The sky looks very grey as I write this, and the possibility of sunny spells seems a bit remote at the moment. Maybe that grey cloud will thin out later, and we will get the promised sunny spells, plus the full sunshine from 5pm. The temperature forecast is usually right, and so we can look forward to a warm 17° C this afternoon. The Met Office forecast does say the first sign of the sun could be at 9am, but that is just 8 minutes time as I write this, and it still doesn't seem likely. Things will hopefully change for the better tomorrow. Clear skies in the night mean tomorrow could start as low as 8° C, but full sunshine should warm the day up to a slightly hot 20° C. The main let down is that the peak will occur after the full sunshine gives way to sunny spells.

   Yesterday could probably be summed up by the words "I couldn't be bothered" ! I don't really know why I was thinking like that. It was such a negative feeling that had negative effects on my health, although having said that, I did have some control over my eating.

  Yesterday started fairly normally - I spent just over a couple of hours writing yesterday's electronic diary (2,569 words), and then had a well deserved rest (in my biassed opinion). I then had a shower, but couldn't be bothered to wash my hair or shave. One other thing I did do was to put some laundry in to soak. I was very surprised at how many pairs of underpants had accumulated in my washing bag. I think it was something like 10 pairs that I put into soak.

  I got myself dressed to go out in my newly bought, wide fitting, trainers. Once again, they seemed almost, but not quite fully comfortable when I put them on. I suppose like all new shoes they felt hard. I hope the canvas will soften up and they start to fit like a comfortable glove. I had done all the above a bit slowly because I was waiting for the day to warm up a bit, and it did. I went out into glorious (and blinding) sunshine.

   My destination was Catford Bridge station, with plenty of options to go further if I was feeling good. I almost made it to the station before a big cloud covered the sun, and that displeased me. In fact it spoiled any positive feelings I had. I grabbed a copy of The Metro, but didn't touch in with my Freedom Pass because I could not imagine going anywhere. I hung around long enough to see three train services to arrive at the station, and one train go through non stop.
  Of course I took pictures of every train I saw, but I was not happy with most of the pictures, but fortunately there wasn't a single train that I needed for my collection. I was using my little Nikon P500 "bridge" camera (bridging the gap between pocket sized snappers and full DSLR cameras). It usually produced excellent picture, but not this time. I thought I should use it on full manual settings, and set it up in bright sunshine, but most of the time it was quite dim.

  The reason for manual settings was so I could nake sure I was using a very fast shutter speed to avoid motion blur on moving trains. Thinking back, when that camera has taken brilliant pictures, I have just left it set to "Auto" and let it do the work for me. I should probably have trusted it to use sensible settings yesterday too. The picture above, or 707025 is probably the best I took, but it shows it was taken under dim light - even though the sun was just peeping out between the clouds at the time. It had gone in again when the train was actually pulled up in the station.

  The one good thing I did was to remember to pause the tracker on my mobile phone while I hung around on the platform at the station. That means I may have actually walked another hundred feet while on the station, but the tracker results are probably more accurate. It seems to the station and back I walked 0.664 miles, and I managed an average speed of 2.315mph, and that was probably a bit quicker than expected.

  I was hoping my new trainers would be wonderful, and I think I still have faith that they may still be one day. Yesterday they were not comfortable, but they didn't hurt. Hurting would have been the result of rubbing or pinching. In that respect they were fine. They still felt uncomfortable, and I am hoping it is just that they are very stiff, and will need some breaking in. If I can convert the stiff, like over starched, canvas can soften up then I will have a good pair of trainers.

  I don't think I saw any sunshine when walking home, and that depressed me. It also depressed me that I had to find enough will power to not have any lunch as I would normally do. The reason was that I had to control my eating to reduce my weight and blood glucose - if I could. I did have some partial success, but it could have been far better if I had found better self control later in the afternoon.

  It took me some time before I felt ready to go back to the washing I had left soaking in detergent. One problem, and one that would reoccur at least once, was that it was so easy to get engrossed in reading about the genesis of the two Mars pathfinder rovers, Spirit and Curiosity. The book is written in a nice easy to read way, but still with some technical details for the curious (like me). I read half a dozen pages before getting back to my laundry.

  I started off by wringing out the detergent, and then going thorough 3 lots of rinse and wring....except I didn't do that last wringing out. I think that was when peak "I can't be bothered" occurred. I just wanted to go back to the book and read more, and I did, with the idea I would be back to wring out the last rinse water, treat the laundry with fabric conditioner, wring that out, and hang it all up to dry.

  The hang it up to dry was another negative feeling. I had hoped I would be able to hang it on the washing line quite early in the afternoon, and it would be sun dried in hot sunshine. No such luck, and I knew that when I decided to finish the job a little bit later. As I write this, that laundry is still sitting in the now freezing cold rinse water. It will have to be my first priority this morning - after finishing writing this, and having a rest.

  I think I was feeling quite depressed at this time, and I didn't go back to my book. It was probably getting on for 4pm, and I really wanted something to eat - it was to be comfort food, or just the sort of thing I should not have been eating. I think I possibly had nearly two scoops worth of plain vanilla ice cream. It was enjoyable up to a point, but spoiled by the feeling of guilt. A bit later I had the sort of thing I should have had - rice crackers with fairly thin sliced cheese.

