After another tropical night, with the temperature over 20° C, it was still 21° C at 6am. At the moment the sky not fully clear, but we have full sunshine, and the full sunshine could continue until midday. The afternoon may only see sunny spells, and maybe the temperature will only peak at 29° C - which is quite hot enough.  From 5pm full sunshine may resume, but tonight may escape being a dubbed a tropical night by the skin of it's teeth. The night time temperature may be 19° C. Tomorrow may see full sunshine all day, but the afternoon temperature may only reach 28° C. Tomorrow night may almost be cool by comparison, but the forecast 17° C is still going to mean having a fan on all night.

  Yesterday could be described as a disaster, or at least the end result of it was. I'll explain that later. Other than that is seemed a mostly pleasant day, and it was a pleasant beer tasting afternoon, but that left it's legacy, and it was a very bad one - the major contributor to the disaster.

  I try not to let it change me too overtly, but I have to admit that yesterday morning I was hot, and it was seriously slowing me down. I was particularly lazy during the morning, and it was not helped by my high blood glucose. Once I had finished writing yesterday's diary I laid on my bed to relax, read, and have a snooze. I can't remember if I did have a snooze, but I would be surprised if I didn't. What I did know was that I could have almost happily stayed there most of the day.

  Unfortunately I had stuff I had to do, and that started with washing my hair, and having a shower. It would have been better if the water from the shower had been a bit cooler. It was only very slightly warmer than tepid, and that was enough to stop it being as refreshing as it might have been. If I remember I will turn the gas down to the water heater so it runs a bit cooler today, but I don't actually want it to be cold......at least I don't think I could handle a cold shower.

  It was while I was stepping into the shower that I noticed what looked like a thick envelope had been pushed through my front door. I was really keen to finish my shower and shampoo so I could investigate that envelope. I thought it might have had the Memory Stick memory cards in it that I had ordered from Amazon. It didn't ! I was actually my gas and electricity bills. I am happy to say that during these hot months I have built up a lot of credit, and at the current rate it build up enough to almost pay for my winter fuel bills no matter how much heating I may use.

  It was after I finished my shower, and shampoo, had dried myself and got dressed, and then started doing some washing up in the kitchen, that my Amazon order arrived. Even then it was surprisingly early, and I am more accustomed to Amazon orders arriving around 6pm, and sometime much later.

  Inside the thick cardboard envelope, which was too thick to fold over to go through my letterbox, were two (Sony style) memory sticks - tiny little things that could have easily fitted in an envelope a quarter of the size. I wasted no time in trying them in my high definition Sony camcorder - and it rejected both of the memory sticks.

  I have a theory about this, and while it may not reflect reality, I doubt it is too far off the mark. Once upon a time, when the now extremely common "Secure Digital" first appeared they were not very fast. They were possibly aimed at digital still cameras which don't need a fast card, and the first digital cameras were fairly low resolution anyway. Sony realised they were, at the time, not fast enough to record glitch free video, and so Sony invented their own memory cards - they called them memory sticks, and are really the only true user of that name, but it is used as slang for many memory devices.

  Sony have a reputation, particularly with broadcasters, for making excellent video equipment, and wanted their camcorders to give excellent recordings. Not only did they invent their own memory sticks, but it seems that their camcorders read information on the memory stick that is not readable by other devices, and if it sees it was not made by Sony, or one or maybe two recognised, and approved companies, it can either completely fail the memory stick, or flag up a warning that it may not work properly. In some cases you can ignore the warning, and it will work. That was the case for one of the two sticks I got from Amazon. The other, which was actually an adapter with a micro SD card in it, would no work at all.

  Both sticks worked perfectly when connected to my PC - I could read and write to them with no errors, but the snobbish camcorder turned it's nose up at them, although as I say, one could actually be used despite the warning message. Actually, having just checked what was on the cards, it seems both seemed to work despite the warning message, but the warning massage is annoying.
  This is an actual picture taken using the high definition camcorder, and a card that "may have not worked". The original picture was 1280 pixels wide, but I've reduced it to 800 pixels to display here. It is not an ideal picture to show the capabilities of the camcorder as a still picture camera. It was not ideal that there was no light on in the dining room, and the light coming in the window was blinding bright for the camera. I did take a picture of Jodie, but the light from the window behind her made her look like a pale ghost.

  It seems I didn't waste my money buying these non Sony branded memory sticks. They are fine when connected to my PC, and I think a Samsung camera I own is happy with them, but I don't think I can trust them for anything important. They may be OK for walks in the park.

