Oh dear, it's now back to grim times again. Today be dry until late afternoon, but it is going to range from dark grey to very dark grey. The highest temperature we can expect is just 5° C. Tomorrow is going to see a similar range of temperatures, but it could be light grey all day, and probably totally dry.

  Yesterday was a very good day. This was for a range of reasons, and most reasons bolstered the other reasons. The bright sunshine was the trigger for it all....at least it would seem to be, although I was feeling much better before the sun had even risen.

  The day before yesterday was very grey, damp and very cold. Whether it was the case of not, it seemed to make the way I felt physically really bad, or maybe it made feeling bad even worse. All these thing tend to interact with each other in either negative or positive ways. The day before it was very negative. I was in a lot of pain. The worst pain was from my chest, or more specifically (I think) from my sternum.

  I am unsure exactly what the problem was that was causing so much pain in the middle of my chest, but I am sure it was a legacy of when I was opened up for my quad heart bypass operation. The pain followed the course of my big scar. The cold and damp just amplified it all, but somehow, after a terrible start to my nights sleep, it seemed to completely heal itself. I was a bit wary, and maybe there was some tenderness to underline that when I got up yesterday, but it gave me no more trouble at all yesterday.

  As usual I spent a couple of hours or more writing yesterday morning. Before that I checked several health indicators, as I described yesterday, and one in particular, my blood glucose level was dangerously high. I had to be in a very good mood to fast for most of yesterday. After writing I did the usual of laying on my bed reading. What seemed unusual was that for the first time in weeks or more, the sun was shining through my bedroom windows.

  I had been able to turn all the heating off before I finished writing, and the sunshine kept my bedroom nice and warm. It was what I needed to reach a very positive state of mind. Although there were a couple of times when I felt a little temptation, but I easily resisted any desire to eat before dinner time. On the whole it seemed ridiculously easy to do, and that in itself was another reason to feel good.

  I wanted to make some use of the sunshine, and one possibility was to go out, but I thought it was still too cold to enjoy it - even if it were just a quick walk to Tesco. Anyway, Tesco would have brought too many temptations. It seemed a better idea to stay in and try to do something useful. One thing that would be very useful was to do some laundry. I was not sure if that would stir up my aches and pains again, and so I started on just a small job.
  I started with just a small hand towel, and three bar towels. It seemed fairly easy going, even if the hand towel needed about 5 or 6 rinses. I hung it all on the washing line. I knew that at this time of year the sun never gets high enough to shine on the washing line, but the air seemed dry (or at least things like the fence and path looked to be bone dry), and there was a gentle breeze that lightly jiggled the stuff on the line.

  That felt very satisfying, and on any other day I may have had a snack after finishing the job, but it seemed easy to ignore food still. I spent some time just relaxing by reading stuff on the internet, or laying on my bed reading. After a while, with no ill effects from doing that first lot of laundry, I decided to do even more. I think I mentioned yesterday that it would be good to wash some underwear because I was probably down to less than a fortnight's worth of underpants (or a bit more if I wore some less favourite pairs).

  I checked the laundry bag thing, and found 8 pairs of underpants, and started to wash those. It was relatively easy, although I stopped in the middle to go to the toilet, and only got back to the job a bit later. I had started not that long before sunset, and during my break I checked to see if the first lot was drying - it wasn't ! It was possibly just as wet as when I had first hung it on the line, although being freezing cold may have made it feel worse.

  My original plan was that I hoped it had dried enough to hang on the small clothes horse in the sun warmed, but cooling off, front room with a desk fan to help it dry. It seemed so wet that I put it on the big clothes horse in the dining room with the fan heater blowing warm air at it. When I had got back to the second lot of laundry, and finished it, I took it all down to the dining room and managed to just about squeeze it all onto the big clothes horse.

  There was no chance it would dry before I went to bed, and so when bedtime got nearer I replaced the fan heater with a desk fan. In the middle of all this it got to 5pm, and that seemed like a fair time to have dinner. My dinner was a big plate of fruit, including a big and small apple, two small "easy peelers" oranges, a small banana and a pear. I also had a small chunk of cheese to nibble and break up the flavours.

  I couldn't seem to stop myself, and had two other things after the fruit. One was a small portion of salted peanuts, and the other was some sugar free biscuits, although I think it was actually "no added sugar". I think that may have been part of the problem of less than really good blood glucose readings this morning. I finished the rest of the laundry, and hung it up to dry, mostly during commercial breaks while watching some TV - some Star Treks and some Simpsons, although I recorded most of the latter.

  When the last Simpsons had recorded I turned the TV off, but checked out an episode of QI using my PC in TV mode. It looked like it would not be a good episode, and I turned it off after I had seen the guests introduced. I had already brushed my teeth, and went straight to bed. I had finished the last book I was reading, and although I had a couple of non fiction books to read, I decided instead to go straight to sleep. I think it probably only took 15 minutes, and I was fast asleep.

  I remember very little about my sleep. I do remember I was often dreaming, but not a single dream seems to have left enough memory to describe the dream. My memories of getting up to pee about every two hours are better, but that is so routine now that I do wonder if sometimes it is not real but a dream. Well that doesn't really matter unless I ever start to have a dream pee that is a real pee while I sleep. As far as I can recall, I haven't peed the bed for about 65 or 66 years, and I hope I never start again.

  This morning I got up with a mild stomach ache. I was sure I was going to have a poo, and indeed I did need one, but it didn't happen until after breakfast, but I did let go quite a blast of gas ! I did have a pee though. It was not particularly big, but it seems the cumulative amounts during the night were instrumental in the scales saying I lost 1.1kgm since yesterday morning. That was an awful lot, even after fasting during the day. On my spreadsheet where I now record my weight every morning, it is all coloured coded. Yesterday it was in the red, and this morning it skipped orange and went straight to light green. That was very satisfying.

  My blood glucose was down, but not far enough to say it was satisfying. Yesterday all readings were well up in the danger zone. This morning all are safe readings, but nothing more to cheer about. The Contour meter read 8.2mmol/l. That would be very good if my current target wasn't now 7.5mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read a little bit higher at 8.3mmol/l. The Sinocare meter, using the very last test strip in the canister, read 9.2mmol/l. That seemed higher than I could accept. I tried it again with a test strip from a newly opened canister, and got a better reading of 8.7mmol/l. I guess that is good enough.

  The weather forecast was very firm about it - before just now, just now, and after just now, the sky should be almost black with thick clouds, and there is a 19% chance of rain. So how come that just now we had a sunny spell ?. Admittedly it only lasted 5 or 10 minutes, but it was most definitely a sunny spell, a very welcome sunny spell, when none were forecast !

  I don't think I shall let one sunny spell, and when I look at the sky, another seems very unlikely, to influence what I may do today. The one thing I think I have to do today is to go shopping, and I think it will be in Tesco. The only other thing I think I may do today is a little more laundry. Maybe I will wash two t-shirts and two pairs of lounge pants. I'll have to dry them indoors, and that means burning more electricity, but after being sun heated for a lot of the day yesterday, I guess I can force myself to afford it.