That time, I just realised, could be described as much of the time between lunch and dinner - although when I was copying the music back to the internal hard disk I just let it get on with it, and I had a lie down and read for some time.

  I said in the pre-amble, near the top of this page, that I seemed to manage to control my eating a bit better yesterday. I had, as intended, and noted yesterday, skipped breakfast, or actually moved breakfast to lunch time. I had one bowl of instant noodles. Unfortunately they were one of the packets I bought that have rice instead of wheat noodles. It is possible that they are healthier in some way, but they are also nasty, and so don't count.

  I thought I had a plan to make those very thin rice noodles more palatable. I used scissors to cut the long strands of the noodles to almost fit on a spoon (I can't be bothered to learn to use chopsticks). It made them easier to eat, but did nothing for the flavour, or lack of it, and the sauce that is added when making the packet up seemed quite thin and tasteless. Overall, I still think those rice noodles are rubbish !

  It was lucky that I had also planned to have a ham roll. It was a home constructed roll, or at least the filling was (I did not bake the deli roll, and bought it ready to use). I did cut the roll in two, and buttered both sides with real butter. I then put in a generous amount of ready sliced ham with a thin squirt of powerful English mustard. It was rather delicious, and I had to use some will power to stop me making up another of them.

  My dinner was a couple of packs of sandwiches I had bought from Tesco the day before. I followed them with quite a restrained amount of Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream. At some point I did have a couple of snacks, and one of them was a couple of small bags of cheese and Marmite flavoured puffs. I also think I had a couple of (alleged) hot pepperami style stick made for Aldi. To be honest, compared to the real thing they are a bit naff.

  I had been thinking of going out last night to a Chain gig in Beckenham, but I think my mid afternoon I was starting to realise that I would not want to go when the time came. I still topped up the battery in my big Nikon, and also topped up the spare battery (although I have never managed to flatten the battery in use no matter how many pictures I take in a day).

  After dinner I spent most of the evening watching TV. Being a Saturday night there was not a lot on. One thing that caught my eyes was the 1988 (I think it said) Wonder Woman movie. I missed the beginning, and didn't watch it to the end. I only watched what I did because I expected Wonder Woman to be very sexy. Although she reminded me a lot of Ayse (my favourite barmaid), I did not find her that sexy. On top of that it was a very over the top Hollywood production, and maybe that made it too clean and homogenised or something.

  I think it was around 10pm when I went to bed. I intended to read for a while, but it was not for that long because I was feeling sleep, at least I was until...... I am unsure what it was. I assume it must have been "hay fever" from some tree pollen blowing in through the slightly open bathroom window. I went for a pee and my nose almost instantly started to drip. After going back to my bed my nose continued to run, and it seemed prudent to keep a box of tissues by my bed.

  At time it felt most like a cold than all allergy. For a while I did feel like I was cold, and possibly feverish. It definitely felt worse every time I went to the bathroom to use the toilet, and thanks to taking a Furosemide tablet, the powerful diuretic, I did pee a fair bit last night (and through the night). The doctors/pharmacists instruction say to take one tablet in the morning, but to my mind that means keeping close to a toilet - not easy if in the middle of a long walk or train ride. I prefer to take the tablet in the evening because I am well practised at getting up for a pee in the night, and then falling asleep again with little fuss (usually !).

  I did indeed get up a few times in the night to pee, but I would say it was the quantity that was bigger, and not the frequency. At 3am I did wake up feeling like I needed a poo. I didn't fancy sitting on a cold toilet seat in a cold bathroom, but needs must..... I did indeed pass a small poo at 3am. A bit later in the early hours of this morning I had a dream, and while I can't seem to remember much about it, I feel sure it involved toilets somehow !

  I am sure I needed two more pees soon after getting up, and I did have a more usual poo as well. When I got on the scales after I thought I must be empty, I was most pleased to see that I had apparently lost 1.3kg. That is a lot, and I think I have to attribute it more to the Furosemide than my careful eating (actually, "slightly controlled" my be better than "careful").

  When I last saw the nurse I mentioned how I didn't seem to have lost any weight, and yet so many of my clothes were fitting better, and how some pairs of shorts I had not been able to wear for years, now seemed easy to wear. I said it was as if my gut had actually shrunk, but the extra weight was elsewhere. I have had a tendency for my legs to get puffy since I had my bypass operation in 2013 - and particularly the left leg where the vein (or artery) was removed to use for the transplant. My legs have been quite mildly puffy, and I wonder if other bits of me are retaining water. It does seem that the Furosemide is doing a good job of draining off this excessive water.

  My (sort of, rather vague) careful eating seems to have helped my blood glucose as well. The average of all three was 7.97mmol/l. Actually that is a bit higher than ideal, but it's still a seven even if it is teetering on the edge of being an eight, but even eights are not too bad, and I used to consider them good if under 8.5mmol/l.

  My blood pressure this morning (actually a few minutes after midday) was pretty good at 117/48. In theory I am feeling fine, but I am still getting either an allergy attack, or I have a common cold. I've just had an attack which got through a few tissues, but it seems to have almost dried up again. I still can't decide if it is a cold or allergy, but maybe one hint that it might be a cold is an occasional cough I seem to be getting. My under the tongue temperature is currently 36° C, and that strongly suggest allergy rather than illness - I think/hope.

  Today the original plan was, and maybe still is if I have the time, to go to Tesco to buy a 4 pack of Guinness (although I doubt that would be all I would buy). The Guinness would be to drink this afternoon instead of the beers I would otherwise drink as part of another Sunday beer tasting session with Jodie. The thing about Guinness is that it has no sugar in it, and that could be important because tomorrow morning, just after 9am, I have to go and give some blood samples as part of my regular diabetes checks. This also means I will probably not start writing until after I am home again tomorrow (maybe around 10am).