It was very unusual that both the BBC and Met Office gave almost identical forecasts for today, but the first revision slightly changes that. Both forecasters agree that the day will start medium grey, and then rain will start to fall this afternoon. At the moment the BBC says the first rain will fall at 1pm, and the Met Office say 2pm - and it will lead off with heavy rain. Both say a similar range of temperature with the afternoon reaching 11° C, although the BBC predict a single hour of 12° C at 1pm. Tonight could see the temperature dip to just 7° C. Tomorrow could start off with full sunshine, but by midday it could be raining, albeit maybe just light rain. It will be another cold day with the temperature only rising to about 10° C.

   Yesterday was quite a productive day, but maybe the grey skies, and the cold, made it hard to enjoy being productive. I felt so "edgy" that I ended up buying, and eating stuff I shouldn't have even considered buying. Before all that I had a shower, and left a few clothes soaking in detergent so I could empty my laundry basket.

  Once washed and dressed I put on a coat (which I didn't seem to need to do up, but would have done if it started to rain), and headed out to the pharmacy. I wanted to order my next repeat prescription. I also wanted to check if my newest drug, the one prescribed by the hospital, had been added to my usual prescription. It hadn't ! With a sense of great despair I went next door to my doctors to see if I could get any sense out of reception there.

  As far as I am aware, and it seemed to be confirmed by a conversation going on at the window beside mine, reception no longer, ever, under any circumstances, make appointments to see the doctors of nurses. It is all done by some messaging app, or other app I do not have on my phone, and never will. However, on this occasion I started off asking for some advice. I explained that a letter should have been sent from the hospital that, amongst other stuff, showed my new drug.

  The drug is a blood thinner and/or blood clot buster and maybe anti-coagulant. The receptionist finally found the letter on the system, but said it had not been looked at before. She confirmed the letter did show the new drug, and that my GP should continue to prescribe it. To my surprise, the receptionist said she would get it actioned, and I wouldn't have to try to get an appointment to see or speak to a doctor. It could take 48 hours, and so probably won't be seen when my repeat prescription is made up. On the other hand, that takes 48 hours as well as they have to get a doctor to OK it. I could be surprised when I pick up my prescription after the pub on Wednesday.

  After the pharmacy and group practice, I went around the corner to buy some stuff in Aldi. As usual I ended up buying more stuff than I really needed, and it was purely so I felt I had enough in my shopping trolley to warrant using a manned checkout (although I did notice one woman using just a basket who wasn't told to go to the self checkouts). Top of my shopping list was to get two bottles each of Aldi's own brand diet cola - 4 bottles being the maximum I can comfortably carry home.
  One thing I did not expect to buy was a new pair of trainers. Cheap supermarket trainers can be a gamble, but I have been wearing a pair of Converse style trainers bought in Aldi in September 2019 (I know this because I wrote it inside the trainer), and wearing them a fair bit over the last months. I think I even wore them when I walked to Lewisham Hospital A&E at the start of the month.

  Those trainers are sort of curious in that they don't feel all that comfortable when first put on, but after walking for a few minutes you forget about them after any discomfort seems to fade away. The new trainer, as pictured above, seem like they could be the same. I only wore them indoors for maybe 15 minutes, but they seemed fine. Not bad for just £5.99 !

   Stuff I did need from Aldi was some meat for dinner time stews, and some vegetables to go with the meat. I also bought some more baby potatoes, although I realised when I got back that I already had an unopened bag of them. For one meal I bought some fish instead, and I bought a potato and onion, ready to heat up, tortilla to go with it. Then there was the crap stuff I bought which included two packs of crisp, a vegetable quiche, and a lamb and mint pie.

  It was all quite a weight to carry home, but I think it was probably less tiring than my last visit to Aldi last Thursday. After getting home, and putting away all I had bought, it was just about lunchtime, and I stuffed myself with the vegetable quiche I had bought. It seemed to be a little bit wider and deeper than the similar offerings from Tesco, and I later realised it's sugar content was a lot higher. The annoying thing is that it didn't taste very wonderful. It was nice-ish, but that is all.

  I must admit it did seem to be a big lunch, and I laid on my bed to read for half an hour or more before I started on the next thing - which was laundry. It consisted of my favourite indoor drinking trousers, and three pairs of underpants. It was not a lot really, although those trousers, being a sort of lined sports trousers, needed a fair amount of wringing out at the end of each stage of the wash, three rinses, and then fabric conditioner.

  After hanging the washing up to dry on the big clothes horse in the front room, I had nothing else to do. I laid on my bed again to read and think about it. It was a case of having to force myself to get started, but eventually I started more video editing. I think I top and tailed, and removed the adverts from 5 episodes of The Avengers. That left just one episode on the memory stick, but there has been a second memory stick in the TV for a few weeks now, and it must be bulging with stuff to edit. I sometimes wonder if I have embarked on more than I can handle !

  My later entertainment was to watch one of the episodes of The Avengers that I had just edited, and had not seen the complete episode before. While I watched I ate my dinner of marinated salmon with the potato and onion tortilla. The marinade didn't seem to impart much flavour to the salmon, but it was still quite enjoyable, and made a nice change to meat.

  I ended up in bed quite early last night, maybe around 8.30pm. I thought I was starting to feel tired, and that half an hour of reading in bed would finish the job. It didn't. I think it was at least 10pm before I fell asleep. Once asleep I seemed to sleep quite well, but I had a lot of trouble getting back  asleep after waking at 4am. I did sleep after that, but it was a bit patchy, and I decided not to try after 6am, and that is when I got up.

  Today is the day the circus comes to town ! There is a film company making an advert for M&S, and they are filming right outside my house. This is, or course, very interesting, and I particularly want to get some pictures of their camera. I imagine it is some mega high resolution, 4K, and maybe even 8K video camera, and it probably takes 5 men to man it. I think I( am going to be bold, and ask if the camera crew would pose around the camera.

  Many, or maybe all of my dreams dreams were about today's filming, which incidentally could take as much as 8 hours from setting up to packing away, for maybe just a few minutes of video. I can't remember any fine details from my dreams, but one was about becoming a rather reluctant "extra" by standing in the wrong place. Another was about almost the entire crew, and their equipment, squeezing in my bedroom so they could shout through my bedroom window. I think most dreams reflected the true side of filming, it is mostly very boring with many of those in attendance just hanging around for their few minutes of fame.

  Back to the real world, and my blood glucose readings ranger from the good to awful this morning. The Contour meter read a terrible 9.1mmol/l, and I checked it twice to make sure it wasn't an error. On the other hand, the GlucoRX meter read a very good 7.8mmol/l. I didn't bother to recheck that one, nor the Sinocare meter which came down in the middle with a reading of 8.7mmol/l. My rolling average of my GlucoRX meter is still looking like a record breaker for this month, and the other two are a disappointment.

  My only plans for today are to keep an eye on the filming outside, and to go out with my biggest camera and take some "behind the scenes" photographs. That might amuse me until lunchtime when I want to not have lunch. I doubt I will do an more photography in the afternoon, and may resort to more video editing.
      







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