The forecast has not got off to a good start. We should have had 3 hours of sunny spells since 6am, but the sky is quite grey. There is no way the sun is going to burn through that lot, but hopefully the wind, a bit lighter than yesterday, may blow the cloud away. If we start to get the promised sunny spells then we should also get full sunshine from 2pm...maybe. Even with no sunshine it seems to be 19° C as I write this - almost as forecast. By 3pm it may hit 24° C. Tomorrow may see a mix of sunny spells and sunshine, and that may take the temperature up to 25° C.

  I have no idea how to justify it, but I think I am going to describe yesterday as a good day. Maybe it was an almost absence of anything bad rather than anything particularly good, although there were a few slightly minor good things now and then.

  As mentioned yesterday, the combined effect of the beans, fruit, and laxative tablet I took the night before yesterday, I had quite a lively time visiting the toilet. I seemed to lose track, but I think I probably made about 5 very productive visits to the toilet yesterday morning. It left me feeling a bit tender, and I didn't fancy going out drinking with Kevin. It turned out the Kevin was waiting for a delivery, and if we did go out it would be later in the afternoon than I originally expected.

  I think I had decided at that point that I was feeling a bit tender to go out, and also I was not completely sure that I had finished my visits to the toilet. I did think I could take a chance on going to get some shopping from Tesco, and so I had a shower before getting dressed into outdoor clothes. It was only a short walk, and I decided I would wear the wide fitting trainers I bought before I bought the Adidas trainers.

  The walk to and from Tesco was quite pleasant. my feet felt more comfortable than expected, but my ankles did seem to ache again as I worked against the stiffness of those trainers. There were three basic categories I wanted to get from Tesco. One was a few ready meals, ideally those with a low sugar content. I wanted some bread in the form of Ciabatta rolls, but I also bought some Paninni rolls - a sort of long thin version of the Ciabatta rolls, both with lots of big air bubbles in the dough.

  The other main thing was drink. That mostly meant Diet Coke, and I bought four 2 litre bottles of that. I also spotted the last couple of 12 packs of a Valentines special of cans of sugar free strawberries and cream Pepsi. I bought one 12 pack, and that was quite a weight to lug home. It still seemed semi pleasant to walk home with all that weight, and I don't seem to recall feeling all that bad when I got home.

  Out of all things I might have had for lunch, I only had two of the Pannini rolls I had just bought. I filled them with ham and sliced plum tomato. The latter was among the stuff I had bought from the little supermarket on Catford Bridge on my way home from the pub on Wednesday. I didn't think the ham was all that nice, but overall it was a very nice lunch. I thought I deserved a lie down, and a rest after that.

  One job I had to do was to wash a single t-shirt, a pair of lounge pants, and two pairs of underpants. I had left them all soaking after I had my shower. It was quite late before I got back to it, and then I only got as far as the second rinse before stopping work because I needed to use the toilet. It was only a pee, but I thought it might be more, but I guess I was very empty by then (not counting breakfast and lunch).

  I should have gone straight back to the laundry, but it was gone 4pm by then, and I fancied some sort of snack. The only trouble is that I can't remember what it was. I am very sure I had something though. Ahhhh, it's coming back to me. It was some sugar free "fibre biscuits" served with a now chilled strawberries and cream flavour diet Pepsi. They went well together. The strawberries and cream flavour was not strong, and I think that made it better, but maybe stronger would have helped cover the taste that I don't really like of Diet Pepsi.

  It was not long before dinner time, and I had a treat for dinner. It was something found on the reduced price shelf in Tesco the previous time I shopped in there, and was well overdue to be eaten. It was a Keema - a curry of minced lamb, peas and cubed potato - and they are extremely nice. I am unsure about the nutritional values, but it is quite a small meal, and that must help. I had fruit for dessert, and even though I know soft fruit, such as the flat peach, and the apricot contain a lot of sugar, I had them anyway. I also had a large Conference pear. I think it was the fruit that left a legacy for this morning.

