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What was your fasting blood glucose? (full on chat)

lindisfel said:
It sounds as if you may have lowish insulin response or a tuned up dawn effect in a morning. Or perhaps your body is telling you, "she is starving me, I'll get something out of the long term store today!" @Krystyna23040??
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Yes, I think that you are right @lindisfel. Hopefully at some point my body will empty the long term store and the fbg will come down to a level I am happy with.
 
ianpspurs said:
I think @lindisfel may be on to something with the idea that your helpful body has noticed (not difficult) that you are akin to a Duracel Bunny so need some energy from the hidden depths
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Yes @lindisfel is definitely is onto something as it does look as though my body is trying to be helpful by providing lots of energy first thing in the morning. Today was a 16K day so it will be interesting to see what my fbg is tomorrow.
 
gennepher said:
Fbg 6.8

I nearly fell asleep on the swing last night again. It is relaxing to do before I go to bed.

I need a rocking chair indoors.

Wildlife videos
Two Foxes & Badger mingling together watched by Midnight
1min 9secs

The fox with the thinner tail is the fox I called Skinny Fox last year. It was very small and underdeveloped last winter. I don't approve of people actively feeding foxes chicken and stuff daily (just my view so don't shoot me). I think they should manage themselves, unless we have a hard frozen winter, and then I agree with some help. But Skinny Fox last year was so thin, ribs sticking out, I just had to lend a hand (I think some of you didn't approve). Skinny Fox always came first thing last year, was terrified of anything, and it was easy to time some fresh meat for him.

The fox he is with is Foxy Loxy. I have no idea if they are siblings, friends or what, but they are a pair together. I think both foxes are males. And he still has a thin tail, but Skinny Fox has really filled out and developed to what he was. Skinny Fox chose to come in my garden, so I lent a helping hand. Was I right or not, that is not a question so please do not answer, I am still on the fence on that one. But this is my garden, so it's my rules, and I bend them as I see fit.

Just spent an hour on the swing with Midnight watching bluetits, blackbirds, 2 male robins, all the sparrows, and my little dunnock from last winter is now back on her own (presumably after raising a family) and she will probably now stay until spring, like she did last year.

Right - diabetes, I have been very low carb, only in that no processed foods at all allowed. Everything has to be fresh, freshly cooked, not messed and added to at all. So, any carbs are in the vegetables, meat, eggs, nuts etc. The vegetables are usually from my container garden. My blood glucose readings are good. Mine generally hover in the 6's up to 7.1 at times. It has taken me awhile to get there. I have stopped eating out because the last time I did, some of you might remember, it messed with my blood sugar readings horribly for weeks after.

The unintended consequence of the above is that I have lost weight. The last time I mentioned my weight, I said when I lost another stone that I would allow myself to buy those expensive watercolour inks. I just stood on the scales this morning (I do not weigh myself daily, just every now and then) and I have lost that stone. But I am not buying those watercolour inks yet. I feel I haven't tried hard enough even though I have lost that stone. I know you will disagree with me, most likely. I have 3 more stone to lose to reach my target weight. I've changed my goalpost for a reward. I now have to lose all that 3 stone before I can reward myself. And I have promised myself something else - a rocking chair for the front room when I have lost that additional 3 stone. I don't need stage by stage rewards. My reward is watching my birds in my garden in a morning. That is priceless.

And I can fit Jeans from many years ago. And I can fit my wedding dress that J bought me. No, I didn't get married, there wasn't time. J unexpectedly bought me this beautiful cream silk wedding dress and jacket with mother of pearl buttons all down the front on Thursday. How he could always buy a dress that fitted me perfectly, I will never know. He never saw me in it because he died in the early hours (4am) on Sunday morning. I can get in that dress again. This might be one of the reasons I am usually awake before 4 am in a morning. He died in 2009.

