11:21 GMT

  There has been some lovely bright sunshine today, and it should continue until just after midday. The reason is clear skies, and that has let the temperature fall low enough for a frost that still remains on some sheltered shed roofs. The forecast says it was just 1° C at 9am, and I would guess even lower before that. As I write this my thermometers say it is barely above 4° C. From 4pm rain may return, and although only light rain is shown it could continue well into the night. Tomorrow's forecast shows rain all day, and the temperature no higher than 9° C.

  I began to see some improvement in how I felt yesterday, but some hours were better and some worse. It definitely felt that I was coughing less, and coughing up less mucus. If nothing else it showed hope for the future. I still felt very tired though, and I am unsure how much of that was Covid related and how much was my faulty heart valve.

  There was one thing I had really intended to do yesterday, and didn't. Yesterday morning the bathtub was free of any laundry going on, and I expected/hoped that I would have a shower, and wash my hair. That never happened. It was not that I couldn't, but I just could not raise the enthusiasm for it....even that is not quite right. I did have a sort of enthusiasm for it, and I knew a shower was really needed. I guess I don't really know why it didn't happen. Perhaps a snooze felt like a better idea.

  I have been snoozing at a champion level recently. I quite enjoy it. It passes a lot of time when I might want to do something else, but might not have the energy for it. This bothers me because I know I am really going to have to push myself to recover some of my stamina when the time comes. That time, of course, will be after I have had my new heart valve fitted. I remember it takes a lot of motivation to get out and building up my walks from a hard to do half mile to a more freely done 5 miles. It is worth it in the end, but it is sometimes hard to remember that when doing it.

  The other problem with being so lazy, even if for a very good reason, is that I have failed to control my weight. I have already put on a couple of kilograms compared to my time in hospital, but maybe all is not lost. I just checked my spreadsheet of weights in 2025, and I am 5kg less than when I went into hospital. Maybe there is hope after all. I think yesterday was my best day at moderating my diet, and maybe I might do better today.

  There is not a lot to say about yesterday. I did very little, and like most days since getting home from hospital I have not shied away from having all the snoozes I feel like. The good thing is that I can still sleep well at night even after spending a lot of the afternoon snoozing. This is all part of the healing process, and while it won't heal my heart valve, I do seem to have almost recovered from my Covid infection.

  This recovery from Covid is probably not complete, but I am now far less troubled by trying to cough up mucus now. In fact I think I go long periods without any sort of cough at all. It is hard to come up with anything exact because counting up non events is not possible. It definitely feels better though.

  Apart from sleeping and drinking (not boozing), the main thing is eating. Yesterday was my first trial of some food in the fridge that is anything up to a fortnight past it's best before date. One ready meal of butter chicken curry I have rejected because the cover is starting to bulge. Fortunately a Chicken Jalfrezi looked and smelled OK, and I had that for my dinner last night. I noted it seemed to have lots of vegetables in it, and so didn't have extra fruit to "keep me regular". I did go yesterday after eating fruit the day before, but I have yet to go this morning. I feel no discomfort, and so maybe I just don't need to yet.

  I said that snoozing all afternoon did not affect my sleep last night, but it did make me less inclined to go to sleep early last night. Thinking back I have no idea what time I actually went to bed, but it was possibly between 10 and 11pm. It might have been a dream, but I think I woke up a couple of hours later for a small pee (so small that I wonder why it woke me up). I did initially have a bit of trouble getting back to sleep. I did not feel comfortable, and although it didn't, I got hints that my chest was about to start aching.

  I did have one seemingly long dream in the night. Maybe it was inspired by possibly having lustful thoughts about some of the lovely Indian nurses in hospital, but I don't recall that actually happening. Nevertheless the dream was about visiting Bombay ! As far as I can recall I was lured by super cheap flights to Bombay. I have no idea how much super cheap was, but it could have been a magazine offer with a voucher for £100, and the total flight price was only £200. That is all guesswork, and I don't think I dreamed that explicitly. What I do remember is bumping into many people there who I recognised, and who had presumably been suckered in by the advert as well.

  All I can really remember from the dream was wandering around a huge open air market looking for electronic stuff. I did see some very expensive Hi Fi equipment, but I think I was really looking for computer related stuff. I didn't find any, but it was still interesting. On reflection there was one thing that seems strange, and that was I had no smell in the dream. I know I was dreaming in colour, and I think the sound was in stereo, but I can't recall any smell. I would have expected a Bombay market to smell strongly of curry, and possibly in a hot damp climate, a lot of BO too.

  I woke up around 7am. It was still dark outside then, and maybe that stopped me leaping out of bed as I would otherwise have done if I were feeling fit and healthy. I did go for another small pee, but got back into bed. I wondered if it was a bad idea, but it didn't seem to be, and that I had all the time in the world to close my eyes, and get more sleep. It was all too effortless, but I think it was around 9am before I started to slowly get up.

  This morning my weight, as I have already admitted, had risen 400gm. That was annoying, but inevitable. Going back on Mounjaro on Sunday was paying dividends. My blood glucose readings were not great, but 7.1, 7.2, and 7.8mmol/l were very satisfactory - possibly even low enough to be called fantastic while ill. They certainly matched the morning figures while I was in hospital, and on a diet of hospital food.

  The one thing I really hoped I could do today was to walk to The Jolly Farmers for my usual Wednesday lunchtime drink of a couple of pints of Guinness with my favourite barmaid, Ayse. Two obstacles got in the way of it, and I am not sure which came first. Actually that is silly, it was really one obstacle - I felt too tired. As much as I really want, and desperately need a shower (and to wash my hair), somehow I could not raise the enthusiasm. Maybe I could not raise the enthusiasm because I knew that the walk to the pub would not be a happy walk when feeling so fatigued. Shame though because the bright sunshine could have made for a good walk if I had the energy. Maybe the struggle to walk home after being discharged from hospital has tainted my willingness to try.

  There is one thing I will do today, and that is to clear a backlog of washing in the kitchen sink. I also need to put on some outdoor clothes to put a load of rubbish in the black and green wheelie bins. The recycling bin in the kitchen is beyond overflowing. That needs to be empty for tomorrow when the Thursday afternoon drinking session should be back to normal. I will also need to have a super scrub under the shower if I have visitors. Although not essential for today, I may yet have a shower today, but after writing all this I am looking forward to my afternoon snooze next !









   1578 words today.