This morning's forecast turned out to be more wrong than the BBC Meteogroup forecast. The latter predicted as much as 3 hours of sunny spells after daybreak. In fact there was little more than 1 hour, but as the screenshot above shows, the Net Office shows no sunny spells at all. The BBC's web page doesn't predict any rain just after sunset, and maybe that is correct because the latest revision to the Met Office forecast has reduced the predicted rain to 2 hours instead of three (as shown above).
 As usual, the temperatures predicted by the forecasters broadly agree with each other, and tend to be correct predictions. It is cloud cover, and what that cloud might do that is often rather different. This is particularly so for predictions a day or two in advance. The latest revision doesn't show it, but the early BBC (Meteogroup) forecast for Friday shows that snow or sleet might fall. Both forecasters say that tomorrow will be another very cold day (6 or 7° C), and both say it will feature a lot of rain, and that much of that rain will be heavy ! We will have to wait until tomorrow to get an approximate forecast for Friday - maybe it will snow !

 
  The morning sunshine enthused me yesterday. Maybe not enthused enough to plan, or imagine, a 7 mile walk, but enthused enough to get on my gardening jeans, and do some gardening. I had thought about a walk, although not 7 miles, but a short walk that I could fit in between two parcel deliveries. The first parcel, actually a cardboard crate of beers, arrived earlier than expected - at least half an hour before the earliest advised time, and maybe almost an hour early. I was literally seconds away from getting under the shower when the doorbell rang !

  That could have been good because it would leave a bit more time to slip out for a short walk, but only on the assumption that the second delivery of some stuff for the kitchen would be arriving around mid afternoon. In fact, it too arrived far earlier than expected. It arrived while I was in the middle of my gardening, and I would definitely have missed that delivery if I had gone out for the shortest of walks.
  My gardening aims were to clear all the dead Michaelmas Daisies that can be seen in the foreground of the picture, and to prune as much stuff off the still living, heavily mutilated, tree stump - the leaves of which can be seen at the rear of the picture. Before doing anything else I had to bring the very full, very stinky, brown wheelie bin through my house from the back garden to the front garden.

  Back in April I was expecting a reminder to pay for another year of garden waste collection, but a reminder didn't come, and I didn't pay anything. At that point I was more into growing stuff rather than disposing of it, and so I never put the bin out to be emptied. From time to time I would put a little garden waste in it, and far more frequently I would put food waste in it. I would estimate at least a third of it's contents were food waste, but it all kept composting down nicely. The only problem, although problem is not really the right word, is that with all that food in there it was crawling with bugs of all descriptions !

  Pulling up, or in some cases, breaking off near ground level, all the dead Michaelmas Daisies was a fairly simple job, although still slightly backbreaking. They formed a nice dense barrier across the top of the last rotting food in the brown wheelie bin. It was the tree stump that was really hard work !
  With so much saw dust on it, it is hard to make out what is going on in the picture of the tree stump. For the last 10 years or maybe more, I have been trying to kill this tree stump. It started out as a small tree, but I cut it down when the trunk was probably no more than a couple of inches thick. I cut it off close to the ground, and thought that would be story over. It wasn't. next spring it started sprouting new twigs and branches from the stump. I would keep cutting it down, but the stump just grew more knobbly.

  A few years ago I started to really make a mess of it. It was too hard to cut it - mainly because it was so close to the ground, but I did cut off the branches where I could. I also used a 3/8ths drill to drill holes in it everywhere. I assumed bacteria or fungal spores would get in, and it would start to rot, but no, the holes healed over, and it would sprout again. What I really need are copper or brass nails. They are supposed to poison a tree. Yesterday I tried out a new chop saw I had bought from Aldi months ago (maybe in spring).

  Using the new saw I was able to cut off bits I had never been able to cut off with a bigger saw before. I doubt it will do much good, and the bastard will probably start sprouting again before spring. Sooner or later (probably later) I will get some copper nails, but before than I will try and cut off any new growth as fast as it appears....which is what I had intended to do last year, and did, but only for a short while.

  When I had finished, or when working outside had finished me, I came indoors dripping with sweat, and feeling exhausted. I am just not built for bending over double while sawing !  At that time the sun was still out, although there were more clouds appearing in the sky. I laid on my bed for a rest, and promptly fell asleep. That would have been OK if I had not turned any heating off because the sun was out.

