It looked as if there might have been some rain in the night, but maybe it was just dew giving a slightly damp look to the garden. At the moment there are many clouds to be seen, but also plenty of blue sky too. Those clouds occasionally pass in front of the sun, and so I don't think I would say there is full sunshine like the forecast predicts at the moment. The forecast is slowly changing, and at the moment, changing for the better. The BBC website forecast is a bit more optimistic than the Met Office forecast above, but the latest revision to the Met Office forecast does show sunny spells now featuring in most hours across the afternoon, and into the evening. It seems like it will be a pretty fair day, and with 20° C forecast it should be a pleasant afternoon. Tomorrow should start sunny, and the BBC say it will continue until 1pm, while the Met Office say only until 10pm, but both agree that sunny spells should follow on from full sunshine, and the afternoon temperature will hit 23° C.

  Yesterday turned out to be quite a busy day, but it started fairly dull. The highlight of the morning was going out shopping, but it was only to the corner shop to buy New Scientist magazine, and so hardly counts. I then spent a relaxed morning reading New Scientist - not all of it though, and I have plenty to read today or tomorrow. It wasn't until early afternoon that I got really busy.

  I ate a fairly light lunch of a simple ham salad, and allowed maybe an hour for that to settle before I got busy. I never know where the inspiration to do these things "now" even when following a sort of plan. In this case it was to resume clearing/tidying the back room. I guess it was mostly inspired my getting my new internet firewall box up and running, and so being able to get the old firewall off the old desk in the back room.

  I put all the bits of that old firewall back into the box, instead of being spread over the desk, and screwed the cover back on. I will probably strip it of useful bits in the future, and try and loose it in the bottom of the wheelie bin to dispose of it, but for the moment I am leaving it in a state where I can resurrect it if the new box fails. With that out the way it was easy to clear the rest of the desk top, and clean and polish it.

 The desk had two drawers that seemed to somehow collect a lot of cigarette ash over the 20 years, or however long it was, I was using it. I picked out some potentially useful stuff, and gritted my teeth while I tipped the rest of the carefully hoarded stuff in the bin before hoovering the drawers. At that point I was going to take the legs off to make it easier to move, and store for a while before moving it to my bedroom - which is the most likely place I can use it. Unfortunately it turned out to be difficult to get to the screws that hold the legs on. In the end I took it out into the garden where I can consider it's future later.

  I then had access to the wall behind the desk. "The wall" in this case is actually the old chimney breast, and probably accounts for almost half the length of the room.  As well as having brackets for shelves on it, that I then removed, that wall was very grubby. It was stained with nicotine, and covered with fluff and dust. I spent quite a time (at least that is how it felt to me) getting up and down on a chair to wash the wall. It came up a lot brighter, but ultimately I will have to paint it. Once I had finished washing the wall I dragged the glass topped dining table over to stand in front of it. I could then move what should be some temporary storage boxes around to make it look like there was lots more room, and less clutter.
  There is still a lot of work to be done in that room, including giving the door jambs a good scrubbing, and possibly painting. The doors themselves would probably be better if re-painted, as would the window frames. I still have a load of junk to sort through, and dispose of somehow. However, at this point the room is now usable as a dining room should it be needed - and it might. The chances of Patricia visiting, and probably staying a few days or more, has recently gone from no chance to a mere hint of a chance this coming September, but it all hangs on how the pandemic proceeds.

  It is probable that I spent no more than  three hours working in the back room yesterday, but it felt like a days work to me, and I was glad I could put my feet up. Not really doing much extended to preparing dinner. I decided to order a takeaway, although I must have been busy in some way because I didn't order it until it was gone dinner time. I opted for a Chinese takeaway. I used the same restaurant as I used last time because their food seemed healthier, i.e. less oil, and possibly less salt than what I assumed was normal.

  This time the food did not seem quite as good, but maybe I just got lucky with what I ordered the first time. I thought the Szechuan chicken to be unpleasant until I extracted the slimy mushrooms from it, but even then I was still disappointed. I don't think there was anything wrong with it, but it just didn't suit my palate. I still have one main dish, plus a whole Singapore rice for my dinner tonight.

  The one big unknown in Chinese cooking is how much sugar they use. The food I ate last night didn't seem to be sweet, but an hour later I was shocked when I checked my blood glucose. I haven't seen it that high for ages and ages. Fortunately it came right down again over night, but it was a shock at the time. I have never noted that excess salt, or monosodium glutamate, aka soy sauce, has raised my blood pressure as they are alleged to do, but last night my blood pressure was perfectly normal for me  - fairly low in the grand scheme of things.

  All that work in the afternoon left me feeling very sleep, although I didn't realise it at first. I was going to watch an old episode of QI on TV before bed, but I think the episode being shown had a guest I don't like (I think it was Johnny Vegas), and so I declined to watch it. That meant I was in bed well before 9pm. I started reading quite a heavy article in New Scientist, and I found my eyelids started to droop. I persisted in trying to carry on reading until I was woke up by dropping the magazine on my face !

  After putting the magazine down, and turning out the light, I was probably asleep before 9pm. I know I got up for a pee several times in the night, but I can't really remember much about my sleep apart from that. I do remember having a dream or two that featured cats - friendly cats ! Once again I woke up at 4am as if it was time to get up, but I managed to get back to sleep again, and it was for much longer than I expected. I might have even git 9 hours sleep last night, and some of that must have been good sleep.

  I finally got up feeling halfway between good and bad. I guess I could feel some mild effect from the wall scrubbing, and other stuff yesterday, but nothing that was worse than the usual creakiness I get after a night's sleep. Fortunately there were no new or novel pains this morning. That is just as well because today could be another busy day. That will happen, or won't happen depending on certain unknowable rules of the universe - probably.

  As I said further up the page, my blood glucose came right down overnight. This morning it was just 7.0mmol/l, and that is below my current average, although still a bit higher than I aspire to. My blood pressure is 105/65, and that is probably a little lower than the target for most humans, but probably about right for someone, like me, with past heart problems. The only fly in the ointment is my weight. I was hoping it would have been a bit lower this morning, but it feels like I have only done half a poo this morning. I feel sure there is more to come, and maybe that will make the figure look a bit better.

  What I really want to do today is to go out and buy some cheap, Poundland, paint brushes, and other stuff to paint that chimney breast in the dining room. I am not sure if I actually want to go ahead and do the painting though, and so what I will probably do is go for a walk. Ideally it will be a long walk, and if it feels good as I do it, maybe a very long walk. I have in mind a route that would involve looping around New Beckenham station - a walk that will probably be at least 5 miles long. There is a third, and possibly more likely option - walk for just a couple of miles, and take in maybe Poundstretcher on the way home.