The forecast promises that today will be the warmest day of the year so far. It may have started at 8° C, but the sky is blue, and the sun is shining. It should get the temperature up to 21° C this afternoon. Tomorrow may be very similar, except only 20° C is forecast, but that is still nice and warm. At 11pm there could be the first hint that the weather is changing for the worse. Drizzle is expected.

   Yesterday was quite a good day, not perfect, but pleasant enough. It was certainly good enough to make today start off as a bit of a disaster, and the reasons for that mostly revolve around booze ! The alcohol itself did little harm, but it did induce me to make some unwise decisions.

  Yesterday started off very dull compared with recent days, and that didn't enthuse me to do anything like going out for some light exercise, although what I did could be called light exercise, but I am never sure if shopping qualifies as actual exercise. After writing yesterday's 2,237 words, having a rest, and then a shower, I headed out to do some shopping in Tesco.

  I thought that it should be OK to go out without a coat, and it almost was, but with no sunshine, except for a few minutes on the way home, it was rather chilly. The walk to Tesco seemed OK, and I think I kept up a fair pace, although to be honest I don't really remember it. If I had walked a lot slower, or a lot faster I would have something to remember. That suggests I walked at "a reasonable pace"....probably.

  The main things I wanted from Tesco were not food items. As usual I wanted bottles of Diet Coke, and I don't think they count as food. The most non food item was a couple of cheap hand towels - 2 for £4 if I recall correctly. I wanted them for one special reason. I sleep with a towel on my pillows to soak up any sweat in the night. My last towel had been in use for several months or more, and I concluded only a boil wash, which I can't do, would ever get the grease out of it. It is my intention to wash the new towels once a week, but the best of intentions don't always last long.

  I did buy some food items. The included a pack of 4 "ripen at home" nectarines. They seem hard as nails and will probably need a week of ripening before eating. I also bought a pack of two bits of haddock in a crunchy coating from the reduced price shelf. The final thing of note was a 4 pack of Ciabatta rolls. I now wonder why I didn't discover them maybe years ago because they seem so light and delicious.

  My walk home, carrying heavy shopping, was not so nice except for a minute or two when the sun burst through the clouds. For that minute or two I felt warm, and the walk was briefly pleasant. I didn't seem too tired when I got home, and put my shopping away. I then had lunch. It was nothing I had just bought from Tesco, but two chicken tikka flavour samosas that I had bought from Aldi a few days earlier. They were, once again, delicious, and all the grease in them should have been a good stomach line for when I started drinking.

  I think I may have also had a couple of small (25gm) packets of Marmite flavour crisps as well before drinking. With hindsight it was almost as if the thought of booze was making me feel hungry. I was surprised by Jodie on two counts yesterday. The first was that she was here quite early, at 3pm. The second was that she seemed quite enthusiastic about opening a couple of very strong beers.

  It is often the case that she is still recovering from the previous night, and so shuns some of the very strong beers in the fridge, but not this time. I think we had two beers that were in the region of 12%. They were "pastry stouts", and were dark, rich and sweet. The latter was not good for me. It was worse for me that Jodie didn't share the beer out equally. I think she poured a third for herself, and I had to drink the other two thirds.

  Michael couldn't make it yesterday for reasons unexplained. I thought that maybe we would be finishing early without Michael (who often joins us later in the session), but Jodie would be going to meet Alan at Clockhouse, but there was trouble on his local trains (or maybe buses), and wasn't expected to get to The Three Hounds beer café, round the corner from Clockhouse station until gone 7pm. I continues to drink with Jodie, and a few of the beers were around 6%, and so quite strong.

  I didn't feel very drunk when Jodie finally left, but I had lost all common sense and discipline. My dinner was to be the haddock in crunchy batter I had bought earlier (with a small tin of peas), but while that cooked I had a starter of "Indian style" salad. Like the Korean style salad I had had the day before, it seemed pleasant, but I didn't feel the urge to buy another (although I may).

  My dinner was cooked soon after I had eaten the salad. I must admit that the haddock and peas was not s good as hoped. Although I am not really sure what I was expecting of it. Like the salad earlier, it was merely "pleasant". By then I had eaten plenty, but I couldn't resist a dessert of 5 or 6 sugar free choc chip cookies. Maybe they were the straw that broke the camels back !

  After a bit of TV, I was in bed reading by 9pm. I would read for about half an hour, and during that time I could feel my guts starting to churn away. It was not the acid indigestion I tend to suffer from more often than I like, although there was a touch of it. A lot of it was wind - from both ends ! I think I did manage to get to sleep, but maybe less than an hour later I woke up feeling awful. I was expecting that strange sensation that lets you know that sooner or later you will vomit, but I never got it.

