Today continues the recent trend of grey skies and rain. Once again some of it may be no more than drizzle. Most of it will be light rain, but 9pm may feature heavy rain, although reality may have drifted away from the forecast, in either direction, by then. The whole day will be grey, although as I write this it is a very light grey. The highest temperature may be just two one hour periods where the temperature reached 6° C. Tomorrow may be like a few days ago when the temperature was 4° C all day long. It will still continue the trend of being grey and raining all day long.
 
  I don't really know if yesterday was a good or bad day, a depressing day or a happy day. There were bits of both, but the cold and wet weather heavily biassed it towards bad and depressing. I still managed to do a few useful things though. After writing, and the usual rest, I spent a bit of time cleaning myself.

  As predicted yesterday, I did use a spare fan heater, on an extension lead to blow some warm air into the bathroom. I only turned the heater to the first setting o a single kilowatts, and not the 2kw it was capable of, but it did take the chill off the bathroom as I washed and conditioned my hair, and then had a shower. I have to admit that mildly warm air still felt very cool when blowing at my wet and naked body, but as I dried myself off it felt warm-ish again.

  There were two reasons for the hair wash and shower. The first was very simply that my hair was looking awful, and needed washing. The other reason was not essential, but it felt much better to go around Aldi knowing I didn't stink. If I hadn't needed to wash my hair I might have just cleaned myself with a damp flannel (and a bit of soap). Once I had finished in the bathroom I turned the heater of to save precious/expensive electricity. I can just about afford to pay for more, but I just don't want to give those greedy bastards any more than is essential.

  Once dressed I grabbed my rucksack and two bag-for-life style Aldi carrier bags, and set out into the drizzly rain. I wore my thick, and hooded winter coat. It kept me dry, but I did feel a bit warm under it, and particularly so when lugging all my shopping home. The bulk of the weight was the 4 two litre bottles of Diet Coke in my rucksack, but a four one pint cans of  lager added to the overall weight.

  I guess all the fruit I bought contributed to the overall weight. I bought apples and pairs, some not very ripe nectarines, some plums, and some small oranges. I was going to buy just a single pack of meat for a stew, but I also bought a pack of spicy pork casserole. It appears to come in a sealed plastic bag inside a box, and will need a fair bit of cooking. It should be very nice, but maybe I have some doubts. Anyway, it was 50% off and so a bargain even if only slightly nice.

  My blue, thick winter coat, with hood, felt a bit restrictive as I walked to Aldi, and together with the grey light, and non stop drizzle, it did not feel good walking to the store. Walking home with the added weight of the shopping, did seem like really hard work. I could not manage to walk very fast, and it was a slow and uncomfortable slog getting home. I guess at that pace I could probably have walked about 1.5 times as much without stopping for a rest, but I was still extremely glad to get home again.

  I had planned to have a couple of baps with ham and stuff in them for lunch, but I opted for a far less healthy option. I had a single packet of two mixed meat slices (like a flat, rectangular pasty). I followed those with two small choc chip muffins. Neither the meat slices or the muffins were very nice. The meat slices were not nearly as meaty as hoped for. The filling was little more than very thick brown gravy with some lumps in it. Maybe the muffins were only not good in so much as they seemed tainted by too much sugar, or other sweet and sticky stuff. Guilt can be a terrible depressive.

  I left the heater on low while I was out, and because I had very little to do apart from put my shopping away, I went up to my bedroom to change well before I had begun to cool off. It felt very hot and sweaty in my bedroom, although the thermometer said it was only just over 22° C - which is about the minimum I am happy with while doing sedentary things like reading from book or screen. I should have, but didn't turn the heater off because I knew I would be putting it back on in 20 to 30 minutes time.

  I did notice that I seemed less sensitive to cold than I had been the days before yesterday. I am unsure why that should be. Maybe it was because of some unwise eating, or maybe it was just stirring up my blood when walking to and from Aldi. It is all a bit of a mystery. It was also a bit of a mystery why yesterday, which featured terribly depressing weather, didn't seem to be much of a depressing day. I even did some useful stuff.

