Today the weather comes in two halves. This morning is bright, and we have already had some sunshine. The temperature should climb from 9° C to 11° C by midday, but a few hours later it all goes wrong. The temperature may stay the same until gone midnight, but from 3pm very strong winds are forecast, and from 4pm there will be rain to add to the misery, although it may only be light rain. Tomorrow should see 12° C, but it is going to be a wet day, although the forecast says only light rain, and no heavy rain.

  It is hard to say why, but I felt strangely better yesterday.It could almost have been that sort of feeling you get after getting over a cold, but I didn't seem to have any easily definable illness. This morning I had clues to show that I was better in some ways.

  The obvious, although maybe not correct reason for feeling better, was all the extra sleep I got the night before. This morning there is some proof of feeling better, but that is only the result of being better, and not the cause of it. It was past midday, when having finished writing, and had a rest, I headed to the bathroom to wash my hair, and have a shower. That definitely felt good. After my shower I put my big buckets into the bathtub to do some more laundry.

  I left two pairs of lounge pants, one t-shirt, and one single pair of underpants soaking in detergent while I did other things. One thing was not exactly a pleasant task. It started with downloading, and then updating with an even newer version of You Tube downloader. I used it to download, without seeing anything first, 4 videos of Joe Bonamassa. That is the man who Michael is always going on about.

  Michael says I ought to like, or even love Joe Bonamassa, but I told him that I had never heard anything he has done to make me want to remember him. Having downloaded 4 videos I find that one is just about passable. One is too country and western style for my liking. One is like some awful gospel song, and the last seems like the sort of music they play in Tesco to make the store seem a better place, but the music is so dull that it doesn't distract from shopping.

  One semi pleasant job was the result of turning a bit of my bedroom upside down looking for mouse holes. At the bottom of a dusty box I found my pub memorabilia that I hadn't seen in years. It was not only dusty, but anything brass was very dull instead of being shiny. My metal polish has been unused for so long that all the fine abrasive has sunk to the bottom. I had to use a long screwdriver to stir it up, and that was not that successful. I still managed to get a shine on the shiniest.
  First up is this illuminated Carlesberg dispenser sign. It was given to me by the daughter of the landlord of a Truman's pub in Hammersmith. The sign does say Truman, but I feel sure they didn't brew it under licence, but may have had the rights to redistribute it.
  This would be an extremely rare hand pump clip - so rare that it is probably unknown to most. It was given to me by the landlord of The Forest Barn, a bar more than a pub, in Forest Hill. In it's early years it tried to suggest that they had beers brewed specially for them. There was a "One", "Two", and "Three", and they were in ascending strengths. One of them, and it may have been No.1, was revealed to be Ruddles ordinary bitter.

  The first operators, aka landlords, of the place were real ale drinkers, and would make sure the beers were served in perfect condition. One of the last ones was not an ale drinker, and it was my "job" to go in, often before official opening on a Sunday, to taste the beers for him. He would pull up about a third of a pint for me to taste. If I didn't like it I would say so, and he would pull another. This was repeated for all three hand pumps. Sometimes it would take several pull throughs to get clear beer, but some of the less cloudy tasters were drinkable, and some settled while I was drinking the others. I could end up getting three free pints on some occasions, and with the roast potatoes, and other free bar snacks I could go home after what seemed like a full dinner, and plenty of beer, and all for nothing. Happy days !
  I can't remember the exact circumstances, but I think it was when the Youngs brewery in Wandsworth was about to close, and the last of the Winter Warmer was drunk, the landlord of The Catford Ram offered me this Winter Warmer pump clip. Note that it says very clearly "Wandsworth London". I don't know of any dates of the top of my head, but it is likely that later in the years the brewery was bought by Marstons, and they tried to carry on making the Youngs brews at their brewery in Essex, and basically failed.
  This pump clip was another present from the daughter of the landlord of that Truman's pub in Hammersmith. (I can't remember the name of the pub after all these years). I am not sure if I ever tasted Trumans best bitter. I guess I probably did. The brewery in Brick Lane closed down in 1989, and maybe that is when the pub had new owners, and stuff branded Truman became obsolete.
  I have no idea where I got this pump clip. As far as I can remember I never really liked Ruddles County as a draught beer, but I did go through a phase of drinking loads of it when it came in dumpy bottles from Sainsbury's supermarkets and other places. It is possible that if I did some research I would find the version I did like was brewed in the original Ruddles brewer, but after a takeover it was brewed elsewhere, and they could not match the original taste,

  I suddenly realise that all this has got out of time order. It was after I had finished washing my latest small batch of laundry that I hung it on the big clothes horse with a fan heater to speed up the drying. That made the dining room very comfortable to sit in, and it was then that I got the metal polish out, and cleaned and polished the pump clips. I also found a 12V power supply to power the light in the Carlsberg dispenser display.

  Also, somewhere back in time, I had a semi light lunch. After a horrendous blood glucose reading in the morning I should have tried to fast until dinner time (or later), but I had a single roll with corned beef in it. I also had a single semi-ripe nectarine after the roll. It was not exactly fasting, and I felt mildly guilty about it, although at the same time I didn't seem to care, and just maybe I somehow knew it was going to be OK.