What do I eat in a day now? Well yesterday was coffee with fresh cream x2. I love my double cream. Breakfast was around 11am eggs x3 and several slices of bacon and tomatoes I have grown. Lunch (last meal of the day I usually have at 3 pm but I was late yesterday because I was experimenting painting) was 3 lamb chops and peas&tomatoes from my container garden and I had a snacking cucumber (bought from Farmfoods where I got my frozen lamb chops from) with crunchy peanut butter (no added sugar or oils or anything). And I nibbled some of my raspberries and blueberries and another lovely ripe sun kissed tomato I found.

If I eat a biscuit or anything with wheat flour, processed stuff etc in, the whole weight loss thing goes totally down the pan, and my blood sugars rise a lot, and it might take me more than a week or so to get back on track again. It took me a few weeks last time. It is simply not worth it.

Creative - experimenting with different inks, but this post is long enough, I will explain more tomorrow on the inks used etc.

Have a great day.

A cuppa now.

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Thank you for sharing the wedding dress story @gennepher. It does seem as though it is the reason you are awake before 4 am in a morning.

Your food sounds delicious as well as being so healthy. I do like your idea of getting a rocking chair to celebrate when you have lost 3 stone.
 
Krystyna23040 said:
Thank you for sharing the wedding dress story @gennepher. It does seem as though it is the reason you are awake before 4 am in a morning.

Your food sounds delicious as well as being so healthy. I do like your idea of getting a rocking chair to celebrate when you have lost 3 stone.
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Thanks @Krystyna23040
I am looking forward to that rocking chair.
 
Morning all on a day when some are forecast over half a month's rain but not here in ArridMcArridfaceville. In other news the education secretary basically said A Level results don't matter which must have helped anxious youngsters enormously. Have as good a super salmon salad Friday as possible.
 
Fbg 6.9

Woke 3:30. Couldn't go back to sleep, so did phone and tablet housework/paperwork- - those kind of jobs you put off. Fortunately my brain is bright eyed and bushy tailed in the early hours. Will have to schedule a long nap around noon...maybe also a Power Nap mid morning.

Those small birds have half demolished the contents of both fatball feeders already and it is only 6:30 am. Bluetits, sparrows, robins, and the blackbirds and female dunnock who are eating off the ground the bits that get dropped. Mr Heffalump (wood pigeon) is helping clear up the sparrows mess too.

Cat Midnight came in when I locked up last night. He had no intention of being outside last night. I have noticed he is a little bit jumpy at the moment, I can easily startle him. So I am thinking those 4 rumbustious badgers, especially now the little ones are growing, are getting a bit much for him. He doesn't get much sleep out there when they are about. But Midnight tends to explore the bungalow at night, he doesn't sleep in one spot all night. He climbs where he shouldn't be climbing, and knocks things off and over. Not intentionally, if I see him knock a pile of stuff over he looks at me with big wide eyes worrying I am going to be cross with him. But I am not. He is just too bulky to get in tight spaces he thinks he can get in...

A lot of tidying up this morning.

Wildlife camera. Those 4 badgers were in the garden ALL night. I can see why Midnight found it a bit much.
Ma & Pa Badger and their 2 cubs arrived at dusk & stayed until dawn...and Cat Midnight came indoors for the night with that rowdy lot out there & stayed in the bungalow all night...
1min 50secs


Just took snippets from the clips, or it would have been well over 2 hours of footage of overactive badgers playing and squabbling. They were running up and down the side of the garage, which you cannot see from the swing cameras. They were digging up my garden looking for worms and grubs. Why I seem to have gourmet worms in m y garden I do not know. The were knocking some of my container vegetable garden over. I am managing to secure more and more of it so that they cannot do it. But trying to protect it against 4 unruly badgers is a task.

Creative - I found some watercolour inks I bought well before lockdowns and Covid, in the days when I used to look around shops (something I don't do now, I have got used to shopping and bidding online, and in any case I need it to be a fine day to use my mobility scooter, too much unexpected rain at the moment). I just got these 4 inks in a stationery shop (doesn't exist now) -might have been 26p each or something, so about a £1 for the 4. Yellow, blue, red, and gold. There is hardly any red left, I bought the red for a purpose, no idea what now, so I can only use a drop in each painting, but it makes a nice purple. these are obviously cheap inks, but they are a paler colour which I rather like, as opposed to the intense vibrancy of the acrylic FW inks I have been using.

