As I write these words at 9:42am the sky is showing a few small cracks that show blue, and for the last 10 minutes there has been sunshine. There has been drizzle earlier, and may be more before midday when the only forecast sunny spell is forecast to happen. From 1pm it may be back to light rain for the next 5 hours. After 6pm it may be dry, but the temperature is going to fall from an afternoon high of 13° C to just 8° C by midnight. Tomorrow may be dry with quite a lot of sunny spells, but it is going to be colder. The afternoon may not get any higher than 10° C - even in the sunny spells !

  Yesterday morning seemed to be very slow, or maybe I should say that I seemed very slow in the morning. Maybe both. Perhaps it was waiting for the sunny spells and sunshine that never really happened (not counting for a few minutes of sunny spells spread over half the morning).

  It seemed to take a long time to write my diary yesterday, but at 2,505 words it was one of my longer pieces. After writing I had a longer rest than normal before I had a quick shower. It was well gone midday when I went out to buy some shopping. I had thought I was going to Savers, and with the possibility I might pop into Tesco as well. I checked my stocks of vitamin pills, and realised there was nothing urgent I needed from Savers, a so I went to Tesco for a medium sized shop.

  It was probably foolish to rely on the weather forecast to decide what to wear. I had a false belief about the sunny spells, and I guess I under estimated the wind or how bad just winds of 15mph could be, or the forecast was wrong. Anyway I hoped that my sleeveless denim jacket over a short sleeved t-short would be sufficient. It wasn't ! The wind on my bare arms felt really chilly. I had been hoping for sunny spells to get the first rays of the sun on my pale looking arms, but it was just grey, grey, and grey while I was out - like 95% of the morning.

  I was going to do an almost normal light shop in Tesco, but then I had a good idea©. I decided I would buy some beer. In the end I bought two 4 packs of beer. One would be nice and the other was not so nice. Curiously enough I think that Brewdog "Cold Beer" was recommended by Michael. I found it to have a slightly musty taste that made it seem like it was stale (but not in the way that beer actually goes stale).

  There were a few things I bought, such as crusty bread rolls, that I am having doubts about being a good idea now. I'm not sure that the "Emperor Oranges" were a good idea. They are very tasty, but also very sweet, maybe too sweet for my mild diabetes to stay mild. The information I quickly found just now said that 100gm of these oranges has 8.2gm of sugar, and each orange weighs around 250gm. That means one orange has around 20gm of sugar in it, and that is more than I care to consume in one go (but with three left, that is exactly what I will have to do) !

  The picture above was taken as I neared home after doing my shopping. It does not really show my bare arms, but maybe my pale face shows how cold I was in the strong wind (and without the promised sunshine). I was happy to get home and after putting my shopping away, making and eating some lunch. I thought I was going to eat two wholemeal, and very malty baps filled with corned beef and horseradish sauce. I fear if I had done my blood glucose measurements this morning would have been even worse. Fortunately I only had one bap left, and I had that, and topped it off with a nectarine.

  I ate, rested, and than I had a little bit of tidying up to do before Jodie visited for a beer tasting session. She was earlier than usual, but had been to The Catford Food Market. It officially ends as late as 6pm, but the poor weather, and the gust winds that were threatening to blow away the market stalls, plus a presumably diminishing amount of customers, meant some stalls were packing up by 3pm, and that is why Jodie came here early.

  Jodie was, as usual, going drinking with Alan later, and yesterday they were heading to a bar that was selling some very strong beers. That made Jodie quite keen on trying some weaker beers. One we tried was on I had just bought from Tesco. I can't remember the name, but it was made by Greene King (or whoever owns the name these days) and was a very traditional style, 3.4%, IPA. It was very drinkable. Initially we shared a 330ml can, but then opened a second so we ended up with a full can each.

  The other I bought from Tesco, the Brewdog "Cold Beer" I have already mentioned as not being very nice. Jodie declared it to be "minging". I wouldn't go that far, and I will be drinking the other cans without much pleasure. I thinik the strongest beer we had was just 6%. One looming problem is that once again I am building up a big collection of very strong beers. That would almost be OK if I was allowed to drink them on my own, but Jodie is very sure that she has to try them first. It will soon be time to order another bog box of beers, and maybe most of them should be weak beers.
  Jodie left a little before 6pm to get the train to Clockhouse where she would get a 227 bus to Craft Metropolis where she would be meeting Alan at 7pm. As Jodie was putting her coat on I was putting my dinner in the microwave oven. It was, as pictured above, a "Steak Ragu Papperdelle", and in small print it claimed to have chunks of chuck steak in it. I think flecks of steak may be closer to the truth.

