The forecast, even the latest revision of it, predicts no sunshine at all today, and yet we have just had a sunny spell ! There are a lot of clouds in the sky, and some seem to be quite dark, but I can also see patches of blue. It seems likely there could be more, and maybe longer sunny spells, but whether they last for very long is anyone's guess. Not long before sunset it seems almost certain there will be some heavy rain, and it could continue through the night. The BBC thinks the temperature could touch 15° C today, but The Met Office say only a brief peak of 14° C. Tomorrow might, or might not be completely dry (it's the BBC who predict some scattered showers). Tomorrow's temperature should reach 14° C. The actual weather tomorrow could well be quite different to the first attempts at forecasting it.

   Yesterday was fairly predictable. After being kept awake for some of the night with angina pains followed by all the symptoms of a bad head cold, I felt justifiably lazy, and once I had finished writing yesterday's piece I laid on my bed to read and snooze.

  I am unsure how long I snoozed for, and I am unsure if I had one or two snoozes, but it felt good. I certainly didn't get to read much. At midday I was feeling hungry, and got up to make some lunch. It was to be a very simple, and maybe apart from the possible sugar content, it was a very healthy lunch. I had almost one medium sized apple (with a chunk cut off and thrown away because of a big bruise on it), two small "easy peeler" oranges, plus a palmful (i.e. less than a handful) of mixed nuts.

  While I was preparing the fruit, I also prepared a dinner, but not for last night, but for today. Last night's dinner needed very little preparing. What I started cooking up for tonight was an experiment in trying for small  portions. It was half a pack of lamb, and half a tin of butter beans cooked in stock as the start of a casserole that will probably include some potatoes and maybe some green stuff. I added the butter beans to empty a half can of butter beans opened several days earlier.

  I am unsure how that lamb casserole will turn out. One of my food inventions is to roast a whole pack of diced lamb on top of sprouts. The meat really shrinks when doing that, and a whole pack for a single meal for one doesn't seem too outrageous. If the lamb in the casserole shrinks as much then the butter beans will bolster the meal up a bit. Obviously this "new" idea of making a pack of diced meat do two dinners is going to make shopping a bit cheaper because meat is rather expensive, but it should also be good for me. Unless I compensate by adding extra stuff, it is possible it might provoke a bit of weight loss, and be good for my blood glucose problem.

  I had another short snooze after my lunch, and also spent a bit of time reading, but I became a bit bored, and looked for other stuff to do. That included editing a couple of episodes of Fireball XL5. As I kid (maybe 8 or 10 years old) I liked the series a lot, but while it still feels a bit nostalgic, it is so crude compared to later stuff by Gerry Anderson. I guess it was good practice because their "Supermarionation" became better and better, almost, but never really life like.

  I was going to start some recordings of either QI(XL) or have I Got News For You, but many of the QI episodes I have to edit are episodes hosted by Sandi Toksvig, and she often had guests who annoyed me in various ways. I guess I'll still keep the episodes I have recorded, but I think I may only collect Stephen Fry episodes in future. What I ended up doing was to just watch a recording of Have I Got News For You. I was going to edit afterwards, but I didn't. I may do so in the future, but I wonder why I should bother....probably because bits of it can be very funny !

  My dinner was modestly small, I think, and it was definitely tasty. It was boiled new potatoes, with 5 (or 6) slices of ready sliced corned beef, and half a tin of alleged low sugar and salt baked beans. Those baked beans, despite what it claimed on the tin, may have had less sugar and salt, but it was still a significant amount of sugar. I was hoping my luck might return, and my pancreas was able to dole out enough insulin to still give me a low blood glucose reading. Maybe it was tempting fate to have a dessert of "sugar free" choc chip cookies, and one real bitter orange chocolate biscuit.

  I started to try and sleep from about 9pm last night, but as one of my outside temperature displays was telling me, 9pm BST is the same as 8pm GMT (I haven't reset the clock on that display). My body is not yet fully into the swing of BST after GMT, and despite feeling tired, it was almost an hour before I fell into a pretty good sleep. I only had one significant period of insomnia, and that was probably around 1am when I woke up feeling cold after kicking the duvet almost off the bed. The final straw was going out to the very cold feeling bathroom for a pee.

  It took at least 20 minutes to feel warm enough, and get back to sleep. I woke up for brief periods of time several more times before I first got up. Once again I can remember having many dreams, and I think they were generally all pleasant, but my entire memory of last night's dreams is just a vague idea that one was set in a pub. I think another had a train ticket in it, but where it was bought, and where it was too have faded to nothing.

  It seemed like it was just warm enough to only have the heater on low last night, and then only while mostly under the duvet. At just gone 6am I got up, and got as far as having a pee, and checking my blood glucose level. It seemed very chilly, and I turned the heater up full before getting back in bed. I don't think I expected or even wanted to fall asleep again, but it seems I did. The next thing I knew was that it was gone 7am.

  My blood glucose readings were good or bad - depending on which way I read them. After getting several weeks of readings under 8.0mmol/l I was hoping that would become the new normal. Sadly it seems I am back to readings between 8 and 9mmool/l. This morning the Contour meter read 8.0mmol/l. I must admit that is still rather good compared to my typical averages. The GlucoRX meter read 8.3mmol/l - good but not as good ! The Sinocare  meter, once again read a bit higher, but at least 8.7mmol/l is still in the same ball park as the other two.

  I should have resisted the idea, but this morning I had two small portions of instant noodles for breakfast. Once again I will try to have just fruit for lunch. Maybe today I might just have two medium sized apples, and possibly nothing else, unless I have some cheese with the apples. The big danger will be that today I feel I have to go out to get some shopping from Tesco. I hope I don't see any bargains, too good to resist !

  It seems that today's weather will not entice me out for any other exercise than walking to Tesco and back. One thing I'll be doing, and possibly after finishing writing, is to phone St Thomas's hospital to warn them to make sure they have their biggest MRI scanner ready to use when I get there on the 16th of this month. I also want to ask if there is any problem with the titanium wires that are supposed to be holding bits of me together after they put my chest back together after my bypass operation in 2013. Generally they don't like any metal objects going into the ultra powerful magnetic field of the scanner. I don't think titanium is magnetic, and so it probably doesn't matter, but it seems wise to forewarn them.
      







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