All the forecasts
say today will reach 31° C. By my reckoning it
is already 24° C. The BBC forecast says it
will be sunny all day, but the latest revision
to the Met Office forecast has added quite a
few hours, generally in the morning, where
only clouds are shown. As I write this the sky
is a milky white colour, and there is no sign
of the sun, although there was sunshine 90
minutes or so ago. Tomorrow is evidently
proving hard to forecast because the BBC and
Met Office have come up with completely
different forecasts. It should definitely be
dry, and the temperature could be between 24°
C (according to the Met Office) and 27° C
(according to the BBC). Quite a lot of the day
could be cloudy.
Yesterday started off quite busy
until in the afternoon it got quite boozy.
Before 10am I had washed two towels, and hung
them out to dry on the washing line. It took a
bit of time to cool off after doing that. Once
I had cooled off enough I went to get some
shopping in Aldi. It was fine walking there,
but hard work walking back carrying far too
much ! Most of the weight was liquid, and none
of it was alcoholic !
My rucksack was crammed with three
2.25l bottles of Diet Coke, a 1l bottle of
detergent, and two small bottles of fat free
vinaigrette dressing. That dressing may be fat
free, but it is emphatically not sugar free -
which was annoying once I had got it home and
read the small print. The other liquid,
carried in a shopping bag with other stuff,
was a 12 pack of 500ml bottles of water. Until
recently I have been very happy with tap
water, but it has been starting to taste a bit
unpleasant lately. Maybe too much chlorine in
it or something.
I seemed to have bough too much
lettuce, but it was in the form of heads of
lettuce, and they tend to keep longer than
ready to eat lettuce. I also probably bought
more cheese than is good for me. It included
some soft squidgy slices that, being American
inspired (or so I believe) probably has sugar
in it. I really ought to check that before I
eat any more of it. One oddity, or at least it
was an oddity for lunch, was a bowl/tub of
rainbow coleslaw. It had a yoghurt base, and
it was low fat and low sugar. It made for a
weird but nice lunch - just on it's own.
I can't remember if it was before or
after lunch that I did some more laundry. I
washed two t-shirts and five pairs of
underpants. To hang them on the line I had to
bring in the towels I had washed early in the
morning. They were not bone dry, but drier
than after they would be if I had been using
them. I draped them over the banister rail to
finish drying where I always let them dry
after using them.
Jodie arrived fairly late, not much
before 4pm, to start our beer drinking
session. As usual we drunk a wide assortment
of beers, or stuff that is called beer, like
that pictured on the left. It is difficult to
believe that "Triple Fruited Mango" can be
called a beer, but at the bottom of the can it
says "Modern Sour Beer", and it was
unpleasantly sour to my palate. While Jodie
slowly sipped hers, enjoying the nasty taste
somehow, I gulped mine back in about three
large mouthfuls to avoid tipping it down the
sink. The trouble with that is that it was
quite fizzy. It is a good thing that we split
this can half each. I don't think I could
manage a whole can.
As if the terrible sourness wasn't bad
enough, it was very obviously very sweet, and
it was probably my largest source of sugar
yesterday. Fortunately there were some much
nicer beers to drink. A few of them were
French "Bio" beers. I don't know for sure, but
I suspect in France the word "Bio" is sort of
shorthand for vegan. The thing is, almost all
beers are vegan these days now that
finings
made from fish swim bladder have been
generally phased out.
It is always difficult to say how much
we drunk yesterday, but with a slightly later
start, and a slightly earlier finish, it was
less than usual. I guess we probably only got
through about 5 cans/bottles, and as always
each one was split in two. At least one was a
fairly strong 7.7%, and we did finish with a
small shot glass of Jamesons whiskey at the
end, but I didn't feel particularly drunk at
the end. In fact I would say I was hardly
drunk at all.
At least I
wasn't so drunk as to go on a feeding
frenzy....well, not at first. My dinner
was a nice simple ready meal of beef goop
with some weird wild rice. It was quite
small, and the label said it was low fat,
calories and sugar. Maybe that was the
problem because it wasn't all that long
before I got the munchies. The cheese
slices in Marmite rice cakes was fairly
wholesome. The garlic and chilli mixed
nuts were quite naughty. I think the
garlic and chilli flavour were stuck to
the nuts with a light syrup. The
nutritional label didn't give a high
figure for sugar content, but it was
probably per nut or something ridiculous
instead of for the whole bag.
One other event yesterday was a
visit from the postman bringing me a new
t-shirt. It ain't a great picture, but I
am "modelling" it in the picture on the
right. It is for the band Hell On Tap, and
I hope to be wearing it tomorrow, but more
about that in a minute.
It seemed very hot and sticky last
night. It is going to take a while to get
acclimatised to summer weather. With
hindsight I over did it last night. I went
to sleep with a fan playing over me. Last
summer I did that most nights without ill
effect, but last night it was like I had
chilled myself. The first time I woke up,
after almost three hours of sleep I seemed
to feel OK, albeit a little too warm. It
was quiet outside by then, and so I opened
the window. That let in some cooler (but
still 20+° C) air, and the fan picked that
up, and blew it at me.
The next time I woke up I was
aching badly. All sorts of joints, and
well as my back and chest gave me pains. I
can't quite remember if I turned the fan
off, or just pointed it away from me
(probably the later), and so I was a
little less chilled. The third, and
last time I woke up in the night I still
felt very uncomfortable. It took some time
to get all the wrinkles in my ligaments
and joints out after I finally got up.
It was inevitable that my blood
glucose was up again this morning after
all I ate and drank yesterday. 9.3mmol/l
is not particularly high, but in this hot
weather I think I can partly fast to try
and get a low figure tomorrow morning. Now
I have to decide just what I am doing
today. In theory a walk in the hot sun
would be good, but with all the aches I
still have, though that continue to fade,
I am not sure I would enjoy such a walk.
If only I was in practice like I was in
2020 I could be doing silly things like
walking to, and around Blackheath in the
blazing sun.
Upon checking my records I see that
during June 2020 most of my walks were
just 3 or 4 miles long. It was another
month or two before I did some very long
walks. I suppose that is a good argument
to go on a medium length walk today to get
in practice for longer walks later. On the
other hand, I am thinking that I might go
to Upminster and Rainham (Essex) stations
as part of my ongoing quest to visit all
the (rail) limits of my Freedom Pass. I'll
have a think about it, and make a decision
in an hour or two after I have had a
shower.
I think my plans for tomorrow are
more set. The whole point of the new Hell
On Tap t-shirt was to be able to wear it
at the next Hell On Tap gig, and that
happens to be tomorrow at 2pm at an
outdoor gig at the Chislehurst Recreation
Ground. There is at least one other
interesting band on, but the band on after
that is Dread Centre. They are a really
great band if you happen to enjoy reggae
in bigger doses than the occasional song.
I can imagine walking across the park,
towards the bus stop, with the deep
booming bass ringing out across the whole
park.
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