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Saturday 29th
February 2020
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08:47 GMT
Yesterday was one of those rare days when
the weather forecast was correct, or very close to
it. After a dry start it was raining by 9am,
and the mostly light rain then stopped at around
sunset. By sunset the temperature had risen from
5°C in the morning to 11° C - a temperature that
was maintained until sometime in the small hours
of this morning.
This morning I almost agree with the 8° C
start, although the average of my thermometers
make it almost 9° C. At the moment it is dull,
dreary and wet. The latest revision to the
forecast says that some of the rain this morning
may be heavy, but still says that the rain should
dry up after 1pm. From then onwards, until sunset,
it would seem there is a small chance of an
occasional sunny spell. By mid afternoon the
temperature will have dropped a degree to 7° C.It
is supposed to drop another degree by 7pm, and
could be down to 5° C by midnight. Tomorrow could
be dry and sunny with an afternoon temperature of
10° C. If the wind is very light, that could
almost feel OK.
Yesterday was a very uneventful day. In the
morning I went out into the rain to drop off a
double CD of The Shadows greatest hits to my
neighbour and friend Michael. To keep it dry I had
wrapped it in a carrier bag, and I doubt he could
see what it was until he had taken it indoors.
Since then I have heard nothing. The grumpy old
git hasn't said thanks, or even that he has no use
for it. While out I also popped into the corner
shop to buy two magazines, two bottles of Diet
Coke, and some crisps. It was one of those
occasions where they misery of grey skies and rain
overrode any desire to avoid such unhealthy food.
After that it is hard to describe how my
day went. With two new magazines I was often
distracted to just lay on my bed quietly reading,
but I guess I did a few other things too. One
little task, that took all of 10 minutes (maybe
more....) was searching for the power
supply/charger for my portable Sony Mini Disc
recorder/player. I do have one that I have
labelled for use with the Kenwood Mini Disc
player/recorder. At the moment it seems like it
will have to serve both units.
Like on previous days, I would occasionally
stop for 5 or 10 minutes when going through my
back room, and do a bit of tidying/clearing. That
room is now looking double the size it was a few
months ago, and there is still lots to do in
there. It is getting to the point where I am
having to make a lot of hard decisions about what
to throw out, and what to keep - and that is
always tempered by how much space there is in the
wheelie bin. Fortunately some of the old paperwork
can go in the recycling bin.
For lunch I had more cup-a-soups. I always
seem to make the equivalent of four portions, or
probably a bit over a pint of soup. The "standard"
portion is one cup, or probably about a quarter of
a pint (one gulp and it is gone !). I'm still not
sure how much all that soup is increasing my blood
glucose level, but I think I'll be glad when the
weather is brighter and hotter, and I take soup
off the menu. One thing is for sure, I was feeling
pretty hungry as dinner time approached.
Dinner was a takeaway. It was a case of
being very lazy - a habit I should be getting out
of now that my savings are starting to dwindle
enough to slightly worry me. That is despite them
being on target, or better, than my back of a fag
packet calculations predicted when I was
considering retiring. If I take more and more care
of my spending there is a chance that I could have
a reasonable surplus when I start receiving my old
age pension.
As is now usual, my takeaway was shish
kebab - grilled meat with salad. It is usually a
healthy option (when the pitta bread is
discarded). Yesterday's takeaway included a
special shish kebab that included grilled tomato,
mushroom, and courgette. I am not so sure if that
was so healthy. I can imagine the mushroom and
courgette soaking up a lot of the fat coming off
the meat as it grills.
Just as my takeaway arrived, and I was
about to tuck into it, I was disturbed by a phone
call from my friend Lee. I can't even remember
what he wanted. I suspect he mainly just wanted to
talk. That was mildly annoying, but we managed to
keep the call short, perhaps 10 - 12 minutes, and
I was able to start wolfing down my dinner while
it was still hot. While eating I watched some Star
Trek - The New Generation. After that I watched
more Star Trek - this time Voyager.
