This morning started off at 5° C according to the forecast, but I saw just 4° C a few hours earlier from when the forecast starts in the screenshot above. The sky is quite cloudy, but the sunshine seemed to be non stop from sunrise, but now, at the predicted time, it seems the sun has just gone in, and maybe never to return (today). It should stay dry, but with a top temperature of just 9° C it is going to be pretty miserable outside. The BBC do have a different take on the day, but it gives no reason for hope. They say it should reach 10° C, but light rain will fall from 6pm onwards. Tomorrow may see some small changes, such as no morning sunshine, but the bulk of the day will be similar, and as horrible as today.

   Yesterday was another day where I felt sort of OK, but I seemed to lack any get up and go. Maybe I was bored, maybe the day was feeling too cold, and maybe I just started and ended writing too late to do much. I had once thought I might go shopping in the late morning, but then realised I didn't need to, and couldn't be bothered anyway.

  After just lazing around, mostly just quietly reading, for the rest of the morning, I didn't even get to have a shower, and wash my hair until it was almost 1pm ! I then had just enough time to wash up a few items in the sink, give the work surfaces a quick wipe, and then give the dining room table a quick tidy up in preparation for a visit from Jodie, and another beer tasting session.

  Jodie missed her train again because she did not allow extra time to cross the busy main road to get to the station. She still managed to get here not long after 3.30pm. She didn't have to waste time fussing around in the kitchen, cooking her lunch. Instead she wasted a similar amount of time deconstructing a very large sandwich she had bought in some vegan shop, and then rebuilding it in two halves so she could have the second half for an evening meal.

  I got some limited praise for a few more of the beers I had included in my last beer order. There were two sour beers that were not as sour as some, and did have some interesting fruity flavours. I don't think I would want to drink them from choice, but they were not as bad as many beers Jodie seems to like. She drank them very slowly, and so over the course of the drinking session I filled in some the waiting with a can of Carlseberg Special Brew, and also a bottle of St Bernadus Number 6 ale. Both of them may have had a higher sugar content than some beers.

  Jodie left to get the 6.29pm train to take her to Clockhouse station, as usual. She would do more drinking there, but possibly only three different third of a pint of beers. I felt pleasantly drunk enough to tuck into my dinner. It was, as I suggested yesterday morning, grilled/roast diced beef on a bed of sliced leek, plus some sliced, but not de-seeded, red chillies. Maybe it might have been less distracting if I had de-seeded those chillies. They were rather warm !

  Like the night before (I think) I watched a couple (or was it just one) old episode of The Avengers from my own archives. Maybe it was partly the booze, but I began to feel tired very early yesterday evening. I went to bed at about 8pm, and read for no more than 15 minutes before putting the book down, turning out the light, and quickly falling asleep. The last time I saw the clock, couldn't have been more than a few minutes before I fell asleep, and it read 8.14pm.

  I woke up a couple of times in the night for a pee, and maybe once to adjust my pillow, but it was almost as if I had slept right through until just gone 6am this morning. I remember have just one very long dream, but with hindsight it was obviously lots of small dreams one after the other. In the night it seemed to be continuous, but there were many discontinuities between the smaller dreams that seemed to make up the whole.

  I think the dream started with a trip to the beach. I seemed to be with some people, and I was carrying either a black suitcase, or a black camera bag. I suspect it changed back and forth in each small dream. The beach was a bit odd in that it didn't seem to have any sea on the horizon, but after coming up the beach to where I could buy a beer, I could see a harbour with several big ships in it.

  I think I bought a beer, but I didn't seem to drink it because the next bit of the dream was going up the beach again to go to the toilets. The toilets were not where they had seemed to be earlier, but I found them after a short delay, and was just in time to see someone go in to the last cubicle. I seemed to know there were more toilets if I carried on walking. They were possibly in a supermarket I seemed to be heading for, but I never got there.

  I found myself outside a sort of hut on the beach that may have sold ice cream, but I seemed to be more interested in getting my camera out. I then spotted a couple of friends quite close by. By the time I had my camera out and ready to use they were almost out of sight. I followed where they had gone through several winding roads, up a hill, and even through a hotel, but I couldn't seem to find them. I also couldn't seem to retrace my steps.

  I walked back to the hotel I had walked through, but it was completely different inside, and it took a while to find an alternative way out. I then walked through some unfamiliar roads, until I eventually saw the beach again. I headed towards the beach, but I seemed to be approaching it from where the sea should have been. That didn't seem to matter at the time, but maybe the illogical impossibility was enough to wake me up. I think that was sometime after 4am, and it felt like it was time to get up.

  A rough calculation showed I had probably had almost 8 hours sleep, and so I could have got up then, but it was cold and dark. I turned the heater up full, and as my bedroom warmed up I seemed to descend into deeper sleep, and while I might have opened my eyes for a few seconds around 5am, I essentially slept was another two hours until just gone 6pm, or my normal/usual getting up time.

  I felt really creaky after so much sleep. I seemed to have lower back pain, and I had had a few cramps in my lower legs. A few tens of minutes later I felt mostly OK apart from a feeling of bad constipation. I knew I had to go but nothing seemed to want to move for another 2 hours when it all seemed perfectly normal - to my great relief ! I was less relieved, in fact the complete opposite when I weighed myself. I seem to be almost back to my last official (in my medical records) weight. I was doing so well last week.....

  My blood glucose readings didn't bring much cheer, although they were acceptable - these days I want something closer to perfection - whatever that is ? Two of my meters gave identical readings of 8.1mmol/l. I would have been very happy with that a month or two back, but really I am after something even lower than the most generous reading from the GlucoRX meter (my official, NHS supplied meter). It read a far better 7.7mmol/l. My current aim is for readings of 7.5mmol/l or better, so I was not far off with that last reading.

  I am, or course, full of beans, and raring to go after all my extra sleep.....it is just a shame that no one told my brain. I feel sort of tired and lazy already. It is probably all in the mind, brought on by the fact that the last of the sunshine finished at least an hour ago, and it is still rather cold outside - not even 10° C yet ! I have no desires to go out, and some reasons, like doing laundry, to stay in. However, I think I probably do need to go out to get some shopping, and I think it will probably be from Tesco. Maybe I'll go to Aldi later in the week.
        







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