It is a grey morning, but the road looks dry outside, and so there couldn't have been much rain during the night. The whole of today should be dry, and by 11am we should (may) start getting some sunny spells leading up to full sunshine from 4pm until sunset. It should take the temperature up to 14° C by 2pm. Tomorrow will probably start fairly cold at around 6° C, but there should be full sunshine until 10am or 11am, but then it will cloud over. from 2pm they may be black clouds. No rain is actually shown, but the chances of rain at 5pm reach 25%. The afternoon temperature should reach just 13° C. Unless things change, I expected to be out on Wednesday in full sunshine and maybe 16° C - t-shirt weather again, but maybe only for one single day.

  After my very late night, and lack of sleep the previous night, yesterday got off to a very slow start. I had earlier thought I might do stuff around dinner time, but after writing I just laid on my bed and read and snoozed until I had to force myself to do stuff.

  That stuff was to wash my hair and have a shower. With that done I had a single, but large sandwich for lunch, and to line my stuff for the beer drinking that was to come. My memory seems a bit hazy, but I think I had another, but shorter snooze after eating my lunch. I certainly laid on my bed reading for a couple of hours. I think it was 2pm before I needed to go downstairs to make sure everything was ready for some beer tasting.

  One thing I did before Jodie arrived, for the beer tasting, was to prepare and part cook my dinner. It was to be a sort of stew of diced beef, sliced potatoes, and kidney beans. I added the kidney beans later, and at the same time I added some tomato purée and dried chilli flakes. It was a rather more advanced version of some of my more common stews.  A bit later Jodie arrived sooner than expected, and I had to pull on a t-shirt as I went down the stairs to open the door.

  As usual, Jodie was fussing around preparing her lunch. It is strange that she doesn't like "stinky stuff" like garlic, but she still managed to stink my house out with a very smelly soup, and some reheated fried stuff that made the place smell like a chip shop - but worse. It seemed to take ages, but possibly actually only 15 minutes before we open the first can. It was a weak, 2.5%, IPA.

  That IPA has a strange sort of taste. It was a bit musty, and a sort of Weetabix taste, but it did seem to slip down very easily. Later we would share cans of much stronger stuff, and mostly the sort of weird beers that Jodie likes - often quite sour, but with pronounced tart fruit tastes, or tastes of other food including pastries, and in one case, a lemon Solero ice lolly.  There are some weird brewers out there. Sometimes they come up with something I like, but usually I don't like most of the weird flavours.

  At about 6:20pm Jodie left to get her train, and I dug into my dinner. I must admit that it was big enough to serve two, although maybe only with a few supporting things...maybe a dessert of plum pudding and custard. I didn't have any pudding, and so I bravely, and stupidly ate the whole of the stew. I have to say it was rather delicious. It is the first stew in probably years, maybe even decades, that I have added potato too. Usually I would ass nothing more than some green vegetables to the stew. What I ate was not healthy for me, and I regret it now.

   I was quite looking forward to my bed last night, but I stayed up until 9pm so I could record two new episodes of The Simpsons. I also thought it would be good to let some of my dinner settle down before getting in bed, and turning over on to my side. Once I was in bed, and turned over I got a hint of heartburn, but it seemed a couple of Gaviscon tablets settled it enough to get to sleep for an hour.

  It was an hour or two later that I woke up again. Maybe it was for a pee, and I did need one, but upon waking I realised my chest was hurting again, and this time antacid tablets seemed to give much less relief. Once again it was a couple of Ibuprofen tablets that did the trick, but not before I had wasted/missed another hour or two of sleep. I seemed to sleep OK after that, or almost OK....

  I was still waking up about every two hours for a pee. I think it was at 4am I woke up convinced it was time to get up. It didn't take long to realise the error of my ways, but it did seem to take a long time to get back to sleep after going for a pee. It was possibly only 15 minutes, but for a while it felt like an eternity. When I woke up at just gone 6am it felt like it was definitely time to get up, but once again it was probably too early. Since then I have almost fallen asleep at the keyboard a couple of times.

  As usual I had the first pee of the waking day, but again I felt like I should poo, but I only farted. I seem to be constipated again, and this morning it actually feels a bit uncomfortable (I hardly noticed it yesterday). I did have a small poo yesterday morning, but I knew it was not enough. This morning I have had more weight gain, and while I can blame some of it on excess eating, I feel sure it is also partly the result of constipation. I think I will take some laxatives now, instead of the evening.

  The other effect of my over eating, and particularly including the potatoes in the stew, was raised blood glucose this morning, although some of the sweet beers I had would also have accounted for some of the rise. The Contour meter read 9.1mmol/l. Although that is still under the red line (10.0mmol/l) it can cause some problems. Oddly enough, the Sinocare meter agreed with the Contour meter this time, also with a reading of 9.1mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter gave a reading of 8.7mmol/l. If one of the other meters also gave a reading below 9.0 I would not really take much action about it today.

  I have started off with a smaller breakfast than normal. I would skip it entirely, but I still feel the need to eat enough to stop the cod live oil capsule I took this morning from causing nasty fish burps. I think there is only a 50% chance I'll manage it, but Ideally I would now be fasting until dinner time. If I give in I think I may have a small can of sardines on a single slice of toast. For dinner I have a very small, so called "Calorie Controlled" ready meal that I ave to use regardless before it is too far past it's use by date.

  After finishing that last paragraph I went and got a couple of laxative tablets, took them, and then went for a pee. While in the toilet I found I was no longer technically constipated. It seem far less than expected, and I rather expect that now "the seal is broken" there will be more to come. I can only imagine that the laxative tablets are going to make tonight's dinner whoosh through my system like a whirling dervish....or something !

  I am unsure what I am going to do today - except for one thing. Once I have finished this writing, and uploaded it to my web server, I will have a rest/lie down as usual, and I feel very sure I will be having a snooze, and possibly a long one. Later today it is possible the terribly gloomy weather might turn bright. If so I might see if I can convince myself to do at least a walk to Ladywell and back. I might even try to break last times record of 1.4mph. On the other hand I seem to be susceptible to angina again recently, and if I do manage the round trip to Ladywell it could be at an all time slower speed !