Today should be the same as yesterday, but even warmer. Perhaps a few light clouds may cause less sunshine towards the end of the day, but otherwise it is mostly just sunshine forecast. The predicted 27° C should feel quite warm ! I note even the nights are now warming up. The early hours of this morning were a bit cool. Tomorrow should see more sunshine, and the temperature hitting 29° C.
   

  My walk was deliberately short yesterday because I wanted to be in a certain place at a certain time ! I was hoping for a very special birthday event (it was my birthday yesterday), and my dream came true. My plan was to try and meet Angela in the park at lunchtime by pure chance rather than arranging anything in advance.

  As I think I mentioned a few days ago, Angela has had some problems, and when she phoned me last Friday she was very unsure about whether she would be able to meet up this week. I didn't want to push her if she was unsure, and so I just went to the park in the hope she would be there.

  At the normal time she appeared, and was very glad to see me. She said she nearly contacted me to suggest a meeting. We have not set eyes on each other since lockdown, 90+ days ago, but it was like no time at all had passed. There was instant warmth and rapport. I spent a very happy 45 minutes or so with her in the park - at a reduced social distance, but still further apart than we would have been without Covid-19 annoyances.

  I still managed to clock up a walk of 2.6 miles, and that was enough to keep me from seizing up. Maybe it wasn't quite enough considering I had been shopping in the morning, and for a little while my diet was a bit richer than other days as I had treats like a whole punnet of cherries as part of my lunch, and a packet of "crispy bacon" (which was not crispy at all) for breakfast.

  Seeing Angela definitely put me in a good mood for the day - good enough to do all my financial stuff. I had tried to do some finance stuff the day before, but for still unknown reasons Santander's web site kept kicking me back to the login screen. It was as if some needed cookie was being rejected by my web browser. I was using Chromium, the open source version of Google's Chrome browser, and I am sure I had allowed all cookies, but every time I entered my details, and clicked to log in it just went back to the log in screen with no error messages.

  In desperation I tried using Firefox, and that worked. I was able to pay the remaining debt for my electricity bill, and to reduce my standing order for my gas supply because that was heavily in credit ! I also noted my remaining balance. It had been boosted by my latest (BT) pension payment, and seemed a bit healthier than the last time I checked. It really does seem that if my spending continues as it has since retiring, I will still have a little bit of money left (a tiny bit maybe) when my state pension starts to pay out in approx 12 months time (I hope).

  Not only did I do the necessary to sort out EDF energy, but I also dared to pay my credit card bill. I did that by successfully logging in using Chromium. The amount owed was quite high, but half of it was for my TV licence. Apart from anything I might buy before the end of the month, my credit card is fully paid off.  Dealing with banks, and paying bills is something I usually hate, but yesterday I guess I was in a buoyant enough mood to take it in my stride. Unusual !
  I bought these 4 beers from Aldi yesterday morning. Although it was my birthday, I don't think I was intending to drink any of them yesterday, or at least not all of them. In fact I didn't drink any of them, and it might have been because I thought I had eaten more than I should have, or more of the wrong stuff - not that anything I ate was particularly bad in itself. The lump of cheese, and a handful of nuts after my dinner was nice, but ideally should have been avoided.

  Dinner itself was actually very healthy - I think. It was salad leaves, cucumber, tomatoes and spring onion with grilled fish. The fish was sea bass, and as I may have mentioned yesterday morning, it was not a fish I was familiar with. For some reason I think of sea bass as being "posh", and so should have magical properties or something. My taste bud said it was actually very average - better than that tasteless pollock that is sometimes used as a substitute for cod, and not nearly as good as cod. I was underwhelmed !

  I think I had one or two whiskies before going to bed. I spent at least an hour reading in bed before turning out the light. The book I am currently reading is "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. It seemed to influence my dreams, or at least one of them. The 2 seconds of dream I remember involved coming across the section of felled tree that was now a monument, and where two of the heroes of the book had made a proclamation. The stupid thing is that most of the story is set on the moon, and trees do not grow on the moon !

  On a completely different theme was a remembered second or two from another dream. I wish I could recall the context of the brief memory, but apart from the obvious that it involved my garden, it has faded from memory. The bit I do remember is that there were some large flowers brightening up my garden. I am sure I remember having many dreams, but all the details have now faded to nothing.

  I did sleep better last night. There was no period of insomnia at 1am, although I think I might have got up for a pee around that time. I did wake up feeling cold at (I think) around 3am, and had to pull the duvet over me before I got back to sleep. It still feels rather cool in my bedroom this morning. Maybe I should be wearing more than just underpants until the day starts to warm up a bit more !

  My health indicators aren't too bad this morning. My blood glucose, that had dipped nice and low yesterday, was back up to near the running average for the month - a bit higher than desirable, but only in so much as it leaves little wiggle room for those occasional over shoots. My weight seems firmly stuck, and it is not really much different to how it was when I was working at it really hard prior to my appointments with the diabetes nurse, and dietician in January.

  I could get a bit more stressed about the lack of weight loss in the last month or two, but I am aware that some other process is happening. Angela confirmed it for me with no prompting, my body shape has improved for the better since we last saw each other. I have to be very aware not to be complacent about it, but it does seem my fat is being replaced by muscle. Now that hot weather has returned I ought to be able to do a bit more to reduce my fat content, but there are problems. In an ideal world I would be going on some long country or coastal walks, but this mandatory masks thing on buses and trains really puts me off using them.

  Then there is also the damage I have done to my feet that makes long walks uncomfortable. My skinned toe continues to heal, but it is a slow process. There is also the problem with socks. At least I assume it is socks. Since changing socks my boots do not feel as comfortable. I only changed socks because the old ones were getting very thin in places (rather than getting smelly - washing then cures that). I will probably make a mid week visit to Tesco, and while in there I will check their sock offerings.

  Today I intend to go for a walk. Unless I hear from Angela I won't be trying to meet her today, but I probably will tomorrow. Today I might tackle Blythe Hill again, and hopefully my feet will be comfortable enough to stretch the walk to going through the River Pool Linear Park to add as much as a couple of miles to the walk. That comes later. First of all I need to have a shower, and then do a bit of laundry. It would be a shame to waste today's warm sunshine, and drying clothes would be an excellent use for it !