I'm not sure why I am showing this early version of today's weather forecast because it is very wrong. The forecast has been revised since. Maybe someone drew the curtains aside and noticed it was sunny outside. I had my curtains closed until just a little while ago, but it was still easy to see it was sunny outside for about the last 2 hours. Sometimes that sunshine would dim for a while, and sometimes it was full strength. The latest revision does now acknowledge that we had sunny spells at 9am, but they would, and did end at 10am. The latest forecast also says there will be drizzle at 11am, and light rain at midday.

  The BBC website (Meteogroup forecast) tells a slightly different story. Rain is forecast for 11am, and then again between 2pm and 4pm, although the chance of rain in the last few hours is only 20%. Another difference is that fog is predicted to fall from 6pm, and last well into the night. Even the latest Met Office forecast doesn't mention fog today. Both forecasters say that the afternoon temperature will be 10° C, and the temperature will only drop to around 8° C by midnight. Both forecasters agree that tomorrow will be 8° C for the middle of the day, and that it will be dull, with a low chance of rain, for the whole day.

   The idea that I might be feeling better than recently was probably more psychological than physical, or that feeling bad was only psychological recently, and yesterday I didn't feel so psychologically down. Of course there was a reason for feeling it would be a happier day, and that was because it was a Thursday, and Thursday means a boozing session with company. It also put paid to my physical health, but that didn't matter at the time (although I was aware of what was coming), but more about that later.

  My main task yesterday was to clear up, and clean the dining room. I have been doing my best not let it get cluttered up again like it was, but it is still convenient to use the dining room table when doing stuff with computers. Fortunately there were only 4 things to clear off the table before I gave it a clean and polish - the computer itself (what some people mistakenly call "the hard drive", or so I believe), the monitor, the mouse, and the keyboard. There were a couple of minor things too like a couple of recordable DVD disks with Linux installation media on them, plus a couple of memory sticks with some useful stuff on them.

  I probably should have hoovered the floor in there too, but I wasn't feel that enthusiastic about it. With hindsight I could have done some hoovering. I was expecting it to be really cold down there, but with the temperature being a bit less cold outside, it didn't feel too chilly downstairs, and the room warmed up quite quickly once the heater was on. In the afternoon I put the heater on full blast, but that got the room a bit too warm far quicker than expected.

  I can't recall doing anything else of any note apart from cooking some lunch until it was boozing time. There were many options for lunch. It wasn't a shivery day yesterday, and so I didn't feel the need to eat something hot to warm myself up, and I would have gone for something fairly light if I hadn't been drinking later - probably. I finally chose some Lincolnshire sausages. They were from Aldi's "speciality" range, and there were only 6 of them to eat - their ordinary Lincolnshire sausages come in packs of 8.

  I gave them a good grilling, and then served up just two of them. I tried to eat them as slowly as possible while reading stuff on my PC. This was easy because they were very hot. By the time I had gone down to feth the other 4 up they had cooled off enough to make eating them much more enjoyable. (Much more enjoyable apart from some sagey burps while drinking beer).

  It must have been just before 2pm that Michael sent me a text message to say he was off to Tesco, and was there anything he could get for me ? As I think I mentioned a day or two ago, I am now stockpiling Diet Coke for when shopping gets too difficult because of the pre-Xmas crowds, and while the supermarkets are shut over Xmas. I asked Michael if he could manage 4 bottles of Diet Coke. He uses a trolley in Tesco, and goes there by car. So I don't feel too guilty about loading him down with too much. He said yes, and no problem (all condensed down into a thumbs up emoji).

  It was just after 2.24pm that Jodie called to say that the 2.24pm train she intended to get was not running again. It would seem it was taken out when the new winter timetable was published. Fortunately, the next train, would still get her here at 3.15pm - which is still half an hour, to 45 minutes, earlier than she was managing a month or so ago.  It was sjust after 3pm when Michael sent me a text to say he would deliver my Diet Coke in 5 or 10 minutes time. Both he and Jodie arrived at roughly the same time.

  Michael was glad to see Jodie after missing so many drinking session, although once again he couldn't attend yesterday's. He is still unwell, and in one of the most annoying ways. He is frequently chained to the toilet for hours and hours on end. I can really sympathise with that after suffering something with similar feelings, but not actual physical symptoms. There was a time that lasted a few years when I just had to stop at the toilets at Waterloo station on my way to work (and sometimes on the way home too). It was rare for anything to actually happen even if it felt like it would. As far as I can gather, in Michael's case it really dose happen  a lot ! Sadly he feels it is getting worse, and is glumly thinking he is going to end up with an extended stay in hospital.

