The forecast for today looks very similar to yesterday. The morning temperature may be a single degree higher, but the temperature at midnight may be a single degree cooler, but the afternoon will still only be 8° C. It is quite cloudy as I write this, but the sun was out for 5 or 10 minutes (but has just gone in again). We should get more sunny spells through the day, and even full sunshine just as the sun dips below the horizon. So maybe bright and cheerful looking, but without a bit more warmth, nothing to get excited about. Tomorrow could be a bit worse than today, although it may be a bit less cold at midnight tomorrow.

  I think I can finally say that yesterday was not such a bad day, although I don't think I could bring myself to say it was a good day - maybe a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. It did get off to a good start based on my health indicators, blood glucose, blood pressure, and even weight.

  I started yesterday with a sort of cocktail of instant noodles. I mixed two small packets of medium OK instant noodles, and then with the addition of hot sauce, I ended up with something that tasted quite nice, although maybe not as nice as the most tastiest instant noodles. I could start writing my electronic diary (what you are reading now) with a sort of warm glow inside me, although getting off to an early start was probably the best thing about it.

  After uploading yesterday's writing to my web server I had my usual lie down, and a bit of a rest. It didn't last all that long, and I was probably just finishing a morning shower by 11am - and that is an hour earlier than many occasions. That was handy because I could make it to Tesco and back with plenty of time to spare before the earliest estimated time that APC could deliver my latest beer order (2:47pm).

  It still felt very cold when I went out, and so I wore a winter coat and zipped it up to the top. I still felt cold on my exposed parts. That, and even having to wear a done up coat, rather spoiled my walk to Tesco, but what spoiled it even more as that the walk seemed really hard work. I had to slow down a bit, and I could still feel some slight shortage of breath, and the start of chest pain by the time I got to Tesco.

  I haven't felt that bad just walking to Tesco for ages, and the worst thing is that it seemed to take ages for the bad effects to fade away as I did my shopping. I'm not sure if "odd" is the right word, but it was definitely annoying after all my health readings suggested I was in quite good form yesterday morning. Maybe I shouldn't have bought the heaviest items that I had to lug home. They were four 2l bottles of flavoured, sugar free, Coke. That made my rucksack rather heavy, but curiously, going home was no worse than walking to Tesco.

  I found some good stuff on the reduced price shelf in Tesco, although that were a bit short of bargain reduced prices (as will be shown later). Two of the items were "calorie controlled" ready meals, and another definitely wasn't, although I don't think it is that bad. One thing I didn't buy was any bread or cake based stuff this time. Two things I bought were not very healthy at all, although they did seem to have a moderately low sugar content.
  One was a peppered steak "slice", and 2gm of sugar is not bad, but 478 calories is (and best not to mention the fat content). The other was a chicken and bacon pasty. Maybe the worst thing about that was that I found teh taste very disappointing. If it hadn't mentioned bacon on the label I wouldn't have realised it had any in it (assuming it actually did !). Once again, 2.5gm of sugar is not bad, but 457 calories is, and once again, avert the yes from the fat content !

  I scoffed both these things for my lunch soon after I got home from Tesco. Just to make matters even worse, I had some elevenses, something I very rarely have. It was the other half of the angel cake that was instrumental in raising my blood glucose to dangerous levels a couple of days ago. I would not let it go to waste, and I thought it better to eat it early in the day so there was a better chance of recovering from it this morning.

  I felt really tired after my walk to and from Tesco, and then eating my unhealthy lunch. I almost had to have a lie down after that. I estimated I still had over an hour to go before the earliest delivery time of my new box of beers, and so I didn't try and stop myself when I felt my eyelids drooping. I think I snoozed through most of that hour. After waking up I got on the internet to start tracking my parcel. I found I was stop 43 on the drivers round, and he was currently on stop 40.

  It seemed like my delivery was not far away. By refreshing the page every now and then I could see the driver moving toward stop number 41, but he never seemed to get there. Suddenly I got a message apologising that my delivery had failed - before he had even got here. That was perplexing, and when I went to the redelivery page they could not offer me a delivery before Monday. That was bloody annoying, and I stared to write a complaint/request for an explanation on their web form.
  This is what was sent to me - a picture of a dirty hand, and a map location that is about half a mile way. The important bit is the word "Carded". This implied the driver had pushed a card through my letter box when he couldn't get a response from me. I knew this to be nonsense. Just as I was composing a fuming complaint there was a ring at my doorbell. It was my beer delivery. The driver apologised, and blamed it on thinking he was running an hour late, and could not meet the delivery time. He quickly realised he had read the time wrong, and raced directly here to deliver my box. Phew !

  Once I had inspected my box of beers, and found a bit of room in the fridges to put a few of them in to chill, I had another lie down. I thought I had had a fair nights sleep, and that things like my blood glucose measurements, and blood pressure said I should feel fit and healthy, but I felt far from it for reasons unknown.  My delivery was at just gone 3pm, within the estimated delivery time span. It would soon be 4pm, and then 5pm when I would turn the TV on.

  I don't think I had a snooze because after rest I had another job waiting for me. I forgot to mention that after my shower I had put some laundry in to soak. It was two t-shirts and 4 pairs of underpants. It could have been more, but even then I wanted to try not to tax myself too much because of the way I was feeling even then. It was a bit of struggle to get back to that washing. I would much have preferred to stay lazing on my bed, quietly reading.

