The weather is now actually worse than the screenshot of the early forecast (above). At the moment it is raining, and that agrees with the latest revision to the forecast. It is apparently a heavy shower rather than an ordinary shower, or heavy rain. Maybe "shower" implies a brief passing sprinkle of rain, and that also seems to be reality at the moment. This may continue for another hour, but from 11am it will just be plain, ordinary, dull - except for 4pm when another light shower might put in an appearance. By 2pm the temperature may hit 16° C, and while that would considered cold in summer, it is going to feel warm in the middle of autumn (with winter approaching fast). Tomorrow may be dry, but mostly cloudy, although a few sunny spells are expected in the afternoon. The maximum temperature may still be a fairly OK 15° C.

  During yesterday morning I began to feel bad. Some odd little twinges made me wonder of I was fighting off a viral infection. If I was, my body didn't raise it's temperature to help. For most of yesterday my temperature was under 36° C, and that is well under the 37.8° C which seems to now be accepted as the fever temperature for Covid-19. I think that in actuality I was suffering from a lack of hot sunshine, and a lack of sleep.

  When my parcel delivery arrived, somewhat earlier than expected, it cheered me up a bit. The bits I had ordered included a couple of special leads, and another crappy cheap Chinese video grabber. One of them has to work one day. I am hoping that the chipset inside the little box will be recognised on my Linux PC as a video capture device. I will probably have to record the incoming video stream using VLC player, but while it is not an elegant solution, it does work.

  My parcel arrived about 10 minutes before Jodie arrived bringing beers to drink. It was beer that finally made me feel better. I think Jodie brought 4 x 440ml cans of strange Scottish brewed beers, and I contributed an equal amount from my beer stocks. It is only a guess, but by the end of our "support bubble" session was had probably drunk about 4 pints each. Most of the beers were of only moderate strength, and so I was still mostly, but not entirely sober when Jodie left.

  I was sober enough to convince myself I was not going to order a takeaway - which was an earlier intention. I had been toying with the idea after checking my bank balance a few days ago. It was healthier than I expected. Once upon a time, when I was thinking of retiring, I included in my projected budget the possibility of spending about £2000, not all at once, but to pay for a holiday or two with Angela. It did seem a possibility in those days. It is no longer a possibility, but looking at how much I have in my savings to last until (in theory) I get my state pension next June, that money could have been spent without breaking the bank. It make me feel sort of rich. Back in the real world I would be considered poor, but while I have money for beer I am satisfied.

  Feeling bad on a grim, dull, and later on drizzly day is not a good recipe for being in good control of what I was eating, but at least in terms of my blood glucose level this morning, I didn't do too bad. My dinner was a cold dinner, and was a mix of rice crackers, tomatoes, and two types of pre-sliced, supermarket ham - all doused in a lot of mayonnaise. I even got away with eating 6 or 7 ginger biscuits for dessert. I really must try and stop having desserts !

  I didn't go to bed that early last night. I think it was after 9pm. I started to read, but I think I was probably fast asleep by 10pm (but that is really only a guess). I mostly slept OK, but I had some annoying dreams. The dreams seemed like they might have been a continuous story, but I am sure they weren't. On the whole I would describe than as frustrating. One dream involved travelling home after some sort of meet up with old work colleagues Possibly from all three companies I have worked at).

  I think I was dropped off by car at a railway station. That had a double frustration followed by another frustration. The first frustration was that the station seemed to be spilt in two, and access to either part was by crossing a very busy road system. A further frustration was that my brain seemed to have lost it's inventive touch, and could not think of a name for the station. The closest name was something like Southeastern West. I think it was supposed to be a satellite of Victoria station. The only probable definite is that I expected to get a train directly back to Catford from there.

  Before getting a train I, and several of my friends/workmates, had to get into the station, and the only way seemed to be a very narrow staircase made with black bricks. After a bit of a climb we came to a landing. There was a ladder there that continued up into the roof structure, or a door leading into a sort of mess room/waiting room. There were a couple of people sitting behind desks, and they suggested that someone would turn up to guide us down to the public concourse. The dream ended/faded out after sitting on a big sofa for ages, and ages while getting more and more bold. There may have been some action in some of my dreams, but definitely none at the end of the last dream.

  I didn't want to get up as early as I had to this morning. I had an appointment in Aldi before the store got too busy this morning. Soon after getting up I checked my blood glucose, and it was 8.0mmol/l. I would prefer it to be lower, but I was expecting it to be a lot higher. I guess I am satisfied with it. After a hot shower I didn't feel too bad, and certainly well enough to walk to Aldi. I got there a bit later than I would have preferred to arrive, but I was early enough to go through the checkout at 9.09am.


  I did seem to spend a fair bit of money in there, but I only bought two bottles of special beer (with wired corks). It was good that I didn't buy more beer because my shopping was quite heavy when I lugged it home. I judged 12° C to be mild enough not to need a coat, and after carrying that heavy shopping home my decision turned out to be a very good decision. I felt hot by the time I got it all home.

  As a brief aside, the sun was unexpectedly shining just now, and so I rechecked the weather forecast. It seems that wasn't blinding sunshine pouring into my bedroom, but heavy rain. Well, well, it is so easy to be wrong in these troubled times.

  One of my purchases from Aldi was another 2 bottles of "limited edition" Unicorn fart flavour shower gel. It is rather pleasing to use, and has a smell that reminds me of nurses - sort of clean and pleasant. I can only imagine it was one particular nurse who stood out from the others because the reality is that only one nurse in ten is as photogenic as those portrayed on TV. Many, maybe most, are decidedly not attractive !

  A good reason for not buying more beer this morning, besides the weight I would have to lug home, has it's roots in being lightly under the influence of booze last night. I decided that I would order some more exciting beers - beers from Belgium, and from Germany - both places renowned for their beer making skills.

  It turned out to be a very frustrating process. The website was littered with so many third party (and hence dangerous) scripts, and while only a couple needed to be enabled to make a basic order, I never did find what needed to be enabled to set up an account. It just refused to accept my information - which is odd because apart from the addition of a password, it was only the same information, name and address plus credit card number, needed for a basic, one off, order. The advantage with setting up an account is "beer tokens", aka discounts on further orders.

  Today I am constrained to stay in for another delivery - possibly several, but two are coming Royal Mail, and should be squeezable through the letter box, but one will be in a small box. I think today will be the day when I do more PC stuff. If nothing else I want to try the new video grabber, and possibly use it to copy some video onto my Linux PC. If that doesn't work then I will have to fire up the old PC, and do the job using Windows XP.