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

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??
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.
 
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
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.
 
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.
 
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...

 
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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.
 
I choose to forget I am 84 and had a few problems.
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!!!
 
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.
 
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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.
 
Don’t you just love it when a so called professional just passes over things.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.

 
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).
 
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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