Thick cloud has returned today. The whole day is going to be either dull, or very dull. It started a little later than expected, but most of this morning, and a few hours into the afternoon will feature rain. As I write this the road outside looks very wet with puddles, but I have not been aware of any heavy rain. I think it is just very persistent light rain. No sunshine means today will be a bit cool with the temperature rising very slowly from 15° C to a very brief period at 17° C. Tomorrow should see a return to lots of sunshine, and the temperature peaking to 23° C.
 
  After all the activities of the day before, including my walk over Hilly Fields, yesterday was almost a day of rest. In fact I did little more than rest yesterday morning. I mostly did some reading and snoozing. I am finding it very easy to snooze these days, even after I have apparently slept OK the previous night. I am not sure if it is just an old age thing, or if it is along term after effect of my Covid vaccination - particularly the second jab.

  I was a bit more alert in the afternoon because Michael had done his shopping run by car, as he does on a Thursday, and had got me some bottles of Diet Coke. Once again we had a short natter out in the road before he left to get his frozen stuff in his fridge. After that I did a little bit of preparation for the boozing session with Jodie a bit later in the afternoon.

  Jodie arrived later than usual, but I was expecting that. She had warned me that she was meeting a friend in Purley, and would be making her way here by bus, tram and train ! When she arrived she was tired from the journey, but also still suffering from a hangover after she had quite a long session in a pub or two with some of her other friends. She couldn't even face some of the beers she had delivered the day before.

  After a few beer tastings (less than half a pint of each) she gave up and had a can of "Hard Seltzer" - a fizzy fruit flavoured drink based on a light wine. It gave me the chance to have a couple of bottles of my Fullers beers. Jodie had a small wine glass (1/3rd of a pint or less) taster of my beers. I think she liked one, and hated the other ! We finished off with a shot glass of whisky before Jodie went to get the train just before 7pm.

  I was feeling quite drunk when she left. All I had eaten during the day was a rather large salad, and there was nothing in it that traditionally would have soaked up any beer. I did have a nice greasy dinner to hold it all down thought - very well roasted pork belly strips. A bit later in the evening I had a drunken idea that I would eat some, but in practice all of a small waxed truckle of chilli flavoured red Leicestershire cheese. With hindsight I don't know why I ate it all, or even any of it because it was revolting. It was once a high quality (by tradition only) Marks and Spencer Xmas gift sort of cheese in it's bright red wax coating. It tasted like paint thinners.

  I was in bed, and asleep quite early last night. It seemed to be a deep enough sleep that I didn't realise time was passing, and yet I still woke up maybe 2 hours, or less, after I had fallen asleep to go for a wee. I was surprised to see it was only 11pm, and still Thursday. I thought I had been asleep for hours and hours. It was a bigger shock when I woke for another wee a minute before midnight, and the clock said it was still Thursday !

  I then slept until about 2.50am. That was a very bad time to wake up. It seems that if I ever wake up around 3am it can take ages to get back to sleep again, and it did. I was awake for at least half an hour. I can't be sure how long it was. I remember seeing 3.20am on the clock, and it seemed like I was awake long after that, but suddenly I was waking up from a dream at around 5am. I know there was stuff leading up to be the bit of dream I do remember in a vague, and maybe incomplete sort of way.

  It was a dream that was set at work, but only in so much as a few people in the dream were ex work mates. The actual bit of dream that I have some sort of coherent memory of started with three good computers thrown into a skip. I intended to raid the skip, and "liberate" at least one of the computers, but when I got there I found someone had gotten to them first, and removed the CPUs and memory sticks - leaving them useless.

  The dream then changed direction with the crazy idea that the skip, with the addition of a roof, might make a nice small house. The skip had obviously grown compared to me first sight of it, and was twice or three times the size of the skips you see at the roadside. In my next remembered bit of dream it seemed that I had converted it to a house, and moved it to by the sea. I didn't actually see it in that next dream fragment. The only thing I did see was a view from something like a harbour wall of a quite clear see with loads of fish swimming around.

  I woke up very slowly this morning. It seemed like I had not slept much. In one respect my health had improved a little. My blood glucose had dropped a bit from the too high 9.0mmol/l yesterday morning to a better, but still high 8.8mmol/l this morning. It may have been lower if I hadn't drunk one or two of the beers that I drank, or maybe I could blame that rancid cheese. Of course no exercise during the day would not have helped.

  The change from warm dry weather to cooler wet weather is having a profound effect on how I feel this morning - and that is despite the fact that I am fairly insulated from the weather while indoors. The effect is two fold.  The worst of it is to make my knees feel extra creaky, and a few other joints don't feel great either. The other thing is strong feeling of laziness and sleepiness.  I am definitely doing one thing today, and that is some laundry. I have already put that in to soak, but I'll have to dry it indoors today. I don't think I am going to do anything else today, or should that be that I can't be bothered to do anything else today.