The forecast has been revised since I took the screenshot above. The latest revision has replaced a lot of grey clouds with white clouds. At the moment it is like a typical winters day when the sun can often be seen trying to burn a gap through thin streaky cloud - but never quite managing to do so. Some hours ago the temperature was showing as just below zero on my outside thermometer, but it has now risen to 1.7° C. I am wondering if a later revision to the forecast might show a higher maximum than 3° C today. Apart from it taking until, or just beyond midnight for the temperature to fall to 0° C, today's temperatures will be/feel very similar to yesterday, i.e. cold ! A lot of tomorrow morning will see the temperature down to 0° C, and once again the afternoon high will be around 3° C. This January is likely to be as much as 10° C colder than last January ! Like today, tomorrow should stay dry, but unlike today, tomorrow afternoon may feature sunny spells - possibly even a whole hour of solid sunshine !

    Yesterday was a good and a bad day. The bad was just two things. I still failed to do any of the housework I wanted to do. The other thing was having to stay alert when I could have been laying on my bed reading...and snoozing. I had to stay alert because I was waiting for a parcel delivery being delivered by Whistl. They conspire to give you as little information as possible about your delivery. If I hadn't kept going to their tracking website I would never have even known they had my parcel, and ultimately that yesterday would be delivery day, There was no explanation about how it took 4 days to be carried from somewhere like Huddersfield to an unnamed depot presumably in or near London.

  I will admit that Amazon doesn't give a lot more information, but at least you get an email to say your parcel will be delivered that day "sometime before 9pm" (but recently much closer to midday). It was about 5pm when my parcel finally arrived here. The only good thing I can say about the courier was that there was no sign of any damage to what would be an easy parcel to damage. It was a 16 pack of barbecue flavoured rice crackers. One misplaced foot on the flimsy box would have seen nothing but a box of crumbs arrive !

  It was later in the morning than usual, but still before it was confirmed that my parcel was actually out for delivery, that I went to the mini supermarket and bought another 8 cans of Polish beers. That brought my stash of Polish beers up to 16. Mostly I have 2 cans of each brand, except for one brand where I have 4 cans. The reason for that was because my friend Jodie said it was her favourite out of all the Polish beers. Those 8 (440ml) cans, plus 3 big oranges, and two 1.5 littres of Diet Coke, made for a very heavy rucksack. It was made heavier still when I was given two small bottles of orange juice as freebies. I haven't checked, but they are probably near their use by date, and the store just wanted to get rid of them - either than or they like me in there !

  The rice crackers were not the only delivery I received yesterday. Around lunchtime I got a text message from Michael asking if there was anything I wanted in Tesco. (He knows I am not using Tesco while masks have to be worn - although everyone tells me they are as relaxed about it as Aldi is). I didn't need any Diet Coke, the usual thing Michael has got for me in the past, but I had a naughty idea that I fancied some ice cream. I used to occasionally buy Oppo (or Oppd) branded ice cream that says it is low(er) calories and low(er) sugar than normal ice cream. I certainly used to get no bad effects when eating it in the past. (By bad effects I mean no rise in blood glucose level).
  I chose the worse of the two tubs that Michael bought me to show here. Until I saw the tubs again I had a faulty memory of what the figures were, or meant, but I knew the number was a a fair bit less than appears on the top of the tubs of ice cream I have been buying from Aldi. Once I had the tubs in my sticky little hands the words  "per half tub" stuck out like a sore thumb. You have to double that number to compare it with the equivalent from Aldi, and the Aldi tubs actually come out to contain slightly less calories, and probably less sugar too. I learned a useful lesson yesterday !

  For some unexplained reason Jodie turned up unusually late for our illegal "bubble support meeting". As usual she brought a few beers with here. She had bought them in her local Tesco, and they were a bit different to some of the stuff she she been bringing recently. They were almost sweet instead of very sour. One of them was very curious. It was a very cloudy pale yellow, and it had a hint of fruit taste to it, and a sort of sweetness, but neither was very pronounced.

  I thought we were going to drink some Polish beers, but Jodie said I should hold on to them until the shelves really did start to run out of Polish beers.  We went through some of my spare beers until we found some she was not familiar with. One beer she had dismissed a month or more ago, claiming "tried it", until she realised that maybe she had only drunk what might be the the draught version of my bottle. When she checked on Untapped, her bible and log of beers drank, she found that no one had drunk the beer with the same label as mine. Suddenly the beer instantly dismissed was very interesting ! Some research about it was unclear. It seems the version exported to Australia used the same label, but had a gold foil around the bottle cap. Back in Germany it seems their label says Spaten (the brewery), Munchen (the city of the brewery) Hell (meaning a white or light coloured beer). Jodie was quite excited to log that one in Untapped.

  After a late start it was a slightly late finish. Jodie left, and walked past the frosted cars to catch the two minutes to 7pm train back home. Before she left I started grilling some Lincolnshire sausages. I timed it well, and they had time to cook, and cool off a bit before I had them for my dinner. Dinner was just those sausages. I didn't even put any ketchup on them. I didn't want to dilute their delicate sage flavour. The smelled really sagey while they cooked, but less so when eaten. I followed the sausage up with the Colombian Chocolate & Hazlenut ice cream pictures above. It was rather delicious, but partly spoiled by knowing is had more calories than I had originally thought, and I was also worried about it's potential sugar content.

  The effect of the all the beer (and many of them were quite strong), plus a nice dinner, had me feeling quite tired, and ready for bed early. I think I was possibly asleep before 9pm last night. I remembered nothing more until I woke at nearly 1am. It seemed like I would just have a pee, and go straight back to sleep, but it was another occasion when it seemed to take ages to get back to sleep. I eventually did get back to sleep,, but I am sure it was after 2am. I then slept until just before 5am when I woke up to a pain in my foot.

 In this instance pain is not quite the right word. As I woke up I thought it was the start of muscle cramp, but as I became fully aware I realised it was something that in it's own way is even worse. I have no idea if it has a name, or if anyone else suffers from it, but it is like a cut that has got really itchy as it heals. I have suffered from this sporadically for several years or more now. It is fortunate that it probably happens no more than once or twice a year, and lasts for less than an hour. I have always examined my foot to see if there is any physical sign, like a cut, but there is never anything to be seen. All there is, is a really annoying powerful itch, and it is made worse by the fact that scratching it is both hard to do, and has little effect.

  Eventually, which can seem a long time when in bed, trying to sleep, the itch fades away. I think it was about 6am when I managed to relax enough to fall asleep again. During that hour I actually got up and took screenshots of the weather forecasts, and read some tech news pages. Having got back to sleep I seemed to sleep soundly until about 8.30am. That is quite late for me.

  I can't say I feel good or bad this morning. I guess I feel sort of average for this time of year, and this age. The main negative thing was my blood glucose edging up again. I blame some of it on the ice cream, and some on the beers. A couple of the beers did taste sweet compared to the others. It is going to be too dull and cold to entice me out for a walk today, and so I can't do anything about that blood glucose with exercise today, but I think I have sufficient food in the house that wont raise my blood glucose, and should reduce it - if only I can stick to eating just that food. I do have food that could make it worse, but not much of it.

  By the time I have finished writing this (very soon), uploaded it, and then edited the links to the pictures and stuff to upload it as an archive page, and finally uploaded an abbreviated version to the monthly page, half the day will be done. I really don't have any clear picture of what I will do with the rest of my day.