Today may not be quite as good as yesterday. It is nice and sunny now, but even the latest revision to the weather forecast says the sunshine will give way to sunny spells at 1pm, and from 2pm we will lose the sunshine to light cloud for five hours until some sunny spells resume at 7pm. The afternoon temperature is still predicted to rise to 23° C. Tomorrow could be the last day of sunny spells before some duller days follow it. It might still be warm though. 24° C is the current prediction.
 
  The good weather automatically raised yesterday into one of the better days. It was also a fairly satisfactory day in other ways. I mentioned my morning shopping trip to Tesco when writing yesterday. It did lead to certain temptations, but I managed to manage those temptations well until something else happened that I will explain further down the page. Yesterday I mentioned that I was intending to do some laundry. It was a bigger load than the laundry I did the other day. Yesterday I knew I could dry it on the washing line, in the sun, and so I did almost everything in the washing bag except for a pale blue t-shirt that I decided shouldn't be washed with a load of black t-shirts !

  After finishing the laundry, and hanging it on the line, I had a rest, and then I had more to eat. I had already had some battered fish for breakfast. For lunch I had two wholemeal rolls (which apparently have no added sugar, unlike white bread rolls) with cheese and tomatoes. They could easily be an addictive food. I still had two unused rolls from the pack of 4, and I had to use a lot of self control to stop myself eating those too.

  After another rest I tackled a job that really needed doing as soon as possible. It was to strim the lawn. The grass has been growing wild for the last month or two, and it has been getting a lot of rain to make it, and the weeds grow really fast. All I could was to give it the equivalent of a first coat, and I will need to go back to give it a second cut soon - ideally today if I have enough energy.

  Although it was only a very rough cut it still revealed that there are still lots of bald areas, and it even revealed there was cat poo in the long grass. I think I had strimmed the poo before I realised it. Fortunately there was little evidence of it splattering anywhere bad - such as on my freshly washed clothes. They did get a few specks of grass on them, but later on when I brought them in, they were perfectly dry after baking in the sunshine, and the specks of grass just fell off after a quick shake.

  As well as strimming the grass I also weeded the potato patch, and pulled a few more weeds elsewhere too. It doesn't seem all that long ago that I weeded among the potato plants. I knew on that occasion I didn't do a good job. That was partly because the potato plants are so thick that it is difficult to separate them from the weeds. Yesterday there were weeds a-plenty again, and this time I tried a bit harder to pull more out. It still wasn't a perfect job, but I have a feeling it won't be long before I am digging up those potatoes.
  Found among the weeds - a hawks head  moth. It may have been injured, or maybe it had laid it's eggs, and had then stopped eating. I think that is typical moth and butterfly behaviour - a good shag, and then lay down to die. Whatever the reason was, it didn't seem to be able to fly, and so I dropped it in some other plants before putting the weeds I was pulling up in the garden waste wheelie bin.

  It felt like I had done enough for the day after that bit of gardening, but once I had cooled down (it felt really hot work in the sun, and I was dripping) I wanted to go out to Poundland. There were, as usual, only a few things I wanted, and none of those was essential - just useful. Of course I ended up buying more than intended. I ended up buying another 5 solar powered garden lights. Three were globes to hang on the fence, and two were for planting in the ground. They were cheaper, but most probably from the same Chinese factory that made those I bought from Poundstretcher.

  Finally it was time for dinner. Dinner could have been a disaster for my attempt to keep my blood glucose down. Earlier in the day I had received a thank you/bribe from next door. They approached me at the weekend to ask if I would consider objecting to a planning application by a developer wanting to build a huge extension to the house next to theirs. I needed little persuasion because that extension would cover about three quarters of what is already a small garden, and would stand at least a metre above the height of the local fences. It was a stupid idea, as well as being an eyesore.

  My reward for supporting their objection was a home made Thai chicken curry with rice. While next door were having their smaller extension built I was kept happy with quite a few Thai meals, and so I knew they would be nice. The dinner I had last night was a simpler version than the previous ones which were end-of-day leftovers from the Thai food place in Greenwich Market where the Thai lady next worked. The curry sauce was thinner, and it seemed to have no hint of sugar in it, but it was the rice that worried me. Being all carbohydrate it produces a lot of sugar when digested. I only ate three quarters of the portion, and gave the rest to the birds.
  I made a point of not trying to go to sleep until it was dark outside (which isn't so hard to do now the sunset has come forward to around 8.30pm). I wanted to see my collection of solar powered garden lights working. There should be a blue lamp to the left of the green lamp on the fence, but it didn't seem to light up last night (although it did the night before). The three new globe lights are hanging on the fence on the right. There are two stick lights either side of the green globe in the bottom left of the picture. It is sort of pretty, but at the same time it is a bit pointless. At least it is a cheap madness.

  There is no a lot I can say about my sleep last night. It was pretty average I guess, and that also includes the now usual ritual of waking up a few hours before wanting to get up, and turning on the heater so it is nice and warm when I get up. Looking at the long range weather forecasts I  think that when I change my bed linen I will put my light duvet in the duvet cover. It will feel really strange sleeping under a duvet again, but I think I will need it.

  After all I ate yesterday I was quite worried about my blood glucose measurement this morning. Thankfully it was not as bad as I thought it would be. In fact it was exactly what my monthly average is turning out to be - 8.5mmol/l. I much preferred the 7.1mmol/l I got the day before, but getting that is hard work. The rest of me feel mostly OK, but my legs feel a bit stiff  - which reminds me...

  I forgot to mention that when I went to Poundland my legs didn't feel as good as hoped. Maybe it was after the gardening earlier. On the way back home I noticed Michael gardening in his front garden. I went over to have a chat with him, which typically lasted more than "just 5 minutes". I may have been standing there for over 15 minutes. When I went to move I found my left leg had almost frozen. I had limped halfway home before it freed up enough to walk almost normally.

  This morning I have already done a couple of tasks. One was the ritual of putting feed on the bird table. One of the very greedy pigeons is getting brave. It flew down to start eating before I was halfway back to the back door. I decided to test it's nerve by slowly, one small step at a time, move towards the bird table. I got about 4ft away before it flew off. The other task was a special hand towel washing. It was a hand towel I put on my pillow when we had some hot nights (probably a month ago or more) and it had mopped up a lot of sweat. I soaked it overnight in bio detergent, and a very generous amount of stain remover (in case it helped). It has had quite a few rinses, and treated with fabric conditioner before I hung it on the line to (hopefully) bake dry in the sun.

  Next on my agenda is to have a full shave, shampoo and shower. This is because I am meeting Angela in the pub at lunchtime (1pm). She said she would see me there during an exchange of messages yesterdays, and I replied that unless she warned me that anything had cropped up, I would get her drink on the table for her (on the assumption I would get there first). After our hour together I will stop by the pharmacy to (hopefully) pick up my latest repeat prescription. After that I don't know what I will do, although I might remember to make another attempt to get an appointment to give the blood sample the nurse wants. This morning I gave up again when I was told I was number 41 in the queue. It is getting better. It was number 56 before I hung up last time !