It is comparatively calm this morning, although the forecast does say there will be 33mph gusts of wind until midday, or perhaps a bit after, but late afternoon, and the evening should see little more than a light breeze. The main feature of today's weather will be dampness. The forecast doesn't show it, but there is some fine drizzle making the road wet as I write this. The latest revision to the forecast shows only one of light rain at 1pm, but it is gloomy enough, and will probably stay gloomy enough for rain at any time this morning, and a little way into the afternoon. The latest revision to the forecast shown not only less rain, but less sunshine than shown in the early forecast in the screenshot above. I suspect that it is one of those days when the cloud is so unpredictable that anything could happen from bright sunshine to heavy rain at any time today. The one thing that is usually right is the temperature, and 12° C is forecast for a couple of hours now. Tomorrow may feature a sunny morning, but overcast afternoon. The temperature may peak at 11° C.
  The only significant thing about yesterday was going shopping in Aldi in the morning, and I have already described that in yesterday's writing. What I didn't, and couldn't write about was the after effects of going out in the cold, and bringing home a lot of heavy shopping. Maybe it was the wind chilling my chest, despite leaving my coat done up the whole time I was out, or maybe it was carrying such a heavy load, but I definitely felt off colour for most of yesterday.

  Maybe some of it was depression induced, but I think a lot of it was the old story about the scar tissue on, and in my chest (from my quad heart bypass operation in 2013) getting inflamed in the cold and damp weather. A few bits aches from time to time as well. I don't know if it was some sort of guilt thing, but my guts felt uncomfortable after eating the smoked bacon quiche I had for a late breakfast. It did have a certain amount of stodginess about it.

  I didn't fancy any lunch on top of that late breakfast, but I did have several nibbles during the afternoon as I waited for dinner time to come around. Included among those nibbles were two small packets of crisps, and so I wasn't being as careful as I wanted to be. By 3pm I think I started on some large whiskies as a general purpose analgesic, and they worked up to a point, but as I got drunker I began to feel morose. (Morose ? Is that word I am looking for ?).

  When diner time finally came round I had a very safe dinner that I had actually started cooking earlier in the day. It was essentially boiled diced beef with brocolli, although I prefer to say it was casseroled. It was cooked in beef stock with chilli sauce, and a lot of white pepper, and turned out to be quite nice. It was filling enough that I didn't seem to want anything more for the rest of the day.

  About the only other thing I did yesterday was more CD ripping. Once again it involved the added exercise of going up and down the stairs a lot. It is a crap way of getting fit, but I guess it all helps. It was not quite such an intensive bit of work as the, for instance, Saturday (if I recall correctly), but I am still coming across dusty CDs that I had forgotten I had. It is a good exercise just on the basis of re-discovering stuff I had forgotten, and in a few cases discovering stuff I didn't previously like.

  Once again the offerings on TV were very slim last night, and I hardly watched any TV at all. There was one old film on that I had not heard of before, and I think I would have liked to have seen all of it instead of the last 20 minutes of it. The film was called The Net (but also called M7), and was about a secret British supersonic plane being built in 1953. It is full of British spunk, and quite futuristic looking. I suspect the writers might have had something like an RAF background, from the war years, and knew something of the potential of radar and remote controlling aircraft.

  I was in bed, and I thought I was ready for sleep by 9pm, but I couldn't get comfortable. One problem was I was feeling a bit bloated in a trapped wind sort of way. It was definitely wind because after a while it became less trapped, and my bedroom smelled like a sewer ! While starting to get more comfortable I got up, and between failed visits to the toilet I did some research on the internet.

  One of the things I have been wanting to do ever since I realised it would be possible, was to travel to Reading by train. The thing that makes this possible as just an otherwise pointless thing to do is that I can do it for free using my Freedom Pass. The catch is that it has to be on a train run by TFL.

  The first thing I wanted to know was how frequently they ran, and how long the journey would take. I went onto the National Rail journey planner website to see what it had to offer. What it offered was completely ridiculous.

  I tried a shorter journey from Ealing Broadway to Maidenhead. It is shown as a direct, and fairly straight bit of railway on the maps, but the National Rail website suggested I would have to change 8 times, and the entire journey would take 4 hours ! (See screenshot on the left).

  The next thing I did should, with hindsight, have been the first thing I should have done - I went to the TFL website journey planner. That told me that there is a train twice an hour (in the middle of the day when I am likely to travel) from Paddington to Reading, and it calls at 12 stations along the way. The end to end time is just one hour.

  I went back to bed happy that it seems that sometime when the weather is better, and ideally when the Great Kahn, the mayor who runs TFL, allows travel on his services without a face mask, I will be able to go to Reading (and of course do some trainspotting along the way). There are a few local stations along the way that I would like to visit as well. Perhaps I might be doing this in April - if I am lucky.

  After one final failed visit to the toilet I got back to bed, but it was feeling slightly cool in my bedroom, and so I turned the heater up. That meant that later on I could partly kick the duvet off, and have more freedom to thrash around in bed. As is often the case I slept well after that. The only problem is that I had missed several hours of sleep, and to make matters worse, I seemed to wake up early, and I got up earlier than I wanted to, or at least earlier than I thought I should do.

  The good news is that my blood glucose has dropped from it's high of 8.8mmol/l yesterday morning to just 7.3mmol/l. That is much more in line with my new and improved readings. I can't say I feel much better for it. I am currently suffering from two things. One is a nagging feeling that I need more sleep, although I can't say I actually feel tired as such. The other thing is that I seemed to be constipated again this morning. Something is stirring, but it's taking it's time to do so.

  Today looks miserable and damp. That means I don't feel like doing the one thing I thought I might do today. Last night I had the idea that I might jump on a train to Denmark Hill, and take a few photos of trains, and maybe even chance my luck getting on a London Overground (TFL controlled) train without a face mask, and go to Clapham Junction for a few more opportunities. Even if I felt masochistic enough to do that on a cold, damp and miserable day, and if I was stupid enough to want to try and take decent photos on such a dull and drab day, there is still the problem that my constipation feels slightly uncomfortable, and more than that - sooner or later it will end, and it would be more pleasant to use my own toilet, and not one on a railway station ! I think I'll be staying in today, although I might go to the shops.