  At 5pm I started watching an episode of Star Trek from the original series. It was an episode I knew so well that I had no problem of keeping track of it by sound only while trying to do the crossword in The Metro I had fetched from the station. Maybe I was not concentrating enough because I was struggling to solve enough clues to even do half the quick crossword. The odd thing is that I almost solved more clues in the cryptic crossword.

  I think if I had had the patience to block all outside distractions, and if I was in a better mood, I might have got close to solving that cryptic crossword. One trouble was that as 6pm approached my thoughts turned to dinner. There was only a choice of two things in the fridge, and both needed to be used sooner or later. I opted for the Lamb Kheema. I remembered that the last one I had was very nice, but I thought it would be better with some rice.

  This time I got a packet of "microwave in the packet" "tikka flavoured" rice, and heating that gave a bit more time for the lamb kheema to cool down a bit. The two combined was probably terrible for my blood glucose (at a time when there was no room for any slack), but it was very nice. The odd thing is that I expected it to be very filling, but wasn't. Maybe I should have used the whole pack of rice instead of only half.

  I had dinner ready to eat just in time to watch the BBC 6 O'clock news. I wish there was an alternative to the news because it does piss me off. Even watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine could be less annoying that some of the news. One huge annoyance is that sometimes half the national news is repeated on the local news if it has some vague relevance to London. The news was followed by Star Trek: Voyager, and the prospect of that made me feel peckish.

  My choice for a snack was almost safe, but I had more than was ideal, and there was another possible problem. It was basically thine sliced corned beef on rice crackers. The mistake may have been the horseradish sauce. I did use it a bit liberally, and I have no idea of it's sugar content. It was the last thing I ate yesterday. I am fairly sure that the ultimate problem was too many almost safe things adding up to a lot of not safe at all.

  I noticed a brand new, up to date, edition of Have I Got News For You on BBC1 last night at 9pm, and decided I would stay up to watch it. Without all the adverts and assorted crap that the cheap satellite channels use to pad it out to a full hour, the original only lasts half an hour. That gave me the opportunity to go to the Dave channel when it finished, and watch the second half of an old edition of QI.

  At 10pm I headed for bed feeling very tired considering I had done so little during the day. I still read for maybe half an hour before turning out the light, and seemingly falling asleep in mere seconds. When I woke up at about 1pm for a pee I felt very disorientated. It was like I had merely blinked and suddenly found it was dark, and I had been asleep in bed. It seemed I was waking up closer to every 3 hours for a pee last night instead of every 2 hours, but in consequence I was doing a bigger pee.

  I remember having dreams in then latter part of the night, but all I can remember seems exceptionally bland. I didn't seem to be in any particular place, and didn't seem to be doing anything. I guess it was a reflection of my day. Maybe more happened, but I just can't remember any of it. I can't even remember if I enjoyed any of the dreams I may have had. It all seems very bland, boring and pointless.

  In a way it felt good to finally get up, but I was not looking forward to seeing how my weight and blood glucose fared this morning. When I first got up I only had a pee, and it didn't seem all that big. After checking my blood glucose I went back to the toilet, and had another small pee, and I also had a poo. When I got back on the scales I found I weighed exactly the same as yesterday. It could have been worse, but no weight loss at all was slightly depressing even if not really expected.

  There was a very small improvement in my blood glucose readings, although not obviously. The Contour meter read 9.3mmol/l, and that is rather higher than ideal, but still almost safe (but not for extended periods). The GlucoRX meter read 8.7mmol/l, and that is almost OK. The Sinocare meter read the same as the Contour meter, 9.3mmol/l. Yesterday the average of all three was 9.37mmol/l. This morning it was 9.10mmol/l - a very small improvement, but must try harder (as the school reports used to say in some subjects).

  I usually take a blood pressure reading about mid evening, but I forgot to do it until shortly before I went to bed. It gave a very low reading of 99/47. That was using my wrist blood pressure meter. Out of curiosity I decided I would see what my upper arm meter would say. I rarely use it because it is a lot of faffing around getting on my right arm. It has to be my right arm because like most meters now the cuff has a plastic balloon in it, and unlike the older rubber balloons, it doesn't mould itself to the odd contours of my left upper arm.

  On the right arm I forst got quite a high reading. I knew that was because there was a lot of faffing around to get the meter out from under a pile of jeans and other stuff, and then there was the faffing around getting it wrapped around my arm. I waited a few minutes before trying it again. The best I could do was to get the systolic pressure down to 124mmHg - rather higher than the 99mmHg of the wrist meter. This morning the wrist meter says 103/46. Maybe that is not accurate, but it's good enough for me.

  Obviously, the first thing I have to do this morning, once I have finished this writing, and had my usual rest, is to finish yesterday's laundry, and hang it up to dry. I think I will probably dry it indoors. At just gone 10:30am the sun has still not broken through the clouds, but I have to admit it is now trying. It looks brighter outside now, although there is still not enough sunshine to cast a shadow.

  The big question is what to do after that. I was definitely going to go shopping either in Iceland or Tesco. It depends on if I see a staffed checkout in Iceland when I peer through the window. It is not essential to get more food today, although there are things I will run out of before the day is over. I am wondering if I can raise the enthusiasm to walk to Ladywell and back for exercise, and to see if I can make it reasonably comfortable in my new trainers. In an ideal world I would go shopping, and then go walking, but I don't think it has happened before...well not in the last 5 or 6 years.