This afternoon should be sunny. In fact the first tentative rays pf sunshine have already managed to break through the clouds, although the clouds still seem to cover most of the sky, and they are rather grey in colour. Maybe there will be full sunshine by 11am. The BBC's forecast is far more pessimistic. They reckon some rain at 9am, and only a few sunny intervals this afternoon. Meanwhile, an update to the Met Office forecast says full sunshine could now start at 10am, and apart from a brief spell of just sunny intervals at 4pm, the sun should shine non stop until sunset. The afternoon temperature should rise to 21° C (the BBC think it will only be 20° C). Tomorrow may start sunny, and end sunny, but the most important bit in the middle may be rather dull. The temperature should still hit 20° C, but not until late in the afternoon.

   Yesterday was not a good day, although it had it's moments. The gloom put me off going for a walk, although I still might have gone for one of I had got through the morning a lot faster. The morning seemed to pass very slowly....or was it fast ? It was probably a bit of both. I think of it as slow because I didn't seem to do much before midday. By the time it was midday the outside gloom had seeped into my soul, and I didn't fancy going out. There was also the idea that I wasn't feeling too well.

  Evidently I wasn't feeling too bad because I seemed to have all the energy needed to wash some clothes by hand. It didn't seem they would dry outside, and so I dried them indoors with a desk fan blowing on them to speed things up. What was novel about was that for the first time, probably ever, I put the clothes horse up in the back room (the old, and maybe new, one day, dining room). Clearing out so much crap from that room has left plenty of room for the clothes horse.

  I started doing that laundry by hand with all sorts of exciting aches and pains, and ended up wit most of them gone. It really was another indicator that I need my walks to keep my body in working order. Spending much of the day laying on my bed, usually reading, except for the occasional snooze, makes my body seize up.

  Yesterday was peculiar in another way that I can blame on the grey weather. It wasn't cold, but it wasn't warm either. One of those strange voices in my head, that only some strange ears in my head can hear, said that what I wanted for lunch was some hot soup. It wasn't nearly cold enough for soup, and yet it did seem a very attractive idea. I had a bowl of chunky lamb soup, and I rather enjoyed it. I was going to have another soup when I noticed the "best before" date on top of a can of Aldi own brand spaghetti in tomato sauce.

  It said BBE 2018 - I should have eaten it 2 years ago ! I am not even sure why I bought it because I have never been a fan of any type of spaghetti, and tinned spaghetti is not the greatest product ! Nevertheless I heated it up, and ate it, and found it really nice ! A nearly said "delicious" but that would be going too far. The secret was a good splash of scotch bonnet chilli sauce. That definitely gave it some body !

  After letting my lunch settle down I felt ready to do some gardening. I had wanted to do some because I had a specific idea I wanted to try. Initially it was just a little thing, but up to a point, the more I did the more I wanted to do. The very specific thing was to bring in the window boxes, and transplant them direct into the back garden. They were hideously root bound, and my hope that the recent rain might water them was very wrong. They were dry, and looking very droopy - and close to dead.
   I took this picture about 20 minutes after planting those flowers directly into the garden, and I think it is just wishful thinking that they were already perking up a bit.....on the other hand...
  This picture, taken this morning, does seem to show a definite improvement. It seems I can now say that at long last I have flowers (which aren't weeds) in my back garden now. My lawn continues to grow well. There are still some thin areas, but I have a lot of grass now growing at the back of the garden where it had seemed to refuse to take earlier on. I gave it a good forking, and watered it well. That seems to have done the trick. There are more areas I need to treat the same, but I am getting there. I would have liked to give the lawn another cut yesterday, but after bending over to pull out a loads of weeds (but still only one twentieth of them) I didn't fancy bending over any more to use the shears.
  I took a few more pictures this morning. These are my nasturtiums. I tried not to put too many seeds in this shallow box. Overloading the identical boxes I was using as window boxes was not such a good idea. Hopefully these Nasturtiums will have room to spread out. I hope these turn out to be red. The others I planted, that choked, were a pale yellow, and rather bland.
  These cornflowers are now growing fast. I am torn between using these as window boxes, or to replant them directly in the garden. The latter may be a better idea.
  These four pots contain vegetables - at least I hope they do. The two on the left were planted with chilli seeds. I used gritty mud from the wild area of the lawn nearest the house, and I rather expected to see no more than weeds, the pot on the far left looks hopeful. The next one does have one or two tiny shoots, but they could be anything. The next pot along should be tomato plants grown from a couple of squashed tomatoes. I will definitely need to thin them out before too long. The pot on the right has some spring onion seeds in it. One of the local cats tried to use it as a littler tray - I hope the sticks will deter that dear pussy cat in the future. There are some tiny shoots appearing, and hopefully I will have some onions before summer is over.

