The latest revision to the forecast tells a different story to the screenshot above, taken much earlier this morning - and it is still wrong. As I write this, at 10:18am, the sun is managing to shine through one of quite a few blue areas of sky. The heavy rain for 1 and 2pm has been replaced by light rain at just 1pm in the latest revision. It is starting to look like today may not be that bad after all. An afternoon temperature of 22° C is still very much in the middle of t-shirt weather. Tomorrow may be a degree cooler, but otherwise not that different to today.

   Yesterday was a curious day. I can't explain why, but it felt satisfactory. There was no particular reason for it, and one reason why it might be classified otherwise. The main event was going for a drink with Angela during her lunch hour. It was one of those time when we didn't seem to feel so close. It is pure delusion, but sometimes I think she gets a little distant to stop getting too attached. I still maintain there is a lot of chemistry between us, but she has made her choice (or been forced into it) and dedicates her life to another.

  After a couple of drinks I walked Angela back to work, and then went along the high street to Poundland.  It was a typical Poundland occasion - I wanted to go there for maybe one or two items, and ended up with a shopping bag full of stuff. The heaviest stuff was a couple of bags of bird feed. I have to admit it is pretty poor stuff, and the pigeons don't seem to love it like the stuff bought from Poundstetcher.

  There was one thing I bought in Poundland when curiosity overcame good sense (as it does so often). It was a 6 pack of "fiery flavours" crisps. I had started the day with a breakfast that was too big, and I didn't really want to eat any crisps. I did allow myself 2 packs, and I have to admit that they were rather good. Eating those meant I had to be quite careful with my dinner.

  I had two cans of soup for dinner. One of them had a slightly higher amount of sugar than was ideal (about 3gm of sugar per half tin). Later on I had a big snack of cheese and rice crackers. A small snack would have been better because all these little extras add up as I discovered this morning. It was while eating the soup or the snack that I came up with an idea.

The nutritional information on the far left is for Tesco's own brand cream of chicken soup. As can be seen, the sugar content is very low. It's calorific energy is very low too. Note that both labels quote for half a can, and for the chicken soup it is convenient to round it up to 200 calories per can.   The second nutritional panel is from a can of Tesco, own brand, lentil and bacon soup. Once again the sugar content is nice and low, but the calorific energy is higher. Rounded up it is still only a tad under 240 calories per can.   The significance of all this is that should I want to go on a diet, and I probably should do because shedding 10 to 20kg would be good in many ways, I could go on a soup diet. It is not a diet I have heard of as such, but it does have some similarities to a diet recommended for heart patients who need to loose a fair bit of weight prior to surgery.   I like soup, and it can be almost filling. As the days start to get colder it gets more attractive. It wouldn't be a very nutritionally complete diet, but that wouldn't matter for a few weeks, but I reckon I could be quite happy surviving on about 5 cans of soup a day, and ideally nothing else. It just needs the right frame of mind to do it. Falling in love, and angina have been good incentives in the past. Falling in love again would be good, but I can't seeing that happening again in this lifetime.

  I didn't really do much more than I have already described yesterday. I guess I could say that I did some exercise yesterday because I did go the long way round (via Ladywell) to get to the pub, and I did take the long way home via Poundland. It may have been the humidity, but I did find the walk home to be almost uncomfortably hot. In general I like walking in hot sunshine. I did some of my maddest walks in summer last year, several times when it was 30° C outside. One subtle difference was that the sun is now getting low enough in the sky to shine into my eyes. That makes it feel hotter.
  This was the view as I walked across the park. The sky was a deeper blue to my eyes. It looks like the camera toned it down a bit because it was so bright.
  Once upon a time beermats were all cheerful with pictures people drinking pints, or smoking Castellla cigars, but now they can be quite gloomy. I guess that it is only to be expected in a pub next to a hospital, and whose members of staff often drink in there.
   The above pair of beermats were souvenirs from yesterday's drink. The one above them were from last week. At least this pair (actually front and back) are a bit more positive.

  It felt hot and sweaty again last night. The previous night seemed OK, but the night before that was as bad as last night. I knew it would be raining last night because it had started before I went to bed, and I didn't want to sleep with the window open. There was also the fact that this morning was dustbin day, and the council works start clattering around before it is even light now. So I slept with the windows shut, and then the only way to sleep was to turn the fan on.

  My sleep was both good and bad. Once I put the fan on I started to feel comfortable enough to get to sleep only a bit later than ideal. After a few hours (2 or 3 ?) I woke up and didn't feel I needed the fan. I turned it off, and managed to get back to sleep, but only for about an hour before I just had to turn the fan on again for another hour or two. Like most mornings, my sleep became very light in the last few hours, and I woke up quite frequently. I gave up trying to sleep at 7am. The odd thing is that I can't remember a thing about any dreams at any time in the night. I'm positive I had some, and probably many, but not a single detail survives.

  This morning my blood glucose had actually risen from 8.6mmol/l to 8.7mmol/l. That is a little bit annoying, but at least it is still not far off my average - which is officially considered by the nurse as "good diabetes control". I'm pretty sure the reason for not being able to get the level a useful bit lower is that my belly fat is causing too much insulin resistance. Loosing some belly fat would allow me to take an occasional liberty now and then without causing too much of a rise in my blood glucose. Maybe I should get on my soup diet, but I just don't feel inspired enough right now. It will be easier once it is started, and best started by accident (and by accident I mean something more like doing it without realising it).

  Today I have already been shopping in two shops. I bought a couple of tubes of Arm & Hammer sensitive toothpaste, plus some more cod live oil capsules from Savers, and then I went and bought a load of soups, plus other stuff, from Tesco. Included in the "other stuff" was some Rosemary. The stuff in packets looked rather dry, and the stems were cut too short to attempt to get them to root (probably). I cheated by buy a small plant in a pot. I noticed they had basil, and a few other herbs in pots. I may grow more herbs, but without a greenhouse to keep them in winter, I might wait until next spring.

  Normally I would be having a drinking session today (being a Thursday), but Chris is on holiday again and so there is no drinking at the Shortlands Tavern again. Jodie is off to a gig today, and so I won't be drinking with her. There is still a possibility that Michael might drop by for a couple of beers. Other than that, the only other thing happening today is that Patricia's friend Natalia should be dropping by early evening to pick up some of Patricia's post to take to her in Italy.