  Michael drove off home after giving us Xmas cards. It amused Jodie that he couldn't decide who deserved each card, and so wrote "to Bill or Jodie" on them. Pretty soon the booze was flowing. The beers that Jodie brought with her this time were much tamer in one respect, but not in other ways. None of them were really sour like she had brought over a few time in the recent past. They ranged from 0.5% alcohol (officially alcohol free) to 12 % !!

  The 0.5% alcohol beer was, I think, Danish, and it was flavoured with cinnamon. I can't say I liked it, although there was nothing unpleasant about it. The 12% "beer" was possibly also Danish, and I am not sure it really was "beer". It could best be described as a very rich and sweet chocolate cake dissolved in vodka. It tasted very nice in small doses, but was too sickly to drink much of it....or maybe I was too inhibited by thinking what it would do to my blood glucose level. The rest of the beers were "normal", although all a bit stronger than session beers.

  It was almost certainly the sausages I ate beforehand that made me less anxious for dinner, and I didn't pester Jodie to hurry up. On the other hand I think we both realised we had drunk a suitable amount, and it was time to stop. The result was that Jodie left slightly earlier than usual (although still after 6pm). As our drinking drew to an end I put in a couple of potatoes, one an ordinary "spud", and the other a small sweet potato, to bake in the microwave.

  Once Jodie had gone I finished cooking the potatoes with some butter and grated cheese on them. With an additional sprinkle of hot pepper sauce, they were rather delicious, and in theory all I needed to eat. Unfortunately, as soon as I took them out the microwave I put in an Aldi ready meal that was just past it's sell by date (or possibly use by date). After eating that as well, I felt very full, and very ready to relax.

  It would be a few more hours before I went to bed, but after reading in bed, it was probably not too long after 9pm than I fell asleep. The first half, or more of my sleep was good, but after that I was having trouble with the room temperature. It was back to that awkward temperature when it wasn't that cold outside, but it seemed cool enough to make leaving the heater on low desirable. By about 3am I was starting to feel too warm under the duvet, but too cold without it. I seemed to sleep for short periods with different limbs left outside the duvet.

  I am unsure of the inspiration for it, but the only dream I can remember in brief snatches was a dream about being in a university. I have never actually attended a University - college being the closest thing. The bit of dream I can remember concerned being given a project by a lecturer (or whatever they are called in a University). I was given a big white envelope that contained hardly any written instructions, but a few blank circuit boards, plus a load of loose, second hand electronic components (many of which had been very poorly removed after their previous use). One thing I can do is to hand build circuit boards, but certain tools, including a decent soldering iron, are needed, and most of my dream, or what I remembered of it,  seemed to consist of searching high and low for the correct tools.

  This morning the curse of the 12% "beer" made itself apparent. It wasn't a hangover, and fortunately I don't seem to have one beyond a slight soporific affect, but it showed as another huge spike in my blood glucose level. Looking back I see these are typical for a Friday morning, but this morning it was a particularly high spike that almost took my blood glucose level over the very naughty 10.0mmol/l level (it was actually 9.7mmol/l).

  As a single reading it is nothing to particularly worry about, but only providing I get it back down again. It is the sacrifices to do that, that are more depressing than the actual spike itself. I need to eat very lightly today, and avoid anything with more than a tiny bit of sugar in it - that includes most carbohydrates too. Ideally I should have sprout soup for lunch, and sprout soup for dinner, but that seems very unlikely !

  I do know one about today, and that is that I am expecting a booze delivery. It should be 2 bottles from three I ordered. The first two, coming today, are directly fulfilled by Amazon. The third bottle is coming from elsewhere, and hopefully I'll be hearing about that soon. The more I think about it, the problem I explained yesterday, about the Amazon order I made for a Xmas present for Angela, somehow including a duplicate of my previous order, does still seem to be the case. Oh well, as I probably said yesterday, it will cane my bank balance a bit, but being a consumable, it won't go to waste,

  One possibly sad, and possibly just a little bit good, news about one of my earlier orders for a pack of special Xmas/winter beers, is that Amazon say it has not been dispatched yet, and if they don't here it has been despatched in another 5 days time they will cancel the order.  It is possible the Belgium brewery are waiting for this special batch of beer to finish brewing, and still be despatched to arrive before Xmas.

  As for what I will be doing for the rest of the day.........it's a mystery. I really ought to go for a long walk, but while it is not so cold today, it is now very dull outside, and it will probably stay that way. There is light drizzle now, and proper, but still light, rain now forecast for midday with some more showers to follow. I don't think I am going out in that. I guess I will probably do some computer based stuff today. Maybe I'll set up my old PC, and transfer some more old VHS tape video to the PC. I have hours I could transfer, but not all that I really want to transfer. However, with the new capture/converter box it is so simple to digitise old analogue video that I will probably end up converting all sorts of odd programmes to digital. I might even watch some of them !