The forecast for yesterday, as shown above, turned out to be about right. The sunny periods were rather short at times, and because the sun is now high in the sky, those short periods of sunshine didn't shine into my front room. In consequence it didn't always feel that warm when lazily laying on my bed - which I did a lot. For a while my thermometers said the temperature actually reached 20° C, and it seemed to feel warmer in the garden than it did indoors.
   Finally today's weather. The latest revision improves on the screenshot above taken at 6am. The latest revision reckons the temperature will flatten out at 23° C between 3pm and 5pm. Nearly all the day should be dry and sunny. The dry weather should last longer than the 14 days shown in the forecast, although anything beyond 24 hours into the future needs taking with a pinch of salt. Tomorrow should be mostly sunny, and probably at least a degree warmer than today.

  I didn't write anything yesterday because initially I felt too tired, and too hungover. Later in the day I just couldn't be bothered. So today I attempt to remember the very few things that happened yesterday and the day before. Both days, for different reasons, were days when I couldn't motivate myself. On Saturday it was because the weather just failed to bring out any enthusiasm, and yesterday because....well, I'll come to that soon.
  The most productive thing I did on Saturday was to go for a short walk to Poundland. Sorry, that was Friday, but going to Poundland on Friday is still relevant to the picture above. While I was in there I noticed that they had some cool looking mirrored sunglasses. They are only only cheap plastic lenses, but they do seem to dim the world a lot. Combine those sunglasses, and checking to see if my old khaki shorts still fit OK, resulted in the picture above. Apart from the terrible double chine, I thought I looked reasonably OK in this picture - just a shame it was taken indoors in a sunless room.

  I have two pairs of shorts that could be described as khaki. The pair in the picture are quite pale, but maybe closer to the famous wildlife explorer (whether mad Ozzie or eccentric Englishman) look. The other pair are a more military drab green colour. I can't remember which hot summer it was, but I feel sure it was probably before my heart bypass operation in 2013, when I used to use these shorts a lot. The pale pair, as modelled above, only have a couple of basic pockets, and so I didn't use them for any exploring. I used to wear them indoors and in the garden mostly. Anyway, the good news is that both pairs still fit, and may even fit a bit better now. They have just enough tightness to not need a belt (although I would not want to go far without one - just in case), but slack enough to be very comfortable. It is nice to know that I maybe a tiny bit slimmer now than I was that distant year ago - a time when I was doing to quite long walks along the coast, or in the countryside.

  I am now desperately trying to think what else I might have done on Saturday, and apart from one thing I keep coming up blank. I am pretty certain I was feeling bored for a lot of Saturday, and that is probably why I allowed myself to do something stupid. I called Sue on the phone, but she didn't answer. That in itself was not stupid, but she phoned me back soon after (maybe she was on the toilet or something when I phoned). What was stupid was not putting a time limit on the call. I think we started chatting at around 9pm, and didn't finish until it was light outside.

  I have no idea what we talked about for most of that time. It was Sue who drove a lot of the conversation, and I think she was so glad to talk because lockdown has been hitting her quite hard - much harder than it has hot me. My life is not that far from normal most of the time, and it is mainly not being able to do things, or travel spontaneously that are the worst things for me. Now the curious thing is that I resist drinking to obliterate time, and concentrate on enjoying my drink - doing things like trying out just a couple of cans of beers that you never see in pubs. On Saturday night, and Sunday morning, I was distracted from savouring my booze, and ended up drinking far too much - at least I think I did.

  I know I drank two cans of 8.5% imported Belgium beer, and two cans of Guinness. It is the amount of vodka I drank that is a mystery. I suspect it was rather a lot made up of lots of small sips from a small glass that I probably topped up while my mind was concentrating on the conversation. I was not aware of feeling drunk when we finally said goodbye, although I did fall asleep on the phone for a minute or three at around sunrise. I think it was about 8am when I hung up the phone and went to bed. The next thing I was aware of was that it was 12.45 !

  After nearly 5 hours sleep I woke up feeling very strange. I think I was still drunk because I felt sort of light headed. At least I wasn't in any pain - except for my chest, or more specifically my rib cage and sternum. It felt like I had given my ribs a good crunching while thrashing around when asleep. This latest phase of what might be costochondritis actually started a few days previously, but seemed to reach a peak yesterday. It felt worse or better depending on my pose. The fact that it was a muscles/ligaments/rib or other bone was very apparent when shaking a can of air freshener. That movement, while not actually painful, made it sound/felt like I had a ratchet in my chest.

  Ibuprofen helps a lot when my ribs play up. Some forms of physical exercise can help too, but not walking. Walking seems to inflame things more, and can actually be painful. It is typically when twisting my body to look behind, or just walking round a sharp corner when I can get unpleasant, but fortunately usually short lived, stabbing pains. It seems that exercise that involved stretching the arms at a certain angle is what can help a lot. I can only produce the stretching in one way, and that is when doing washing by hand using a couple of big builders buckets in the bath. It was late in the afternoon when I decided to wash my two, pairs of khaki shorts. It was a medium sized job, and one that was not strictly needed, but it made my ribs feel better, and I now have two sparkling clean, apart from one strange stain, pairs of khaki shorts ready for the hottest weather - except if I am walking the narrow path by the river between the stinging nettles !

  One very curious thing about yesterday, and my hangover, is that I didn't seem to feel very hungry, or at least not after I had a very late breakfast at nearly 2pm. That breakfast was grilled bacon with a small serving of diced vegetable salad (which was a pointless addition). Dinner time came and went, and I just couldn't be bothered to prepare anything to eat. I think it was almost 8pm when I ate what would have just been extra snacks on a normal day. I had the equivalent of a small wineglass (maybe three quarters full) of shelled walnuts, a pack of 5 mini Pepperami sticks, and some sugar free vanilla wafers.

  Despite my lack of sleep I didn't feel a strong urge to get to bed last night. I went to bed around 9pm if I recall correctly, and I probably read until gone 10pm. After that I did fall asleep quite quickly, and the only anomaly during my sleep was waking up close to 1am, and wondering why it was still dark. For a while I seemed convinced that it should be time to get up. I fell asleep again, and maybe I got up for a wee at some point, but the next definite time I woke up was 6am. I got up long enough to go to the toilet, weigh myself, check my temperature, and to check my blood glucose level.

  My weight, as I would expect, is getting lower again, but still has not reached the lowest weight of the last month or two. My blood glucose was very satisfactory again. It was 5.8mmol/l. That is absolutely perfect, although I does mean I have to be careful if I exercise and fast to not let it get too low - although to get that down to 4.0 would need a lot of effort, and problems don't really occur until it is around 3.0 or lower. Apart from an occasional small blip, probably more of a result of taking my temperature an hour or so late, my temperature seems to follow what is now a well worn path across the day. My spreadsheet or temperature reading taken 5 time a day will easily show the moment I get an infection !

  Despite all these good health indicators,  I am still not sure I feel OK this morning. My legs still feel rather creaky, but at least my ribs seem to be mostly behaving themselves this morning. I guess I have gone out on walks feeling worse than this, and it would be a terrible shame to waste this nice sunshine. It looks like I'll be going for a walk today.