It is probably not fair to say 20° C in the afternoon represents a cool day, but after the 32° C we had a few weeks back, it is quite a drop. It is still a long way away from any need for a coat. A coat will definitely not be needed in direct sunshine, and as promised in yesterday's forecast for today, it seem there will be a lot of sunshine today. The sun is pouring through my front windows as I type this. The latest revision to the forecast says that tomorrow should be identical to today.

  After only getting little more than an hours sleep the previous night I expected yesterday to be a very lazy day. At time it was, and I did have at least one snooze that probably lasted for about an hour, but otherwise I was fairly alert, and doing stuff. Quite what a lot of that stuff was is hard to say. Mostly it was little jobs, but I did do one big job, and was probably doing it for at least an hour.

  Before I started the bog job I pottered around doing some small jobs - things like washing up a couple of plates. I also read for fair bit - both from paper, and from my PC screen. At about midday I felt peckish. It was probably a combination of boredom and fatigue, although neither were that strong motivations to eat, and in theory what I saw on the scales in the morning should have been a good motivation not to eat. I sort of compromised by just having some soup, but I will confess I did have two cans of it. They were selected to be low calorie and low sugar though.

  Later in the afternoon, and according to the time shown in the filename of the two pictures I took, it was later than I remembered, I set to work doing some hard work in the garden. It wasn't initially supposed to be hard work. I was just going to pull a few weeds, and water the garden, but while out there I found myself giving the last bit of what should be lawn, but is/was weed and rock infested ground a good hard stare. I decided that maybe it was time I made a start on it.
  This picture just looks like a patch of mud, but it was supposed to represent much more. If I had taken this picture from near ground level it would probably show the reality that this patch of ground, a little bigger than one yard by one yard (or a meter by a metre - both are guesswork, and so there is no accuracy), is not only nearly 8 inches lower than it was, but is now free of chunks of concrete, and other building stuff, and mostly free of bigger pebbles. Also removed was all the soil, weeds, pebbles, and chunks of detritus that were overhanging the concrete perimeter of the path.
  Disposing of the excess soil (which is 10 to 30% cat litter clay or grit) was always going to be a problem. I have moved the problem, about 6 or 7 buckets worth, to the back corner of the garden. Once again, this picture undersells how much stuff I moved from one end of the garden to the other. I am hoping that now the soil has been turned over, and aerated, it might be usable next spring if I can think of something that grows well on rocky soil. I have no idea why I think it, but I think I want to grow some sunflowers, maybe giant sunflowers, in this corner of the garden. Whether they would grow in rocky soil is an unanswered question.

  As I said further up the page, I think I spent an hour or more doing this labour of love. I still have about three times that area to rehabilitate, but I think half of that is not so deep. Before I came indoors I got out the hose and watered the garden. I was feeling hot and sweaty, and imagined turning the hose on my self, but I knew that water was bloody cold, and sanity prevailed. Once indoors I poured ice cold water down my throat ! From then on it wasn't long until dinner. I think it was then that I had my long, possibly a full hour, snooze.

  Dinner was shish kebabs. They physical labour I was doing a few hours earlier had given me an appetite, and I ended up eating both spare kebab I had ordered for dinner the previous night. One useful thing about these kebabs is that the restaurant had packed the pitta bread separately. I decided to keep them for a while in case I find a use for them. Maybe I'll stuff one with baked beans or something. I wouldn't be surprised if I throw the other two away later - maybe all three of them.

  I had little trouble getting to sleep last night. Maybe not finding a mouse on the landing last night helped ! I did read in bed for a while, but I think I was fast asleep before 9pm. I slept non stop until about 1am when I got up for a pee. I was soon back to sleep, but maybe only for an hour before I needed another pee. I then got back to sleep, and slept again for about three hours. I may have slept for longer but I was feeling a bit cool by 6pm. My bedroom was quite warm when I went to bed, but by this morning it had cooled off. I tried pulling the duvet over, but that just felt too hot. So at about 6.30 I started to get up.

  There was better new when I got on the scales this morning. I seem to have got over the brief peak in my weight, and I am now back to where I started a week ago. If I am careful things can only get better. My blood glucose was quite good too. It was 7.4mmol/l, and that is just under my monthly average (although a few very high peaks may make this months average a bit higher than previous months). The bad news, although it is only slightly bad, is that I can feel the results of shovelling shit spoil in the garden yesterday. My upper back was quite stiff, although it does seem to be easing off OK now. My legs feel a bit stiff still.

  Ideally I should go for at least a 3 mile walk today, but there are two problems to this. One is time, and the other is my stiff legs. I am not sure if they will free up once I start walking, or if they will start to complain more. I have a feeling it could be like last Thursday (I think it was then) when I really had to grit my teeth to not make a short walk even shorter. The time problem is that I think that Michael and Jodie will be over this afternoon for another boozing session. Before then I need to do some housework. I guess I could spare the time for a short walk, perhaps going over old ground so I probably won't need to stop to take any photos. I think I'll just play it by ear, and see how I get on.