This morning is very gloomy, and very wet. Heavy rain will continue through to 3pm, it will remain grey into the start of the night. The only positive thing is that the temperature should reach 12° C by 2pm, but that small positive thing will be losts on the wastes of the grey skies and copious rain. No sunshine is forecast for tomorrow, but most clouds should be white, and no rain is forecast. The temperature should reach 13° C.

   Yesterday had some positive aspects, but it was still a day when I felt fragile. In the morning that could be blamed on a hangover from Sunday afternoon's boozing session, but I think it was more than that. I still managed a couple of minor triumphs.

  I couldn't face the laundry that was still soaking in freezing cold detergent, after I couldn't find the time, energy or enthusiasm to finish it on Sunday. I still wanted to go shopping, but I couldn't have a shower before I got the laundry buckets out of the bath. However I could slap a wet flannel on the worst bits of me, and that is all the personal cleaning I did before getting dressed, and out into the big bad world.

  I was heading for both Savers, and Tesco. That is typically a 5 minute walk, but because I was feeling fragile I slowed down a bit, and probably did it in about 6 minutes. It felt like my chest would start aching, but it didn't, even when carrying heavy shopping home, but I walked even slower than going there. I actually tried to enjoy the walk back as if it was a pleasant stroll. Under a gloomy sky it could never be pleasant in that respect, but the lack of any worrying pains did feel good.

  In Savers I was intending to buy some shower gel, which I did, plus some vitamins, which I also bought. I was also looking for some Chromium supplement tablets, which I couldn't find. I recently found that 20 or more years ago there were some trial to see if extra Chromium in the diet increased Pancreas, activity, and insulin production. In those early trials it did seem to help, but more recent trials suggested it made no significant difference.

  I did not look deep enough for any statistics of those trials, but I am wondering if the later trials failing was just that some modern drugs had more effect, and Chromium by itself produced results that were too small to be worth bothering with. I discovered that Chromium tablets are easily available from Amazon, and I hoped they would be available locally. Maybe the ever expensive Holland & Barrett had some, but I have ordered some from Amazon. It will be worth it if they even produce a very small improvement in my blood glucose readings - just enough to tip the balance from OK to semi-good.

  I went to Tesco to get some meat and vegetables, although I forgot to buy some broccoli to go with one of the meats. Apparently broccoli is a source of Chromium, and it does seem that broccoli does help my blood glucose readings, but I couldn't stand having it every day. Other shopping in Tesco was to top up my instant noodles box, and to get 4 bottles of Diet Coke. I also bought a couple of "snack" or "lunch" items.

  As I mentioned above, I walked home with my heavy shopping quite slowly (by my personal standards). It kept feeling like my chest might start to ache. Maybe there was no such feeling as "feeling like it might start to ache", but was really just fear of it starting to ache. At the time I had a more real ailment which was bothersome while carrying shopping - my nose seemed to be very drippy while out, and occasionally for more of the day while I was indoors. At one point it even seemed like my throat was starting to get sore (but that seemed to be just a flash in the pan).

  My original plan was to try and fast until dinnertime. That failed twice, and initially because going out in the cold air made me feel hungry. I knew I was going to give in while in Tesco, and bought two items that I felt were moderately safe in terms of sugar content, although their energy content was rather high.
  This snap of part of the label describes what it was I ate, although it doesn't say I ate two of them, but also the nutritional values per chicken and mushroom slice. 1.8gm of sugar is pretty good, although 436 calories is pretty bad ! The amount of artery clogging fat and saturates is very much a disaster waiting to happen, but even when cold they were slightly tasty, and seemed to fill the hole in my desires.
  That nice close up picture was taken with my Casio "Exilim" EX-S10 camera. It was only recently I discovered it's speciality was taking close up pictures of things like labels. It is a tiny camera. It is little more than half an inch thick, and just a tiny bit bigger than a credit card. I think I bought at the same time as a bigger camera in a second hand shop. In fact I think it was given to me when I expressed interest in it. I may have not had a battery in it, but I bought one, plus a charger for it, and for close ups it works well. For more general use it, or I have a slight handicap. The controls are designed for those with much smaller fingers - there is no room for big buttons on it.

  After having my lunch I intended to lie down to read or snooze, but before I relaxed I thought to check on an expected Amazon delivery. To my astonishment their web page was displaying a map of where my package was, and it showed it to be just 6 stops of the van away from me. Suddenly I was wide awake again, and waited for the delivery. It came just after 1pm, and it was lucky I had not delayed washing and going out shopping under the impression my package would arrive later afternoon, or even early evening. It was not an exciting package - just more glucose test strips for two of my blood glucose meters.