  I bought it because it was on it's best before date, and was sold at a fairly reduced price. The lack of obvious bits of steak was one disappointment, and I hadn't realised that over a quarter of it was quite thick and wide pasta strips. I am not really a great fan of pasta like this, and would say I am not a fan of pasta full stop, but I have to admit that instant noodles are pasta, and I have grown to love them.

  The sugar content of this part of my dinner seems like it was probably quite reasonable - just 4.6gm. My dessert was one of those previously described Emperor Oranges with it's 20gm of sugar. Later on I also had two 25gm packs of plain slated crisps. They probably didn't help my overall consumption either. Being a Sunday night there was not a lot to watch on TV. I think I watched something on the Sky Arts channel, but if I did it was something so bland that I can't remember anything at all about it.

  What I later found was that the E4 channel was showing a load of episodes of The Simpsons. I think I recorded about 4 episodes - two of which were described as new - I presume that here in the UK the latest episodes to be shown are from season 32, which is what E4 were showing episodes from. Wikipedia lists 36 seasons. I guess these later seasons will be shown here eventually.

  At 9pm the last Simpsons episode finished recording, and it was time for bed. I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive - would I be wakened by the sounds of the mouse chewing the floorboards again, or not ??? To add to my problems I had some mild heartburn which was only apparent when I was laying down, and trying to get to sleep. A couple of antacid tablets more or less cured that.

  It seems my last escapade with my filler gun, at 2am the night before, may have worked for a while. I never heard anything from the mouse. I don't know if I sealed it under the floorboards, if it is still lurking inactive in some dark corner of my bedroom, or if it has decided to move on to somewhere else in my house. Apart from being slightly on edge, I seemed to sleep OK last night - except for the usual pee every 2 or 3 hours during the night.

  I had a nice lie in this morning, and it was gone 8am when I got up. I can't say I felt all that good, and that is still the case now when thanks to a later start, and researching lots of the links I have included, it is not that long until midday. I think the not feeling good is because of the weather. Although having said that, the weather seems far better than the forecast. the day started with light rain, but the last 2 or 3 hours have been fairly bright. Some spells of bright sunshine, and for a lot of the rest of the time some medium bright, and very hazy sunshine.

  After my lie in I did an extra big pee when I got up, but I had to go back to the toilet a bit later for a poo, and another small pee. That was enough to make the scales show I had not gain or lost a single gram since yesterday morning. If I had managed the big poo I did straight after breakfast (when weighing myself was pointless) I may have actually shown a loss of 100gm.

  I don't think the the Emperor Orange, I had as part of my dinner last night, can take all the blame, but I am sure it can take a big portion of blame for some more terrible blood glucose readings this morning. The Contour meter reading just crossed the threshold form OK to starting to get not OK, with a reading of 9.0mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter gave a slightly high OK reading of 8.7mmol/l. The Sinocare meter gave the worst reading of 9.3mmol/l. That is still borderline safe, but highly undesirable.

  I had to drop everything just now before my "before noon" blood pressure reading came after noon. In theory it was still pretty good when I consider that blood pressure readings are usually at their lowest soon after eating, and breakfast was now 3 hours ago. The reading I have just taken was 104/45, and that was one single reading. It seemed plenty low enough not to bother trying again in the hope of relaxing more, and getting a lower reading.

  Today I am going to......actually, what am I going to do. I don't feel keen to do anything. The next thing I'll be doing is to make lunch, and that will be two breakfast rolls with beef and horseradish. As I look out the window I can see some modestly big areas of blue sky. It almost looks as if I should go for a walk, but while I could, at minimum, go to the shops I cannot think of anything I need so badly that I will go out. I feel in the mood to be very lazy today. It is still possible I might hand wash a couple of t-shirts, but as I sit here I can't really imagine doing even that. I think I will select a new book to read.