Once again I find it more useful to display screenshots from bot the BBC and The Met Office.  I think the latter comes closer to reality, but still leaves much room for doubt. First of all, the weather as observed by me ! It was nice and bright until just before 8.30am. After that it became cloudy, and I noted some cars had rain on them, but none had fallen locally that I was aware of. Now into the land of fantasy ! The BBC reckon that there should be sunny spells right up to 1pm. The Met Office predict rain for 10am, 11am, and then again at 1pm. 3pm, 4pm, and 5pm could see heavy rain unless you are in BBC land when there will just be light rain between 2pm and 7pm. Everyone agrees that from 8pm there will be just light cloud. The BBC predicts an optimistic 20° C this afternoon, and The Met Office is more pessimistic at just 18° C, although their evening might be warmer at 19° C. Both forecasters reckon tomorrow should be dry, and maybe 19 to 20° C. The Met Office predicts sunny spells for the morning up to 11am. The BBC reckons the sunny spells may last to 1pm.

   The day before yesterday was a day that brought no joy. Yesterday seemed to do it's best to make it worse ! There was one bit of good news, but I think it may have been from the morning of the day before yesterday. I phoned up the pharmacy about my next repeat prescription. Two months ago I was told that I would need a review before the next set of repeat prescriptions would be issued. It seems the doctors would prefer not to actually see any patients, and so issued repeat prescriptions without even trying to find out of I was still alive ! One thing keeps getting missed off these repeat prescriptions, and that is the test strips for my blood glucose meter. The Pharmacist said he will have another go at getting it put on the repeat prescription list. He said to call in tomorrow, and hopefully pick it all up.

  I was really looking forward to seeing Angela yesterday. She is of the same mind as me about the impossible restrictions being put on pub openings - having to pre-book visits, one way systems in the pub and gardens, no more than one person in the toilets at a time, and in many cases not ordering at the bar, and the possibility of having to pay through a hole in a perspex window. That is no way to enjoy a visit to a pub, and I can imagine that many people who will rush out on the 4th July for their first drink in a pub are going to be very disappointed. Many may not go back again until the restrictions are lifted. One man was saying he was looking forward to seeing his mates, but the official rules say that no more than members of two different households can sit at a table together. With tables having to be 2ft apart, it is going to be very hard to have a good time with more than one mate in the 2 hour limit for a visit to a pub.

  Once again I have to thank my friend Lee for holding me up going out. I should be angry with him, but he is such a simpleton sometimes that you have to take pity on him. If I could have got out just 10 minutes later I would have been past the point of no return, and would have carried on with the walk I had planned. I was going to walk to the top of Mountsfield Park, and then play about with my continued walk to try and arrive at the park where Angela could have been at about 10 past 1pm.  Instead of that I walked out the front door just as it started to rain.
  I stayed on my doorstep just long enough to take this picture of rain drops on top of the wheelie bin, before going back inside feeling disappointed. My disappointment would increase a lot when 5 minutes later (perhaps only 3 minutes !) the sun came out. I probably should have put my boots back on, and gone out again, but I was feeling pissed off enough that I decided to just sulk for the rest of the day...or a lot of it.
  I did think that I might do some gardening of the day brightened up a bit - even if it was just to clear up the mess where some darling pussy cat had tried to use one of my plant pots as a littler tray ! I did get as far as standing the put back up again, but I just could not raise the enthusiasm to do any more. One thing was apparent, and even more so this morning, and that is my lawn could do with another trim. It seems to be growing very fast now. Even some of the bare patches I seeded are now going green - sadly not all of them though.

  In days like yesterday my thoughts all too easily turn to food. It is the one reliable thing that gives me pleasure. For lunch I had the spare tub of Halo Top, low(ish) calorie/sugar ice cream I had in the freezer. It was very nice although not that appropriate for a day that I thought lacked the expected warmth of summer (or even late spring/early autumn). For dinner I really went wild. Not only did I order a takeaway, but I went for a special treat of usually unhealthy food - a Chinese takeaway, but I may be doing it an injustice.

