I ended up doing just two significant things yesterday. The first was going shopping in Aldi, and I wrote about that yesterday morning. The other thing was hand washing a couple of t-shirts and some other stuff, and hanging it on the line to dry. Early weather forecasts for yesterday said that it would not be good for drying stuff on the line outside, but later revision made it seem worth trying. It wasn't great drying weather, but 3 or 4 hours after hanging it out, my stuff was almost dry. It was really only where the pegs were that there were damp patches.

  Doing that laundry, by hand, bending over the two big builders buckets in the bath, was an interesting test of my aching back. It was peculiar in that it wasn't exactly painful, but I could feel pressure just below my right shoulder blade on my back. I have no real idea of what was pressing on what. While I say it wasn't painful, it was a bit uncomfortable, but nowhere near enough to make me want to stop what I was doing. I did hope that maybe it would actually help, and I think to a very small extent it did.

  I don't think I was actually bored for most of yesterday, but there was always a thought that it would have been nice to be doing something more exciting, or more productive. If i had more faith that the future would be more interesting I could have done more to improve my dining room. I have a shelf or two i would like to put up, and I have the paint to paint the doors and window frames, but I was thinking too much along the lines of "what's the point ?".

  I should have been making a better effort at reducing my sugar intake yesterday. In the end I didn't do too badly, but I did take a chance on two probable outcomes  when I felt the urge to include curried lentils, and curried chick peas in my dinner. Both those curried items were in microwaveable "heat in the sachet" packs, and once on a plate were far smaller than the looked. The curried lentils were actually made my Heinz, and were a bit crap. The curried chick peas were made by some unknown company, and might have come from the Pound Shop. They were not that nice either, although neither was actually horrible.

  The third part of my dinner was a sort of extravagant fish cake - cod and chorizo. Funnily enough that wasn't as tasty as I hoped it might be, but it was fairly nice. All these ingredients, plus the pea and ham soup I had at lunchtime, should have caused a great perturbation in my guts, but so far they haven't. They didn't even cause any discomfort when I went to bed - apart from a bit of light sweat from the inevitable chilli sauce.

  I seemed to sleep well last night. Big chunks of time passed without any memory of them. However, towards the end of the night I did start dreaming, and they were very weird dreams. I think they were supposed to be erotic, but somehow they weren't (must be a sign of old age). I have no idea how the dream started, and only a sort of truncated memory of how the last dream ended. At the time it seemed like a continuous narrative, but with hindsight I can see there were "edits" in it. It is easier to describe it as almost continuous.

  The dream seemed to start in a college canteen. There were 20 or more tables in there, and I was sat at a table with some friends (although I have no idea who they were, and I'm not actually sure I saw them - I just seemed to know they were there). An adjacent table table had 4 or 5 women around it. They were discussing the latest fad. It was apparently to have the female genitalia moved up to somewhere on the belly or chest. A couple had had it done, and were showing it off quite openly.

  That should have been exciting, but maybe it was too weird for that. The next bit of dream concerned going outside for a cigarette. I was joined by a cute looking woman who seemed to have latched on to me. For a while thing started heading in the direction of erotic because this woman was very cuddly, but then we were interrupted by a Japanese looking kid who snatched the cigarette out of my hand. It seems I knew some sort of "martial art" because I lashed out with my foot, and somehow hooked my foot around his wrist, and pulled him to me. He looked suitably scared, and so I let him go. I didn't fancy the cigarette after he had put it in his mouth anyway. After that we started cuddling again, and it felt really good, but of course that was the time I woke up. Damn !

  This morning there was no bad effects of eating those curried pulses except for a small rise in my blood glucose. It had gone up to 8.6mmol/l from 8.3mmol/l yesterday morning. I was worried that it would be higher still, but 8.6mmol/l is just, by the skin of it's teeth, acceptable, but I really ought to try and get it a hole point lower if I can.

  I don't feel all that good this morning. I guess it was the morning rain, but my legs felt very stiff. One of my knees actually went "click" when I stood up earlier. One thing I did before writing this was to attempt to go to Poundstretcher. I started off heading for a cash machine to withdraw some money. The Halifax machine had quite a queue. The two machines outside Santander appeared to have no money in them. I did have money in my wallet so I headed to Poundstretcher via Catford Broadway.
  It was in Catford Broadway that I saw the sight in the picture above. I have no idea what all those faces are about, but I am guessing the civic centre/old town hall is being covered by faces of all those who have been really pissed off by the council's new maniacal "road calming" (driver enraging) measures. Even as as pedestrian, who has never driven a car in my life, know all these measures are a really bad idea. Many would seem to be planned by people who have never even seen the roads they are interfering with.

  When I got to Poundstretcher I found it closed for no know reason. That was at 9.30am, and it was supposed to be open by 9am. I thought I might go to Poundland instead, and party retraced my steps. That took me past the Halifax cash machine, and as I got there the person used it finished with it, and with no one else queueing I stopped to withdraw some cash. When I got to Poundland I couldn't find my mask. It was in the same pocket as my mobile phone, and I guess it must have fallen out when I took my phone out to use the camera to take the picture above.

  I probably could have gone in Poundland without a mask, but I didn't fancy any hassle, and walk on by. It was probably just as well because as I approached home it started raining, and it was starting to get heavy as I put my key in the lock. My legs had felt rather stiff and creaky on that walk, but my painful back was feeling much better. I've had a few twinges since, but overall it does feel better, and it may even be on the mend now.

  Since getting back from my aborted shopping trip there has been rain and shine. It was nice when the sun was out, but now it is very gloomy again, and more rain is falling. I can't see myself doing much today while it is all gloomy - even if it does seem to be brightening up again. If it does brighten up I can't see it lasting, although I may pop out out to the shops again if it looks like it may be dry for half an hour. Fortunately there is nothing I urgently need from any shops at the moment. I hope that the weather improves a lot by the 19th July. That is when all Covid restrictions are still supposed to be lifted. I hope from that day I can put a lot of miles on my new Freedom Pass that arrived in the post yesterday.