  I woke up feeling very cold, and it seemed to take ages to warm up. All the while I was feeling cold all my muscles ached - mostly, but not exclusively the muscles I had been using clearing the front garden. I turned the heater on full blast, and started to thaw out, but I fancied some hot food, and I had to prepare that in the freezing cold kitchen. I thought my muscles would seize up completely while I worked in there to first prepare some instant noodles, and then some soup.

  The hot noodles, and the hot soup warmed me up enough to get me feeling almost comfortable. I guess I was feeling warm enough, but I still felt fatigued. It must have been an hour later that I thought I might take a blood glucose reading. It was about an hour before dinner, and that was the time when earlier in the year I would always take an afternoon reading. What I saw shocked me. My blood glucose level was 15.9mmol/l - well into the area where damage would be done. That worried me a bit, but the worry was tempered by the fact it was about an hour after eating, when blood glucose would be peaking. It was still a bit of a surprise that noodles and soup could raise it that high though.

 I thought I would simplify my dinner to avoid adding much more sugar to my diet, although that plan quickly fell apart. Part 1 of my dinner was no more than some grilled chipolatas. I was going to follow that by some fruit, but the nectarines I was going to have along with some easy peeler oranges, were very unripe, and rather sour. I should have counteracted that by having a nice apple or two, but I opted for a tub of low calorie/sugar ice cream. It might seem an odd choice when a few hours earlier it felt like I was freezing to death, but it was till very nice.

  I watched a few hours of TV last night, and could have watched more, but I preferred to read in bed for a while before going to sleep early. I'm unsure what time I eventually got to sleep. I did have a bit of trouble getting comfortable because I was a bit uncomfortable after my hard work in the middle of the day. Once asleep I seemed to sleep OK, but every time I woke up in the night, maybe 3 or 4 times, I was aware of aches and pains - mainly from my arms and chest.

  Fortunately it wasn't the heart attack type of arm and chest pains, but more the type of the result of sawing wood in an awkward position. The chest pains were just more of the "twisted rib" pains I've been complaining about intermittently for the last 7 years. Often it was no actual pain, but just sort of unpleasant feelings like bones grinding together when I turned over. Through all that I managed to keep falling asleep until it was completely light outside, and more than that, it would have been sunny if the sun had risen above the eastern roof line.

  When I first got up I was on moderate pain from a large assortment of places. It was all the usual aches and pain plus the new ones generated yesterday. Most have subsided since getting up, but now, several hours after getting up, I still feel very fragile. I think it very likely that my original plan, to take a walk in the park to see what the Friends Of The River Pool are getting up to this Wednesday, is on hold. I really don't fancy getting my sore muscles cold today.

  The best, and maybe only good news this morning, is that after my scare yesterday afternoon, my blood glucose is down from 9.1mmol/l yesterday morning to 8.0mmol/l this morning. That was a good drop, and isn't that bad in itself. If I am careful, which seems unlikely on another cold and gloomy day, I may be able to get it down to 7.5mmol/l, or less tomorrow morning.

  My new master plan for today is to do some hoovering. My walking boots have dropped some lumps of dried mud here and there, cutting up boxes for recycling has left bits of shredded cardboard on the dining room carpet, plus of course there is the usual hair, grit and dust. If I was thorough I could probably spend a couple of hours of hoovering today, but I could easily get bored after an hour. I have no real idea what I might do during the rest of the day, although I suspect it will involve books and computers.
   As usual, I won't be putting up any decorations, or tree this Xmas. I won't even be celebrating it. On the whole I find Xmas to be a miserable time, and this year in particular could easily be worse than most years. However I will be having one small celebration, possibly on the afternoon of Xmas eve - it being a Thursday. It will be a celebration of beer, and hopefully it will include Michael as well as Jodie. I have been making slow preparations for the day. The latest special beer arrived in yesterday's cardboard crate of beer.  It is the beer in the middle of the picture - and yes that does say it is a 12% beer ! The other two are a mere 6.6 and 6.9% - still very strong compared to around 4% for average "Best Bitter".