The weather continues to deteriorate. Today is going to be a bit chilly with only a maximum of 9° C for a couple of hours. There was almost a sunny spell around 8am when the sun was trying to peep through a small gap in the grey clouds. The forecasts say there could be sunny spells from mid afternoon until sunset a few hours later. The good news is that tomorrow will merely be not nice. Earlier forecasts pained a thoroughly nasty day. Tomorrow may now be a lot drier with just a light sprinkle at 10am. There might be a few sunny spells, but a maximum temperature of 8° C will still feel a bit winterish. That forecast has changed a lot in 24 hours, and reality could be very different still when tomorrow arrives.

  Yesterday could almost be described as a depressing day, and it was definitely made worse by the short spell of weak sunshine at midday. It made me feel annoyed that I was not ready to put on a light coat at a moments notice, and have a short frolic in the sunshine. Sadly it would have been a rather brief frolic if I had gone for one.

  From the moment I opened the curtains, yesterday morning, the greyness outside dampened any possible enthusiasm I might have conjured up if I had seen blue skies and sunshine. I still managed to write 2,644 words yesterday, and I am not sure if I really had that much to say, or if typing helped distract me from the dreariness outside. The other thing was with no idea what I might do, I was not rushed, and that was true for the whole day.

  I guess not being rushed was good for my heart. On the other hand, being miserable was not good for it, although it has to be said that my blood pressure was as good as most mornings yesterday. After I had finished writing I had my usual lie down, and I'm sure I tried to pass some time with a snooze, but I can't seem to remember if I had one, or if I did whether it was a long or short one.

  Eventually it seemed time to rouse myself from my idleness. What I should have done, and what I had intended to do, was to have a shower, but I could not be bothered. That ruled out a small diversion such as going to the local shops, but there nothing I desperately needed, and I probably saved myself from possibly wasting money. It was only bit after this that the sun broke through the clouds, and I realised maybe I could have gone out.

  That was annoying, but it just got worse because that sunny spells barely lasted 10 minutes, although I think there were a couple of very brief sunny spells in the next half an hour. One diversion was that it was about lunchtime, and I could spend a bit of time making my lunch and eating it. Despite boredom/depression induced urges, I managed to have just one Paninni roll stuffed with ham and cheese. Of course a Paninni roll is a bit bigger than a breakfast roll. So it was not a big sacrifice.

  After moping around a bit I decided there was one thing I could do. It was fairly productive for certain values of productive. I finally got around with trying to catch up with the backlog of The Simpsons episode recording that needed top and tailing, and the adverts removed before archiving, and theoretically watching. In the end I think I may have done as many as 8 episodes, but I never watched a single one, although during editing I got to see a sort of synopsis of each episode.

  I did stop for a short while to have a very healthy, and unhealthy snack. The rice crackers and German peppered salami was a little bit greasy, but could still be regarded as healthy. A small dollop of sweet mustard pickle on each one was not healthy in terms of sugar content. The first few were rather delicious, and then the splendour faded fast. They would have been better in a big variety of similar but different mini snacks.

   When dinner time arrived I had some sort of starter that I can't remember....at least I think I probably did....maybe the small chunk of Camembert cheese I chewed while waiting for the microwave to heat up the first of two cans of soup that were the main ingredient of my  dinner was that starter. One can of soup was Mulligatawny. It was nice, but it is one of the soups that had quite a high sugar content. the other was a much safer pea and ham soup. A little bit later I had a delayed dessert of some sugar free choc chip cookies.

  It seemed like there was very little TV on last night. I watched, but barely enjoyed an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. When that finished I checked the other channels, and found and watched an episode of The Prisoner. It was on the Rewind channel, and I am sure that was a channel that would never display a picture when watching it on my TV. I could hear the sound, but just saw a black screen. Something has changed, and this, and another channel that did the same, now seem to work OK.

  The Prisoner was a typical episode in that it was good and bad, and I cannot say what made either bit what it was. It finished at 9pm, and I went to bed to read for maybe 20 minutes before turning over and going to sleep. I am unsure if I slept well or not. I know I did have trouble getting back to sleep after getting up for a pee sometime around 1am, but that bit of insomnia probably only lasted for 10 or 15 minutes. I think I was just thinking about a dream I had.

  Neither of the two dreams I can remember bits of seemed very happy dream. One happened before 1am. It was set in a quiet pub that also seemed to sell shoes as well as beer. I was with two people who were similar to, but not quite the same as a singer and guitarist I know. I have no idea why, but in the dream I bought all three of use new pairs of trainers, plus a hat, possibly a beret, for the young (as in young compared to my current age) lady. She apparently took a size 2 shoe. I have no experience to say what size that is in inches, but it seemed very small for an adult.

