The forecast has been revised since I took this screenshot. I now doesn't show the possibility of the actuality of some hazy sunshine right now ! However it does show sunshine followed by sunny spells from 11am to 4pm today. It could be a nice afternoon, and even 14° C can feel warm in sunshine. From 5pm the sky will get very cloudy, and a splash of rain is possible at 10pm. Tomorrow may start with sunshine or sunny spells, but the afternoon may be bright with showers, although there is only a 30% chance of showers for most of the afternoon. The temperature may creep up to 15° C for a while.

 
  I felt reluctant to do much under the grey light that was filtering down through the clouds for a lot of yesterday, but I did end up having a shower, and getting some laundry started before midday. I had to hang the washing indoors, with a fan heater on low blowing on it if I wanted it to dry.  One problem I have discovered with the new fan heater I put in the front room a month or so ago is that the warm air tends to blow under the clothes horse rather than higher up. This morning my washing doesn't feel bone dry, although it could just that the room is a bit cool after having no heating on since early evening yesterday.

  After some resting and reading (and possibly a snooze) I decided I ought to do something a bit more constructive. I decided to take a look at one of Jodie's mum's old computers. I found it used a 866MHz Pentium 3 processor, and it was made by Gateway. It was "designed" for Windows Millenium edition. It had just 64MB of ram. One of the obvious things was that anybody getting hold of it, as it was, would have difficulty extracting anything from the hard disk because that was the component that had failed. It just say there making clacking noises when powered up. There are several ways a dedicated attacker could read the hard disk, but a small time crook would probably not bother, and quickly move on to another target.

  I spent an almost enjoyable few hours trying to see what I could do with that PC. First of all I put in what I think is a good hard disk. It is a small one by todays standards - just 160GB. I also fitted 256MB of ram. I don't think the motherboard supports more than that, and it seemed a bit twitchy with that amount. There were two optical drives fitted. On was a CD and the other a DVD drive. Quite why the CD drive was left when the DVD drive should have been OK is a mystery, but it seems like both drives could be faulty. I attached an old Philips CD/DVD drive, and managed to boot Damn Small Linux, but the mouse didn't seem to work on it. At that point I stopped.

  Before I do any more work on that PC I am going to get a nice bright torch and inspect the tops of some of the capacitors - particularly those around the processor. They run hottest, and that PC dates back to a time when there was a big problem with poor quality capacitors failing. They are easy to see because their tops bulge and can even split. If I notice any I will scrap the whole thing straight away. If they look OK I will continue experimenting. I'm not sure why - maybe because I can.

  A few days ago I received an email to tell me I had a new bank card on the way. It arrived yesterday, and I decided to go out in the early afternoon to try it out, and to register it on the system. All I did was to put the PIN number in, and check my balance. I was pleased to see it is still looking healthy, and it is slowly growing. Of course at the moment I am using cash in shops, and I am drawing that cash from a different account, but even  that account is only slowly going down, and could last a few more years yet.

  While I was out I called in to Poundland. There were a few things I wanted, but I didn't get everything. It is looking like their stocks of some things are getting quite thin. This was definitely so when it came to crisps. They usually have loads of different crisps on offer, and while they are very bad for me I have had a yearning for some for a few days now. I ended up buying two 6 packs of some crisps that would not be my first choices. In one respect that could be good, but the downside is that the "loaded fries" crisps are so bad that I feel I have to use them up as fast as possible - which is stupid, but what can I do about it ?

  I ended up eating several things I shouldn't have yesterday, but at least my dinner was safe. It was the last two shish kebabs from my takeaway order the previous evening. The bad thing about that dinner was that it made me feel painfully bloated because I was constipated yesterday. I was not surprised that nothing happened yesterday morning after my complete and utter clear out on Friday morning, but I was surprised that nothing happened later in the day. Nothing has happened today - yet.

  I was in bed, and ready to sleep at 9pm last night, but I felt so uncomfortable that it must have been over an hour later before I got to sleep. By that time it seems I had digested some of the kebabs, and burped and farted some excess gas. After that I managed to sleep, and sleep well. At 3am I woke up, had a pee, and then laid there thinking it was a typical hour of the night when insomnia often happens. I lay there thinking about this until all of a sudden I noticed that 2 hours had passed by unnoticed. At 7am I woke up again, and it felt like it must be time to get up.

  After all the bad things I ate yesterday, the crisps, and the kebab meat and chips for breakfast, I expected my blood glucose to have gone through the ceiling. In fact it was just 8.3mmol/l, and my running average was able to drop a tiny bit more. The idea that I might end the month with the final average for the month being below the average of previous months is looking less impossible now.

  Today my aim is to go to an late afternoon (4.30pm) gig in Greenwich. It is Lord Algea playing in The Mordern Arms. They play most enjoyable classic heavy rock. It is rare that they play this close to home, and of course that haven't played anywhere during the covid months and years. The only proviso is that this constipation I seem to have ends before I want to go out. Assuming it does there is even hope that I shall be going out into sunny spells. Going out well after dark is a chore, but during daylight hours, and much more so when it is nice and bright, is almost easy by comparison.