It was quite bright at 6am this morning, and it wasn't until gone 7am when the clouds thickened enough to change the light to grey. Since taking the screenshot above the forecast has been revised, and now it shows sunny spells in the morning, and then in the evening. When I look out the window it feels like the original forecast, as shown in the screenshot above, is more likely. I can't see the clouds thinning enough to bring any sunny spells in the next 8 minutes ! Two common things between revisions are that it should be a dry day, and that the afternoon temperature should be 20° C (the latest revision actually says 21° C for a few hours later in the afternoon). Having said all that, I do note that the light from the east (too far to the east to see it's source from here) is now bright enough to cast a shadow. Maybe there will be sunny spells this morning after all. Tomorrow is shown as being a wet day in the headline, but the details say only the morning may be wet, and the afternoon could feature sunny spells. After tomorrow thing seem to be heading for very hot !
   I have to say that I was never that keen to go for a walk yesterday morning, but I knew I had to do it, or at least try to.  As I started to get ready I received another long rambling call from my friend Lee. I can't even remember what the call was originally supposed to be about because Lee could not concentrate on what he was asking, and kept going off at weird tangents. I think it may have been a computer problem or something.

  One of the main things in preparing to go out was to go to the toilet. I couldn't do that while on the phone, and had to hurriedly go just before going out. That left me feeling slightly uncomfortable. It was a feeling that the job was not complete. Later on I would know that the job was complete, but I was less sure as I walked up the road. The half and half feeling continued until I was approaching the Sainsbury's Local shop near Catford station - just a tad short of half a mile away.

  It had been my intention to go into the shop after walking a mile or two, but I decided it would be best if I got my shopping (specifically the new edition of New Scientist, but also a few less important things), and then turned around and headed back to home. It was typical of the grand joker, who runs the world, that as soon as I headed for home I felt perfectly comfortable - and that included my sore toe. I had done a good job at protecting it with sticking plasters, and while I could still feel something, I felt no pain during the entire walk of just under a mile (probably more like 0.9 miles).

  Thanks to Lee delaying me getting out, it was around 1pm when I got home. It felt like time for lunch. It was theoretically a stupid idea to buy a pack of sandwiches ( a chicken triple pack), even just one, when my target for the day was to try and get my blood glucose down to more sensible levels. Nevertheless I tucked into that one pack of sandwiches with great relish, and somehow didn't feel like eating any more.

  I then spent maybe a couple of hours reading New Scientist, and having a snooze (or was it two short snoozes ?). After those couple of hours had passed I began to feel like I was wasting time, and should try and do something. The first thing I did was to try out an Android phone app call Droidcam. It is a really nice little app, and the basic version is free. It basically turns an Android phone into a webcam. It is an ideal app for an old phone that hasn't even got a sim card in it. All it needs is a Wifi connection to initially download the app from the play store, and then to "broadcast" the picture over WiFi to another phone or PC.

  Actually "broadcast" is a misnomer because the free version only allows one connection at a time. The Wifi connection is handy, but for Windows PCs there is also an application that allows connection via a USB lead, and then the phone can be used literally like a webcam for things like Zoom or other video calling systems. Sound is also transferred as well as video. There is a program for Linux too, and I may investigate that another day. Installation and use were so straightforward that I my entire experiment probably didn't take much longer to do than this writing about it...or maybe it did because I did a bit more experimenting that just installing the app, and seeing the pictures on my PC.

  My next task too a bit longer, and burned a few more calories (maybe about 20 calories !). I did more work in the garden. The recent rain has been good for the garden, and the weeds are thriving ! I did a bit of weeding here and there, and then tackled the lawn. I have this theory that weeds hate being decapitated, but grass is OK with it. It was only three days since I gave the lawn it's first cut, but it, plus weeds, had grown a lot in those last few days. This time I tried to cut it lower, and did my best to to try and get it a bit more even.
  Taken from this angle, and with the cut grass and weeds not cleared away, my lawn does seem to look like a lawn now. There are still bald patches, and patches of weeds, but it is looking much better than a large patch of mud, as it was just a few weeks ago. I probably said this last time, maybe about something else, but it does give me hope that one day I will have a semi decent looking garden.
  This is the ice plant (real name unknown) that my friend and neighbour Michael gave me weeks ago. For a long time it looked sickly, but is now looking strong and healthy. I sent him this picture, and he said I could have more if I wanted. Maybe I will get a few more of these plants from him. At least they are very distinct from weeds - I usually have to let weeds grow to much before I can identify them as weeds, and eliminate them. There is something sprouting just to the right of the bottom leaves of the ice plant. I am hoping that is from one of the many seeds I sowed in this area months ago. I certainly looks different to all the weeds !
  This plant with the frilly leaves has probably grown from one of the seeds I scattered in this area - a couple of feet from the ice plant in the picture above this one. It was submerged in weed, and looks a bit sickly for now, but I have cleared the weeds from around it, and given it some light now. Now I wait until it does something. hopefully it will turn out to be a colourful flower. I still have a lot of weeding to do in this bed, but I have to confess I find it difficult to spend too much time bent over pulling up weed - particularly after spending time cutting the lawn with shears - more bending over !

