It is currently heavily overcast ! The latest revision to the forecast says we should now be entering into an hour of sunny periods, but that feel unlikely when I look out the window at the unbroken dull grey clouds. If the latest revision to the forecast could actually become reality there would be three hours of solid sunshine from 10am. Once again, this feels hard to believe. I don't think the forecast can tell us anything about reality today except for the temperature. This morning it was just 8° C, and it is starting to very slowly climb, and maybe it will peak at 13° C by this afternoon. Apart from tomorrow morning predicted to start at 10° C, the rest of the forecast could match what today may turn out to be - overcast all day, sometimes heavily overcast, and with a 10% chance of rain at any time through the day.
 
   Yesterday had it's highlights, and the morning sunshine was obviously the best highlight. That should have spurred me on to action, but somehow I wasn't in the mood for being dynamic. It didn't help that I was in occasional pain, mild pain, but still pain. It was another flare up of my wonky chest/rib cage. There were several times when a particular, but unpredictable, movement would cause a nasty pain to flare for a minute or two. As I say, it is/was impossible to say a certain movement would cause pain, and so it as good as impossible to say "well, I won't do that".

  I think the trigger for this flare up was probably an awkward movement made in bed, but it could also have been as I picked up the heavy box that was delivered from Star Bargains yesterday. The courier left it on top of the wheelie bin so neither of us would have to bend down for it - which was good. Carrying it to the dining room table seemed to be no problem, but my first jab of pain came when I used a Stanley Knife to slice through the parcel tape so I could open the box. With the big box on the table top I was using the knife with my arms almost level. I guess that put a small amount of strain at an unusual angle, and caused a rib, or ligament, or muscle, to "ping", and that was it. I knew I was in the middle of another flare up.

  I don't think I can blame that first, or any subsequent twinges, for slowing me down. There was just something in the air that made me feel lethargic. Maybe it was that we had lost the sunshine by then. I ended up spending far too much time sitting at my PC thinking I really should be exercising. One other confounding thing was waiting to hear from Michael. He was due to pop around for a beer in the afternoon, and was also going to buy me some bottles of Diet Coke while out shopping in his car. The trouble was that he was also expecting a parcel delivery, and there was a lot of uncertainty about when it would come.

  It was almost 4pm when Michael sent me a message to say his parcel had arrived, and that he was going out shopping. Maybe half an hour later he said he would pop around in 10 minutes. He did, and he had 4 bottles of Diet Coke for me. On this occasion he left his car outside (covered by his residents parking permit) and came in for a quick drink. It wasn't that quick ! We had three small bottles of beer (possibly just under one and a half pints in total), and talked a lot about music and broadband routers, and rip off ISPs. Michael went home again just before 6pm, and I reheated my dinner.

  Dinner was the fourth meal from the big Indian takeaway I had ordered last Monday. This time it was a pretty simple affair - boiled rice and vegetable curry (zapped up a bit with some hot pepper sauce). It was nice, but not terribly exciting. I had a bar of dark (and thus usually low sugar) chocolate for dessert. In this case I think that chocolate lived up to it's low(ish) sugar expectations.

 Before I went to bed last night I did some minimal research about a change in Covid regulations I had heard about. If I understand it correctly, and I may well be because I don't really know where we were, and that makes knowing where we are going difficult to know too. What I did hear was that London was moving up a tier, and I believe it was to level 2 covid regulations.
   I think these are the new regulations that start from midnight on Saturday. The first regulation is a bit perplexing. I think it means I could invite Angela over for a vodka, but I would be forbidden to mix it with Diet Coke. The rule of six seems perplexing. It could mean no more than 6 people allowed in the same road, or no more than 6 people in Hyde Park at any time. I thought pubs and restaurants had to close at 10pm before the change, and this makes me wonder if we are actually moving up to tier 3, but apparently as confirmed by a friend who is more in touch with these things. Anyway, pubs aren't pubs any more. I don't know what they are, but I don't recognise them as pubs any more with all their silly regulations.

  Last night I predicted I would have trouble sleeping because of the changing temperature. It was warm in my bedroom when I went to bed, but I knew it would be bloody chilly in the morning if I didn't leave the heater on low. I did wake up to adjust the duvet a few times, but I actually slept better than I expected. The worst thing was waking up at about 5.30am as if it was time to get up. It took a while to get back to sleep again, and it was that funny sleep where you don't feel as if you have been sleeping, and yet each time you check the clock big chunks of time seemed to have passed without you being aware of it.

  This morning I don't feel any better than yesterday, and that didn't work out well !  I could blame Covid, but I think I'll just blame the weather for some joint pain. As well as the usual stiff legs, and a bit of not that uncommon shoulder ache, my left elbow feels a bit sore this morning. It is not the first time by far that my left elbow has been painful. The surprising thing is that it is not the right elbow. I once dislocated my right elbow, and that left a legacy that occasionally surfaces, most often when it is cold and damp, but my left elbow has never really given any problems except occasionally in the last few years.

  I thought I was going to have trouble going to the toilet this morning, and for a while I did. It is hard to relax the right muscles when a huge 8 legged hair thing is staring up at you from the bath ! I had to give up on the toilet until I had managed to flush that big hairy spider down the plughole. My first attempt did no succeed. I was just starting to relax when I saw it climbing up out of the plughole again. I think my second attempt worked. I filled a quarter of a bucket with water to enable a bigger whoosh of water down the plughole. I haven't seen my foe since, and I did manage to do my business in the toilet.

  This morning my blood glucose has dropped a little more. It is now down to 8.2mmol/l, and that is despite eating a few dubious things. I will be a lot happier when it is down below 8, and ideally around 7.5mmol/l or less. I think it is best to forget about my weight for the moment. Lack of exercise, and living the high life....well, sort of....has left it's mark....and wiped out over a months good work.

  I really don't know what I am doing today. I ought to go for a walk, but I would prefer to draw the curtains to shut out the depressing grey light that is still filtering down through the clouds. I really ought to fix the hot water tap on the kitchen sink. It is dripping badly now, and now I am on a water meter it is expensive as well as being annoying. My only problem is that it is part of the crappy mixer unit that my friend Lee installed for me (instead of re-using the perfectly serviceable old taps) when we replaced the sink unit.  The new taps only do a quarter turn, and I have no idea what sort of tap washer, or whatever, they use, and so I have no idea if I have anything that would fit.

  What I am more likely to definitely do today is more "multimedia" work. I have several more "memories of the year 20xx" photo albums to make (which I probably ought to show here), and there is a lot more I intend to do to the audio and video files of Michael's son's band - Nobodys Hero. I'll probably spend a fair bit of time reading too - unless the sun comes out, and if it does everything could change !