I thought I had better check the latest revision of the forecast before commenting on the screenshot above. The biggest change is that heavy rain is now predicted to last to 10am now. I think what I have observed would be better described as medium heavy passing showers. As I write this it seems to be brightening up a bit. If the latest forecast is correct it will never truly get bright, but the cloud cover will mostly be of light cloud. The predicted shower for midday is now shown at 1pm, and the sunny spell at 5pm has now changed to a light shower.  The significant thing is that it was around 9° C all through the night, and early morning. It should rise to 10° C soon. That is not as good as yesterday, but still pretty good compared to most preceding days. Tomorrow may reach 11° C, but there could be a lot of light to medium showers to spoil things. The next nice days could be next Sunday and Monday, but forecasts that far in advance are frequently pure nonsense. The BBC's idea that the 24th of this month could see sunshine and 17° C seems pure fantasy.

  I was still getting some sniffles, and occasionally "peppery nose" yesterday morning, but it was a lot milder than the day before, and by 2 or 3pm I became aware that I hadn't had to blow my nose for some time. On the whole I actually felt better than normal, where "normal" is the average for the last 3 or 4 months, and it seems my vaccination side effects were over.

  The only real thing I did yesterday morning, or I suppose late yesterday morning, was to lay on my bed, with sunshine coming through my bedroom window, and thinking it would be nice to get out in the fresh air for a 3 mile, and maybe longer walk. I couldn't do that because sooner or later I would have to do a bit of housework in preparation for a boozing session later in the afternoon.


  One of the beers hat Jodie brought along to our boozing session is pictured on the left. (Incidently, I have linked the picture to a much bigger image of you click on it.) Jodie has brought along several of the Wild Beer Company beers over the last few weeks, and I don't think I have enjoyed any of them (although one, or maybe two weren't that bad).

  This particular beer I found revolting. I don't know if it was one of those long tail covid effects still affecting my taste buds, but I couldn't drink it - and didn't beyond a couple of small sips. I find it hard to describe what was so horrible about it, but something about the taste reminded me of old sump oil - sump oil from a 1960s car burning full crap petrol !

  Other beers, particularly the Belgium abbey beers that I supplied, I found delicious. They are probably not the sort of beers you would want to drink a lot of, and couldn't be described as refreshing, but they a rich and malty, and maybe like a sort of liquid bread. I'm making this up as I go along, but I wonder if in centuries past, they were actually considered a food rather than a drink in those monasteries.

  The downside of those abbey beers is that they probably contain a lot more sugar than lighter beers, although there is always the problem that some lighter beers are left not fully fermented so they taste sweet - probably to attract juvenile drinkers. The abbey beers, and maybe one or two others left their mark on me.

  I allowed Jodie to stay until almost 7pm last night. She had managed to miss her train, allegedly by just one minute, and had to wait an extra 30 minutes for the next. That cut into her drinking time, and so it seemed fair not to kick her out too early. The one thing I hadn't done was to prepare any dinner beforehand. It was all the fault of the booze (possibly) that I had an idea that I was going to have instant noodles for my dinner.

  When it came to it I also added a couple of Scotch Eggs to my dinner. I then followed the noodles and Scotch eggs with some fruit and cheese. I had two little "easy peelers" oranges, and two medium small Cox apples with a chunk of Wensleydale cheese. On reflection it was quite an excessive dinner, but it felt right when drunk !

 I could blame it on the food, the booze, or the vaccine side effects wearing off, but my sleep was half way back to normal last night. I did some reading in bed, and maybe I didn't turn the light out until 9pm, but I don't think I managed to fall asleep until closer to 10pm. I don't think I woke up as often as the previous "normal", or at least not until nearly 4am when my sleep seemed to be very light.

  I definitely dreamed a lot, and odd images still stick in my memory. One weird image, or short bit of dream, was about going up a staircase used to train rail workers working on electrified lines. Some steps on the staircase said 650 volts on them, and some said 0 volts. Other were left blank, but had to be treated with caution. You had to walk up the stairs avoiding the steps with 650 volts on them. I believed them to actually be live to add more realism to the test !

  Another series of dreams seemed to go on for ages. They were all set around a variation of my last workplace. There was a back story that the boss had a history of changing the direction of the company just as it was making good money. In my dreams he had decided that since the warehouse/garage was so big we should go into the trucking business. The dreams mostly seemed to be about weird presentations and staff meetings showing his new ideas. I can't seem to recall the fine details of these dreams, and all that is left is a sort of overview of what was going on.

  This morning I was back to waking up feeling fairly creaky. I have felt a lot worse many time in the past, but after a couple of days of not feeling like it, I was hoping that it was something that might have gone away. I guess some of the other negative stuff is a bit of hangover. The worst thing is particularly bad because it is depressing rather than having a physical form - my blood glucose has shot right up again to 10.8mmol/l. That is very bad ! The only tiny bit of hope is that it was measured using the very last test strip in the packet. I have made a note of this in my records, and with luck my next reading, tomorrow morning, using a test strip from a freshly opened packet, may show a big drop. It probably won't and the blame has to fall squarely on the beer, the noodles, and the sweet fruit I ate....maybe the scotch egg too, but I am not sure why that should take any blame.

  At the moment it feel a very grey, wet and miserable day, but it should/could/ought to brighten up a bit later. If I time it right I could go for a walk, and need no more than a light coat - but one I can zip up if I do get caught in a shower. The stupid thing is that the more I think that I really have to do it, because of my high blood glucose, the less I want to do it. I shall just have to hang on until it brightens up, and see how I feel. It is either that or I have to find something else to do to amuse myself - maybe washing a couple of t-shirts, or copying some more VHS tapes onto my spare computer, or maybe both !