  Back to yesterday: I'm not sure how long I spent in the garden. Maybe it was no more than half an hour, but time can pass quickly when "gainfully employed".  It was either before or after working in the garden, maybe both, that I did some very light tidying up in the back room. It was just one of those very quick things where you think that "If I threw that away, and moved that to over there, and moved that box a little to the left (right, back or forward) the place would look a little neater. I did something similar when I went through the back room to go and take the morning photos of my transplanted flowers.

  I finally got back into very lazy mode, and read for a while, and I think I probably had a snooze. I was in a mildly disappointed mood because I would have liked to do more - probably in the garden - but I just didn't feel well disposed to do any more. In such a mood I gave into temptation to order a takeaway. It was to be an experimental order that included Peri Peri chicken, and pizza. There would have been ample for dinner last night, and dinner tonight, and depending on how greedy I felt last, there was the possibility of something for lunch today.

  It was a fairly expensive order, and some bits would definitely not have been very healthy - quite the opposite ! Fortunately I was spared this madness by a message to say they could not fulfil the order, and it had been cancelled. That forced me to get off my arse and construct quite a tasty salad whose worst ingredient was too much mayonnaise ! I did have a dessert though. It was my spare low(ish) calorie/sugar ice cream. Oddly enough, the one thing I didn't have last night, or even at any time through the day, was any booze.

  I have a theory as to why I didn't have any booze. I think it was because I convinced myself that if I didn't want any I wouldn't miss going to a pub. The pubs did indeed open yesterday, and some said the experience was wonderful. I find that hard to believe, but I don't find it hard to believe that had convinced themselves that it must have been a good experience. I saw a few pictures posted on social media. One picture showed quite a few people having a "good time" by shouting across a beer garden to their friends where they were all in little groups on well spaced tables. Another picture showed a bar done up like a post office counter - totally impersonal service through a hole in a perspex security screen.  If the opportunity arises I will meet Angela in a almost deserted pub at lunchtime, but otherwise I think I will wait another 6 months or more in the hope that pub service returns to normal.

  My sleep last night was both good and bad. I became increasingly uncomfortable in bed as morning approached. I still managed to get back to sleep fairly quickly after waking up for a pee several times in the night, but my sleep seemed to feel lumpy. It sounds a silly definition, and I can't even attempt to define it. I can't even say quite why I was uncomfortable, or more uncomfortable than other nights - except for one thing. I am most definitely going through one of my phases where my rib cage, sternum, and whatever else, is playing up again.

  It is easy to describe it as chest pain, but that usually implies something worse...or at least something more lethal. All sorts of things can trigger this pain - even something as simple as shaking an aerosol. When I was shaking my can of deodorant, after having my morning shower, I could feel all my ribs rattling, or ratcheting, or just clicking and popping. It doesn't hurt at the time, but it feels unpleasant. It is like your chest is going to come unzipped or something. Laying in the wrong position can be quite uncomfortable, and is possibly the instigator to these bad phases. Wet weather helps make it worse.

  This morning I don't feel that good, but not so bad that I couldn't go to Tesco twice. For some silly reason I thought they opened at 9am, but it is actually 10am. The first time I walked there I felt very creaky, and my chest/ribs/sternum/ligaments were complaining. The second time felt much easier. I wanted to take advantage of the sunshine, and go for an extended walk today, but my walks to Tesco suggest I probably would not enjoy it.  I think it is more likely I will be spending some time in the garden today. I doubt it will do me any good, but I might attempt to cut the grass with the shears. I am thinking that maybe I should get something motorised to make it less of a back breaking task.