Today is forecast to be the last of the recent string of warm sunny days. The day has started at 8 or 9° C, with bright sunshine from a partly clear sky. There is a lot of thin cloud visible at the moment, but it has not stopped the bright sunshine. That cloud should fade way, and this afternoon should feature strong sunshine that will take the temperature back up to 21° C. After sunset the cloud will be back, and it will thicken enough for some light rain from 11pm. The rain may not finish until 4am this morning, but most of tomorrow should be dry. Sunshine will be in short supply, and only about half the daylight hours will feature sunny spells. The temperature should still climb to 16° C, and that should feel fairly OK.

   Yesterday was quite a successful day for the most important thing, but it was a shame to not go out and frolic in the hot sunshine. Explanations for all these things will be forthcoming, further down the page. Mention will also be made of some things that were less successful.

  The problem yesterday morning was the atrocious state of my health - high blood glucose and a big weight gain. Fortunately the main cause of these things, booze, did not seem to leave a typical hangover yesterday morning. What i did feel was very tired after a night without enough sleep. I was very happy to finish writing yesterday, and to be able to lay on my bed reading, and trying for the longest snooze I could manage.

  I feel sure I did snooze, and maybe I even had a few short snoozes, but I can't really recall any more than a few times when I closed my eyes, and it seemed like nothing happened, but maybe the clock might have jumped forward. I suppose what I don't remember is any time passing.

  I can almost fast forward to midday, but before I get there I have to mention that I did make quite a few visits to the toilet. One time I did a semi large poo, and the other times maybe a little bit of poo, but usually a fair bit of pee every time. At midday I did two things. I weighed myself again, and I was pleased that I had managed to lose over half my apparent weight gain. I did have a suspicion a lot of it was water retention - either that or my kidneys were taking a very long time to process it. That would not explain two quite large pees within an hour of each other.

  The other thing I did was to check my blood glucose readings again. First thing in the morning, one was definitely in the danger zone, and the other two were not far off it. I only used two meters at midday, and I was very pleased at how half a day of fasting had brought my blood glucose level down from "disaster" to "actually quite good". The Contour meter read a fairly good 8.1mmol/l, and the GlucoRX meter was not far behind with a reading of 8.3mmol/l.

  I though those readings were low enough to break my fast, and I made up a double portion bowl of those Kimchi flavour instant noodles that say their sugar content is zero. In a perfect world they would be all I ate until dinner time. Even though my blood glucose was about normal/typical I was still peeing in the afternoon. Not a great deal, but it would have been annoying if I had gone out for a walk in the sunshine.  I must admit I didn't really expect it, or the one small poo I also did quite early in the afternoon.

    With hindsight I am happy I did not attempt to go out for a walk - particularly one a long way from home. Although I didn't get to spend any significant time soaking up the warm sunshine, I did take advantage of it. One part of my reason for not going out was that it seemed to be great drying weather for laundry on the washing line. I think it was just before midday when I put some clothes in to soak in detergent.

  It was probably gone 2pm when I got back to those clothes. I had found it hard to raise the enthusiasm to get back to them, but there may also have been a subcoscious thought that the best sunshine on the washing line would not be until later in the afternoon. As the days pass the sun is getting higher in the sky, but the roof still blocks a lot of the sunshine until later in the afternoon.

  It seemed like I had put a lot of clothes in the wash, but it was only one t-shirt, one pair of lounge pants, but 5 pairs of underpants. the latter made it seem a lot, and yet didn't take much wringing out. I very nearly split the job in two, but then I came to my senses - I realised I was probably more bored than running out of energy. I persevered, and after the usual three rinses, and then fabric conditioner, I had the stuff on the washing line.

  Only the t-shirt and lounge pants being neared the sunny end of the garden, were initially in sunshine (although maybe not the very bottom of the lounge pants). During the next hour or two the sun gradually inched along the line until the last pair of underpants was drying in the sunshine. I left it drying until just before 6pm. By then the sun was low enough in the sky that the shadow of the rooftops to the west had crept higher and higher, and none of the clothes were in sunshine.

  After I had hung out the washing I fancied a snack. With hindsight it was probably not a good idea, but I enjoyed some paté with rice crackers. A bit later I had two small packets of Marmite crisps. I did have a very weak excuse for eating them - I had them to stop, or at least make less apparent, any fishy burps after I had my late afternoon pills that included a cod liver oil capsule. I guess most time they don't repeat, but when they do those fishy burps are horrible.

