BG on the high side today. Took my normal insulin - basal and then the bolus one before breakfast - and ignored it until about noon, when It dropped to 3.4 and I started feeling woozy. Fruit pastilles and some oatcakes brought it back above 8, which is where it is sitting atm.
I recently got hold of a copy of my grandfather's service record. He was a Gunner in the RFA/RGA from 1916. Spent most of his time in one or other hospital because he really wasn't fit to have been signed on as a soldier. He was also said to have been gassed in 1916 which wouldn't have helped. He was eventually discharged in 1918 as medically unfit. He wasn't the perfect soldier by any means - AWOL a few times, inappropriate language, fined a day's pay here and there. However, his discharge papers commented that he was a hardworking man.
Anyway, all this led me to thinking about where his regiment had actually served and what role they had. It seems that his battalion (a Siege battalion) operated the Howitzer guns. I've heard of the name but had no idea what it was so I looked it up and found a picture of a Howitzer with the soldiers who operated it in WW1. It was monstrous! What a thing to have to drag around the countryside - not that they had to drag it often, being better as a fixed weapon, or on a train. Presumably they used horses (that would make sense, my grandfather was a Carman before the war).
I was astonished, but more so when I told Neil about it and found he has wide ranging knowledge of weaponry and the development of cannons from the bronze ones, through the cast iron ones to rifled steel ones. He was telling me about the influence the development of these guns had on the ability of Britain to dominate others, who were behind in the technology race, and so "rule the waves" and therefore expand the Empire. He also has read a lot about future developments in armaments. I got the full lecture, as usual. I was surprised because Neil is an absolute pacifist and I thought he would have no interest in the subject at all. He never ceases to amaze me.