This morning both the BBC and Met Office (screenshot of Met Office above) both agree there will be a thunderstorm today, and amazingly they both agree on a time too - about 2pm. Of course the forecasts are never complete until sometimes after the event. The Met Office has reduced the hours when a thunderstorm might happen to just one single hour. The BBC still reckon on thunderstorms between 2pm and 6pm, and have now added a few more hours of thunderstorms late tonight. Until the sky does, or doesn't cloud over with black thunderclouds there should be non stop strong sunshine. That will raise an already warm morning up to just 31° C today, but any rain will cool things off a bit, but not much. It looks like it will be another very hot and sweaty night, and tomorrow will start off very warm again, but tomorrow may only reach 28° C with some rain in the afternoon.

  I was constrained as to what I could do yesterday until I had two packets delivered. I took advantage of that to be quite lazy, and it was probably deserved after my very long walk in the heat the day before. There were a few things I could do, like washing the sweat soaked t-shirt I had worn on the hot walk, but to be honest I just couldn't be bothered. The trouble was that it was so hot in my bedroom, where I spent most of the morning reading books and off the internet, that it felt too hot to do anything that took more muscle power than an occasional blink of the eye.

  I failed to notice what time it was that my first packet arrive. The second arrived maybe half an hour later. The first packet was the CO² bulbs for my soda syphon. The second packet was the soda syphon itself. I already had a couple of bottles of chilled water in the fridge to fill the soda syphon after I had rinsed it out. I then charged it with CO², gave it a shake, and then allowed the recommended 10 minutes fore the gas to diffuse into the water. The result was delicious.
  One curious thing is that there was a logo on both the box it came in, and on the side of the syphon. It said Maison & White. The Amazon seller said it was just made by Ulli (an Austrian company I believe). Maybe it was bankrupt stock, excess stock, or reject stock, but whatever the reason it was perfect for my uses, and a useful bit cheaper than some similar looking syphons, and a great deal cheaper than "Soda-Stream" products.

  The only thing I did of any significance in the afternoon was to water the garden. I think I was hoping that there might actually have been some rain, or even a thunderstorm yesterday, but that was not to be. All my plants seemed to be coping in the heat except for a pot with tomato plants in it. They were looking a bit limp. I hope they recovered after a good watering. I watered myself too - with fizzy water. That fizzy water is nice with a splash of lime cordial in it. I really must try a whisky and soda one day, although I prefer my whisky neat....or at least I prefer the whiskies I like to be neat (maybe with an ice cube if one is handy).

   I resisted the temptation to eat anything until dinner time yesterday. At time it was really difficult because there were few distractions. The temptation to eat came in waves, and somehow I resisted all of them. At dinner time I prepared a similar dish to the cauliflower cheese and ham I had the day before. Yesterday I used the last of a bag of frozen "vegetable medley". Once I had washed all the frost off there didn't seem to be that much of it, but I covered it with a lot of cheese, and stirred in the last bit of ham I had. After a sprinkle of assorted herbs and spices I microwave baked it for 12 minutes.

  I gave that dinner a bit longer to cool than the day before, but it was still very warm when I ate it. Maybe it was hunger, but it seemed very tasty to me. Even the carrots, a vegetable I usually avoid, seemed quite nice. It was quite a small meal, and so I topped it off with a dessert of sugar free chocolate chip cookies. That is all I ate yesterday. I think I am back on some sort of plan again. Who knows if it will last another day, week or month ?

  I am not sure what came first..... I allowed myself 2 cans of my very small stash of Guinness yesterday evening. I think it was while drinking the first can that I went online to see what the chances were of ordering more cans on line. The chances were good ! The doubt I expressed in the opening words of this paragraph are because I can't recall if I allowed myself those two can because I knew there were more on their way, or if it was a desperate attempt to replace those two cans. I probably did the order when I was drinking the first can, but maybe not.

  I found a company called drinks direct who will ship a tray of 24 cans of Guinness to me. The price, including the delivery charge, works out at £1.74 a can. That is more than I think I would pay in Aldi, but rather cheaper than pub prices. In fact it is probably half the pub price ! The extra price over a supermarket is that I don't have to lug 24 can home. That would be exhausting.

   Last night was a very hot night. I slept with the fan on all night, and I seemed to sleep quite well. I did wake up a couple of times, mainly for a wee, and found my pillow damp with sweat, and damp patches on the sheet where I had been sweating. Maybe it was a mistake to use so many hot spices in my dinner ! I did drink a fair bit of water during the night, but I was probably rather dehydrated when I got up, although I didn't seem to feel thirsty. In fact I seemed to feel less thirsty than usual.

  The main reason for thinking I was dehydrated was when I weighed myself. It was the lowest reading yet ! It does seem that I have last at least a kilogram in the last week or so. That is on par with the losses I was able to make when dieting in the last months of last year. At that time I had pending appointments with the diabetes nurse and dietician to spur me on. Lately it has probably been the hot weather - and a lot more walking.

  While the news about my weight was excellent, my blood glucose was bad. It was a very high 9.9mmol/l. I assume this is because dehydration is concentrating my blood. I'll try and force down a couple of pints of water soon, and check it again. Assuming it goes down I will be happy about it. As for the rest of me.....well, I do feel rather stiff this morning, but not painfully so.

  It feels like the sort of stiffness that a nice walk would sort out. I feel I should go for a walk today. If nothing else it is a good distraction from the fridge. I think I might walk in the direction of Crofton Park station, and see where that takes me. If I time it right, and the weather Gods play ball with the forecasters, I could time the last half mile when it starts to rain so I will be nice and cool when I get home. The trouble is that I am not completely convinced it will rain today - there have been too many false alarms recently.