09:18 BST

  Yesterday was mild enough to go out without a coat, but there were only a few random sunny spells. It was dry all day, and the afternoon temperature reached 15° C. By midnight the temperature had dropped to a still mild 12° C.   This morning seems fairly dull, and by 11am there could be some light rain, but from 1pm it should be dry and we might see a few sunny spells. The afternoon will start at 11° C, but will go up a single degree after a few hours. By midnight the temperature may drop to just 7° C. Tomorrow morning may start as low as 4° C, and there is a slim chance of seeing a bit of frost. Much of tomorrow will be sunny, and the afternoon may see 14° C, and that should feel good in sunshine.

   Yesterday was, in the main, a good day, although a few bits were not so good. The highlight of the day was a couple of hours in the Jolly Farmers at lunch time. The not so good was probably eating more than intended (but not actually too excessive).

  Once again I have not bothered/got around to editing the screen shot on the left to put the walk to the pub at the top, and the walk to home at the bottom. It was a slightly shorter walk than I seemed to have done lately because I went home the more direct route. It adds up to approximately a 1.3 mile walk - not that far, but far enough to be a bit useful.

  Before setting out to the pub I did the usual rest, and possibly a short snooze, after I finished writing, and then I had a shower. It all took a bit longer than intended, and instead of being outside the pub when it opened at midday, it was closer to 1pm when I got there.

  Apart from the fact that it was a semi nice day weather wise, and some exercise was (probably) good for me, I did have a special motive for going to the pub. I wanted to give Ayse, my favourite barmaid, an Easter egg that I had bought in Aldi the day before. It was a chocolate egg with a pistachio lining, and Ayse likes pistachios (at least I think she does). Before I left she had not tried any, and so I'll have to find out the verdict later. The actual packaged egg was good enough to earn me a hug - which was very nice.

  I just hope that Ayse doesn't think the only reason she gets these occasional gifts is to earn a hug, but genuine appreciation for her work behind the bar, and her great interaction with her customers (including me). Getting a hug is the cherry on top !

  I managed to average just over 2.5 mph when walking to the pub, and I did it in just under 17 minutes. That is not my fastest, but it pretty fair for now. My ankles and maybe a knee was starting to ache when I arrived at the pub, but it didn't seem to be as bad as recent walks. It seems I am slowly getting my stamina back, and some tone back in my walking muscles. Maybe in another month I'll get the walking time to the pub down to close to my old time of just over 13 minutes (mind you, that was 5 or so years ago when I was late getting to meet Angela in the pub).

  I did the walk to the pub almost non stop. I did stop to take a couple of pictures, but I didn't like them, and won't be using them today. I only took just two pictures on the walk home, and neither are exactly award winning. There seemed to be very few photo opportunities, and I was desperate to get some pictures, and I'll come to them later.

  Meanwhile, back in the pub, I did have a 2 day old copy of The Metro with an unused quick crossword to do. I did manage to finish all but one clue - one of those clues I hate that are about some actress who I have never heard of, who played I part I have no idea about in a movie that seems too awful to watch ! Fortunately there was lots of banter, despite there only being less than 10 us in the pub, to keep me amused.

  I decided not to make a long session of it, and stuck to just my usual 2 pints of Guinness. My final drink was a brandy, and I bought one for Ayse as well. My walk home was a bit slower because I stopped to take a few more pictures, and also because my ankles were getting sore - but not nearly as sore as they were a week or two ago. It sometimes seems hard to believe it, but the practice is slowly working, and maybe I'll be ready to tackle some longer walks in a few weeks - which will be handy because the weather should be improving a lot soon (once the April showers are out of the way).
  One of those picture that does not do justice to how this view was seen with the naked eye - probably because the image would need to be impossibly wide to encompass just how many bluebells were in flower along the rive bank. I can't remember seeing such an expanse of bluebells before, and although I never saw the work to plant them, or even any evidence that some sort of gardening had taken place. I can only assume that sometime, maybe last autumn, loads of bluebell bulbs must have been planted over 30 ft or more of the river bank.
  This was very unusual. I think I saw one other small clump of what seemed to be bluebells, but they were the wrong colour. Instead of blue they were pale purple, or maybe lilac colour. It is possible that below ground level there was some sort of pollution at this spot, and that changed the colour of the flowers. I can remember changing the colour of the flowers on a hydrangea bush in the corner of my mum's garden when I tipped out some chemical waste under it. I knew that the colour of Hydrangea flowers depends on soil chemistry, and I got a very good demonstration of just how true that is.