  Just before I watched the BBC 6 O'clock news I did two things. the first was to bring my washing in. A lot of it was warm and dry, but at the bottom (as hung on the line) of the lounge pants I could feel the elastic waist band was almost wet. The rear of the underpants at the least sunny end of the line were still a bit damp. I hung the three damp items on the clothes horse to dry, and I didn't think they needed a fan on them. They should be bone dry this morning.
  One of the "fruits" of my desire for some meaty stuff when shopping inn Aldi earlier in the week, was this Beef Hot Pot ready meal. The sugar content seemed quite high for an oversized snack, but they though it was low enough to be coloured green, As can be seen, the salt and saturated fats were marked in red ! I guess it was all crap, but it was quite tasty crap ! What I possibly regret more was the desert I had of an apple, an orange, and a nectarine. The latter two were a bit tart, but also sort of sweet.
  At 8pm last night I stepped outside to get a shot of the almost full moon. Maybe the full moon was the night before, or maybe it is tonight, or maybe I was only a few hours too early or late. The sky was still visibly dark blue when I took the picture, but the moon is deceptively bright, and I had to reduce the exposure a lot to stop the moon looking an over exposed blob. That made the sky look black.

  Last night was one of those nights when all of a sudden, there seemed to be a lot of possible TV entertainment on. I watched (or admittedly, part watched in between doing other stuff) several episodes of The Simpsons. That kept me up long enough to watch Have I Got News For You on BBC1. With no padding from adverts, and promotions for other crap programmes, it only lasted half an hour, instead of the usual full hour allocated for the old episodes repeated on Dave.

  After that finished I was able to turn over and catch the second half hour of QI on Dave (fortunately hosted by Stephen Fry). That finished at 10pm and I went straight to bed. After the last sleep the previous night, I should have probably gone to bed earlier. I probably shouldn't have tried to read in bed, but one the other hand, the PhilipK. Dick short story I was reading was so dull that it relaxed me enough to fall asleep minutes after putting the book down, and turning out the light.

  Getting up to pee every two or three hours is so much a part of my nights now that it just seems normal, and can be ignored. That makes it that I pretty good sleep last night. I can only remember a tiny few facts about just one dream. It was slightly odd in that it was setting in a sort of mix of the school science labs, plus all three main places I worked in through my life. It did seem to feature TV, but as a sort of consumer item.

    I did remember being intrigued by one TV that was controlled by something like an iPad, but was actually more like a Windows phone or pad. The touch screen was divided up in a 4 x 3 grid, and each segment showed what was happening on a channel. The display could be swiped left and right (and up and down ?) to show more programmes, and a long touch would change the big TV to that channel. It is curious that I don't think I have ever seen a commercial version of what seemed like a good idea.

  This morning I had to make two visits to the toilet before I recorded my weight (maybe only half the time can I do a poo straight after getting up - if I can do one at all !). This was all before breakfast, and so I count it as my definitive weird. It seems that this morning my weight is not only back to normal again, but another 200gm less (or about 1.4kg lighter than when I got out of bed yesterday, but most of that was shed before midday). Some mild exercise, and moderately careful eating, should see my weight drop ton the next whole kilogram down.

  My blood glucose was back on track this morning, although as noted above, my dinner plus dessert, may not have been a good choice for lower readings. The Contour meter read 8.7mmol/l. I could describe that as just about safely high. The GlucoRX meter read the same 8.7mmol/l. In a case of unusual solidarity, the Sinocare meter read just a little higher at 8.9mmol/l. That is uncomfortably close to where I change the background of the figure in my spreadsheet to first warning pink starting at 9.0mmol/l.

  Today I feel I ought to get out into the sunshine in just a short sleeved t-shirt, jeans and shoes, and a camera ! What I think I will do is to jump on a train to Elmers End, and then take a walk around the South Norwood Country Park. I last walked around there on 1st June 2020, and walking around the periphery was just a tad over 2.5 miles. I can think of a few detours that would add a little more, but in my current state 2.5 miles eems quite far enough ! So that is what I think I am doing today. I wonder what I will actually do ?