I have been using pipettes to get the ink out of the bottles to spread on the cheap blank white postcards I have been using. Then using the water spray bottle either before or after applying the ink from the pipettes.

I will be experimenting on other papers...Once these inks are gone, I will be looking to see what other inks I have...there are loads different ones in the drawer..I am very good at buying art materials and art pads and thinking I want to keep that new looking and I can't spoil the first page of that brand new sketchbook....

I like the way this spreads differently to the acrylic inks, in a more softer manner. I find painting a meditation when I paint in this way. It is good painting on the postcards, because I can post them to my postcrossing friends. And so far everyone has been happy with a hand painted postcard!

Time for another coffee with double cream!!!!

And then a nap...it is windy and raining outside, so maybe no sitting on my swing today, depends on direction of the rain...

IMG_2539.jpeg
 
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Looks like we on the West side of the Country have drawn the short straw regards weather in the next week.

I tried to put my bird feeders up yesterday pm but going up the garden to get in my big shed was a lot of exertion and I soon got short of breath. It is on the top of a small rise and well above the cottage as we are well above the flood level of the river. The shed had got overgrown by briars and a buddleia so I had to use some long handled cutters to manage before I got in. Things have grown more this year than I have ever known. Anyway I had to give up halfway through due weakness and discomfort but I shall persist even if I can only do 15 mins a day.
This weakness in old age is one thing I find hard to accept, I still can't carry my telescope and go birding that involves walking.
I choose to forget I am 84 and had a few problems. :)
 
lindisfel said:
I choose to forget I am 84 and had a few problems. :)
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I agree @lindisfel !!!!!

My garden has also grown a humongous amount with all the rain this year.
I can either despair...or do what I can.

I am about to go out now with loppers to cut the ivy hedge. I will probably last 5 mins.

A slope, even a slight one, is the pits to get up. You need Marjorie pushing you up the slope!!!!!!! Actually two hands in the small of your back pushing you works wonders...

Good luck!!!
 
lindisfel said:
Looks like we on the West side of the Country have drawn the short straw regards weather in the next week.

I tried to put my bird feeders up yesterday pm but going up the garden to get in my big shed was a lot of exertion and I soon got short of breath. It is on the top of a small rise and well above the cottage as we are well above the flood level of the river. The shed had got overgrown by briars and a buddleia so I had to use some long handled cutters to manage before I got in. Things have grown more this year than I have ever known. Anyway I had to give up halfway through due weakness and discomfort but I shall persist even if I can only do 15 mins a day.
This weakness in old age is one thing I find hard to accept, I still can't carry my telescope and go birding that involves walking.
I choose to forget I am 84 and had a few problems. :)
Click to expand...
I'm guessing (not exactly) Marjorie and the girls are (acutely) aware of the context on which you end your post. I knew two gentlemen (and a MIL) of a similar mindset. All were abruptly disabused of the notion of their immortality - two permanently. Without going full King Lear there comes a time when reality should bite. A local gardener may be in order to settle Marjorie's mind. My mum's chiding of my dad - this land's too much for you (maybe a more salty version) still echoes. Using God's blessings to support others can be good. Maybe as discreetly as possible ask round your local church members of anyone who would be grateful for a few hours paid gardening? Don't ever tell JKP I am capable of such common sense. :D
 
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Our surgery opens its phone line at 8.30 am for appointments to speak to a doctor. I started phoning at 8.20 and wwas in a queu already. Not all that long though - about 7 minutes. Made the "appointment" and now have to wait for a phone call from a doctor. No point actually seeing a doctor just now - my legs are bandaged and they couldn't see anything anyway.

BG at 4.30 am was 6.4, now 7.0. Too early to think about breakfast so a cup of tea and maybe some painkillers - it's been 4 hours since the last lot.
 