The latter programme finished at 8pm. I
then watched some QI in a sort of time jumping
way. I watched the end of one show on Dave, and
then watched the beginning of it on Dave+1. It
worked out quite nicely that I caught up to where
I had started watching just as a compilation
episode came on BBC2. The latter was quite
annoying in some respect. There was such a desire,
by the producer, to pack so much into a 30 minute
show that many gags were not allowed to reach
their conclusion before a clip from a different
episode was presented.
I am unsure when I went to bed - initially
just to read - but it was not long before I was
starting to yawn. I do know that it was about
10.30pm, just as I was about to put the magazine
down that I was reading, when Lee called again.
This time it became more obvious that he was just
suffering verbal diarrhoea, and had nothing
constructive to say. I really should have urged
him to wrap the conversation up a lot faster than
I did. It was close on midnight when I got rid of
him.
It wasn't long after I turned off the light
that I fell asleep. I could say I got a good sleep
except for two things. The most concrete thing is
that I woke up, and started getting up, after less
than 7 hours sleep. The other more tentative
reason for not thinking I might have slept less
well was the vivid dreams. I do remember a fair
bit of one rather long seeming dream, and nothing
from another dream that I am sure seemed to go on
for a long time.
The dream that I do remember was typically
weird. I was at work at a place that was familiar
to me in the dream, but seemed to be a sort of mix
between maybe half a dozen different workplaces
from the past. I had been working in a more remote
part of the building, and it was home time. I
found that someone had started locking up early,
and had locked the only connecting door that lead
to the exit of the building. After exploring a bit
I found that three other people were in the same
situation as me.
It was good news that one of those three
persons was the company secretary/finance
department, and most definitely had the ear of the
owner of the company. She would do all the
complaining for the rest of us. I did find that
one fire door leading to the car park was open,
but we couldn't use it because it would set off
intruder alarms - although it was wide open.
Eventually I had to make a very scary exit down a
long thin, and wobbly staircase on the side of the
building. The fact that the staircase seemed to
have no ties to the building to stop it swaying
was bad enough, but it passed through some very
high voltage (multi kilovolts !) switch gear. One
switch was constantly arcing, and the arcs were
over a foot long. Passing just a couple of feet
from that was very scary !
It was about 7am when I woke up this
morning, and if you subtract a few ten minute
breaks in sleep when I woke up for one reason or
another, I had less than 7 hours sleep. That is
not so bad in summer, but my body is well out of
practice at doing so. I tried turning over to go
back to sleep, but sleep would just not come -
maybe because while it was rather grey light from
the overcast sky, it was light outside. It was
fully my intention to have a pee, take my morning
pills, and try to go back to sleep again, but I
didn't seem to try that. Maybe I'll do some extra
snoozing today.
I was happy to see that my blood glucose
level has dropped a little again for the fourth
consecutive day, and is now closer to what I
consider to be an acceptable average. I still
don't know whether to blame it on the morning
crisps, or the lunchtime soup. In theory I didn't
actually eat much yesterday, and apart from the
morning crisps I did hardly any (not the same as
none unfortunately) snacking. In another theory I
might possibly have lost a gram or two of weight
yesterday, but I couldn't be bothered to weigh
myself this morning.
Today could be boring. The grey skies and
rain have drained away any enthusiasm for any
outdoor activities - although I ought to go
shopping today. I expect I will do a few odd bit
of tidying up now and then, but I have no grand
plans. One thing I might do is to transfer a
couple of old cassette tapes I found to mp3 files.
One is potentially interesting it is a bootleg of
a gig I went to in 1994. It was recorded by Jodie,
who after I said it would work, used her
headphones as microphones. As far as the bouncers
were concerned she was just another girl wearing
headphones. It will be interesting to hear how
well it might have worked, but it is going to be a
tedious process to do the copy to my PC in real
time, and then try to clean it up, re-equalise the
sound, and split it into individual songs.
I think there was a gig I had a small
interest in going to tonight, but it was such a
small interest that I can't even remember who it
was I was thinking of seeing. The chances are that
I will stay in tonight - and enjoy it. I might
even get an early night unless some annoyance
phones me up just as I am dropping off to sleep.
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