  I ordered two main dishes, and a few spare bits and pieces. The first main dish I ate was chicken with cashew nuts and yellow bean sauce. It seemed a small portion than I was expecting, and like everything I ordered, it seemed rather expensive compared to the last time I had any Chinese food. However it was very nice, had plenty of cashews, and more importantly it did not seem to be very greasy. In fact, apart from the yellow bean sauce, it was comparatively dry. The way the empty container washed out so easily was a good indicator that very little oil had been used to make it.

  The second main dish was twice cooked pork. It too seemed to be a smaller portion than usual, and once again it seemed not hardly any oil in it. Maybe for this dish that was not so good. The chicken and cashew nuts was delicious, but this pork dish didn't seem to be that good at all. Once again the container rinsed out with just warm water, and came up almost perfectly clean. The Singapore fried rice obviously had some oil in it, but not as much as I expected. I only ate about a third of the rice, and I will have the rest some time today.

  I'm not sure if I will have that rice for lunch or dinner. Maybe dinner because I also have a container of "salt and pepper" spare ribs to have with it. I usually avoid rice because it increases my blood glucose a fair bit, but yesterday's food only increased it a bit. A figure of 7.3mmol/l is pretty good, and slightly below my monthly average. It suggests that my Chinese food was not loaded with sugar as it used to be.

  One surprising thing about yesterday was that having done so little, and having several snoozes through the day, I was still able to get to sleep quite easily before sunset. I'm not sure exactly when it was, but my last memory before sleep overtook me was seeing grey light still filtering through gaps in the curtains. Having got to sleep I seemed to sleep well. At least "well" as judged by the brief times I was awake in the night.

  One such time when I was awake was not a pleasant time....actually, as I type that there were two times when I felt very uncomfortable after getting back to bed after going for a wee. I can't remember what order they came in, but one was a sort of very intense, very localised headache...or sort of headache. It was up the back of my head, and felt to be in quite a thin strip. I was sure it was something lethal. but seemed to fade quickly once I adjusted my pillows. It was probably just a ligament that was stretched in a strange way. I assume there must be ligaments to stop your head falling off !

  The other occasion was once again related to how I was laying down - or so I realised with hind sight. I had a really bad pain in my back, on the right side, just under the shoulder. It felt like I had a knife sticking in me. I think it might have been some sort of cramp. All I know was that turning from laying on my right side to my left side cured that pain in seconds. Other than that, I slept peacefully, although I remember having some quite vivid dreams that I can't really remember in enough detail to make trying to describe them meaningful.

  This morning I feel basically OK. I have already mentioned my blood glucose being very satisfactory, or even surprisingly good considering how I thought it might be after what I ate yesterday. My weight was not so good though. It has gone up enough in just 24 hours to demand that I do something about it. Unfortunately I might have done something bad about about !

  I felt good enough to have a shower, and get out to do some shopping in Tesco by 8.30am. It was nice and quiet in there, and it was fairly relaxing shopping in there while completely ignoring their stupid one way system. I guess that one way system might make some sense when there are hundreds in the store slowly shuffling along spaced at 2 metre intervals. When there are only about 20 people in the entire store, and the nearest person can be several aisles away, that one way system is meaningless. I bought more ice cream - for emergency use ! I bought another 4 bottles of beer two bottles of Diet coke, some salad leaves and tomatoes, and not much else.

  The "not much else" did include a couple of rolls. There were reduced price sandwiches, but with just 20p off a £2.50 sandwich I decided not to be taken for a mug. That wasn't the case with £1 knocked off a couple of £2.50 chicken rolls. Another minor extravagance, naughty thing, bargain, was the hot version of packets of Pepperami. They were on special offer at a price that was considerably less than they are sold in Poundland. I have to confess buying two packs.

  Today I have had another phone call from Lee, but this time I made a point of getting rid of him quickly ! Once again I am going to try and get out for a walk before it rains. When it rains is anyone's guess, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will be dry during Angela's lunch break. It would be helpful if there was a bit of sunshine around 1pm. Once again I am going to aim to walk to the top of Mountsfield Park, and time my walk to be at Angela's favourite park bench at 10 past 1pm. The chances of meeting her seem slim because of the weather, but hopefully we can spend a bit of time socially distanced from each other before scurrying home when the rain starts !