The screenshot above was of the forecast at 4am. It was revised at 8am, and now it shows that there will be far more sunshine. Most of the afternoon is now shown as non stop sunshine, and sunny spells for most hours either side of the afternoon. At the moment the sky is only about 5% clouded over, and it as as good as non stop sunshine now. The afternoon temperature should rise to a more summer like 23° C (possibly 24° C). Tomorrow it is possible that the sunny periods will swap with the hours of non stop sunshine, but the temperature will probably be about the same. Rain, and maybe a fair bit of it, will return tomorrow evening.

   I had grand plans for some sort of walk yesterday, but that did not happen. That was for two reasons. The first is that a trial walk to Poundland made me realise that my legs, and in particular my right knee, suggested they would not loosen up. A walk to Poundstretcher confirmed this diagnosis. It is unusual, and slightly worrying, that my right knee did not loosen up as it usually does. The other reason, and one that turned out to be equally valid, is that I was too busy again !

  The prime reason for my walk to Poundland was to buy some paint brushes and a paint roller. I bought two rollers, and pack of 3 very dubious quality paint brushes. I also bought some other assorted crap. In fact there was quite a lot of it, but I can't remember what it all was. Having delivered that lot home I then went out again to Poundstretcher. Once again I was after painting equipment in the hope that it might be slightly better quality without costing a lot more.

  I think I made the assumption that noticing painting equipment would jog my memory that I wanted it, but either I passed it by without noticing it, or there was none. I think it would be where the gardening stuff is if the gardening season hadn't been extended by Covid-19. My walk was still useful because I got some bottles of bleach, and some Flash spray for cleaning up paintwork and stuff (and possibly cleaning the kitchen - which is what it is labelled as).  I also bought a couple of door mats which were hiding in plain sight in a place I obviously didn't see when I was looking for them a few days earlier.

  After a short rest I got down to the main business at hand - painting the chimney breast in the back room. Oh, I forgot to mention that before I went out, I filled in the holes where there were wall plugs for the screws holding up the shelves that were attached to it. I filled them with a quick drying filler. I am not sure of the time I started painting, maybe 1pm, but that filler seemed to have hardened by then.

  The cheap and nasty paint roller, that I had bought from Poundland, made the job of painting that bit of wall (the front of the chimney breast) quick and simple. The only problem is that the roller seemed to shed some odd bits of red fluff. I think they were getting caught on the sharper bits of the woodchip wallpaper. There were not too many of them, and I rubbed off several after the paint had dried. A second coat, which I will probably do today, should cover any bits left, and I can fill in a few areas that only seem to have a thin coat of new paint.
  With just the one coat that chimney breast looks really good, and it will be far nicer for when the dining table is adjacent to it. Of course it now makes more of the room look rather grubby. The ceiling, in particular, now looks very dark. If it were easy to clear the room I would do all the walls and ceiling, but it has been hard enough packing all the stuff still in there in a compact way to make space. It would be a hell of a job to get it all out again, and then either take down, or paint around the book shelves.
  I may have to paint this door. It depends on the light, but the top half looks rather brown compared with the bottom. That is a bit strange because it was the top that should have been protected by the big poster that was once pinned to it. Maybe it will respond to a good scrubbing with Flash and a scouring pad. (big sponge backed scouring pads , another purchase yesterday). Maybe it won't. I cleaned the door a few days ago, but yesterday I cleaned the door frame with Flash and scouring pad, and while it looks a lot better than it did, it still looks rather brown - when snapped with camera and flash. To the naked eye it doesn't look quite so bad.

  When I sit back and take stock of what I have achieved I realise I have reached my major objectives, but that now, any improvement I make to one thing just shows up the rest. The room is now usable as a dining room again, and that was the important thing. Maybe I should concentrate now on trying to sort out more stuff to be thrown away so I have even more space to work in when the day comes to do things like clean and paint the ceiling.

  On top of all the other work I did I also washed three t-shirts and some underwear. If I had done that laundry much earlier I could have dried it outside, but I think it was almost 5pm when I finished washing it. I left it on the clothes horse indoors to dry - initially with a fan blowing on it, and then with the fan off, overnight. I think it still feels a bit damp this morning.....Having just rushed down stairs to put the fan back on, I now realise that it was dry after all. It must have just felt a bit cold.

  Looking out the window while I was checking the clothes on the clothes horse reminded me of another thing I did yesterday. I washed the back windows, and some of the window frames. It wasn't too long ago that I last did it, but that was a rush job, and I missed a few bits I couldn't reach because of junk in the way. I still haven't got the glass 100% smear-less, but that is less obvious than the bots I completely missed last time.

  My final job of the day was to water the garden. After that I could relax, and eat my dinner. It was spares from the Chinese takeaway I had ordered the night before. I think I made a poor choice when I ordered the main dishes. I now know I don't like those slimy Chinese mushrooms, and last night I discovered a second main dish with them in it. This time I ate them instead of picking them all out, but that still did not me find anything about them to like, and more reason to avoid them in the future. The Singapore rice was, fortunately, as delicious as always.
  There was a nice sunset last night. This was in keeping with today being a nice sunny day (despite quite a few semi- dense clouds now appearing in the sky). I think I may have been asleep before the full glories of sunset were seen, but I took this picture just before going to bed, and the salmon pink of a good sunset can be seen to start to form. One problem of living in a terrace of houses that runs east to west is that there is not good view from inside the house, through any window, that really shows the rising or setting sun in summer (although the setting sun can be seen in winter).

  Most of my sleep was probably not too bad, but I was plagued by one huge annoyance - a very dry mouth. I am not sure what caused it, but I know what made it a lot worse. It was Wisdom "Sensitive" toothpaste. That stuff leaves my mouth feeling funny, and like things like hay fever, I seem far more sensitive to it since (probably) having had a Covid-19 infection back in February.

  My mouth was so absurdly dry that my tongue, and cheeks were sticking to my teeth, and I am sure I managed to bite both in the night. Sometime in the early hours my tongue felt like it had ulcers, and was quite sore. It seems to have healed now, and I guess it was just sort of bruised or something. It is a mystery as to why my mouth became almost stone dry for half the night or more. It is often a little dry in the night - probably form snoring or something annoying - but this was extreme. One thing I do know is that my blood glucose was very high last night. It was probably the Chinese food partly to blame, but most of the blame lies on me for buying, and then being unable to resist a small box containing about 10 miniature chocolate bars. They were very nice, and once started, hard to leave alone.

  This morning my blood glucose was 9.3mmol/l, and that is sailing very close to the danger area. If I am careful I can bring it down to a sane level by tomorrow, and in that case no harm will be done. Unfortunately it will take rather longer to get my weight back down to where it was a week or two ago. I don't know why but I can't seem to take such care of my diet as I was doing. It just goes to show the cumulative effect of the travel ban without facemasks, the pub re-openings with their off-putting rules and restrictions, and finally, and not seeing Angela. all bear down on my psyche leaving me in a state of depression. It's funny how I seemed to cope with lockdown fairly well when it was in full swing, but now there are temptations being dangled under my nose that feel like a pact with the Devil. Things have improved, but they bring no improvement, and the future now looks further away than ever. It make me question everything I do or believe in.

  I theory my day, today, should be easily predictable. In an ideal world I would find the time and energy to go for a walk in the sunshine, give the back room chimney breast a second coat of paint, and do some stuff in the garden. At the moment I realise I don't feel like doing any of these things, or indeed anything at all. I don't think I will make any predictions, and just leave it until tomorrow to say what I did - if anything.