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Thursday 12th
March 2020
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07:41 GMT
Yesterday I posted two screenshots of the
weather forecast. The first showed yesterday to be
bright with sunny intervals. The second was a
revision posted an hour later, and it said it
would be a dull and overcast day. The first
version of the forecast turned out to be almost
right, and the second definitely wrong. There was
a lot of sunshine yesterday, and if hadn't been
for a strong breeze, it might have felt as good as
14° C probably should have felt.
If this is only a sunny interval then it is
a very long one ! It seems to have been sunny
since the sun rose over an hour ago. It is a shame
it is only 5° C out, but I can feel that sun on
the back of my head as I sit here writing, and it
feels lovely and warm. Today could see quite a lot
of sunshine, although maybe only as sunny
intervals, but the afternoon temperature may only
reach 10° C, and at midday some strong winds will
make it feel much colder. At least it should stay
dry....although the latest revision to the
forecast says there will be hail at 9pm, but it
does acknowledge that there will be full sunshine
before the hail. Also, the strong winds are now
thought to start at 9am, and finish at midday.
Evidently the weather is changing faster than the
forecasts can keep up with it, and so to say that
tomorrow may be dry and bright with an afternoon
high of 11° C probably doesn't mean much.
One of the first things I did yesterday was
to go to Iceland to get some shopping. In fact it
was the first thing I did after a basic wash, and
getting dressed. I was after a few specific
things, but of course I got more than was on my
very sparse shopping list. I specifically wanted
ham, tomatoes, and sugar free biscuits - ideally
sugar free hazlenut wafer, but I haven't seen
those for ages, and had to settle of boring old
vanilla wafers.
I also bought two Iceland "Slimming World"
meals. I had one yesterday. It was Chinese style
chicken curry, and it was not enjoyable at all.
The curry sauce was very bland, and the chicken
rubbery. The other ready meal was Beef Koftas. I
am not really expecting them to be good, but I'll
keep my fingers crossed when I have them sometime
today. My other purchase was a 4 pack of Corona virus
lager beer. The last bottle I tried was fairly
pleasant, and at £5 for a pack of 4 they were
fairly cheap (much, much cheaper than pub prices).
Interestingly enough I noted that the stuff is
actually brewed in Mexico, but bottled in the UK.
Walking to and from Iceland was a useful
test of how I felt, and it seems I felt OK. I
maintained my usual fairly fast walking pace there
and back, and it seemed to feel OK. Although the
air was still cold when I was out, I could easily
feel the warmth of the sun on my face, and my
decision to wear my sleeveless denim jacket turned
out to be the correct one. I did feel a bit warm
by the time I had got my shopping home.
At that point I still don't know what I
would do next, and so I laid on my bed to do some
reading while cooling off a bit. I almost had a
snooze, but I think it was the sun through my
bedroom window that caused me to spring into
action. It almost was a split second decision, and
instant reaction, but in reality it was spread
over at least 10 minutes (at least I am sure it
must have been even if it actually feels like it
was a lot faster). My decision was that I was
going to do some work in the garden while it was
dry, and the sun was out.
I thought I was going to rake the pebbles
and other solid debris off where my lawn-to-be is,
and also try and level it out. At the moment it is
like a relief map of the South Downs. I did do a
tiny bit of work on it, but all my hard work was
centred elsewhere. The first thing I did was to
rake over the bed where I had my first
experimental plot for potatoes and tomatoes. At
the moment I am not eating potatoes (except in
rare circumstances), and so it seemed pointless
trying to grow more. I may still attempt to grow
tomatoes, but not just yet. Having raked most of
the weeds out of that bed, not that there were
many weeds, and with the soil nicely broken up by
the rake, I sowed a load of flower seeds. Apart
from trying to keep what I think are the taller
plants at the back, it was all done on a very
random basis. I have no idea what I sowed or
where, and now I will just let the seeds
germinate, and the plants sort themselves out.
The area where I scattered all sorts of
seeds in stupidly large portions (probably). Like
all the pictures to illustrate my gardening, there
is not really anything to see, but maybe one day
I'll do a before and after picture set, and my
finally see the results of my hard work. I
consider I did work rather hard yesterday. I was
out for about 2 hours, and almost filled the
brown, garden waste, wheelie bin for the first
time in months. It was mainly as a result of
tackling the back, right hand corner of the
garden. For a long time it was a sort of dumping
ground for stuff when it was partly screened by
several trees. All the trees eventually succumbed
to ivy, although the big one that caused me so
much hard work clearing after it was inexpertly
cut down, seemed fairly healthy.
As well as old, semi rotten, tree stumps,
and tangled ivy, there are loads of bricks and
lumps of concrete in the back corner of the
garden. The picture above shows a selection of
bricks pulled out as I dug down, and pulled out
loads of ivy shoots and roots. The ones I added to
this existing pile yesterday are the wetter
looking red bricks, but there were a few yellow
bricks too. There is probably about the same
amount to be extracted in future should I bother,
and I probably will. Some, but not most, of the
red bricks are in fair condition, and for a future
project I may clean them up, and use them to
replace some crumbling decorative red bricks by my
front door. Those, and possibly the red bricks
pictured, are apparently sometimes called
"rubbers" because the material is so soft it is
easy to rub down, and carve into architectural
features. They can only be used in non load
bearing positions - or so a dodgy builder once
told me.
