I really should be showing a screenshot of the BBC (Meteogroup) forecast because it comes closer to reality than the screenshot above of the Met Office forecast. The BBC forecast says drizzle and rain until 11am, and the Met Office forecast has been revised to show no rain at all ! Both forecasts say today is going to be heavily clouded, and so mostly gloomy (except when it is very gloomy). Both forecasts predict it will be 12° C today, although there are slight differences in the timing for this. I predict that there will be more rainfall beyond 11am - the day has that sort of feel to it. Tomorrow will probably feature rain in the morning, and possibly some rain in the afternoon. There might be a sunny spell or two, and it might possibly reach 13° C. It really depends on whether you want to believe the BBC (Meteogroup) or Met Office forecasts.

   I knew it wouldn't take long to tidy up the dining room for the afternoon beer session, and so I took the morning fairly easy. So easy that I almost had a snooze shortly before midday. Actually I am not so sure that I didn't drop off to sleep for a short while. At the time the sun was pouring through my bedroom windows, and the room was nice and warm. If I had been able to open the window and let some warm breezes in, it would have felt like summer.

  Just after midday I had some lunch. While laying in the warm sunshine I didn't feel the need to eat, but once I stopped relaxing I made the sensible decision to get something in my stomach before imbibing quantities of beer. I opted for soup because it would be quick and simple when all I had to do was to open a can and heat it up. One can was not actually soup. It was alleged to be Irish Stew. It was nice, but when compared to a can of Heinz "thick and chunky" beef stew, the only difference was that one was based on lamb, and the other beef (and both had very little of either in them).

  I got the dining room cleaned and set up half an hour before 3pm, and Jodie arrived not long after that. This time she remembered that the time table had changed, and that the trains are a bit thinned out in the afternoon when it is quiet (comparatively so). It was about 3pm when Michael pulled up outside. He bowel problems meant he still couldn't join us for a drink, but he had some shopping for me. Once again it was bottles of Diet Coke, and this time he got 5 bottles for me. It rounded up the price to a nice round number (plus or minus a few pence), and it was actually Michaels suggestion to get 5 bottles. I would feel very guilty about it if he wasn't driving a car, and using a trolley to go around Tesco. (With no car I find a shopping basket gives a better measure of how much I can walk home).
  Jodie had brought some Xmas beers with her, and so it seemed reasonable to put a few coloured lights up to celebrate (or something). Some of those beers were very rich, and one of them blatantly said it had maple syrup in it, and another said it had demerara sugar in it. I knew those beers would not do my blood glucose level any favours, but they were very nice. Plus while it may not be good, I have become accustomed to getting a silly high reading on  Friday morning.

  Of course one reason for that high reading is drunkenness causing excess, or incorrect eating. That was definitely the case last night. It started off as a good idea to have a baked potato with a bit of tuna and some grated cheese on it. When it was cook it looked so small, and before I had even started to eat it I put a Fray Bentos microwaveable steak pudding in the microwave with some baked beans.

  Those Fray Bentos microwaveable puddings are not nice in my opinion. They seem to be all stodge with very little meat. When that part of my dinner was combined with the baked potato it all added up to a very unhealthy meal ! I also felt rather bloated even a couple of hours later when I went to bed. Fortunately that didn't seem to interfere with my sleeping. In fact I seemed to sleep quite well again.

  I can't really say my dreams were good or bad, but I seem to remember then as entertaining. I am sure they featured 3 different women, although I can only remember vague snatches of two of those dreams. I think the one that is almost completely forgotten may have had a touch of eroticism about it. It seems annoying that I should forget that one. I can really only remember "the plot" of the other two. All the details have vanished. In one I was sitting on the top deck of a bus with my friend Patricia.

  It was a long bus ride that either started or ended somewhere in North London. I was trying to get to Herne Hill telephone exchange to do a job there, but I had no idea where it was. I knew the bus should pass close to it, and assumed I would spot it, but evidently not. I think it was probably a dream with a lot of scenery passing by, but almost no action. The other dream featured a woman who must have been a composite of several real women. I recognised individual bits, like the hair, or the face, but not the whole woman. I don't know, or at least can't remember what was actually going on, but it seemed like she had adopted me in the way a stray cat will adopt a human. The dream did include her starting to take off her clothes, but either she stopped, or more likely I woke up. The latter has been the most annoying feature of my dreams since puberty - waking just as the good bit is starting !! Grrrr !

  This morning, after apparently having a nice relaxing sleep, I woke up with a few bits aching. Maybe I had been a bit too relaxed, and ended up crushing my left arm because, amongst other things, my elbow felt very stiff and sore. Most aches and pains have settled down now, but it was only about 10 minutes ago that I put on a t-shirt, and the action of doing that caused a few short lived painful twinges.

  The reason for the t-shirt at this time is that sometime in the next 70 minutes I am expecting a delivery. It is nothing exciting in the manner of a booze or high tech equipment, but exciting in it's own way. It is another order from Star Bargains - sort of like the Poundshop of the internet. It is mostly long(ish) life foodstuffs to bolster up my Brexit emergency stash. Unfortunately it is likely that it will be perishables that will be in short supply once we crash out of the EU in just 13 days time (although the shortages will probably take a good few weeks before they become apparent.

  The other unfortunate thing is that much of what I have ordered will do my blood glucose level no good. As expected, it is high this morning, but to my amazement it is not as high as expected. 9.2mmol/l is actually relatively low for a Friday morning, but still way too high. Today I have to be careful to get it down to under 9, and ideally under 8 by tomorrow, but with a big box of naughty stuff about to appear on my doorstep, that might be easier said than done.

  I am unsure what I am going to do today. It feels very unlikely that I will want to do the healthy thing of a long walk in the park today under such a gloomy sky (and with the possibility of more rain - the BBC has now added rain for midday, although the Met Office says there will only be a 10% chance of rain at almost any time today). I might catch up with some computer stuff, some more reading, and maybe some more snoozing !