  I am also waiting for delivery of some Memory sticks I ordered from China. It is possible they will be complete crap, as much as it is possible they will work well. I am now terribly impatient for them to be delivered, but it might be another week, or even two before they arrive and can be tested. Fortunately I do have 2 or 3 genuine Sony Memory Sticks that I can use for anything important.

  The core reason for yesterday being a disaster was the beer tasting session, although some of it was indirect. I knew I had to eat enough to "line my stomach" before drinking, and maybe I went over the top at lunchtime. I can't remember exactly what I ate, and whether it might have included ice cream. I do know I scoffed a big bag of Spanish Cheese flavoured crisps. They were nasty and nice. It was an incredibly strong cheese flavour, and in some ways a bit like Parmesan - the Italian cheese that is nice on pasta even if it does smell a bit like vomit !

  The beer tasting session was quite good. Jodie and I were joined by Michael and Alan. Michael was particularly taken with Alan's tales of working in a recording studio, and working with a band or two who Michael knew of. It made for a happier session than some. One annoyance is that Michael said his daughter (I think) had read somewhere that there is a band playing in The Black Cat (the old Catford Ram) this coming Saturday (tomorrow). He said he had walked past The Black Cat and saw some details on the chalk board outside, but he could not remember a thing he had heard or seen. He was far too busy to stop and take a picture on his mobile phone.

  We didn't drink a great deal during the beer tasting session, but we did open and share a couple of very strong, and very sweet dark beers. They were delicious, but their sugar content seemed to leave a terrible legacy. It didn't help that after everyone had left I had a very simple dinner. It was ready to finish cooking, "Tennessee burnt beef ribs" (or something like that). They came with a very sweet and sticky BBQ sauce. The ironic thing is that although quite tasty, their badness for my health did not outweigh how nice they were......although on reflection.....were they really that great ? Maybe not.

  I was hot after I finished what was, or seemed to be, a fairly small dinner (but of course it was very meat heavy - in fact it was mostly meat). I don't seem to have had any ice cream, or cold fruit as a dessert, although I can't rule it out. As usual I watched some TV, and I think it was about 10pm when I went to bed. I thought I would spend some time reading, but the heat and the booze left me feeling like I could easily go sleep.

  I strongly suspect I was fast asleep seconds after turning the light off. I slept just about naked with a fan blowing over me. I felt very comfortable like that, and the heat didn't bother me at all, although I did have to turn my pillow around at least once because it was soaked with sweat - which would have been made much worse by my blood glucose (although I didn't  know that at the time). I don't recall getting up to pee more than once or twice, but I did not when I went for a pee when getting up it was a large one.

  The beer and all I had eaten was enough to raise my weight by 200gm this morning, although later on a large and quite uncomfortable to pass, poo may have just about turned the small gain to zero, or possible a small loss of weight. It didn't seem I had eaten and drunk all that badly at that point, but the next thing was to check my blood glucose. I seem to have broken another record !

  The three readings I got from my three blood glucose meters were; 13.4mmol/l, 12.2mmol/l, and 10.9mmol/l. That average out to 12.9mmol/l, and must be an all time high (except when I was first diagnosed as type 2 diabetic). It feels like I am rapidly turning from type 2 diabetes to type 1, and that would mean I need to take insulin to control my blood glucose. I was hoping the Ozempic, alleged wonder weight loss drug I am now trying, would take care of my blood glucose like Mounjaro did, but it seems not.

  Today I have to try and fast. It is the only way I can get my blood glucose down. At it's current level it has all sorts of dangers from foot trouble, and in the extreme, blindness. It occurs to me that I did not have this trouble before I was on Mounjaro, and maybe this is a side effect, although it can't be ruled out that the side effect is allowing myself to forget how to control my blood glucose by diet alone. It did seem I could rely on Mounjaro to control it, and it did wonderfully, but it lead me to think I was invulnerable to foods with a high sugar content.

  Ideally I should go out today, and stay out for many hours so I cannot "raid the larder". The problem is that in this heat I will still need access to water, and preferably chilled water. I could, and have done in the past, taken a bottle of water with me. Maybe I might do that again, but I have a much shorter journey planned. Ideally, I need to go to Tesco - not for food, but for bottles of Diet Coke. Some say it is terribly unhealthy, but it is tastier than water. I can combine a walk to Tesco with having a look outside The Black Cat to see if there really is a band playing tomorrow night, and any other details I can glean from it.

  Before all that I need my post writing lie down and probable snooze, and then I need a shower, and ideally to wash my hair too. I don't think I have to worry about my Sony (style) memory sticks sourced from Aliexpress being delivered today. Depending on how much wrapping they use, they really out to fit through my small letter box with ease. Besides, they could be as much as a week away from being delivered.