First the bad news. It seems that Boris has not done a U turn on lifting the law about face masks on the 19th of this month. That it, of course, very good news. The bad news is that the Mayor Of London has announced that masks will continue to be compulsory on Transport For London services for the foreseeable future. This means that I still will be not using buses, tubes, trams, and London Overground until that requirement is lifted. However the TFL by-law does not apply to national rail operators. From the 19th I should be able to start using Southeastern trains for trips to the seaside, as a for instance. There could be a few complications to be aware of. Stations like Farringdon, which is served by Thameslink trains, is also a tube station, and I believe it is operated by TFL. I presume it would be OK to not wear a mask while on a Thameslink train, but it would be illegal to get off it there. Madness !

  Other than that bit of bad news, yesterday was a fairly good day. I took advantage of the forecast sunshine, and did some more hand washed laundry. It was a shame that I don't think there was a single ray of sunshine during the afternoon while it was hanging on the washing line to dry. I gave up waiting in the end, and brought it all in still with a few slightly damp areas. Once again I should have, and could have, left it out for several more hours, but I didn't want to be disturbed while drinking.

  Yesterday, being a Thursday, it was time for the now extremely abbreviated Thursday club to meet for a drink. In reality it is just Me and Jodie, and although it is possible that Michael might join us again some day, I have doubts that the meetings in The Shortlands Tavern will be resuming any time soon, although being by a railway station it is one place I could get to after the 19th.

  Most of yesterday's drinking was using up stuff I had got in some previous beer orders. For once my memory was better than Jodie's. I was convinced there was one beer I had that was a duplicate of one we drank months ago. Jodie was excited that it was one she had not tried before - until she saw that she had indeed had it in February - as recorded in her Untappd.com account. The highlight of the session was the now usual "one for the road". It is usually a whisky, but can be another spirit. Yesterday Jodie tried the Swedish Mack whisky (Which I pictured yesterday), and she announced that it was very good.

  After Jodie left it was time for me to tuck into my dinner. I had started cooking, in two batches (because my new mini oven/grill is a bit smaller than the one it replaced) some "southern fried flavour" chicken steaks. I have grown to like them for some strange reason - probably because they are easy to cook, and tasty fairly nice even if the texture is a bit leathery. They did look a bit lonely just sitting on the plate by themselves before I gave them a good squirt of low sugar and salt tomato ketchup. Then, because I was slightly drunk, I poured the contents of two small packets of Frisps on them.

  It made for a nice junk meal, but I was worried about being reckless with those Frisps (sort of shaped and fried mashed potato). I had already eaten a couple of packets earlier in the day, and was sort of guilty about it. If they had any negative reaction it was to assist in giving me a case of trapped wind when I went to bed. As I lay in bed feeling uncomfortable I did wonder if it was something other than trapped wind because it did feel like quite a localised, and sharp pain. I was thinking of something like appendicitis.

  I don't think that discomfort spoiled my sleep that much, and was probably only responsible to delay me getting to sleep. In the first few hours of sleep, when it did come, I probably woke up once an hour, and each time I passed a fair amount of wind. Later on I managed to stay sleeping for at least a few hours at a time, but somehow it didn't feel like good sleep. One curious thing is that in the early hours of my sleep I must have been sweating a lot because my pillow was very damp. I think that once again it is the chilli sauce that gets the blame again !

  To my great delight I found my blood glucose had gone down from 8.2mmol/l yesterday morning to a nice 7.9mmol/l this morning. I continued to be baffled why sometimes eating the wrong things can give good results ! I can't say I feel all that good for it though. I did have a bit of a lay in this morning, but it feels like another hour would have been nice, or at least it did. I don't feel so bad a few hours later. On consideration it does feel like my aching bones are not so bad now the weather is set to be warm and dry.

  I have already done a few things this morning. I have had a nice shower, and I have fed the birds. I also looked at my potato plants as I passed then on the way to the bird table.
  In the centre of the picture are some potato fruit. Of course all the real wanted action is taking place underground. Potatoes, like tomatoes are part of the deadly nightshade family of plants. Tomatoes are obviously edible, but these potato fruit are from the deadly nightshade half of the family, and are poisonous (although I don't know how poisonous, and nor do I want to find out). Note the flower to the left of the picture. It is rather over-exposed, and so looks very white. It think it was white to the eye as well.
  This potato flower is most definitely a pale lilac/purple colour, and I though all the flowers were this colour, but it seems some aren't. This was brought to the fore the other day when friend and neighbour Michael was telling me his potato flowers were definitely white. I said I had only seen pale lilac coloured one, but now I have seen both.

  Today is going to be hot and sunny. It is my perfect walking weather, and I have no excuses for not going for a walk. Well that was the case until an hour ago. It seems my next bottle of whisky will be delivered by Amazon today. The huge unknown is when ? The last update I saw said it was out for delivery from the Dartford depot at 4am this morning. I have a feeling that is an error, and that was it's arrival time at the depot. In reality it will probably arrive mid to late afternoon. If I was brave I could still go out for that walk if I left very soon, but I will be checking Amazons web pages again for more information before going out - if I go out !