This morning started at just 6° C. It was also a wet start. There was no heavy rain, and some of it was just drizzle (an icon The Met Office seem to very rarely use). The latest revision says it should be dry after 10am, but it still looks pretty damp outside. Most of the rest of the day will be grey, but with maybe a few random hours of lighter cloud. The highest temperature we can expect is just 10° C. It all seems more appropriate for February ! Incidently, The BBC says the light rain or drizzle will continue until a least 5pm ! Tomorrow will probably see another very cold start, but there may be sunny spells for most of the morning, and the afternoon should stay dry, but it will be very dull. Tomorrow may just possibly see 11° C.

   Yesterday could be be described as a day that passed smoothly, and maybe even be elevated to nice for some of the time. It was even mildly productive, but it was nothing like as I expected the day to go. After a few hours of sunny spells in the morning, the return of greyness and cold sapped most enthusiasm for anything.

  One thing I had to do, although maybe "had to do" is a mild exaggeration. Perhaps wanted to do a lot is closer to the truth, and it was to go shopping in Tesco. If the day was a bit nicer I would have chosen Aldi, but while the difference is small, maybe even zero, the distance to Tesco feels like it should less than that to Aldi. Before that I needed a shower, and as usual, I wasn't in a rush to have one, and it was probably just gone 11am when I had my shower.

  After I finished my shower I put some laundry in to soak in detergent. Then I grabbed my rucksack and coat, and walked to Tesco. I put on one of my warmer coats, one that should have been put away by now until next Autumn. At no time did I feel too warm wearing it, although I will confess I didn't do up the front. That might have swung the balance to too warm. The walk to Tesco was pleasant in so much that nothing really hurt, although under a cold grey sky it could never be properly pleasant.

  It is still my intention to go shopping in Aldi sooner or later, and so I didn't buy all that much in Tesco, but I still seeemd to spend a lot of money. A big bit of that money was on a bottle of what I hope I remember as a nice whisky. It is a single malt whiskey, many of which I don't like, but I think this is an exception, and I would like to tell you the name of it, but it is a weird name that I can recognise, but never remember !

  I still had, and have several bottles of Tesco own brand sugar free cola, and I am generally happy with it, but yesterday I did buy two bottles of genuine Diet Coke - maybe in case I have visitors (unlikely) or just feel the need to have the genuine article as a sort of treat. I only bought two other treats yesterday. One was a spinach curry (Bombay spinach ?) pastie, but made as a "slice" rather than the traditional pastie shape.

  The other treat was a reduced price pack of ready to cook southern style chicken. I promised myself I would not buy things similar to this again because they promise a lot more than they achieve. I was suckered into buying this pack by three things. One was the reduced price sticker. A second was the "NEW RECIPE" sticker (actually part of the label and not a real sticker), and the third thing was that I gave the nutritional panel a good hard stare, and it promises that the sugar content is very low. I didn't dare glance at the fat and salt content, but it may not be too artery hardening !

  The walk home, loaded with shopping, was OK, although the shoes I was wearing, a pair of very cheap trainers from Aldi, seemed to be refusing to wear in. They don't seem to rub or chafe, but they are still not comfortable. They just seem to be quite stiff, and maybe don't support my feet very well. I was hoping that lots of short walks, and even on at least one occasion, wearing them to the pub for my Wednesday lunchtime visit, doesn't seem to have increased their comfortableness.

  Once I got home I did a little bit of preparation for my dinner. I cleaned and boiled some new potatoes I had bought on my previous visit to Tesco. Later in the evening I would just need to warm them up again at the same time I was also warming up some tinned pork/ham. I then had what I expected to be just part of my lunch. I ate the Bombay spinach pastie type thing, and I ate it cold. Heating it may have made it nicer, or maybe the opposite by bringing through other flavours, but eating it cold was still very pleasant. If I see one, with a reduced price sticker on it, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it.

  I think reality moved sideways in the afternoon. I had heard that my sometimes friend Sue had been to Kings College Hospital to their dental department. I was curious as to whether she had had the required treatment of having all the rotten stumps of her teeth extracted. So I phoned her up for a quick call to see what had happened. Of course there is no such thing as a quick call with Sue !

  Over the course of the next 4 hours and 34 minutes I learned that she had only gone for an assessment at the hospital, and was now on a waiting list for the actual extractions under a general anaesthetic - she hopes- she may just get a large dose of Valium which is also a part anaesthetic, and a general relaxant. My friend Patricia had an extraction under Valium, and said that although she still knew it should be traumatic, she just couldn't care about it as it happened.

  The part of the call that dealt with Sue's visit to the hospital, and the news about her impending treatment, only lasted 5 minutes or so. The rest of the 4 hours and 39 minutes covered all sorts of diverse topics from music to ....anything !  I used to get trapped in these longs calls with her during the night, many years ago, but I didn't seem to think it would happen in the middle of the afternoon. I was very wrong ! Sue is basically housebound while her toes rot and fall off (due to Sepsis, probably because of her rotten teeth and all the abscesses she gets), and so latches on for any chance of a conversation about the outside world. I finally had to tell her I had to go and do stuff at about 5pm.

