The idea that it may be sunny soon seems unlikely when I look at the sky. It seems to be uniformly grey at the moment, and even a super power laser would have trouble cutting through that cloud, but maybe it will blow away later to reveal the promised blue sky and sunshine. Whatever happens it is almost certain to be another very cold day with the temperature not expected to rise higher than 3° C.  I don't think the sky is quite the right colour for snow, but it is not far off it as I write this. I've just checked for a later revision to the forecast, and now it says the first sunny spells will occur at 10am, and full sunshine from 11am. Over on the other channel, the BBC forecast is totally convinced it will be a 100% grey day, and that it will only just about reach 3° C for a single, solitary hour - 3pm. For tomorrow they say another 100% grey day, but briefly warmer with 5° C at 3pm. The Met Office says the maximum tomorrow will be just 4° C, and they reckon there could be a few hours of sunny spells in the afternoon. I really must make so notes on the weather through today so I can take the piss out of this forecast with some evidence to back it up !

    Yesterday was another in a long series of days when I was too busy doing nothing to be bored....or something like that. It was sort of surprising just how quickly and smoothly yesterday passed when I hardly did anything all day. I guess that is not strictly true. I did a fair bit of reading, and I did some internet research the resulted in my spending yet more money on another Amazon order.

  I probably have a warped idea of what constitutes "doing something". After a lifetime of skilled (but not heavy) manual labour, where I use my hands to produces something solid or tangible, I have always wonder what people do in offices. During lockdown there are thousands of people "working" from home - sitting behind a PC screen evidently doing something, and getting paid for it. I have never been able to conceive what is so important about pushing bits of paper, or their electronic equivalent, around, but people make a living from doing it, and in a way that is what I was doing yesterday. My problem is that at the end of it, all I'll have to show for it is another box of stuff from Amazon.

  Of course researching products, and ordering them from Amazon, only took up a very small part of yesterday. Reading a variety of pages from the internet, and reading a book, produces nothing tangible at all except a sense of enjoyment (or frustration when reading certain news on the internet, or about people who have views that border on the insane by my personal standards).

  Well I guess I didn't paint any walls, or do any gardening, or any other real work yesterday*, but the day still seemed to pass by very smoothly yesterday. I guess that is good, or even very good, but I still have this nagging feeling that I am wasting days, and should be doing so much more. My excuse is that it is too cold to do anything outdoors, and while I heat two rooms, the rest of my house is too cold to do anything at home. I know the painters and decorators, and builders working outside, put on 24 layers of clothing to keep them warm while working in the cold, but I hate feeling wrapped up too much. I am very much a shirt sleeves sort of person.

* That isn't strictly true. I did hand wash, rinse 3 times, and fabric condition another small load (5 items) of laundry yesterday.

  If I put any effort onto the day (not counting the laundry I confessed to above) it was to try and part fail to control my eating yesterday. Once again I tried to avoid too much that would badly effect my blood glucose, while almost, but not completely, ignoring the calorific value of what I ate. I recently thought that a large orange didn't affect my blood glucose much, and I may have been right, but two of them may have been far less innocent. I really hate to say it could be anything to do with not smoking for over 7 years now, and so I think it must be a covid thing, but I am currently enjoying oranges in a way I have not done so since I was a kid. They do seem so much sweeter now. The trouble is, "sweeter" is not something I should be enjoying while battling with my blood glucose level.

  One thing I got right was my dinner. It was a simple meal of grilled/roasted in it's own juices, chicken thighs with runner beans. Unfortunately it didn't feel quite filling enough, and so I had two small pots of couscous with chargrilled vegetables That loaded up the carbohydrates. I think the chilli sauce I tried on them may have contained sugar as well as chillies.
  This was the chilli sauce I was trying. It was one of two bottles Michael, my neighbour from round the corner, gave me. It was quite nice, although far tamer than the picture suggests ! That picture brought a lot of complaints that I found when I did an internet search. Apparently some people do not understand cartoon humour, and/or that consuming too much chilli can make it feel like your bottom is on fire. Their excuse for being so offended is that this was being sold while Australia was burning with bushfires.
  There are no ingredients listed on this, or the other bottle Michael gave me. That made me think that they had come from a larger pack that probably listed the ingredient of each bottle on it. The bottles said they had been produced specially for Wilko in China, and so a quick search of Wilko revealed how they were originally sold. They are now discontinued. I expect some think this is because of people taking offence of that "My Outback Is Burning" sauce that I tried yesterday, but I expect the truth is that they just run out of what was probably just one single order Wilko had made with a Chinese company.