  I'm not sure what time it was when I got back to that washing, but I know I had to stop when everything was in the last rinse water because it was time for Star Trek: The Original Series, and I wanted to watch it....although I am not sure why because all those old episodes have been repeated to the point of almost being meaningless. I did finish my washing, and hanging it up to dry during two commercial breaks.
  During the last commercial break I put the first half of my dinner in the microwave so I could eat it while watching the BBC 6 O'clock news. It was, as pictured above, a calorie controlled Cod Mornay, Mash and peas ready meal. 308 calories was not bad, although I thought that 6.5gm of sugar was a bit high. I also thought it was a very stingy price reduction. Another thing about this (and another calorie controlled meal I bought, was that In have no idea where to find them in store if they are not on the reduced price shelf.

  It was a fairly tasty meal, but as usual the picture on the front of the pack is quite misleading. I think that even if I had heated it in the oven the top of the cod would still not look all golden brown. The cod was swimming too deep in the white sauce for that. The other thing is that the amount of cod swimming in that deep sauce was far smaller than the picture looks like it might be. A typical piece of cod from a chip shop, could, before battering, be cut into at least 5 pieces, possibly 6, as big as the cod in my ready meal.

  It is a shame that I felt that ready meal to be little more than a snack, and I still wanted more after I ate it. My only option was a dessert, but a mostly safe dessert. I had an unripe pear, a Golden Delicious apple, two very small "easy peeler" oranges, and small chunk of cheese. That seemed to satisfy me, and I had no more until breakfast this morning.

  As seems normal now, even if sometimes I feel I could use my time better, I watched the usual evening TV. The last thing was The Prisoner on the "Rewind" channel. As I suspected it was the very final episode of the series, and it was just as mind boggling as the last time I watched it. I guess it was riveting viewing as you tried to make some sort of sense of it. I guess to the more educated, and aware mind, it was all allegory about the state of the world, the state of politics, and the state of the state ! My mind is not so finely tuned that I got it all, but maybe I didn't do so bad to get some of it, and I have to remember that some of the references to that script date back to the late 1960s - a time when I was hardly aware of politics and stuff.

  The Prisoner finished at 9pm, and I went straight to bed, but as usual, only to read for a while. Before actually getting in bed I ate a couple of Rennies antacid tablets - mainly as a precaution because I had some hints of indigestion despite fruit being generally safe. When I put the book down, and turned out the light, I did get a slight hint of discomfort when I turned over, but it came to nothing, and I can report I had a mostly good sleep.

  I say mostly because I was still waking every 2 or 3 hours to go for a pee, but that seems normal for me these days. What did seem not normal was leaving my nice warm bedroom, and going to the freezing cold bathroom, and not feeling any bad effects from the cold. It obviously still felt cold, but there was not feeling of the skin tightening, my arteries constricting, and angina like pains. I think on most occasions I was fast asleep a few minutes after getting back into bed.

  I know I didn't have a dreamless night. I think I had many dreams, but the best I can remember is like some foggy images that seem meaningless now, and not a single word of dialogue or description. That is a shame because I have a feeling I had one very interesting dream that would be worth describing, but I can't even remember where it was set, or who might have been in it.

  This morning was another morning where when I woke at around 6am it seemed to feel too early to get up. After a pee I went back to bed, and didn't really think I would fall asleep again. An hour later I seemed to almost leap out of bed because I felt so awake ! Of course that was shear nonsense...I think. As I write this I can't quite work out how I feel or how I should feel.

  In one respect I should feel good. After my first proper morning pee, and a small poo, I weighed myself. It seems that despite the high calorie lunch of the peppered steak slice, and the chicken and bacon pasty, I seem to have lost a rather good and useful 800gm. If, and it is a very big IF, I can somehow keep this up, I could be back to where I got to several or more weeks ago when I was doing really well.

  My blood glucose was very good, although maybe just shy of excellent, this morning. The Contour meter read 7.6mmol/l, and that is just over my self set target of 7.5mmol/l. On this occasion the GlucoRX meter agreed with that reading. Of course the Sinocare meter had it's own ideas, but it's reading of 8.1mmol/l is still fairly good, and there have been plenty of time this month, and even more so much of last month, when I would have been more than happy to get a reading that low. By the way, my blood pressure is again nice and low this morning, 105/44.

  Today is another day when I don't really have a clue what I am going to do.....well maybe that is not quite right. I do have an idea of a few things I would like to do, or be able to do. In an ideal world I would go for a walk today. The sunny spells are likely to occur now and then for much of the day, and when the sun is out it would be good for photography. The downside is that 8° C is not exactly warm, and with there being a strong breeze from the north to add extra chill, it is not nice outdoors. The weather forecast says the 7° C forecast for midday will feel like 4° C, and at 2pm when we reach the peak of 8° C it will still only feel like 5° C.

  I may still go out to visit Poundstretcher, and I might go in Savers as well, but there is nothing I really need in either shop (but I expect I would find stuff to buy in each). It would really only be to stretch my legs if I really felt the need to. One other thing I could do today is to wash two small hand towels. Compared to a heavier small bath towel it would be a relatively easy job, and useful too, but they would both need never ending rinsing, and I would need to feel in the right mood to start that job.

P.S. I expect I have done some terrible typing today. I have only very lightly skimmed over all I have written and corrected a few spelling errors, words only half written. I would not be surprised if there are words omitted or even words in the wrong order. It has gone 11am, and I can't be bothered to go over all 2,717 words with a fine toothed comb.