The forecast has already changed since I took the screenshot above. 9am in no longer shown as grey, but as an hour of full sunshine. The only rain now predicted is from 11am to 1pm, and that last hour is shown as heavy rain. I can imagine that might change further in the next few hours, and reality may be more different still. From 2pm there could be sunny spells, and 6pm might see full sunshine just before the sun sets. The main feature is the temperature - just 5° C to start the day, and a peak of only 8° C for most of the day. Tomorrow may see some sunny spells, some full sunshine, or just white clouds, but the temperature may reach a more friendly 12° C.

   Yesterday was not a great day. The cold and the damp piled on top of my hangover, and I felt very miserable, and that was worsened by the fact the crap weather revived many of my usual aches and pains. It wasn't until lunchtime when my hangovers seemed to be over, and it wasn't until mid afternoon until my aches and pains started to fade - helped by some Ibuprofen.

  There weren't many things I could do yesterday, and even less that I wanted to do. For some time it was more a case of keeping warm, and quietly reading. I did try and leave the heater off in the morning, but an hour late I gave in, and turned it on, and turned it on full power to speed up warming my room up. I think it was yesterday morning that I closed the bathroom window. I had had hopes that it could stay open until next autumn was upon us.

  I can't think of a single thing I did in the morning that is worth, or even capable of being described. Maybe one different thing was to only have a single bowl of instant noodles for breakfast, but supplemented by two apples. Thinking of apples, and fruit in general, my idea of eating fruit while my blood glucose seems better controlled recently, was to help my digestive process. It worked maybe a bit too well yesterday. I was most emphatically not constipated, and during the course of the morning I went very productively twice, and three more times for luck (or something). At the end my bottom was quite sore !
  Yesterday was not all bad news. I mentioned Aldi's own ZX Cola yesterday, but before I had intensively tasted it. I have concluded that it is very acceptable as a cheap substitute for genuine Diet Coke. The taste is distinctly different, but it is pleasant, and I guess continuing use would soon render it tasting "normal". I think I will buy this in favour of Diet Coke the next time I am shopping in Aldi.

  Lunchtime was also sort of good news, but then again eating anything, provided it is not horrible, is good news. My lunch was a couple of slices of toast with some more Aldi's "cheese melts" on them. Despite the cheese melts seeming to contain some unwanted sugar, and worst of all being describes as having chilli jam in the cheese, they were actually tasty, and the chilli did give them a mild kick. I followed up the toast with three small "easy peeler" oranges.

  If I had bought more I would have had some on toast today. I will probably be having some sort of cheese on toast today because it has now become critical to use the last of the bread very quickly. I noticed a couple of green furry spots on a couple of slices yesterday. It hadn't spread from those small dots, and they are easy to cut off, but it can't be long before that mould spreads beyond the crust.
 I mentioned these sugar free sweets yesterday, but didn't bother to take a picture until much later in the day. As far as I am aware, this is the full range they do in Aldi. A few weeks ago they just had the two flavours on top - "Creamy Strawberry" and "Creamy Butterscotch". It was good to find the other flavours in there on Thursday. As it says on the box, they are sugar free, but I think somewhere in the small print about possible laxative effects. I  rarely eat more than two individual sweets per day, and on some days none at all. These 5 packs will probably last months.

  Yesterday afternoon was rather boring, although I was starting to feel well enough to do stuff I didn't fancy earlier - like housework, or maybe just stuff that needed some concentration and/or patience. Stuff like video editing. Two or maybe three hours after lunch I was snacking again - and really only because I was bored instead of feeling real hunger. I devoured a big, but very lightweight, bag of cheese and jalapeño flavoured curly, baked, not fried, foamed starch (it might have been corn, but could have been potato). The sugar content seemed a bit high, but probably wasn't.

  With no great distractions in the afternoon I'll fast forward to dinner. It was two garlic and herb flavoured pork schnitzels. I was able to reduce the sugar content of them by the simple expedient of not greasy the baking tray I roasted them on (the should have been fried, but I have no frying pan). A lot of the underside coating of breadcrumb-like flavoured batter stuck to the pan.

  I had not tried anything like pork schnitzels before (as far as I can remember) and bought them part out of curiosity, but also because they had a 30% off sticker on them. I had them with buttered (fresh butter, and not the rancid butter I used last time) potatoes, and it was quite a pleasant meal. If I see more reduced price pork schnitzels I may be tempted again, but I don't think I would go as far as paying full price for them. I didn't bother with any other vegetables because I had three small oranges for a dessert.

  Once again, the choices on TV last night looked very drab, although there were a few things on much later in the evening that I recorded. I amused myself for a couple of hours of old recordings. I've found that one "entertainment" that is interesting, is to occasionally check my blood glucose in the evening. I only bother with one meter for this because I don't make a record of these occasional readings.

  The last couple of time I saw some fairly low readings, but last night, maybe as little as a single hour after eating, I git a very high reading. I think it was 13.9mmol/l - well into the danger zone, but I hoped it was just a short peak after eating. That did seem to be the case because in another hours time the reading had dropped over a full point to 12.4mmol/l. That gave me some hope that this morning's readings may not be too terrible.

  By the time I had taken that second reading, and read a couple of short chapters in the book I am reading, it seemed to be time for sleep. I think it may have been as late as 10.30PM before I was deeply asleep. It was a cold night, and I left the heater on low until 5am when I turned it up full. I think I slept quite well, but only in 2 or 3 hour chunks. Every time I woke up I went for a pee, but on some of those occasions there seemed no urgency about it. I hoped that was a good sign for when I checked my blood glucose this morning.

  Last night was another night when I know I dreamed a lot, but hardly a trace of the contents of those dreams remains in my memory. What I tend to remember from last night was the lasts second or two of a dream before I woke up. Just one was notable for another case of dream and reality intermingling. In the dream I was in bed, and has a slightly tickly cough because my mouth and throat was dry. I "woke up" and there was a glass of lager sitting next to me on my bed. As I reached for it, it faded away, and I continued the motion until my hand reached the real glass by my bed (which didn't have lager in it !).

  All my fear and theories about my blood glucose level this morning were answered when I checked them with my three current, in use, blood glucose meters. This morning I got three cherries (well sort of) all three meters gave nice low figures of 7.5, 7.7 and 7.9mmol/l. Oddly enough it was teh Sinocare meter that gave the lowest reading. Usually it is the highest. For the first time in possibly years, the current average for the month, from the GlucoRX meter, my "official" NHS meter has dipped below 8 with a reading of 7.96mmol/l.

  All that remains now is to try and think what I am going to do today. The sun is still shining, as per the current weather forecast, and I note that 10am is now shown as featuring sunny spells, but the three hours after that are still shown as being wet, and even worse, cold - just 8° C. I don't seem to have desire at all to go out, and a strong desire to stay in the warm. I think that leaves just indoor amusements for today.

  One amusement will be to have a shower. I didn't have one yesterday, and mainly because I couldn't face one in the morning with my ongoing hangover. I definitely need one today, although I very much doubt I will see anyone who might notice any pong. After I have had a shower I have half a dozen things in the laundry basket that I think I will wash. Maybe I could do some hoovering later.....err, maybe not. I wouldn't like to stretch my enthusiasm that far for fear of breaking it again. On the other hand, this little bit of ongoing sunshine, even though it seems to be fading now, is very cheering. Who knows what might happen if any lingering positive thoughts survive the first drops of rain.
      







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