Friday 5th September 2025

I watch a video channel on YouTube called "Christopher Collects", it's a guy who opens bags of money in the hope of finding rare UK coins.

Its better than that, as coins are split between definitives and commemoratives, or those normal every day coins and ones that mark an anniversary of other such event.

I learned from this that there was a special £2 coin being minted, though not circulated, of the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington as well as the Canterbury and Whitstable railways.

This then I sent off for, and using money received from a lifelong friend, you Dougie, I bought this from the Royal Mint.

Apart from this being delivered, this was the day we learned that you get what you pay for, and in the process really put Scully's life in danger.

Jools bought the glucose monitor, and the reviews made it seem OK, so we bought it and have used it for a month. And then yesterday the first reading at 08:00 didn't see right, so I retested it straight away with the same sample, and the reading halved.

I tested again and the reading dropped again. The same thing on the 4th test.

Hmmmmmm.

I did the same on the 09:00, 10:00 and 11:00 tests and got the same range of results, seconds apart.

The upshot is we don't know if the first "high" test is correct or the cluster of lower ones.

When Jools came back from her craft club, we decided to buy a new monitor, no expense spared, and that would be delivered ASAP, or Saturday as it turned out.

In the meantime, we would monitor Scully and feed her little and often and administer insulin twelve hours apart at seven in the morning and evening.

I posted a review on the Amazon page for it, and saw when you delved down into customer's reviews, many people had said pretty much the same. 50% were good reviews, but 25% were that it was a danger to our pets.

I added mine to the 25%.

I kept my word and went to the gym first thing, while Jools stayed to measure more blood sugars from Scully.

While she was away I cleared some of the vegetation down the side of the drive meaning that now when we reverse down, not all sensor warnings will go off all at once.

We have lunch, and after that settled, off out again, this time to Aycliffe to go hunting for sloes. Not so much hunting but a lot of gathering.

When I went down to the footbridge a few weeks back, I noticed huge amounts of sloes, so back on Friday to pick them.

We parked at the bottom of the Ropewalk, then down the footsteps, through the tunnel, and there were the sloes.

Not quite as many as I remember, but plenty for us as we topped up stocks for the autumn when we will be making sloe gin.

Two bags collected, we go back to the car, Jools drove us home safe and sound, back past the castle and over to St Maggies.

I had my annual chat with Mark and David on the occasion of my birthday, a perk being a supporter of their podcast. And then straight into the weekly quiz, of which I was stumped until the end.

So it goes.

I make dinner, marinated duck breast, corn, creamed spinach and a melody of grains.

And beer.

Being the weekend.

The evening's entertainment was provided by Scotland and Denmark who fought out a 0-0 draw in wonderful, wonderful, Copenhagen.