This is just over half of what should be
lawn one day. I did do a bit of work at the back
of it to remove some of the bigger weeds, and to
test how easy it will be to try and level it up
(not easy at all !!), but I have to admit that
most of it remains untouched. The area pictured
should be the easiest to get about right, but
further towards the camera there is a lot of hard
work to be done. The very worst job will be trying
to cut out the old roots of a tree. I got the main
stump out last year, but I had to cut through some
roots that will be a real bugger to extract - and
I need to get them out because they are higher
than what she be the surface of the lawn.
After two hours work, most of it out of
direct reach of the sunshine, I was feeling quite
hot and sweaty. I also was also feeling the
strain. A few little used muscles were starting to
complain. It felt like I had done enough. As is
often the case at this stage of gardening, there
is little to see to show how much physical work I
did. I really ought to take before and after
pictures, or even a time lapse sequence of how a
big pile becomes a small pile (or something).
Anyway, it was nice to stop, have a cold drink,
and it would have been nice to have my late lunch,
but it was that "Slimming World" Chinese style
curry that I have already slagged off for being
rather tasteless.
A little later I had a few aches and pains
to remind me of my hard work, but in many ways
they were mild in comparison to the aches and
pains I had last week as a result of some sort of
infection. Yesterday I learned something that
makes me wonder even more if I was actually
suffering from Covid-19, the "Corona virus". Many
mild cases are being reported, and it seems most
cases are mild. Mine was not exactly mild. For a
few days it was every bit as bad as 'flu can be,
and there is the possibility that there is a mild
form of 'flu going around that is a different
strain to the vaccines used last Autumn.
The one big big difference, and it could
apply to both 'flu and Covid-19, but is the killer
factor for Covid-19, and it is chest infections
leading on to pneumonia. I didn't get more than a
bit of of a dry tickly cough, and that didn't last
for any significant time. Yesterday I saw a video
on You Tube made by a British doctor who carefully
explained some research reported in The British
Medical Journal on increased protection against
respiratory infections as a result of increased
Vitamin D consumption. It is this doctors opinion
that in the UK winter out natural production of
Vitamin D by sunlight on the skin, is usually too
low - particularly the further north you go in the
country.
For the last two or three years I have been
taking a high daily dose of over the counter
Vitamin D3, and I don't think I have suffered any
bad chest infection for some time now. Not smoking
for the last six and a half years has obviously
helped, but after seeing the video it seems highly
likely that I had been protecting myself by taking
vitamin D3. I started taking it to see if it might
help with the winter blues, and it did to some
extent. I continued taking it, even through
summer, because it seemed to keep my blood
pressure lower than all my prescription
pills. The You Tube video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/W5yVGmfivAk
Last nights dinner was another salad that
used sliced white cabbage instead of lettuce. This
time, using stuff I had bought in Iceland in the
morning, it included tomato, red bell pepper, and
spring onion instead of sliced small white onion.
It was pleasant enough, but I think I preferred
the simple version I made using what was at hand.
Just the sliced cabbage, and sliced onion with
ham, and dressed with balsamic vinaigrette, seemed
to be nicer. I had milk and sugar free cookies
after. It was finally all washed down with a
couple of cans of Guinness.
By 9.30pm I was very ready for bed, and I
hardly managed to read a full page before putting
the book down, and falling asleep. Last night was
another night when I really can't say if I slept
well or not. It was another night when it seemed
warm enough to turn off any heating some time
before going to bed. At first it felt a bit too
hot to sleep completely (except my head) under the
duvet, and I woke up once feeling too warm
(although I actually woke up for a pee). Later in
the night I would wake up, also for a pee, and
feeling a bit cold. At about 5am I turned the
heater on before going back to bed. By that time
the outside temperature had fallen from almost 11°
C to 5° C (or possibly less).
This morning I can still feel a few aches
from yesterday's work in the garden, but they are
quite mild, and at least I know there is a very
good reason for them. I didn't dare to weigh
myself this morning. My weight is all over the
place at the moment. Hopefully as the weather
continues to slowly improve I will regain better
control over my eating. One thing I have done is
to get my blood glucose level heading back in the
right direction. It had jumped from sevens to
eights last week, but now most readings are under
8 (but sometimes only just !).
There are two things, or three if you
include washing my hair, that I intend to do
today. The first, straight after my shower, is to
do a little laundry. The second is to go out for
my (usually) regular "Thursday club" drinking late
this afternoon. That leaves several hours spare in
the the middle. I could spend more time in the
garden if the sun can stay out - it is still doing
quite well, and continued to shine right through
the forecast hail shower that didn't happen !
Maybe I will just choose to be lazy. I'll reveal
all tomorrow - probably.
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