What with “er indoors TM”,
littlun and the dogs all up in the attic room I slept rather well, but was
still wide awake at half past four. I got up, made toast and scoffed it
whilst watching an episode of "Star Trek: Discovery". I'd
forgotten that I was a season behind with it. The show was rather good; it was
only a shame that when watching stuff on the Paramount Plus app you can't
fast-forward through the adverts. However you can make a mental note of what
company the advert was for, and being sure not to use their products. As
I was once told by a boss many years ago, there's more ways of killing a
cat than choking it with cream.
I remember the chap who gave me that sage advice had
just been told off by his boss for taking too long at a tea break. He gave me
that advice, then went off early to his lunch break and came back (drunk)
four hours later.
I scraped the ice from the car then drove round to
Sainsbury's to get petrol. Have you ever driven round Ashford at six o'clock?
There's some very odd people on the roads at that time of day who seem to think
that speed limits don't apply that early in the morning and get very cross
whenever I drive at the speed limit. They always fly past me at the
earliest opportunity and whizz off dangerously at breakneck speeds in what are
residential areas.
I got my petrol, then headed west-wards through the
-hursts and the -dens to Pembury.
As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about
the Prime Minister's meeting
with Donald Trump yesterday. Apparently the Prime Minster is claiming that
the talks went very well. The more cynical observers being interviewed think
that the talks went well because the King invited Mr Trump over for an official
state visit. It was claimed that Mr Trump goes for that sort of thing, and an
example was cited from his first presidency when he apparently took more
notice of an Australian golfer than of the Australian government.
There was also talk about how farmers aren't letting
their sheep graze on Dartmoor as sheep theft has reached epic
proportions.
All the country's meat suppliers are adamant that they
check on where their meat comes from, but someone's shifting humongous
proportions of hooky lamb.
I'd left for work early today. Usually the roads to
Pembury aren't the easiest to get through, but there were only three sets
of temporary traffic lights today and I got there far too early. If nothing
else it meant that I could park.
I did my bit. There as cake. However in a herculean
effort of self-control I didn't scoff any. That was about five
hundred calories I saved. Another saving was getting a box of fruit
with my meal deal lunch I got from the petrol station. That fruit box was two
hundred and twenty calories less than the bag of crisps I usually get.
I find this calorie counting is much easier when I've
had a walk round the woods with the dogs as that usually gives me an extra six
hundred calories to play with.
And here’s a thought… I’m doing this diet because on 10
January my GP randomly messaged me to say they would like me to go into the
surgery to give them a blood pressure reading from their self-service machine.
I did – it was 167 / 89.
Three days later they asked if I would get myself a
monitor and give them blood pressure readings twice daily for a week. Over the
week it averaged well into the stage two hypertension category.
Two weeks after I gave them the readings I had a
telephone appointment with a pharmacist (i) who said everything about blood
pressure that I’d read on Google and didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already
know. She suggested blood tests and an ECG which were then done last week (a
further two weeks later).
It’s now eight weeks since I found I’ve got high blood
pressure and I’m still waiting to see a doctor.
