This morning, despite the forecasts saying it was 2° C at 7am, it was cold enough to start the day with a frost. It is now 2° C, and should get warmer now the sun has risen high enough to clear the house roofs to the east. Maybe in another hour I will be able to turn the heating off until late afternoon, but only in the front of the house, and only if the sunny spells after the first few hours of non stop sunshine are long sunny spells. Even so, the forecast says to only expect 8° C outside this afternoon. Once again, the temperature may drop a lot in the night. Tomorrow may be interesting, but not nice at all. The current forecast says it will be just 4° C all day long, and after 10am it will start to rain, and that rain may continue on Saturday. Earlier forecasts for Saturday suggested there could be a lot of sleet in the morning, but it may now be just barely warm enough to not freeze the rain into sleet.
 
  Yesterday was a typical example of how some sunshine can make for some of the day very nice, but later on it became really quite depressing. Although the depression had little to do with the weather even if the cold and dark when the sun set did nothing to help.

  I felt good in the morning, or at least I felt that I should feel good. The bright morning sunshine definitely was good. After writing yesterday's piece, and having a short rest, I had a shave and a shower. It was not a wet shave, but a fairly close trim using my bread trimmer without the guard that sets the height of the cut. I have to admit a wet shave does leave a far better feeling result.

  Once dried and dressed I stepped out into the sunshine for, initially my walk to Catford Bridge station. I found myself walking faster than I should, and even when I began to feel the effect it was very hard to slow down. I reached the station, tapped in using my Freedom Pass, and then picked up two copies of The Metro. My plan was to wait on the wrong platform while I got my breath back, and deliberately miss the first train. Then I noticed that next train was still a minute away, and so I took a deep breath, and went over the footbridge.

  I got to the other side feeling close to having over done it. I didn't exactly get angina pains, but it felt like I was very close, and my heart did seem to be pounding. Half a minute later and I was on the early train, and I had just two minutes to recover from my extra exertion before the train arrived at Ladywell, and I got off. Once I had walked three quarters of the platform length I then had to go up the stairs to exit the station. From then on it was almost downhill to the pub.

  All this time I had my camera with me. I did take pictures of the train, but I didn't need those, and I didn't seem to see anything in the park that was worth taking a picture of. Curiously I saw very few squirrels yesterday. I did the whole journey, from home to pub, without feeling the need to zip up the front of my coat, and when I got to the pub I was feeling just slightly a bit too warm.

  It was a good session in the pub. There were very few people in there, and I spent some of the time chatting at the bar instead of sitting at my table doing the crosswords. I almost finished the quick crossword, but I was definitely not in the mood to concentrate on the cryptic crossword. When I can start to solve it, and one extremely rare occasions, complete it, it does feel great. Yesterday I couldn't solve a single clue. I think that like the quick crossword, they have a new compiler, and he (or she) must have a really twisted mind !
  I still found myself enjoying the session enough to have a third pint of Guinness. As the framed picture on the wall, pictured above,  says, "Guinness for strength". It is great in theory, but I am not sure three pints of Guinness gave me the strength I needed later on my way home. In fact it could have had quite a negative effect later on. The curious thing is that I am most definitely sure that the picture has always been on the wall, but it was only yesterday that I stopped to look, and photograph it.

  The walk from the pub to three quarters of the way down the long platform at Ladywell Station is always easy until it becomes arduous ! it is that last bit, walking down the platform, that always gets me. It was handy that I had about a 10 minute wait for the train, and I felt relaxed by the time the train arrived, and I got on it. Two minutes later I was getting of at Catford Bridge, and just had the short walk up to the little supermarket to do.

  I mostly wanted more fruit from the little supermarket. Their fruit, unless it has gone too far, and is deteriorating, is usually much riper and better than the fruit from Tesco. I bought more apples, some yellow plums, and some Clementines. I also remembered to buy some green finger chillies. They were quite long, and they are probably milder than I would like, but at least they are safe than the Scotch Bonnet chillies I could have bought. They can be lethal !

  I was looking on the shelves where they had Baklava. They are really nice, but far too sweet for me, but among all that sugar laden stuff was a box of sugar free biscuits. I can't seem to remember what they are called, but the biscuit is a swirly looking thing, and is butter flavoured. I did try just one, and it was rather nice. I also bough yet more "hot chicken" flavour instant noodles in a pack of 4.

