The forecast in the screenshot above seems to be fantasy. I don't recall any sunshine earlier, although the sun is making a valiant effort to try and squeeze through a crack in the clouds as I write this. The latest revision doesn't seem to be available because like most government run web sites it is crap, and seems to have failed. The last I saw said there would be one shower sometime this afternoon, and that it would be overcast for most of the day, but the sun might appear now and then. At 21° C it should be a little warmer than yesterday. Tomorrow is likely to be another mostly overcast day, and probably a similar temperature. It is not until towards the end of next week, perhaps next Thursday, when the weather turns summery again.

   Yesterday morning was not as wet as I thought it might be, and by midday I thought it looked dry enough outside to give my new strimmer a test run. Before I was able to do that I had to sort out an extension lead. The longest I had was just about long enough, but it had a blown fuse in the plug. Many years ago, when I used to actually do constructive things in my workshop, I would have been able to put my finger on a box, or drawer of fuses instantly, but they must be hidden under untold heaps of crap. I had to find a new fuse from an existing plug. I had no idea I had fused so many leads with appropriate fuse ratings. I went through almost a dozen before I found a plug with TV marked on it, and that was incorrectly fused with a 13A fuse. The plug donated it's fuse, and the lead it was attached to was only a couple of feet long, and so I threw it away.

  With a new fuse in the extension lead I was able to spin up the strimmer, and hit the grass. My first impression was that it was harder to use than expected. Two things made it hard. After a while it starts to feel quite heavy despite having a two handled grip. The weight problem was made worse by trying to get the cutting height right. Too high and the weeds growing in the grass are not properly decapitated, and too low can result in bald patches and soil flying everywhere !

  It is going to take some practice to get it right, but it was certainly easier than using shears. I am also happy to say that it made mincemeat of the thick covering of weeds at the end of the lawn nearest the house. That ground is all lumpy, and full of rubble and old cat litter. One day it will become part of the lawn - at least that is the plan, but it is going to take a lot of hard work. In the meantime, the grassy area can slowly be beaten into submission at becoming a lawn. One day, when I am feeling more enthusiastic, I ought to dig out some of the weeds, and seed the bare places with more grass seed.
  In the meantime some of the lawn actually looks like lawn when seen from a distance ! It is the end nearest the camera that needs lots of hard work to sort out. I might even have to invest in a riddle to sieve out the rocks and bigger pebbles before laying down grass seed. I should have done that with the grassy area as well. There are still lots of big pebbles to be found between the grass blades.
   Amongst the ever present weeds there is some colour in the garden. I expected much more than 2 blue flowers, and two white flowers (still not fully in bloom) when I put a load of seeds in this area. I put them in before I had any means of watering the garden beyond taking out a few old 2l cola bottles, and some of these seeds could have been baked to death. Before the grass protected the soil it would bake like clay in sunny weather. There is another blue bud developing, and maybe more of it will come to life soon. I took this picture before doing a bit of weeding, and now there are less weeds, but still weeds. I haven't got the patience, and I can't stay bent over for long enough to do efficient weeding.
  Across the other side of the garden there is a bit more colour. The yellow/orange flowers are the last of the plants from my window boxes. I thought they were all dead, but this one seems to have picked up a lot since being planted into the garden. The straggly looking plant with then tiny white flowers was also from my window boxes. That too was near death when planted directly into the garden, and now continues to flower. The blue flowers are on a plant that has grown from a seed I planted there. The only mystery is why the other 100 seeds, sown at the same time, didn't grow ?

  I felt quite hot and sweaty after spending maybe an hour in the garden. As well as using the strimmer I pulled up a load of weeds. I also tried to pull up more of the ivy that keeps cropping up by the back fence. There is a lot of underground root, and it is still alive, and bloody difficult to pull out, but I think I am slowly winning. I haven't spent any time on it for maybe 2 months now, and there wasn't a lot to pull out or cut off.

  I looked forward to a nice lazy afternoon, but my laziness was soon spoiled by a call from Jodie. She was bored, and wanted to come over to have a few beers together. I said yes, and then had to rush around doing stuff like cleaning the bathroom hand basin and stuff. Also putting a few beers in the fridge. In all the rush, which I didn't need to do because it seemed like hours before Jodie finally turned up, I can't remember if I had any lunch. I am sure I did, but I can't recall what it might have been.

  I think it was gone 4pm when Jodie arrived with about 5 cans of beer. I think we drunk 4 of them, plus 2 or 3 bottles of my beer, and one can of mine. My beer stocks, apart from Carling Black Label, are now getting quite low. I amused Jodie, and myself, by playing some old cassettes. A recent gadget purchase of mine was a little box that is about half the size of a cigarette pack, and records mp3 audio directly to either a USB memory stick, or an SD card. The latter turned out to be better because the first USB stick I tried seemed to be too slow, and made the audio recording stutter every now and then.

  The cassettes I played, and digitally recorded, were some bootlegs that Jodie would have originally recorded at some gigs we used to go to in the early 1990s. The secret of getting the recorder past the bouncers was that it was just a Sony Walkman, but one that had a record button, and the ordinary Sony headphones worked really well as microphones ! Sometimes it could sound good, and sometimes rather horrible. It helped a lot if the band had a decent P.A., and didn't try and push it too loud. The other thing was being in a venue with good acoustics - some pubs were like being in echo chambers !

  I didn't expect Jodie to stay so late, and I think it was just gone 8pm when she left. For the last couple of hours my mind was distracted thinking about dinner. I was hungry, and maybe that suggested I didn't have any lunch. I was looking forward to the last two Iceland curry ready meals I had in the fridge (but not freezer, and so I had to eat them sooner or later). One was a biryani, and I treated that as just as rice accompaniment to a bhuna. The latter was more like chunky gravy. Both were improved with some splashes of hot chilli sauce.

  By the time I had finished my dinner it wasn't far off bedtime - 9pm. I did read for a bit after going to bed, but all the beer, and a stomach full of hot food made me feel very sleepy, and it wasn't long before I was fast asleep. maybe 2 or 3 hours later I was awake again, and suffering from heartburn - complete with curry flavoured burps. A couple of Rennies sorted it out, but not before it felt like I had lost a lot of sleep. I was still suffering from a bruised thigh/buttock, and that made getting to sleep sometimes difficult.

  I woke up around 6am, and it seemed like I should get up, but I still felt very tired, although maybe not sleepy. After an hour or so I went back to bed, and it didn't feel like I slept, but about 2 hours flashed by in no time at all. It was 9am when I got up again, and still not feeling good. I am not sure why I don't feel good. I am sure it is all in the mind. It is a Sunday, and therefore a depressing day - and that despite Sunday being very little different to any other day now.

  My weight and blood glucose are both up a little bit because of the beer and curry, but that was to be expected, and so not really a source of gloom. I could blame my gloom on the gloom outside, but as I write this the sun has unexpectedly come out again. If I had any confidence that it would stay out for more than a few minutes it might inspire me to do something productive, but as soon as I started writing that last sentence the light dimmed again, although I must admit it didn't dim that much.

  I don't know what I am going to do today. Maybe I have a few aches from doing the gardening yesterday, and maybe the mild headache I have is a legacy of yesterday's beer (I did feel a bit drunk at the end of it). Of course aching limbs, and a headache are symptoms of Covid-19, and so maybe life is going to get "interesting" soon, but I think I'll have a lay down, and do some quiet reading first. In fact I can't think of anything I would rather do than slump into idleness with a good book to read !