  Although unpleasant, it may have been a lot better if I had thrown up. I just felt uncomfortable for hours, and spent a lot of time not in bed, but sitting at my computer. I relieved some pressure with a lot of vile smelling farts, and whether that was enough, or whether it was just pure exhaustion, I did manage to start sleeping again around 2am this morning. I guess I slept OK then, although I was still waking every 2 hours, or maybe sometimes less, to have a pee.

  What would have been better was a good poo, but until after getting up, I just carried on with vile farts. Through all that I did manage to have a dream, and actually remembered some of it. It started off with me in a telephone exchange. I think I may have been working late, and was feeling tired. For such occasions (but only in my dream world) there was a quiet room with a few very basic beds. The beds had a PVC mattress, and so could be wiped clean easily, and there were clean towels to put on the pillows. They were meant for sleeping on in work clothes.

  I could not seem to get some sleep, and decided I would call it a day and go home. As I was about to leave, the one engineer still on duty asked my to try not to wake him up when I came back, I said no worries because I had a full set of keys, and could let myself in without disturbing him. I seemed to leave by a side entrance, that lead on to a short path that went straight on the local railway station platforms. When I got there I fond all the trains had stopped running, and the only clue why was some flashing blue lights some distance down the road.

  I don't think that dream went any further, and the next thing of note was waking up soon after 6am. That seemed far too early after getting to sleep only about 4 hours earlier. I had to get up for a pee, and before I went back to bed I refreshed the Met Office and BBC weather forecasts so I could take screenshots of them when I got up properly - ideally several hours later. I did get back to sleep, but it seemed very light sleep, and it was not long after 7am that I got up.

  Very soon the awful truth was revealed. I seemed to have put on 1.4kg of weight, and I couldn't seem to do a poo even though my guts were audibly churning. It was probably about 15 minutes after getting up that I went back to the toilet, and did a rather large poo.....but it still didn't feel like it was enough. Over the next hour I did have another couple of small poos, and I also peed a bit more. That dropped my weight enough to say I had only put on 800gm since yesterday.

  I have skipped breakfast, and so I will weigh myself after any decent poo or pee in the next hour or so, and amend my records accordingly - hopefully in a good direction. That still leaves the terrible state of my blood glucose, It is definitely in the danger zone, and it is probably those thick and sweet "pastry stouts" that carry most of the blame. This morning I left the cod liver oil capsule out of my morning dose of meds and vitamins, and so I can skip breakfast and don't have to worry about burping up cod liver oil.

  This morning the Contour meter read a really terrible 10.4mmol/l - well into the danger zone. The GlucoRX meter was not so bad, but 9.4mmol/l is bad enough. The Sinocare meter read higher, but this time it was between the other two with a reading of 9.9mmol/l - which may not have crossed the red line, but is still very, very bad. I think I may be fasting until dinner time tonight inn the hope I can get back to good or safe readings tomorrow morning.

  The only good news this morning is my blood pressure. It was 104/45 just now, and that is surprisingly very good. Surprising mainly because I do not feel good. My guts still feel volatile, although it does seem I have stopped the vile smelling farting now. In an ideal world I would be out in the very warm weather this afternoon, but I will not do that unless I can be very sure my guts have settled down completely. I guess they have a few more hours yet before I have ton make a decision.

  If I do go out I was contemplating taking a walk around the South Norwood Country Park (or the old sewage farm as we knew it in the 1970s). I think I have only visited it once, and it deserves another visit, although an early morning visit would probably be better to try and get some pictures of some of the bird life there. It is too late to go there in the morning, and I have doubts I will make an afternoon visit.

  I have just made a fairly unproductive visit to the the toilet. I used the time to think up a plan of action for today. Once I have finished writing this I shall lay on my bed reading, and hopefully snoozing too. I have a lot of lost sleep to make up. At midday (very approximately) I shall check my blood glucose readings again. If they have dropped to a more sane level I might have something light and sugar free to eat. As well as all the other commotion going on, my stomach is now growling because of hunger.

  This afternoon, instead of going out to take advantage of the warm sunshine, I have some clothes to wash that I can dry in the sunshine on the washing line. I may possibly go out, but only to Poundstretcher, or maybe Poundland, to principally buy some bleach because the various scented toilet gels I have don't seem to work on "stubborn under stains" (as they used to say for a well know, but now forgotten, detergent).