  The stuff I was hoping to be getting on with was initially dinner, but it was too early for that, but I still had that laundry soaking in it's bucket in the bath. I didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for doing that, particularly with the detergent gone all cold and nasty, plus the weather outside being cold and nasty. There was also quite a lot to wash this time - only two t-shirts, but also a pair of lounge pants plus three (or was it four ?) pairs of underpants. I was thinking I would probably end up doing it in two shifts, but while it was boring, I finished the whole lot, 3 rinses, and plus fabric conditioner, in one non stop job, and hung it all on the clothes horse to dry in the front room. (Will we ever get the right weather for using the washing line again this year ????).

  My dinner, as almost already described, was boiled new potatoes, with some butter on them, plus a small can of pork (the seemed a lot like ham to my mind) with some yellow mustard on it. It was pretty nice, but it seemed rather small on a big plate, and I introduced a new second course of some rice crackers and cream cheese before my intended final course of a medium sized apple, and pear.

  As usual I had a quick flick around on the TV before deciding there was more entertainment in my own archives of TV programmes. I watched two old, black and white, episodes of The Avengers. It is sort of curious how after a while, provided there is enough of interest to see, you sort of forget it is in black and white, at least in some scenes. There was one scene where Mrs Peel (Diana Rigg) was looking very sexy, and I seemed to be oblivious that it was all in black and white. In fact I sort of remember as being in colour, but I know it definitely wasn't !

  I think I was starting to go to bed at 9pm, but I seemed to be burping up the taste of my dinner a bit too often, and I felt the beginning of some heart burn. I took a couple of antacid tablets to sort that out. I also seemed to feel that I couldn't seem to get comfortable when in bed. It seemed like every way I laid down seemed to cause something to mildly ache. I had no idea how many ways there were to lay down, and how many different muscles there were in the body. I took a couple of Paracetamol, and was eventually able to rest comfortably.

  It feels like I am relying on antacid tablets, and/or Paracetamol for too frequently these days. The antacid tablets should be basically harmless, but are quite expensive for basically chalk dust ! Paracetamol can damage the liver when taken in big doses. I am very sure my usage is far below any potential danger, but I am still wary about it. There is also the feeling I would prefer to hold back on painkillers so I don't become desensitised for times when I really need them. Most night I could just thrash about in bed until I fall asleep from shear exhaustion, but that would leave me to feel grumpy in the morning, and a couple of pills is the easy way out.

  Mostly I slept well, but I did ave one very puzzling dream that seemed to go on for ages, and a second dream that fortunately only lasted about one second. The long dream is hard to explain because I don't think I really know what it was about even while I was dreaming it. It seemed to be about a mess of wires at some sort of collection point. I think what I was trying to do was to label a big mess of wires by writing tags to show where they came from, where they were going to, and also if they should connect to any other wires at this point.

  It was basically a sound idea, but I never actually did it. There was the trouble of probably having to physically find where the wires came form and went to, but I seemed hung up on the precise way to label them. I am unsure if I was arguing with myself, or with an unseen person about the best way to do it. It seemed to go on for ages withouit anything being done. The second, much more memorable, and easy to describe dream concerned walking into the bathroom and seeing a gigantic (big as a dinner plate) spider in the bath. Of all the things I could do, I think my brain made the best decision, and it was to wake up instantly !

  I can't really remember or guess what time I finally got to sleep, but maybe it was not much later than 10pm, and so starting to wake up at just gone 4am was not that out of the question. Fortunately I was able to get back to sleep several more times after waking up as if it was time to get up. I had turned the heater on full, and by 5pm my bedroom was just about cosy, and by 6am it was nice and warm. That undoubtedly helped my last bit of sleep lasting until almost 7am. I only just got up in time to take a screen shot of the weather forecast before the first revision.

  I can't say I felt wonderful when I got up, but I guess I had nothing to really complain about. It was just another morning.... At least, after almost disciplining my diet, my blood glucose readings were mostly good. The Contour meter gave a very good reading of just 7.1mmol/l. Just a tiny bit more and it would have been in the most desirable sixes ! The GlucoRX meter was not quite so good, but 7.5mmol/l is right on my current target. This morning the Sinocare meter decided to go off at a tangent. It read a high 8.8mmol/l until I took a second reading, but that was still a fairly high 8.7mmol/l.  I think I shall turn my eyes away and ignore that so very different to the other two readings.

  The weather dictates that today is another indoor day, although I may stretch my legs to go shopping. I was thinking of maybe going to Savers, although if I did, the top of my shopping list would be high dose vitamin D3 tablets, but I probably still have almost a months supply left, and therefore there is no rush....it's just it would be an excuse to stretch my legs.

  One thing I am very likely to do is to do some more laundry. The longe pants I am currently wearing are getting a bit whiffy, and I also have two more t-shirts and at least one more pair of underpants that all need washing. I also have a very smelly towel from the kitchen that needs to be washed separately because it has all sorts of grease and food stains, and it will need a long soak in bio detergent.

  One thing I should be doing is controlling what I eat today with an iron discipline. The only trouble is that lunch time is now getting close, and I can't stop thinking about the things I would like to eat, rather than what I should eat. Ideally I would have no more than an apple and a pair, but if I had any bread I would definitely be making cheese on toast, and from there the sky is the limit - and so would probably be my weight and blood glucose. I shall try to be moderate in what I eat, but on a cold and gloomy day it is so bloody hard !
        







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