  The useful stuff was not stuff I should have been doing - mostly preparation for Patricia's visit and overnight stay on Wednesday. I have lots of hoovering to do, the dining room table cloth needs a good scrub, the shower curtains need changing, and I need to re-do the patch over the crack in the bath. What I did do was to tackle more video editing of Simpsons episodes. I think I managed to do 6 of them yesterday, and I also watched those six. One was one I knew off, but had never seen before. It was the crossover episode where the crew from Futurama came back in time to the Simpsons household. It was good, but maybe not as good as hoped for.
  Apart from some peanuts, I don't think I ate anything else yesterday afternoon. My guilt about having those two very sweet choc chip muffins was such that I only had fruit for my dinner, and did not follow it up with a dessert. I had a nectarine, a plum, a pear, a Cameo apple, and two small "easy peelers" oranges. I am unsure if I have ever had a Cameo apple before. It was nice, but not as good as a Cox apple, but still better than many, although it did have a slightly strange taste that I can't describe.

  The was almost nothing on any channel except one thing on Sky Arts to watch last night night. It was a couple of hours of AC/DC on the huge stage at Donnington. Bits of it were interesting to see, but watching it was often boring. Hearing it was good though. For maybe an hour I watched it, but occasionally checked a few bits on the internet - including using Open Street Map to consider some future walks if I ever get myself fit enough to do them.

  For the second hour I just opted to just listen to the gig while laying on my bed reading. The book I am reading, "Heart Of The Comet" by Gregory Benford and David Brin, is quite a long book, and it is also "lumpy". Bits are an enjoyable read, and then the story seems to go flat for a chapter or two. Sometime, like while reading last night, it would be just a few pages of good stuff followed by a couple of pages of dull stuff. I can only imagine this is the result of it being written by two authors.

  When the AC/DC gig finished at 9pm it seemed like a good time to try to go to sleep - except that I failed. I am not sure if it was that I just didn't feel sleepy enough, or if it was the old story of too many tiny aches or discomforts adding up to enough to stop me relaxing. I gave it maybe half an hour before I got up again, and looked at stuff on my PC for possibly and hour. I then tried for sleep again, and this time I did get to sleep at gone 11pm (I think).

  There were two things about last night's sleep. One was that I was back to the familiar waking up about every 2 hours for a pee. Maybe a couple of times it was closer to an hour and a half. One thing is that each pee seemed a bit on the small side. That would leave it's mark on my weight when I weighed myself later. The other thing is that with the heater only on half (and with the bedroom door closed) it warmed the room up to that awkward temperature where it was too hot under the duvet, but too cold without.

  I think my subconscious took care of me, and stopped me kicking off the duvet, and sleeping uncovered. That would probably give me a chill. I seemed to sleep with the duvet well wrapped around me even when I must have been too hot. I don't actually remember being too hot when going to sleep, or after waking up, but while deeply sleeping I must have been sweating a lot, or at least my face and head were. I woke up several times to a damp pillow, and had to turn it over or around so I could sleep on a dry bit.

  The lack of peeing suggested a low blood glucose level, and the sweating suggested a high blood glucose level. I had switched the heater outside the bathroom door onto low when I got up to pee at 4am. It had taken off the chill in the bathroom when I went in there after getting up. Once again I didn't seem to pee much, but I did do a fair poo. The lack of peeing meant my weight seemed to have gone up by 300gm since the day before, but 100gm less than the day before that. It seems I am stuck with my weight slightly going up and down with no overall change over a small period of time.

  I wondered what my blood glucose was doing during all this. The good news was that it was fine. The average was just slightly lower than yesterday. The Contour meter read 7.5mmol/l - or spot on my current target. The GlucoRX meter read 7.6mmol/l. That puts those two readings firmly in the good, but not excellent, light green range on my spreadsheet. The Sinocare read was good-ish, 8.4mmol/l. I checked it twice and it still insisted it was not going to be lower like the other two meter.

  The trains are running today, and so provided Jodie wants to brave the dull and wet weather, she should be over for some beer drinking this afternoon. I have to admit it is often a bit boring if Jodie spends most of her time on her phone, playing games and doom scrolling on Instagram, but I guess it is better than being on my own. I don't feel very dynamic at the moment, but it is possible I might do some hoovering in the dining room before Jodie arrives.