  There was some good new on TV last night. The last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was shown on the Horror Channel last night, and they announced that the same slot will be used for Star Trek: Enterprise. The first two series of Enterprise were really good - the last two series got quite tedious, sadly. I watched an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and that final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation last night....well I say that, but during that second helping I had another badly timed, and stupidly long phone call from my friend Lee. I saw the first 10, and the last 5 minutes of it, and that is all, grrrrr !

  After Star Trek I turned to the Sky Arts Channel. I still feel uncomfortable of seeing anything to do with Sky, but this channel does show some interesting musical stuff. Last night there was a documentary about the art of drumming. It was interesting, although most of it went over my head. Drummers are weird creatures (Angela's love boy particularly). All they do is listen to other drummers. I feel quite sure that they could listen to a 250 piece orchestra, and still pick out the one badly timed drum hit in a 3 hour concert. Angela's lover boy is a right so and so for this, and I fell out with him well before I even knew Angela. He was slagging off a young drummer who was drumming for Chain. He said he was useless, but out front, we, the audience, weren't listening to just the drumming. We were watching and listening to the whole band, and for us it was a very enjoyable gig.

  I went to bed earlier than I probably needed to last night, and just ended up tossing and turning for a long time before I fell asleep. I originally wanted to get to sleep early because I had an insane idea I might get up early to go for a pre-dawn walk. This was based on the idea that that the sun would rise in a clear sky. It subsequently turned out that the Met Office got that forecast very wrong. As I write this it is now 11.30am because I had another long boring phone call from Lee in the middle of writing. To make matters worse he started off repeating everything he told me last night when I was supposed to be watching Star Trek...Anyway, it is only now starting to get bright, but there is no actual sunshine. At least it is now starting to look like the sun could break through. The idea of trying to take some snaps of the sun rising could never happen this morning, but mostly I just couldn't be bothered to go from a warm bed in a warm room to the ice box that is the outside world !

  Last night was one of those nights where my sleep was good and bad. During the time I was trying to get to sleep for the first time I used the time to think about some things, make imaginary plans, and stuff like that. At some point I went to sleep, and I think I slept for almost 4 hours. During that time I know I had some dreams, but upon waking up I seemed to forget them instantly in favour of continuing my thoughts from before I fell asleep. After that solid sleep I did not sleep so well. I can remember a time when my legs felt very hot under the duvet, but freezing when I uncovered them. At other times I didn't feel very warm under the duvet. I think my temperature regulation is very weird, and has been for years and years.

  Eventually it seemed like a good idea to get up. I was awake, and had completed most of my early morning routine in time to go out before sunrise, but I couldn't raise the enthusiasm. There was something about doing my only pre-dawn walk on Xmas day that was somehow special, and I don't seem to be able to recapture that enthusiasm again. Like most mornings recently I feel neither good nor bad. The only bad thing is my blood glucose. It is slightly less than yesterday, which is a positive thing, but it is still annoyingly high - annoying because it leaves very little leeway before getting into the danger zone.

  I was pretty confident I would be going out for a walk today, but the late arrival of the sunshine has taken a lot of the enthusiasm away. At the moment there is enough very hazy sunshine to cast a feint, and fuzzy shadow. That is pretty good compared to recent days, but still far from glorious - particularly with the air temperature being so close to zero ! To make matters worse, I have been so delayed by Lee's hour long phone call that it feels like the day is slipping away from me. There is a further complication. The stuff I ordered from Amazon looks like it will be delivered today. It arrived at the Dartford depot, the local distribution point, at 8.05am this morning, and could still go out for delivery any minute now. Once that would have meant a very late in the day delivery, but Amazon, or maybe it is just one driver, seem to have put my road near the start of their route, instead of at the end. There is so much uncertainty that I don't know what to do. I think I'll have a shower (I definitely need one) and recon.......BREAKING NEWS: I've just got the notification that my parcel will definitely be delivered today, and probably left the local depot sometime in the last half hour or so. That means it could be hear in a single hour or in 8 hours, and I really have no idea when. I think all I can do is to go on high alert, with an ear permanently tuned to the door bell, and wait patiently until it arrives.