I finished writing yesterday saying I was contemplating the idea of doing some gardening if it stayed dry for long enough. What I actually did first was to lay on my bed reading, and then dozing off. I say dozing, rather than snoozing, because I am not sure if I actually fell asleep. I can definitely remember laying there with my eyes closed, thinking about this, that, or another, and maybe day dreaming. Maybe I slept, but I was too relaxed to notice.

  It was 1pm, and maybe later when I decided if I was going to fill in the hole the foxes had dug under the back fence, I ought to get off my bed and get started. I felt really creaky when I first went out into the garden, but the more I did, the better I felt. I started off weeding behind the potato plants. The weeds didn't really matter there, but I thought it would look better if I pulled them all up, plus it wouldn't be a good idea if they started to spread their seeds all over the place.
  There are a lot of decaying tree roots under the plot where the potatoes are (there are also the remains of a couple of tree stumps). With some weeds out the way I saw a couple of toadstools were helping to break up that decaying wood.
  One of the first farmed animals in this country was the snail, or "wall fruit" as it was once called (and may still be called in some parts of the country). We no longer eat snails, but of course the French still do, and I may be very wrong, but I think we were doing it long before they were.

  It wasn't long after pulling up those weeds that the sun came out. It may have only lasted a minute or two, but it felt deliciously warm, and enthused me to work more. I was already starting to feel sweaty when the warmth of the sun added to it, and by the time I had filled in the hole under the back fence, and turned over most of the soil in that back flower bed, I was feeling very hot and sweaty.

  Not only did I turn over the soil, and try and even it out, I also raked a lot of big pebbles out of it. It was not perfect, but it looked OK to plant some seeds in. I ended up putting a large amount of seeds in that flower bed. Most of them should probably have been sown months ago, but some may still grow and flower if I am lucky. Of course it they all sprout it will be like a miniature jungle. At least it could be a colourful jungle.

  The final bit of masochism for the day was to get the strimmer out to strim the lawn. It is growing remarkably quickly with all the rain we have had recently. I was hoping I would get it done before the forecast rain. I was also counting on that forecast rain to water the seeds I had just sown ! It did get very dull for a while, but no rain fell. I was so hot and damp when I took this final picture of my garden that I think I steamed the lens up on the camera.
  About an hour after I had finished in the garden, and before I had fully cooled down, I heard a distant clap of thunder. 10 to 20 minutes later there was an even louder clap of thunder, but there was still no rain here, and none of the clouds I could see looked very thundery. When I checked the weather forecast there was an animation that showed the heavy rain and thunder passed to the west of me. A bit later still I heard reports of flash flooding in West London, and trains from Euston at a standstill because the track was flooded.

  I had a good rest after my hard work in the garden. I idled away the time (not much more than 2 hours) until dinner time. I had sort of chosen my dinner when I went shopping in the morning. It was to be an Aldi, ready made peppery mixed salad with some ready cooked, and flavoured, chicken slices. It was a bad choice because the chicken, that was lime and coconut flavoured, didn't go well with the peppery salad. It would have probably have been better in a sandwich or something.

  I finished the salad and tried to convince myself that it was all fine and healthy, and that I didn't need any more. That idea lasted all of 10 minutes, and I got the urge for something more substantial. I wanted something fairly instant, or at least that wouldn't occupy me with cooking. My eyes fell on some pots of char sui rice (in the style of a pot noodle). I thought it was a dubious idea, but I went for it anyway. Like the other one I had many months ago, it wasn't great, or even that nice, but it seemed to do the trick, and I didn't eat any more before bedtime.

  I washed my dinner down with, at first, one can of Guinness, but obviously one can is not enough, and I had another two before bed. I seem to have synchronised my sleeping to sunset now, and it was almost dark when I turned out the light (maybe 9.45pm or thereabouts). I seemed to sleep well last night, although I still woke up feeling cool at about 4am, and turned the heater on low before going back to sleep. I can remember having many dreams, but now I can't seem to recall anything about them.

  I was a bit worried about what that instant rice would do to my blood glucose this morning, but I needn't have worried. My blood glucose had dropped from 8.9mmol/l yesterday to 8.5mmol/l this morning. I still can't help but think that it might have been lower if I hadn't had that rice. I feel confident the Guinness had no affect at all. The only other bad thing I had was two cubes of Turkish delight with all the icing sugar washed off them. What is left is basically gelatine, but I presume it has some sugar in it.

  I made a fairly early start this morning. I was out feeding the birds not that long after 6am. After that I slowed down a bit, and read some internet news before having a shower and washing my hair. I then had to wait a fair time to cool off. Holding my head under hot water always gets me feeling really hot. Once I had dried my hair, and once again cooking my head with a hair dryer as I did it, I got dressed to go out.

  It was a mad idea, but I became fixated on the idea of another shopping trip to Aldi to stock up on more cans of Guinness. I was hoping they might have the bigger 500ml cans, and that they may have the full tray of Guinness that were on special off a month or so ago. I left it a bit late compared to my usual early Monday morning visits there, but I still managed to get there just before 9am, and it was still very quiet in there.

  There were no trays of Guinness, and no big cans, but I did buy twelve 440ml cans in three blocks of four. I also bought other beers too, as well as more of the peppery salad. It is far, far superior to their "rainbow salad". The latter is like sweepings off the floor. In total I lugged home 37 cans and bottles of beer, and it felt like my arms were about to be pulled out of their sockets by the time I got home feeling very hot and sticky.

  I have no solid idea of what I will do next....well maybe I'll be lazy again for a while. I think I will lay on my bed and read for a while like I did yesterday. Maybe this afternoon I will tackle the other flower bed. That is going to need special care because there seems to be a rat run under the fence next to it. I might have to dig out under the fence and ram bricks into any cavities. It is a shame that the foxes ruined that flower bed because last year it did have some nice flowers in it, and I believe they should have grown again this year, but maybe they were tasty to foxes, and they were eaten before they could do anything.