  From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrangea "The flowers of many hydrangeas act as natural pH indicators, producing blue flowers when the soil is acidic and pink ones when the soil is alkaline."

  Apart from stopping to take pictures, I did stop a couple of times just to enjoy the view (or let the ache from my ankles subside), but as mentioned above, they are definitely improving. I don't think I would have liked to have walked much further than to home, but I probably could if I needed to. I hope that improving temperatures will help to reduce the aching as well as just building strength in the muscles and ligaments that are complaining.

  Once I got home I had two packs of sandwiches to look forward to. I had bought them from Aldi the day before. One was the well known unhealthy "all day breakfast" (generally regarded as unhealthy no matter who the maker is, and mainly on account of fat and salt content [I think]). The other was a special "pulled ham with cheese", except the the description included a few extra tempting sounding words. The latter sandwiches were teetering on the edge of being better than wonderful. They were actually merely very nice.

  After all those sandwiches I felt a strong desire to lie down, and either read, and/or snooze. My relaxation was only slightly disturbed by a pain. It was a pain I have felt before in the past, but yesterday it seemed a bit more persistent. It was a burning or stabbing pain in my gut. I have a suspicion it could be something to do with my appendix. I think it is in the right sort of area. It was a very localised pain.

  I did notice the pain went away after I went to the toilet and passed some gas and a small poo. I'm not sure how that would relate to an appendix problem. I feel sure that although it can be a little pain full on are occasions, trapped wind is a more diffuse pain. Maybe it is my appendix playing up, although I am sure those bloody Endoscopists would say it was because I didn't have my colonoscopy because they said my blood pressure was too high. Oh well, if it does turn out to be appendicitis I think it is only a 5 minute keyhole surgery and then back home for teatime......possibly !

  I think the two packs of sandwiches, and maybe a bit of cake, seemed a bit more than ideal, and so when dinner time finally arrived I managed to convince myself to have something smaller. Of course I part failed, and what I did have was not good for the cause. I had a two course dinner. The first was a packet of fish sticks. They are another thing that looks innocent, but the fat, salt, and other bad things in them, mean they are not innocent at all. The chocolate ice cream and more cake were obviously not ideal either.

  I don't think I felt sleepy during the evening when watching some TV, but I did feel tired....or was it sleepy and not tired. Whatever it was, I didn't waste time and was in bed earlier than many nights. I read for a bit and then put the book down, and turned out the light. What happened next is a mystery. Part of my thinks I went to sleep very quickly, but another part of me thinks I laid in bed for ages before falling asleep. In the cold light of day I suspect it just felt like ages before I fell asleep, but it was probably little more than 15 minutes.

  I think I got up to pee 2 or 3 times, but it seems like I probably had a lot of good, uninterrupted sleep. I even made a start on getting up early - and idea that didn't seem to last more than 5 minutes ! When I got up all I could manage was a pee, and that didn't seem al that big. It was not until I had checked my blood glucose, and counted out my pills for the day, that I went back to the toilet for another pee, and a small. but not insignificant poo.

  I weighed myself again and found my poor choices and amount of food had only increased my weight by 100gm. After my exercise yesterday, even if it was just 1.3 miles. it was a bit of a shame I had not lost 100gm and ideally even more. Even my blood glucose was not wonderful...then again it was not actually bad. The average of all three meters was 8.23mmol/l, and while safe, it was not as low as desired. It was curious that this morning all three readings were almost identical, 8.2, 8.2 and 8.3 mmol/l. It is unusual to get all three so close to each other.

  This morning I don't feel all that good, although I can't say why. I think it is partly all in the mind. It may be the threat that today I could and should, and hopefully will go for a walk, and maybe I might even try for a longer non stop walk. This afternoon I would usually be having a beer tastings session, but my diary says Jodie will not be coming over. I think she is either going to a gig, or some specialist beer bar is having a "tap takeover" where some brewery shows off it's atest batch of beers by taking over the whole bar.

  As I write this there is some blinding sunshine outside. I think that is the reason why I will try and force myself to go and do some exercise. My original thought was that maybe I might put a few rail miles on my Freedom Pass today, but I am unsure if I have the enthusiasm for that today. Maybe I will do it next Wednesday. Ayse will be visiting Margate instead of working behind the bard, and so I have no need to go to the pub, but the early forecast says Wednesday will be sunny and possibly 20° C. That could be the sort of thing that could lure me to the seaside as well - possibly Southend (even though Southend itself is a bit of a dump). Today I think I will actually be making it up as I go along.    2160 words today.