  Not a lot seemed to happen in that dream, although the thing that made is bad was that I realised that the pair of new trainers I bought had been worn before. There was no sign of wear, but there was signs of mud on them. Those trainers would appear in the other dream that I think I dreamed nearer the time I got up. It was quite unpleasant in an ecological way.

  Once again the three of us, wearing out new trainers, seemed to be on a building site. We had been in what I think was a multi storey car park that was being converted into shops and maybe flats. No actual work was going on while we were in there, but there was plenty of work going on outside. It was like a scene from a warzone. There were many very smoky fires burning, and all the construction equipment seemed to be burning very dirty diesel. They were all belching out thick black smoked as they worked. The fact we were all wearing out brand new trainers when we had no choice but to walk through several large spills of diesel oil.

  It was sort of nice to get up, and away from such dreams, but I still did the thing that is fast becoming a habit - waking up when I could get up, but going back to bed for "just 5 minutes". This morning I did get up again a lot earlier than the day before, but a " lot earlier" was only about 45 minutes.

  I'm unsure how long that extra sleep was. I'm sure it wasn't much more than an hour, but I am sure I woke up because I was busting for a pee. Maybe I didn't have one when I got up earlier, but I thought I did. Not only did I do a large pee, but I managed a small poo as well. When I weighed myself I found I had gained 100gm in 24 hours, but just 100gm is within experimental error. For instance, if I had had the poo I have just had, and had it before I had breakfast, I might have found I had actually lost 100gm.

  This morning I thought my blood glucose was lower than yesterday, but the average of all three say it was actually a tiny bit higher. The Contour meter read 7.7mmol/l, and that puts it in the light green on my spreadsheet. That was the sort of figure I am aiming for, and so a good start. The GlucoRX meter read 8.2mmol/l and although not so good, is still fairly good. Even the Sinocare meter gave a quite reasonable reading of 8.4mmol/l. All these readings, plus the average of all three, 8.1mmol/l, is under my old target of 8.5mmol/l. Yesterday the average was 8.0mmol/l, and so it has gone up a tiny bit since yesterday.

  Yesterday I took my last Clopidogrel, blood thinning drug, for some time - I am no longer prescribed this drug, and I am using leftovers from when I was told to stop taking it early in the repeat prescription cycle. I still have an unused box of 28 tablets, and I may take another weeks worth when I next start to try and lengthen my walking stamina. I am unsure if taking those tablets made much difference to my blood pressure. Sometimes I think it has been slightly lower recently. I am not sure how quickly the drug is cleared from the body, but it may still be working, and maybe helped a nice loow blood pressure reading of just 102/47 this morning.

  I am slightly constrained in what I do today because I am expecting a delivery from Amazon today - once again a day earlier than predicted when I ordered the stuff. That is handy because it it had come tomorrow, as originally predicted, it could make going to the pub at lunch time tricky - once in a blue moon I do get an Amazon delivery (by Amazon) in the early afternoon (but 6pm is probably more the average).

  Today's delivery includes the new power brick for the old laptop that I use to serve these web pages. I have also ordered two very cheap, Chinese, spare batteries for my Canon EOS 1200D camera. They come with a USB powered charger (which is effectively free), and I think it may have been the charger that I needed most. After using the camera last Sunday I noticed the light flashing on the charger when I topped the battery up. That usually signifies a bad battery, but I am not so sure. Anyway, from today I will probably have enough batteries (4 of them) to last until the end of my life.

  The final thing in my order was added to make sure I was buying enough for free delivery (without having to sign up for Amazon Prime). It was a bottle of Turmeric, black pepper and ginger tablets. They are alleged to help joint mobility in the elderly. I was taking some I bought from Savers for the last 12 months or more, but they ran out a few weeks ago. I am not sure I noticed the difference, and if there was a difference it might have been negative - making walking harder. Having now done a couple of walks without them I will be careful to keep an eye on things when I start taking those tablets again.

  If I feel I have time I may dash out to Tesco today. There is nothing I need urgently, but tomorrow I won't have time to go to Tesco, and then by then there are a few things it would be good to have in the fridge. I think that provided I am home again before 2pm I should be safe for when my Amazon delivery arrives. I think that rules out going any further, and in this colder weather I am not sure I want to....although it does seem to be slightly bright, and we keep getting short sunny spells. The cloud above us does seem to have more tiny gaps in it than the weather forecasters predicted.