It is very grey this morning - almost as if we are still waiting for sunrise. This may continue to 3pm when the clouds get a little thinner.  Like yesterday, the best temperature today will also be 7° C. At least it may be dry today. Tomorrow, after a very cold start, just 1° C, we should see bright sunshine all day. Once again the temperature may peak at 7° C for just a couple of hours - currently forecast to be 2 and 3pm. By midnight it might be down to just 2° C, but with the level of accuracy of the forecast recently, I would take that with a pinch of salt.
 
  Yesterday was one of those days that seemed good and bad. Much of the bad was the wet morning, but there were other things that, while not bad as such, were not good. I hope I can remember them when I write about today, last night, and this morning.

  One thing I didn't do yesterday was to have a shower. Somehow it seemed sufficient to have a wipe over with a slightly soapy flannel. My only interaction with the outside world was to go shopping, and it didn't feel like a shower was needed for such a thing. After my usual writing and rest, it was at least 1pm before I put my coat on, and ventured out into the light rain to walk to Aldi.

  The light rain, mostly more like drizzle, and the grey sky did nothing to make the walk to Aldi enjoyable. Some aches and pains made it feel a bit bad, although it was worse when walking home again. I had intended, and did actually concentrate on buying stuff that would last, either in the freezer or fridge, or even just on the side for a long time. I did not have a lot of room in the freezer, and so the only frozen stuff I bought was two 500ml tubs of low and a bit low, sugar content ice creams.

  One heavy item was a 4 pack of lager - pint cans of 1664. One disappointment is that they seemed to have run out of the best of their own name instant noodle pots. They were the Peking Duck flavour. I did buy a couple of another flavour, but with hindsight I am not sure why. They are good-ish, but that is all. I did seem to buy quite a few packets of ready sliced meats for sandwiches.

  The main perishable I bought was fruits. I was only looking for a pack of plums because the last one seemed nice. I did buy a pack of plums, and also a pack of nectarines, and hand of small bananas. I wasn't sure about those bananas because I have an unchecked idea that they could have a very high sugar content. I did have one last night, and it was nice, but didn't seem that sweet.

  The walk home meant back out into the drizzle. I think it may have stopped as I walked, or maybe I just became numb to it, or maybe there were other distractions. I did not feel good walking home. As well as a few creaky joints and things, I was also getting some chest pain. I think it was just some muscular or other connective tissue that had been damaged during my quad bypass operation back in 2013. It was a small, off centre area that was aching.

  It was a relief to get home again. I put my shopping away, and then made a couple of sandwiches using the Polish sourdough, 0% sugar, bread I had bought on Wednesday. Both were filled with sliced beef and horseradish, and one had some babyleaf aromatic salad leaves in it. The other had ready shredded iceberg lettuce in it. I don't think I can come up with an opinion of which was best.

  After eating my lunch I almost slipped into super lazy mode, but after a short lie down I convinced myself I should do something, and that something was to take the memory card out of my new (for the last month or two) 10 inch TV. On that memory card was quite a lot of recordings that I intended to edit (top and tailing plus advert removal) for archiving, and in the case of at least two very new episodes of The Simpsons, to sit down and watch.

  In fact all the programmes I worked on were all Simpsons episodes, and there were just 4 of them. They took a bit longer to edit than usual, although not that much longer, because I had recorded two episodes, that followed each other, as one one file. I had to split those into their separate episodes. Doing just one episodes always seems like it is a quick process, but doing four of then seems to take 6 times as long. Another small delay is checking Wikipedia to decode the code at the end of the credits (for example something like xabf10) into what season and episode number I was editing - used as part of the new file name. In the end I didn't seem to have time to watch any of my handiwork.

  I went straight from video editing to watching the first Star Trek of the evening. In an ideal world I would be recoding, then editing, and then archiving all the Star Trek's but the two main one of the evening, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, seem to be so variable that it doesn't feel like I can be bothered to waste the time. The very worst of the Star Treks, Voyager, I already have every episode on file, thanks to a naughty download. I don't have a single episode of the occasionally good, and occasionally bad Deep Space Nine.
  I think it was just before 6pm when I had my dinner. It is pictured above, and it consisted of a single plum, a single nectarine, a single persimmon, one medium conference pear, and a small banana. It was nice, but these all fruit dinners are now not so satisfying as they were. Last night I had 5 pieces of fruit, an increase of one, and maybe an indicator that I am getting less happy with these plates of fruit. Also I suspect that some of these fruits, particularly the banana, had more sugar in them than previous all fruit dinners.