Annb said:
Didn't get much help from the nurse. She says it's up to me to decide if I want swollen legs and less pain or painful slim legs. I think I'll try to talk to someone medical tomorrow because I'm beginning to think "phlebitis" or even "thrombosis". No experience of either so I have nothing to go on.
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Don’t you just love it when a so called professional just passes over things.
 
gennepher said:
Fbg 6.9

Woke 3:30. Couldn't go back to sleep, so did phone and tablet housework/paperwork- - those kind of jobs you put off. Fortunately my brain is bright eyed and bushy tailed in the early hours. Will have to schedule a long nap around noon...maybe also a Power Nap mid morning.

Those small birds have half demolished the contents of both fatball feeders already and it is only 6:30 am. Bluetits, sparrows, robins, and the blackbirds and female dunnock who are eating off the ground the bits that get dropped. Mr Heffalump (wood pigeon) is helping clear up the sparrows mess too.

Cat Midnight came in when I locked up last night. He had no intention of being outside last night. I have noticed he is a little bit jumpy at the moment, I can easily startle him. So I am thinking those 4 rumbustious badgers, especially now the little ones are growing, are getting a bit much for him. He doesn't get much sleep out there when they are about. But Midnight tends to explore the bungalow at night, he doesn't sleep in one spot all night. He climbs where he shouldn't be climbing, and knocks things off and over. Not intentionally, if I see him knock a pile of stuff over he looks at me with big wide eyes worrying I am going to be cross with him. But I am not. He is just too bulky to get in tight spaces he thinks he can get in...

A lot of tidying up this morning.

Wildlife camera. Those 4 badgers were in the garden ALL night. I can see why Midnight found it a bit much.
Ma & Pa Badger and their 2 cubs arrived at dusk & stayed until dawn...and Cat Midnight came indoors for the night with that rowdy lot out there & stayed in the bungalow all night...
1min 50secs


Just took snippets from the clips, or it would have been well over 2 hours of footage of overactive badgers playing and squabbling. They were running up and down the side of the garage, which you cannot see from the swing cameras. They were digging up my garden looking for worms and grubs. Why I seem to have gourmet worms in m y garden I do not know. The were knocking some of my container vegetable garden over. I am managing to secure more and more of it so that they cannot do it. But trying to protect it again 4 unruly badgers is a task.

Creative - I found some watercolour inks I bought well before lockdowns and Covid, in the days when I used to look around shops (something I don't do now, I have got used to shopping and bidding online, and in any case I need it to be a fine day to use my mobility scooter, too much unexpected rain at the moment). I just got these 4 inks in a stationery shop (doesn't exist now) -might have been 26p each or something, so about a £1 for the 4. Yellow, blue, red, and gold. There is hardly any red left, I bought the red for a purpose, no idea what now, so I can only use a drop in each painting, but it makes a nice purple. these are obviously cheap inks, but they are a paler colour which I rather like, as opposed to the intense vibrancy of the acrylic FW inks I have been using.

I have been using pipettes to get the ink out of the bottles to spread on the cheap blank white postcards I have been using. Then using the water spray bottle either before or after applying the ink from the pipettes.

I will be experimenting on other papers...Once these inks are gone, I will be looking to see what other inks I have...there are loads different ones in the drawer..I am very good at buying art materials and art pads and thinking I want to keep that new looking and I can't spoil the first page of that brand new sketchbook....

I like the way this spreads differently to the acrylic inks, in a more softer manner. I find painting a meditation when I paint in this way. It is good painting on the postcards, because I can post them to my postcrossing friends. And so far everyone has been happy with a hand painted postcard!

Time for another coffee with double cream!!!!

And then a nap...it is windy and raining outside, so maybe no sitting on my swing today, depends on direction of the rain...

View attachment 62726
Click to expand...
Smashing and thank’s for the explanation. I have a number of sheets of what must have been quite expensive Chinese paper that my mother gave to me - I dare not use them - how daft is that! She also gave me several notebooks made of quite thick Chinese paper - she used to carry one in her bag as well as a refillable ink brush pen.
 
lindisfel said:
Looks like we on the West side of the Country have drawn the short straw regards weather in the next week.