  I still felt a need for a dinner, but I wanted to keep that simple as well. I started with another single roll, and I put cheese, tomato, and sliced hot green chilli in it. I followed that with an Alizza fruit. It is a grapefruit sized orange, and looks like an orange that has quite a bitter taste despite the adverts saying they taste sweet. Well I guess they are sweeter than grapefruit, but "sweeter than" does not equal "sweet".

  It is possible that I got the two rolls I made up confused with each other, but I do know had an interesting effect. The one with the chilli in it did not seem to be that hot, but after eating it I suddenly burst out sweating. I felt so hot that I opened my bedroom window, and left it open for maybe half an hour. It is possibly the first time I have opened it since twoards the end of autumn last year.

  I was well entertained on TV last night, and surprisingly it was BBC 2 who were showing an evening dedicated to Fleetwood Mac. They seemed to have a lot of their own archive material to show with other archive stuff to tell the story of Fleetwood Mac, although in some ways, one the programmes was more the story of Christine Mcvie. Her musical career spanned a lot more than just being a long time member of Fleetwood Mac.

  There were three programmes about Fleetwood Mac. The last was a recording of "The Dance" tour which was when Christine Mcvie rejoined the band after quitting for 15 years. I had only recently seen a lot of that, shown with copious adverts, on Sky Arts. It was getting late (maybe 11pm) and my bed was calling. I think I read of maybe 15 minutes before putting the book down, and than falling asleep very quickly.

  I think it was 2am when I woke up for what was probably my second pee of the night. Before I could even get out of bed I heard the dreaded sound of a mouse chewing wood. It seemed the mouse had got in my bedroom again.....or had it. I had my pee, and then grabbed a bright torch to look around. I saw what seemed like recently nibbling not far from where I had had a mousehole several years ago. I plugged that with sealant, and put more sealant along a bit of gap between the skirting board and the floorboards and carpet.

  I saw what looked like a new hole, and went to plug it, but I could not seem to force any sealant in. I reluctantly had to conclude that in this case the mouse was trying burrow down instead up up from under the floorboards. It was possible that the mouse was hiding in my bedroom somewhere instead of under the floorboards. I then noticed another hole. It looked too small, but there was definite signs of sawdust from where the mouse was enlarging the hole. I filled that with filler, and I don't think I heard any more gnawing sounds even when on high alert, and not being able to get back to sleep for over an hour.

  In the end I think pure exhaustion got me back to sleep. I woke several more times for a pee, but I still didn't hear anything from the mouse. Maybe this time it is trapped below the floorboards. I tried to have another lie in this morning, but at not long after 6am I seemed to be fully awake, and worse than that was that I couldn't seem to get comfortable in bed again. I think it was about 6.20am when I got up.

  I had peed quite a lot in the night, and after getting up I had a reasonable sized pee, but I would have to wait until I had dished out all my pills, vitamin and prescribed, until I had another pee, and also a small poo. Upon weighing myself I found I had lost 200gm since yesterday morning. That is my second lowest reading this month, and the very lowest was only 200gm lighter. Maybe my eating was better controlled than I feared.

  It was probably around 9pm last night that I did a quick, non recorded, blood glucose reading using just the Contour meter. To my surprise it was a very low 7.1mmol/l. On the face of it that was very good, and boded well for this morning, but I wondered if it was due to contaminations from some hand cream I had put on.

  This morning, for my "official" blood glucose readings I gave my hands a good scrub with soap and water, and rinsed them well. The Contour meter read 8.2mmol/l. That is an OK reading, but a lot higher than the reading I took last night. The GlucoRX meter read a much better 7.7mmol/l. The Sinocare wasn't as good, but 7.9mmol/l is still very good for me at the moment. In fact compared to the previous 4 days it was extremely good.

  The big unknown is if I was actually eating more carefully, or if the last 4 days of terrible readings was because I was fighting some sort of bug. I was complaining that I felt ill, but could not really describe any symptom. I think that it does seem possible i was fighting some sort of infection. one thing I have noted, even this morning, a slight tendency towards a dry cough sometimes. It seems my throat is feeling very delicate at the moment.

  Another positive health indicator is my blood pressure. It has been a bit peaky recently, but only with some very small, and really insignificant increases. This morning, when I claim to sort of feel OK, my blood pressure is just 99/47. I must admit I do wonder if that is not a bit too low. I've just tried my upper arm blood pressure meter. It has an ideal inbuilt diagnosis. On my second attempt, because I needed to relax a bit more after struggling to get the cuff on my arm, it gave a reading of 93/56. That confirms my blood pressure is nice and low this morning, and that meter diagnoses it as "Ideal", and not "Low". I wonder just how low low is ?

  The main event today is an afternoon beer session with Jodie. I've checked the trains are running today, and Jodie will also want to go the the Catford Food market seeing as today is the last Sunday of the month - the day when the market happens. This could have a bad effect on my eating, and I ought to pre-cook a healthy dinner to have after the beer. I have some diced beef, and I think I will make up, and precook a stew for tonight.

  If I have time I may go out shopping before Jodie arrives. There are several things I could get from Savers. This morning I had the last vitamin B Complex tablet. I have a spare, and that bottle contains 180 pills, and so there is no rush, but I do like to keep a spare of everything if I can. I could possibly go to Tesco as well, but I'll see how I feel after, and if I make it to Savers.