According to the latest revision to the forecast it should be raining now, but it isn't yet ! In fact it may be a bit dull, but it doesn't look bad enough for rain yet. Once the rain starts, assuming it does, it is now forecast to rain non stop until 7pm. It is going to be a cool day with the temperature only rising to 18° C. Tomorrow is shown as cloudy, but white clouds, for the full 24 hours ! There is also a 10% chance of rain for the whole day, and that is low enough to give some confidence it will stay dry. The cloud may be thin enough that it is possible the sun could cut through it. If it does it could raise the temperature above the predicted 22° C.

  I think the dull weather dampened my enthusiasm to really do anything yesterday. It was instrumental in trashing my plan to fast until dinnertime. It certainly didn't help that it kept the temperature low enough to occasionally feel cold, but that was usually after laying on my bed reading and snoozing for an hour or more. I definitely wanted hot soup after that ! I did manage to do just one important thing.

  It was the finish the laundry I had started soaking 24 hours earlier. I really had no choice but to do it, but I can't say it was a pleasure doing it. On the other hand it wasn't as unpleasant as I feared it would be once I got over the shock of plunging my hands in the cold soapy water. Once I moved on to the first rinse it was business as usual. One thing I did have a choice with was to decided to dry it indoors or outdoors. The weather forecast said indoors, but the previous few days suggested the forecast may be wrong, and to a limited extent it was.
  There weren't many sunny spells, but this was one of them. It was just at the right time when the sun cleared the fence on the left, and could shine directly onto my washing. Sadly it wasn't enough, and a few hours after I took the picture it was getting so dull outside that I took my washing in. It was about 90% dry. In fact the smaller stuff was much closer to dry. It was the hand towel that was the most damp. I hung it all on the clothes horse, and let it dry without resorting to fans aor heaters.

  At midday I was feeling cold, and broke my fast to have a couple of cans of hot soup. In the middle of the afternoon I used the last two wholemeal rolls for their intended purpose - cheese, tomato and basil rolls. All this meant my dinner should have been quite light, but it wasn't for one reason. I thought I was going to have a salad followed by some "southern fried" flavoured chicken goujons (or were they strips ?). Unfortunately the ready made salad had been in the fridge too long, and the cucumber in it was looking very sad.

 I rescued the tomatoes, and washed the gunk off them, but the rest went to compost. My substitute for the salad was far from ideal. It was some BBQ chicken legs. Unfortunately the BBQ flavour gunk they put on them contained sugar. That was not good, but on the other hand the amount of sugar compared to the amount of meat was very small. It still made me feel guilty enough to not really enjoy them as I might have.

  There were a few distractions on TV yesterday evening. Of particular not was another showing of the making of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" being showed by Sky Arts. It seems so little time since I last saw it that I ended up mostly listening to it while reading stuff on my PC. That was followed by a recording of an Eric Clapton gig. I thought that should have been good, but it seemed to be mostly stuff I didn't know, and I gave up on it, probably too early, little more than 15 minutes after it started. If I had watched it to then end I would have not got to bed until gone 10pm.

  I was actually in bed just before 9pm, maybe even 8.30pm. I read for something like half an hour before turning the light out, and I think I fell asleep quite quickly. My sleep was unremarkable apart from a period of insomnia around 2am. Unlike the last time, I think it only lasted about 45 minutes. Much later in the morning I had a variant on a familiar nightmare. It was about trying to find a working toilet so I could have a poo. Every cubicle I tried was out of order. In some cases the whole toilet bowl had been removed, and the floor tiled over. The last bit of the dream, or probably a sequence of short dreams, was saying to someone that I was going to try the 6th floor because they had to have working toilets up there - the idea being that was the floor where upper management worked.

  I woke up before I could take another step. The curious thing is that while I wanted to go to the toilet in the dreams, albeit not desperately, I had no feeling of discomfort when I woke up beyond a mild desire just for a wee. It was 20 to 30 minutes after getting up that I felt I needed to pass anything solid. This morning is like many when I really don't know if I feel good, bad or indifferent. Logically, if it is neither good nor bad it must be indifferent.

  The good news is that despite not fasting like I wanted to yesterday, my blood glucose was lower this morning. 9.1mmol/l is still high, but better than the yesterday's 9.8mmol/l - that was sailing close to the wind. I don't know if I can manage my eating enough today to reduce it much further, but I shall do what I can. It all depends on things outside of my control - the weather !

  I have one main plan for today, and a less significant plan. Both rely on it not raining. The less significant plan is not important at all, and can wait for days if needed. It is nothing more exotic than popping out to Poundland to throw away small amounts of money to amuse myself...or something like that. The big plan is to go to Chain's gig in The Pelton Arms tonight. A couple of days ago I went out to familiarise myself with the walk from Maze Hill station. It is not a long walk, and in the sunshine it was almost a pleasant walk. I don't think I want to do it n the rain though, and the weather forecast seems to be nudging the end of the rain later and later. Even walking to Catford Bridge, where I will be starting the rail part of the journey would be most unpleasant in the rain - particularly when my ideal is that I don't have to wear a coat while travelling, and very much less so when in a warm pub ! Obviously I will report back tomorrow if I make to the gig.