  I may have only spent half an hour in the garden, but now, with the garden mostly under control, or most of the garden under some sort of control, even half an hour can now seem productive. I still have a lot of hard work in store to do something with the quarter of the lawn (area) nearest the house. That area has the most rubble, and old cat litter in it. If I could afford the materials, and had the stamina to do the work, it would be a good candidate for decking - or even just concreted over ! Another, and maybe more likely outcome, would be to make it a sort of raised flower bed.

  With the gardening done I felt I could justify getting into extreme lazy mode. Apart from cooking some salmon, and dumping some salad on a plate, I didn't do anything more physical than eating that fish salad for dinner. Before I ate it I checked my blood glucose level. I don't do that very often now, but for some reason I felt curious. I was rather happy to see it had gone down from a very high 8.5mmol/l in the morning to a very nice 5.8mmol/l just before dinner. That was quite a drop, and a big surprise after eating a triple pack of sandwiches. Maybe that was just enough to wake my pancreas up, but not overload it.

  There were only two things of note that happened between dinner and bed. The first was being disgusted to turn on the Freeview "Pick" channel and find a load of blokes kicking a ball around instead of Star Trek. That made me see red. The other notable event was rather more pleasing. I had my shortest call even to Sue. I knew that she had been in intense pain from yet another abscess under a tooth (she really needs to see a dentist badly), and I wanted to see how she was feeling. She said the pain was less, and that it seemed like the abscess was ready to pop and drain. It will inevitably come back, but she will not do anything to prevent it happening.

  I haven't been to the dentist for far too long now after the most painful extraction I have ever experienced, but if I had the sort of pain that Sue had I would be seeing a dentist as soon as possible. Sue was staying with an old friend for a few days, and so had plenty of company, and with the distractions she was getting from the company it seemed a good idea to keep the call short. It was still about 30 minutes long, and I am quite sure that if I hadn't ended it early it would have gone on much longer.

  I think it was about 10pm when I was in bed, lights out, and fast asleep. I seem to have developed a nasty habit of sleeping well for about three hours, and then having insomnia for some hours after. I think I was awake, or mostly awake, for about 2 hours this morning, but after that I fell into almost normal sleep for the rest of the night. "Normal" includes waking up for a few minutes to go for a wee, or to adjust the duvet. Some of the problem was my stupid sensitivity to the temperature. I've never measured it, and of course it is subjective, but it seems like just a couple of degrees separates too cool from too warm.

  I managed to have a bit of a lie in this morning, and made up for some of the missing sleep earlier. As usual I have no idea if I feel good or bad. I do know that my blood glucose was a very satisfactory 6.8mmol/l this morning. That is a very good point to start the day. Once again my weight is sort of stuck, but maybe there are hints of it starting to go down again, although I think that might rely on a few more three mile (or more) walks. Maybe that might be possible today. My foot seems fairly comfortable, and even my right knee feels less stiff this morning. It is a sign the weather is changing for the better ! I hope the air feels nicer because it did feel a bit thick yesterday.

  While I was in the garden my chest felt sort of heavy. It was as if it was difficult to breathe in the air, and yet I was not short of breath. One of the first things I did when I came in from the garden was to check my blood oxygen saturation using my Oximeter. It was 99%, and even went up to 100% for a few seconds. 98% is my usual reading, and that is considered very good. It has been reported that people with Covid-19 can have readings as low as 50%. My high reading, plus my body temperature showing no sign of fever makes me feel confident that I have no go the current plague, and yet the mild asthmatic-like breathing I sometimes get suggests something is going on...or actually something has happened in the recent past. My breathing, and the sensitivity of my throat to some things, definitely changed a couple of months ago.