  Maybe the sugar content of the fruit was less than what followed. I wanted to buy some simple cake, like the angel cake I have been eating, but the closest I could find without scouring every inch of the shelves in Aldi, was walnut cake. It is a past favourite of mine, and probably skewed my selectivity. It was definitely very sweet, and I expected the worst. just before I went to bed, soon after 9pm, I checked my blood glucose, and it was 11.7mmol/l, and that is dangerously high.

  I expected to wake up very often to pee all that excess sugar out (thanks to one of the drugs I take). I fell asleep easily enough, and I did wake up a bit less than 2 hours later for a pee, but it seemed to be quite a small one. I think it was only habit that woke me every 2 or 3 hours through the night, because each time I only needed to pee about half what I would usually pee.

  Even when I had an hour or more of insomnia between about 2am and 4am, and didn't need to wake up to go for a pee, I still had no need to go and have a pee more than once, and once again it was just a small amount. I have no idea why I had that period of insomnia. There seemed no need for it except I just didn't seem to feel sleepy. Even when I eventually did go to sleep it took a while to get there, and I think it was quite light sleep until much later inn the morning.

  I know I had many dreams last night, but my memory of them seems very fragmented. One fragment that seems worthy of a description was inspired by a book I am reading - "Space Skimmer" by David Gerrold. The book is about faster than light travel through space, and the slowly dying galactic empire. My snatch of dream was about the king of Pluto - not the Pluto in our solar system but an inhabitable one around a very distant solar system.

  It was not a planet mentioned on the book, and the book just inspired the idea. that idea was that the King of Pluto wanted an official photo to use on letter headings, and for a flag for the world. No matter how he tried, the cat somehow got into every picture. The outcome was that the official flag of Pluto features a cat. It is possible this whimsical idea came to me while waking up from a dream that contained more about Pluto or something.

  When I got up I once again only had a small pee, and no poo. This was perplexing. The lack of peeing should have indicated an unusually low blood glucose content (compared to my usual). It would also mean that it would appear that I had put on weight. I rely on loosing about 1kgm of pee during the night before I weigh myself, This morning I had seemed to have put on weight, but not too much. I was just 400gm heavier, and that is within the usual swings and roundabouts of my weight from day to day. If I had done the full litre of pee in the night it would look as if I had lost at least 200gm.

  I didn't know what to expect when I checked my blood glucose. I had reasons to think it might be high or low. To my surprise it was mildly good. The Contour meter read 8.8mmol/l. That is perfectly OK, but a bit higher than desirable, The GlucoRX meter read 8.4mmol/l, and that is just under my old target of 8.5mmol/l, and so has to be good. The Sinocare meter was even better with a reading of just 8.3mmol/l. I think I will have to have a smaller amount of walnut cake if I have some tonight, and then maybe tomorrow I will see a small, but useful drop in these readings.

  Despite now needing a pee, but not that badly, I have just checked my blood pressure, and that is definitely good. My first and only reading gave 97/46. That is possibly a little too low to be "Optimum", the best reading that my blood pressure meter can indicate. My blood pressure, and glucose level may not be perfect, but both are good enough to suggest I am in good health. It is a shame that I don't feel all that wonderful this morning.

  No matter how I think I feel, I know I have two good excuses to be as lazy as I want today. The first is the utterly dismal, deeply depressing dark greyness outside, and it is also rather cold was well. The other good reason is because I am waiting for another package from Amazon that was supposed to be delivered tomorrow, but is coming today. It is not really anything to be very excited about, although I suppose I am a bit.

  It is a new, and bigger camera bag. If I ever get out to do any gig photography again (I'm sure I will once the evenings are a bit lighter, warmer and dryer) it would be useful to have this bigger camera bag that should accommodate a few extra accessories, and still be small enough to carry. I do have a very big camera bag, and I did take it to Petts Wood Calling once (and maybe twice), but it is a bugger to carry. I have a fairly roomy back pack, but I obviously have to take that off when getting stuff from it, and putting stuff in it. I am hoping this new bag will be almost as roomy as the back pack, but easier to use.

  In one respect it would be more convenient if the Amazon delivery were to come tomorrow because I will definitely be in all afternoon tomorrow for another beer tasting session with Jodie, and for the first time ever, possibly Michael too. One the other hand it will is supposed to be bright and sunny tomorrow, and so I might want to pop out for some shopping. One yet another hand, with today being so gloomy, I will not be going out, and so delivery today will be no trouble except for the usual stress of waiting.

  Although this extra gloomy weather makes me think I will not do anything today, there are a few things I will do today. One of the first will be to wash my favourite bath towel. It is already soaking in bio detergent, and so should be one of the first things I should do once I have had my usual post writing rest. I will also edit it a few more Simpsons recordings for my archive, and hopefully watch them before archiving them, and possibly never seeing them again.