  I watched less TV than usual last night, although the TV was on almost as much - I just was not always paying attention to it. Sometimes I was reading my current book "Last Man On The Moon" by Eugene Cernan, and Donald A. Davis. For a book that I recall enjoying a lot, it is odd that I can't seem to remember much about it. Maybe that is sort of good because it makes it enjoyable to read all over again.

  The last TV I would have watched was QIXL, but I thought I preferred to spend a bit more time reading, and get to bed a bit earlier. I may not have done a lot during the day, but I did seem to feel tired. I still didn't rush for sleep, and read until almost 11pm. Before trying for sleep I thought I had better have one more pee before committing myself to bed. I was standing at the toilet and happened to glance out of the bathroom window. It is only opened about 5 inches, and so the view is very restricted, but it was enough.
  Before going to be I just had to go and get my Canon EOS 600D camera plus Sigma 300mm zoom lens. As always when photographing the moon, I had to try many settings. Perhaps for a hand held shot I had to use a very fast shutter speed to lessen the effects of camera shake. That meant using quite a high ISO speed to be sensitive enough to record a frame taken at 1/2000th of a second. Out of a few shots this was the best shot, and I think I am quite pleased with it.

  I was probably faffing around with the camera, including getting it and the lens out, for maybe 15 minutes. I could have rushed straight to bed, but I had to view the image (the best of several photos) on the big PC screen, and then I had to edit it for display here. Mainly that was just to crop the image and re-size to fit this page. I also tried to get the colour of the moon a bit closer to what I could see, and I admit I did use a touch of sharpening.

  It was maybe 11:45pm when I got back into bed, and turned the light out. I  expected to fall asleep very quickly, but using the camera and doing the picture editing seemed to give me my second breath. I laid there and nothing at all happened. I got back up, and read some stuff on my PC. It was gone 1am when I went back to bed, and this time I think I fell asleep fairly quickly.

  There was one event in the night that kept me awake for an extra minute or two. I woke up for a pee, and I seemed to feel just slightly too cool to relax enough for sleep. I turned the thermostat on my fan heater up a notch, and then I fell asleep before the heater had changed the temperature by any meaningful amount. The thermostat was definitely doing it's job because the next time I woke up the heater was off again, but the temperature seemed nice. The time after that the heater was running again. It was a mild night, and it did not take a lot to keep the temperature comfortable to sleep without using my duvet.

  I had one dream last night, but it is difficult to explain it because it makes no sense now I am awake. I seemed to think I didn't wake to pee quite as often as usual, and I seemed to pee less each time. Evidently I peed enough because when I weighed myself my weight was nice and low (relatively speaking). I was 300gm less than yesterday, and that was enough to use the semi rare background colour dark green on my spreadsheet. That was a most pleasant surprise, and if I could do whatever I did for the next 6 days I might be able to surprise the nurse with a weight maybe 3kg less than the last time I saw her.

  If I do the same again I would not have the same good surprise when it comes to my blood glucose readings. They were all bad this morning. The Contour meter read 9.1mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read 9.0mmol/l, and the Sinocare meter read 9.1mmol/l. It is nice that there is such a tight grouping of readings, but I regard anything over 8.9mmol/l as being bad. They are quite low in it, but all these readings are in the pre - danger area. I think I blame the fruit, but maybe the Keema was also to blame, although I am sure it was OK the last time I had one.

  It is hard to plan what to do today. The big unknown is an Amazon delivery. One of the three books I ordered is shown as being for delivery today - before 9pm !  In practice is could be around 5 or 6pm, but even earlier might be possible. It is also probable that the rest of my order will bed delivered today instead of tomorrow. It is shown as arriving at the delivery depot in Dartford in the small hours of this morning. Experience suggests it will be out for delivery today as well. It will probably all come in one big box.

  We are starting to get some sunny spells now, although the sky still looks a bit cloudy. If I can be sure that my Amazon delivery will not be unusually early, as an occasional delivery can be, I might see if I can walk to the station to pick up a copy of the Metro, or maybe even walk to Ladywell and get it there before walking back. It seems like it is quite pleasant for a walk in the park at the moment. I suspect that much of today will just be waiting for my delivery.