  Once I had got my package, and checked it's contents I could definitely relax. I read a page or two from the book I have just started ("Orphans Of The Sky" by Robert Heinlein), and then I may have slept for as much as an hour. When I woke up I had to force myself to finish the laundry started the morning before. It felt horrible, cold, and slimy, but I did the 3 rinses, and fabric conditioner in warm water. To my surprise I did the whole lot in one go without stopping to rest, and it felt almost easy - but then again it was only 4 items (even if that included a very thick and long t-shirt, and a pair of lounge pants.

  After I had hung up that laundry to dry on the big clothes horse, I had a snack. It was a small bit of Raclette cheese that I had bought in Tesco out of curiosity. I only had a taster, and it seemed to be nice, but now I learn that it's tradionatl use is to be melted and poured over potatoes, and pickles. I may have to try it with potatoes at some point. |The main bit of my snack was a bit bigger than I thought. It was a small pack of Haslet - pork meatloaf with subtle spices and herbs. It was very tasty, but like so many very tasty things, not healthy at all !

  It was only a few hours before dinnertime when I had that snack. My dinner was a variant on one I had a couple of days ago, and seemed to coincide with some very nice low blood glucose readings - boiled potatoes and ham. I added some broccoli when boiling the potatoes, and I found that boiled broccoli is not terrible when eaten like that. Mind you, it is not exactly enjoyable !

  I didn't exactly watch any TV in the early part of the evening, but I did edit, by top and tailing, plus advert removal, two episodes of The Avengers as recorded on my TV in the front room. I am not sure why I do this because most of the episodes in my archives are just as good quality. On the other hand, I did notice that some had a lip sync problem. That was curable, but starting from scratch is simpler.

  At 8pm I did watch a single episode of "Secrets Of The London Underground" on live TV. It finished at 9pm and I went straight to bed (although I could have stayed up to watch a second episode, but I did record it). I did feel sleepy, but I wondered how easy, or quick it would be to get to sleep. I have had enough late nights recently to alter my usual sleeping time. It did take maybe a quarter an hour of reading, and then another quarter an hour before I fell asleep.

  One thing about last night was that it seemed to be cold, and if it weren't for the expense I might have put the heater on high. Instead of that I seemed to sleep the whole night under the duvet - which feels unusual. I did seem to wake up a lot, but waking up every 2 to 3 hours is not unusual for me. Every time I woke I went for a pee, which didn't bode well for my blood glucose, but it didn't seem I really needed to pee several times.

  My dreams were not nice, at least one in particular was not nice. On the other hand it was not the stuff of nightmares. It was one of those dreams where you can't remember how it started, and how it finished. There were also gaps in it that showed it was not one continuous dream, but a series of dreams with a common theme. In the dream I was going to fly to America, and I was with several members of my family, and in particular my big brother. He had arranged it, and was looking after things like tickets, and passports.

  As we slowly made our way through an airport I became increasingly concerned that I didn't have a passport. We got very close to the final checks before heading to the plane and I could not find my brother anywhere. So at that point I had no ticket, and still thought I didn't even own a passport. At one desk we went behind it instead of in front of it so we didn't have to show anything. It was probably after that when my memory of the dream fades out.

  I did have another peculiar dream that seemed to have no story or point. I was sleeping in quite a wide bed (possibly no more than queen sized), and I was sharing the bed with an old lady. I guess she was no older than me, but the weird thing is that I don't think I ever saw her - I just knew she was there. A second episode of the dream was once again set in my bedroom, but there was a second bed in it, and it had a woman sleeping in it. I was trying to shower quietly to avoid waking her. The very weird thing was that the shower was right next to my bed, and it had no shower curtains. The final oddness was that I wasn't using shower gel, but something that looked like a big hard block of soap.

  With only several very short interruptions to my sleep I sort of felt OK to get up early this morning. It might have felt like I had enough sleep, but I can't say I felt well. I felt pretty awful at first. I had multiple aches - generally muscular and joint pains. Most have faded a lot since than, but it was a sort of 'flu-like feeling. Even my chest felt a bit crunchy, and sort of heavy feeling. A few hours later and I feel a lot better, but I still feel very underpar. I blame the cold wet weather.

  This morning my blood glucose it two parts good, and one part very ordinary. The Contour meter gave a very good reading of just 7.3mmol/l.. The GlucoRX meter reading was still very good, but not quite as good at 7.7mmol/l. As so often happens, and particularly it seems near the end of a tube of test strips, the Sinocare meter went out on a limb again with a reading of 8.6mmol/l. Two very good readings seemed a good enough excuse, specially on a cold, wet, and miserable day, to have two lots of instant noodles for breakfast.

  The next great event today will be my beer delivery - the order that contains nothing that will interest Jodie ! I have been informed it will be delivered between 10.27 and 11.27am. The advice names the driver, and I know he often has to wait a minute or two on my doorstep before he logs it as delivered because he is too early. It could arrive as early as 10.25am. After that I feel I may slip into very lazy mode, although I have go two towels I could wash today. Maybe I will do just one, or maybe none at all.
      







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