I tried to put my bird feeders up yesterday pm but going up the garden to get in my big shed was a lot of exertion and I soon got short of breath. It is on the top of a small rise and well above the cottage as we are well above the flood level of the river. The shed had got overgrown by briars and a buddleia so I had to use some long handled cutters to manage before I got in. Things have grown more this year than I have ever known. Anyway I had to give up halfway through due weakness and discomfort but I shall persist even if I can only do 15 mins a day.
This weakness in old age is one thing I find hard to accept, I still can't carry my telescope and go birding that involves walking.
I choose to forget I am 84 and had a few problems. :)
Click to expand...
It does look that way weather wise and I think that we slowly turn into our parents if we have the privilege of living that long. I can’t use our loppers for very long now and just do a bit at a time. My mother now can’t walk too well and relies on a scooter. She still knits and crochets but can no longer use the big chinese brushes that she once did and now relies on an ap called Paint, similar to what David Hockney uses. Dad however (93) just seems to keep on going.
 
dunelm said:
Smashing and thank’s for the explanation. I have a number of sheets of what must have been quite expensive Chinese paper that my mother gave to me - I dare not use them - how daft is that! She also gave me several notebooks made of quite thick Chinese paper - she used to carry one in her bag as well as a refillable ink brush pen.
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Thank you @dunelm
The paper and notebooks sound good. How long will they remain pristine...
 
Good morning everyone from a breezy and overcast start here in the dark and dangerous north. 5.6 this am. A peasant day yesterday and the grandchildren enjoyed their day out to a local farm. Off to the park in a wee while and then it’s swimming after lunch. I need to dig out some paints and brushes for some rock/stones painting this evening - it’s all go. Art bit - details added so I guess a bit of colour next. Hope your day is kind to you. I need to have a meeting with my lower back and left leg but first, some koffy.

1692347789889.jpeg
 
Just spoke to the GP. She thinks it sounds like plantar fasciitis and that apparently can travel up into the legs! Never knew that. Anyway, she says to self-refer to the podiatry department at the hospital. Meantime try not to take so many painkillers! Just phoned the podiatry department and they will send out a form for me to self-refer and when they get that back, they'll think about an appointment. It will have cured itself by the time I get to actually see someone about it (there's optimistic for you).
 
dunelm said:
Good morning everyone from a breezy and overcast start here in the dark and dangerous north. 5.6 this am. A peasant day yesterday and the grandchildren enjoyed their day out to a local farm. Off to the park in a wee while and then it’s swimming after lunch. I need to dig out some paints and brushes for some rock/stones painting this evening - it’s all go. Art bit - details added so I guess a bit of colour next. Hope your day is kind to you. I need to have a meeting with my lower back and left leg but first, some koffy.

View attachment 62729
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Looking more Chinese than Tibetan these days.
 
I just managed one foot of the ivy hedge. This is my fourth attempt at the ivy hedge at the front. So just over a metre has been done...about another 15 metres to go. Do you reckon this will get done by end of September?

It is drizzling with rain, and I was soaked when I got back in. I thought it was just a little rain...

Do not tell me to get a gardener. I have already tried gardeners and each has not followed my instructions. I had an expensive perfect rowan tree that J bought me. The gardener was given instructions that day not to cut anything below 6 foot (about 2metres). I went in to make him a cuppa tea, came back out to find he had cut the rowan tree off right down to the ground. Just razed it with his chain saw. Oh, it'll grow again, he said. It never grew again. He didn't get paid, nor did he get his cup of tea to drink.

Second gardener was given instructions, again he could only cut above 6 foot/2metres. He was to touch nothing below that height. I came in for a few mins and went out again. I had 3 Cytisus (broom) trees. All heavily scented. Again J had bought me these. They were about 4 foot high. This second gardener had lopped off the flowering tops of all these Cytisus trees. If you cannot imagine my distress, then imagine you have 3 precious formal standard roses. And your gardener lops off that 'ball' of roses off each one leaving you with 3 wooden sticks in the ground. I've pruned your roses the gardener says...

Second gardener did not get paid either...

What I can cut, then I will, what I can't, then tough, it gets left...but I have always managed so far...
 
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