Today is going to be generally dull. The sunny spells shown for 4 and 5pm above have disappeared from the latest revision to the forecast. Now is shown as having sunny spells, but evidently the forecasters made their prediction without looking out the window. I can see a thin bright area in the grey clouds at the moment, but the chance of the sun breaking through looks to be slim in the extreme. In amongst this doom and gloom the temperature may still hit 14° C fir several hours this afternoon. The forecast for tomorrow looks almost the same as the early forecast for today - so it is bound to be wrong.

 
  I didn't start writing yesterday until just gone midday, and so I have described all before that already. There is not a lot to say about after midday. I had had a very bad night's sleep yesterday, and so I was practising extreme laziness for the start of the afternoon. It wasn't until 4pm that I actually did something useful. It was to take a look, and identify the problem with the convection heater that Jodie brought to me on Thursday.

  As I expected, it was not the fuse in the plug. There were a lot of screws to take out before I could get inside it. Once I did I could use my multimeter to check the circuitry. It turned out that the safety cut out had gone open circuit. Jodie did mention it used to cut out a lot when in use. I suspect that that happened when the airflow through the thing was impaired - maybe by trying to dry cloths on it. It is also possible that the safety cut out was faulty, maybe set at too low a temperature, but what seemed to have happened was that the contacts had become pitted and eroded. I used an emery board (of the sort for doing nails) to clean the contacts, and then try and put the contacts under a bit of tension.

  It now works as a heater. Whether the cut out will still work to protect the heater, and whether my repair will last are both unknowns. I shall tell Jodie to be ultra careful when using the heater - particularly regarding keeping the top and bottom vents very clear. Hopefully it can provide some useful service, but if that cut out goes open circuit I think it will have to be scrapped (although I could short out the safety cut out, bit if I did I wouldn't trust anyone but myself to use it).

  Even at midday, and possibly even in the morning, and there's a chance it could have been the night before (in fact I think it might have been) I had an idea that I wanted a break from the routine, and treat myself to a take away. I definitely wrote yesterday that if I had a takeaway it would have to be shish kebabs because the grilled meat and salad was actually a very healthy choice for me. With my nice and low blood glucose yesterday morning I wanted to try and keep it that way.

  My breakfast of sausages was of debatable healthiness. My lunch probably doesn't sound healthy (although I am using "healthy" purely in the context of keeping my blood glucose down). It was a can of chicken curry. According to the nutritional information the sugar content was as low as a good soup, but then again it was little more than a soup - chunks of dubious tasting chicken swimming around in a brown, vaguely curry tasting goo. All I can say is that I did enjoy it, but it was a very low level of enjoyment.......maybe 0.1 on a scale of 0 to 10.

  At 5.30pm I set about ordering my kebabs. Like most takeaways I ordered enough for dinner last night, and enough spare for dinner tonight. I also ordered something for breakfast, but I wasn't really sure if I was going to eat all or any of it for breakfast today. I had hoped it would arrive not too long after 6pm, but I think it was at the far end of their estimated delivery time - nearer to 7pm.

  The curious thing is that I ordered from a restaurant whose name I hadn't previously known, but whose address I did remember. Even stranger is that on the Just Eat website there appeared to be three different restaurants operating from the same address. It all sounds very dubious, but I wonder if it is for tax purposes rather than for any bad reason. The other curious thing is that two of the so called companies from that address had exactly the same prices, but the one I used was slightly cheaper (about 50p and item).

  I ordered some chicken and some lamb shish kebabs, and they were both very nice. The thing that made them staand out is that they were a little greasier than usual. That was particularly good for the chicken because that can be a little dry. Maybe the chef was a bit better at basting them with (ideally, but unlikely) olive oil as the grilled. Anyway, the important thing was that I enjoyed them - a lot !

  I ended up watching several hours of TV last night before I went to bed. I read in bed for some time, and I think I was probably asleep around 10pm (but it could have been 11pm - I can't really remember). I slept well until 2am when I woke up from a dream. I could only remember what was effectively the closing sentence of the dream, but was probably more a feeling rather than actual words.

  It was a regret that I stopped still photography as soon as I could get a video camera. Initially that was a very big and heavy camera and separate VHS recorder. Later it was more manageable camcorders. It seemed all modern and high tek, and it was, but with hindsight I missed out on so many chances to take still photos. The thing with video is that it needs some sort of action for it to be worthwhile. In contrast as still photo can capture such things as a bird on a branch, or a sunset, or a person, and all in much finer detail. When I look back I find that all the hours of video I shot were pretty pointless because nothing happened. Of course there were exceptions, bit not that many.

  I think I was awake for almost an hour as these thoughts churned away in my brain. I think it was 3am when I got back to sleep just after turning the heater on. Last night was not nearly as cold as the night before, but it was starting to feel quite cool. I then slept well until the usual last hour or two when I would after wake up for just long enough to check the time. At 7am I wanted to sleep longer, but it seemed like it was time to get up regardless.

  I couldn't believe that my blood glucose could possibly be as low as yesterday morning, but it was exactly the same at 6.9mmol/. That seemed worth of a reward, and so I had my special, and insanely mad, breakfast of kebab meat and chips ! It was really nice when straight out of the microwave, but as it cooled off it wasn't so good. On top of that was that I was starting to feel quite full, and the guilt was getting worse and worse. I still managed to shovel it all down minus a few chips. Now I probably shouldn't eat again until tomorrow, but if nothing else, I still have kebabs to eat tonight, and I daren't try and keep them any longer.

  The grey light coming through my windows does not inspire me to want to go out anywhere today, and doesn't really inspire me to do anything indoors either, but there are a few things I will probably do. One thing is some laundry. I'll have to dry it indoors today, and so I guess I will start spending my £200 winter fuel allowance before it is even paid into my bank, but drying that washing in front of a heater. I will probably take a look at the two computers that Jodie had got brought over here with the idea of getting the hard disks cleaned or even destroyed because of potentially sensitive data on them (bank account stuff and the like). I think one of the two PCs may possibly be useful, but I am sure the other is a scrapper.