Today has the potential to be even hotter than yesterday. The latest revision of the forecast has changed nothing of significance. It says that there will be a couple of hours this afternoon when the temperature will rise to 31° C - one more degree than was forecast for yesterday. Tomorrow it ends with a bang ! It won't be much cooler, maybe 26° C, but thundery showers are predicted. By Sunday it could feel almost chilly compared to yesterday and today.

  Yesterday did not proceed in the way I had imagined it yesterday morning. After my two shopping trips. Tesco and Poundstretcher, I relaxed for a while, and then I sent a text message to Angela to say I would be going through the park, and it would be nice to meet up again. I was just getting my boots on when she replied to say she would not be there today. It is possible she wanted to get some shopping from Lewisham before taking today, and tomorrow off work.

  I could have still gone for a walk, but I felt a bit lazy in the heat, and decided not to go for a walk. It must have been a very specialised feeling of being lazy because I ended up doing quite a lot. The first bit of not being lazy was to cut my growing lawn - still using shears because that is all I have. It was hot sweaty work under a blazing sun, but it was sort of worth it. My theory about cutting off the heads of weeds would slowly kill them, while the grass would just keep growing, seems to be mostly valid - although it is going to be a very long war until I can claim anything like a victory.

  Every time I cut that lawn, and I think yesterday might have been the third time, it starts to look more and more like a lawn - although obviously not neatly cut and striped like a "proper" lawn, but as a patch of grass it is starting to look good. There are some notable bald areas, and after my next bit of hard work I did try and do something about them. In a week or so I'll find out if I have had any success.

  My next big job was to wash the duvet cover I had taken off my bed the day before. This duvet cover is higher quality one than the ones I have typically bought from Poundstretcher. It is made from thicker cotton, and it takes quite a bit of sweat to wash it by hand ! Once it was done, and wrung out the best I could manage, I draped it over the clothes horse sitting in the middle of my lawn. It started to dry very quickly in the hot sun. Unfortunately, when it was 95% dry a strong gust of wind blew it over. Fortunately it didn't even seem to pick up any dust. I took it indoors to dry after that.

  I don't think I had much of a rest before I decided to try and do something about the bald bits of my lawn. One of the things I had to do (or wanted to do) was to get the spade out and re-shape the edge of the lawn at the end of it by the tree stump that is an annoying feature of my garden now. I redistributed a fair bit of soil, and if the new seed takes, I should end up with a straight(ish) edged corner. That soil was fairly soft, but some of the area at the far end is, or was, rock hard. I had to break it up with a garden fork, and then rake it flat again. Having sown a load of seed, I then partly raked it into the soil - although there is still a lot loose on top.

  There is a strange sort of masochistic pleasure I get from working under a hot sun. I think it is a form of defiance - doing what should not be done or something. Of course it didn't take too long before I was feeling fatigued, and dripping sweat everywhere. It just so happened that it was almost time for me to take my temperature. I try and remember to do it every 3 hours during the day so I have a precise record of when Covid-19 hits (or to prove it hasn't happened). When I came in out of the sun, and took my temperature, I found it was typically slightly low compared to "normal". That sort of surprised me, but it suggests my body temperature regulation is working quite well.

  Before I came in I gave the new grass seed a bit of a water, and also gave a bit of water to my young cornflower plants. One of the cornflower boxes was looking very droopy, and it almost looked like a cat had sat on it. A bit of water seemed to revive it. Later in the evening I gave everything a good watering before I headed to bed.

  My lunch was a single pack of triple thick chicken sandwiches from Tesco. As usual I was suckered in by a yellow discount sticker offering a small discount. My dinner was much more wholesome. It was a grilled haddock salad. I am not sure if I have even bought non smoked haddock before. The smoked variety is very nice, but it can really stink the house out when cooking it. The non smoked haddock I had yesterday did make a bit of a fishy smell when cooking, but it was quite mild, and dissipated quite quickly. It made for a nice salad with a vinaigrette dressing.

  The mobile phone service 3 is a very odd company, and I rather like them. What makes them unusual is that they seem to allow a sim card to stay unused for ages without permanently cutting it off. I have two old phones that I have put Pay-As-You-Go 3 sims in, and neither has been topped up for almost a year. I only occasionally use those phones - almost only as a check phone to compare readings after a walk. I guess they get through very little data. Yesterday I was going to top them up, but after dialling 444, the PAYG top up number, I was told the balance on one phone was £7, and the other was over £10 (but I can't remember that exact figure). I didn't bother to top them up, but I guess I need to start using some data on them because I have two £10 top up vouchers here that will expire in a month or three (used to say on the voucher, but doesn't seem to now).

  There has been a slight intermission while I went to Tesco for the second morning running. Today's hot weather seemed like a great excuse for some low(ish) calorie ice cream this afternoon.

  Last night I decided to keep reading until I finished the book I was reading. I think I was till asleep around 10pm. On the whole I seemed to sleep well. I had a fan on for the first half of the night, but by about 3am it was starting to feel a bit too cool for the fan, although not so cold that I had to pull the empty duvet cover over me. I can vaguely remember having a few dreams, but only a very vague recollection of two of them. The same thing came up in two dreams, although it is possible the second dream was a dream about the first !

  The only thing I can remember, and then only as a sort of snapshot, is about something that was like a crane, or possibly some sort of articulated gun mount. (That would have come from the book I was reading). The curious thing is that it had some sort of gearing based on binary mathematics. The articulation at the top multiplied the articulation at the base, and that gave 5176 degrees of articulation. The silly thing is that I remember that number, but I can't remember what the whole thing looked like apart from it had pale blue gear wheels. I am sure some psychoanalyst could have a field day with that, but it means nothing to me.

  Compared to the expected aches and pains I expected after the hard work I did yesterday, I seem to feel pretty good this morning. My blood glucose was down to just 6.9mmol/l, and that is just about what I aim for (although 6.5mmol/l would be better), and is below my monthly rolling average for this month, and past months (I think). It is an ever moving quantity, hour by hour, day by day, but it is possible I am 100gm lighter than yesterday.

  My weight could be even lower if I allowed myself to get dehydrated, and I might just do that. With the weather turning bad tomorrow I ought to get out for a final walk in the sunshine for this week. I didn't feel too bad walking too and from Tesco, and maybe I might manage a 3 mile walk today - possibly more if it feels good once I get moving. I think I'll be heading for the River Pool Linear Park. If it feels good I may walk all the way to Lower Sydenham station.
  My friend Aleemah gave me this sign, or plaque, as a Xmas present. Until now I was not sure I had what you could call a garden, but with it now starting to look like a garden I thought it time to put the sign up. The only problem was that there was no obvious place to put it. I nailed it to the back fence because that area, despite some problems, is probably the most advanced area of my intended work ("Intended" = I make it up as I go along).