This will be a session where they give a prescribed level of glucose orally and you have to sit there for 2 hours, doing nothing other than read. They expect to see a parabola of an initial spike, followed by a reasonably sharp reduction in the glucose level. If it's a long, slow reduction, that's not good news - I may be pre-diabetic.
Any kind of diabetic diagnosis would obviously mean a change in lifestyle - particularly diet - and also means a marked increase in my stroke risk factors, affecting the blood thinning medication I would have to take, which was the very reason I underwent these blood tests first of all.
I was disappointed, of course, and I then checked my previous annual health screen results, the last of which was in June, 2013, when my glucose level was at its lowest ever reading of 4.3. The recommended range is from 4.2 to 6.1, so my latest reading is only just outside that, and my health screen last year was right at the lowest level. I'm told you become diabetic at 7.1. Go figure.
Looking on the bright side, Lucy finally got her results today and she's had the all-clear - that's a great relief - she's been worried sick. She still has to go back in 3 months to check again, but it's a very positive sign.
Enough of all that medical stuff. We had a lovely time at the Kilgours on Saturday night, but we struggle nowadays when we get home after midnight, and, for me, that was the second night in a row. I still managed golf on Sunday morning but Sunday afternoon was a lazy one - even more so for Jo, who had a couple of hours' kip. We went to bed reasonably early, but had to watch the latest episode of Homeland first of all, of course. Great series.
Before we went out on Saturday night, we had a discussion about the external porcelain/pottery/china lightshade that Jo had recently discovered languishing in our loft, having been there for a couple of decades. It was bought when we were on holiday in Portugal. There was an existing nail on the wall on our porch and I used that to hang it, but Jo was nervous about it not being properly secured - a gust of wind could bring it down and it would shatter. "But it's been in the loft for over 20 years - what would it matter?", says I. Unsurprisingly, I got little sympathy for this remark. Anyway, it's now survived a couple of nights and hopefully it'll last a bit longer. Here it is:
This morning, the surveyor was due at 9 am to look at our various roof leaks - nothing major, we think, but some work is required. I was just about to shower and get dressed when I looked out the window and there was the D & D van arriving - and it wasn't even 8:15 am! We had to do a bit of scurrying around, but we coped OK in the end and he was finished his review well before 9 am - just before the rain came on. We await his estimates with interest.
This afternoon, I went for a bike ride - I thought it would just be me and Archie, but a bunch of others in our cycling group showed up, so 8 of us eventually set off to Drum. Nice scones and a bit of exercise on what turned out to be a glorious afternoon.
Tomorrow night we're off to the Marcliffe for the big fund-raising dinner for the planned new Banchory Sports Village (http://www.banchorysportsvillage.co.uk/). Jo's picking up Luca as usual but she's bringing him back here for tea instead of taking him home to Inverurie, and Gary will pick him up from here before we have to leave at 6:30 pm.
What else is on this week? On Friday, I go back to Albyn to see my knee surgeon, and then we have a Headbang in the evening. On Saturday, it's the do for Lucy Bannatyne's 21st - still not sure yet whether we're going or not.
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