  It was when walking home from that supermarket that I wished the Guinness really had given my strength. My legs started to ache a bit, but worst of all was that my left kneecap felt like it was about to give out on me. Usually it is the right kneecap that gives trouble if any give trouble. It was very nice to get home, although it was some time before I could sit down, and take the weight off my legs.

  After putting my shopping away I made two ham and tomato rolls, and I had a small slice of the "slightly fuited" fruit cake that I mentioned many times yesterday. What I was going to have was cheese on toast using the bread that is now starting to get a bit dry. The trouble was that I did not have the patience to wait while it toasted.  I took my rolls to my PC desk, and ate them while reading some stuff online.

  After eating I started to feel a mix of hunger, tiredness, lethargy and depression. I went and laid on my bed, and intended to read for a while, but I just closed my eyes, and was soon snoozing. I would wake up later with a mild, but most annoying hangover. It made me feel even more hungry, although it was a psychological, rather than physiological hunger. My head felt a bit fuzzy, and I felt miserable.

  Fortunately, or maybe that was unfortunately, it was very close to dinner time, and it was not long before I was eating my dinner. I think I had a starter, about half an hour or more earlier, and it must have been another slice of cake, but I feel very vague about what it really was. I know my main bit of my dinner was all fruit. I had a small banana, two small yellow plums, two small clementines, and a golden apple - followed by another small slice of cake.

  I was watching some Star Trek episodes, and they were not captivating my attention. Deep Space Nine was not that bad, but as usual, Voyager was a typical annoying episode. I only watch it because it is better than Coronation Street, or some other old crap that might be on at the time on some other crap channel. Before it was all over I gave in and ate the whole packet of some mini savoury eggs - like a scotch egg, but made with bits of hard boiled egg in a breadcrumb type coating. The ironic thing is that they needed hot chilli sauce, plus some tomato purée (because it was handy at the time) to make them semi nice.

  At 8pm, when Star Trek: Voyager had finished, I went to bed to read. I am not sure why I didn't watch two brand new episodes (for me) of The Simpsons. I had to stay awake until just after 9pm to stop and start the recordings of the two episodes. Once I had stopped the second episodes recording I turned off the TV, and turned out the lights. I was sure I would fall asleep really quickly....or maybe that was just wishful thinking so I didn't have the tedium of nothing happening to endure.

  I found that I couldn't get to sleep. Somehow I did not seem to be sleepy enough, and maybe because of that I couldn't get comfortable. I got up again and sat reading stuff at my PC while I let a couple of paracetamol do their stuff. I was back in bed, and asleep around 10pm. I may possibly have woken up at 11pm to go for a pee. My memory of it is very vague. What I am more sure of is that I seemed to sleep non stop until 4am without waking to go for a pee once. I can't remember how many years have passed since I got as much as six straight hours of sleep !

  I peed at 4am, and I think I had a small pee at 5am. I got up a little after 6am, and once again I only had a small pee, but I did have a poo (I also had a few poos yesterday from late afternoon to mid evening. One consequence of the lack of peeing is that it seemed I had put on 900gms. That is an awful lot for a 24 hour period. It must be water retention. It does seem to happen now and again, and I don't really know why. The lack of peeing might suggest a very low blood glucose level.

  The idea of very low glucose after eating all I ate yesterday evening, including that sweet slightly fruited fruit cake, strongly suggested otherwise. My blood glucose was up a a little bit this morning, but really only a tiny bit. The Contour meter still read a rather good 7.7mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read 7.8mmol/l, and it was only the Sinocare meter that read a tiny increase. It was up to 8.2mmol/l, and at any other time than the recent run of better readings, it would be considered very good.

  It is difficult the predict if my weight or blood glucose will be lower tomorrow because this afternoon should include a lot of beer drinking. I think both Jodie and Michael will be over this afternoon to taste more weird and occasionally wonderful beers.....well maybe there is some doubt about Michael. He has been going through a lot of stress recently, and he might, or might not have had some sort of lurgy.

  There is one hope for eating healthily after getting drunk this afternoon. In theory my dinner will be a beef meatball stew with green finger chillies and broccoli. If I can refrain from topping it off with cake I should be OK......if..... One thing I may do is add some salt to the stew. I rarely use salt, but I did notice the pee I had just now was rather large compared to most in the night. I suspect it was salt in my instant noodles breakfast that has produced more pee. In theory I am on a low salt diet because of my blood pressure, but it has never been made official. I guess a bit of extra salt can do no harm, and might do some good. If it is good I will modify my no salt stance in future.