The latest revision to the forecast has added more sunny spells in the morning, and removed any in the afternoon. There seems to be quite a bit of cloud at the moment, and it can be a bit of a wait for the next sunny spell. By this morning the temperature had fallen to 3° C. That was low enough for some heavy dew, but no frost. This afternoon the temperature should reach 11° C. No rain is forecast for today, but from about 8pm the cloud could be a lot thicker, and the chance of rain will go up from 5% to 10%. Tomorrow is looking grim from one perspective, and not so bad from another. Until the start of the afternoon there could be thick and heavy cloud. The cloud should be lighter in the afternoon, but the sun is currently not expected to break through. On the other hand the afternoon could see the temperature rise to 15° C.
 
  I think my dreams were more exciting than yesterday. My memories of those dreams are fading fast, but if I remember anything I will try and describe some of those dreams later. I did have some fanciful ideas that I might find time for a quick walk yesterday, but with a beer drinking session due in the afternoon it didn't seem such a good idea. I didn't go out, and, in the end, there was no beer drinking session.

  I was happily being lazy in the morning - reading some stuff from the internet, and laying on my bed in the sunshine reading - luxury ! It must have been around midday when Jodie phoned me up to discuss the afternoon. In the course of the conversation it turned out that she had been on more "dates" with this man she has met. I don't think it is leading up to romance, but you never know. What it has lead up is a few more heavy drinking sessions, pub crawls, and the like, and missing last trains !

  Jodie had a hangover yesterday morning, and that made her less inclined for a beer session. There was also the thing that she had to do "adult" things today. This is all to do with her father dying, and her mum very soon to follow suit. She is trying to get a professional cleaner in to spruce up her parent house with a long view of selling it. It is a sad fact that Jodie has multiple allergies to most cleaning detergents/chemicals, and can't even wear Marigolds. Even if she could she would still get adverse reactions to the smell of most of them. She needed a clear head for today, and so we called off the beer drinking session until, probably, Thursday.

  That left me with nothing to do in the afternoon, and so I more or less continued doing what I had been doing in the morning - reading either from a book or the internet. Of course this meant that I wasn't always distracted enough not not think about food, although the only real safe thing is to be a long way from the fridge - like being out for a fair bit of the day. Nevertheless, I didn't seem to get carried away with eating, and probably ate not that much at all. Even what I did it was probably semi safe, although I can't fully remember what it might have been now.

  I somehow managed to defer dinner until gone 6.30pm, but not that much later. I must admit I was really looking forward to dinner because it was a safe version of.... I was going to say one of my favourites, but that is not quite correct. Maybe one thing I find hard to resist - southern fried chicken. Last night it was actually roast chicken, but the idea was to gnaw off enough to feel satisfied, and eat no more. The rest may well end up as a some sort of stew today. I did finish the last of my 3 month old liquorice allsorts, and 4 little sugar free Oreo type things for a sort of dessert.

  I suppose I hadn't really done anything to make me feel tired last night, and I ended up reading until almost midnight. I am continuing to read, and really enjoy, the radio scripts of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. As I probably mentioned yesterday (or if not the day before) I particularly like all the note and explanations that go with the script. The only problem is that it left my brain very active, and it took a while to get to sleep once I put the book down.

  On the whole I slept OK, but I still woke up at 7am despite getting 2 or 3 hours less sleep. Maybe I can have a snooze or two today. As I mentioned at the top of the page, my dreams were more interesting than most of my day. It is a shame I can't relate them in detail because too many bits have faded from memory. One dream was about Kinematic Envelope...at least I think it was something like that.

  I was trying to explain to someone unknown about how new trains have to be checked for their Kinematic profile. (At this point I am sure that Kinematic is the wrong word, but I'll let it stand). It seemed easy to explain this in my dream because I had all the time in the world, but to simplify matter here I will describe one important face of this profile. Trains have to fit down tunnels, and not bash into the platform at stations. It is easy to measure the exact dimensions of a train when it is not moving, but when moving those dimension change in a dynamic way. For instance a train can rock from side to side. The wheels obviously stay put, but it would not be good if the side of the roof hit the side of the tunnel. Then there is the fact that a train is made of straight segments of each carriage. Each carriage stays straight when going around a curve, and so the ends will sort of stick out. Once again you wouldn't want to hit anything with the sticky-out ends of the carriages. There are other things, but hopefully that gives a sort of idea why it is important to test this profile.

  My other remembered dream was based on reality. Once upon a time, when I worked in a telephone exchange I discovered it was possible to offer to buy scrap or redundant equipment. For staff a token charge of £5 (plus VAT) was made, and I did make two purchases. One was of a really good Oscilloscope worth a good few hundred pounds ! In the dream the setting was a school rather than work, but the same deal had been done...although maybe not quite legitimately, but a valid receipt was produced, and so what ever it was I bought was mine. I was just about to get a lift home with it when there was a police raid because of "irregularities". The man, who shall remain nameless, who made the sale, and arranged for the official receipt said there was nothing to worry about, and in deed we left the school with no problem. I know that is a bit of an anticlimax, but it was interesting to me to see real life being the basis for a dream 30 (?) years after the event.

  It didn't seem hard to control what I ate yesterday, and on reflection it seems I hardly tried at all, and yet this morning my blood glucose was down to 7.5mmol/l, exactly on my personal target, and my running average for the month the lowest it has been in years. Maybe even last night, but definitely this morning, I have been thinking along the lines that with my blood glucose almost at a pre-diabetic level, and apparently looking after itself, I ought to try and see if I can lose some weight now. I have chosen a bloody stupid time to do it. It is not easy being hungry when it is cold and miserable out, and the weather does not inspire me to do the almost daily exercise that I would need to do. Nevertheless, once I have used some of the worst things in the kitchen, I may try and cut back on the worst things for me.

  This morning I have got off to a bad start, but if I don't replace the stuff I have eaten I won't be able to eat them again. I was going to go to Aldi this morning, but one thing I can do is to put that off until there is a real need to go, and then try to be very selective about what I eat. In the meantime I have a sort of plan to mainly live off soup and noodles, but before plunging in head first I will check more than just the sugar content on the nutritional labelling.
  This was last night's sunset, and it promised it would be a fine day today, but it seems the best of the weather, i.e. the sunny spells, are over now. It makes it seem unlikely I will find the inspiration for outdoor exercise today. I will do a bit of mild exercise because I will soon be hand washing a hand towel, and a few assorted other items. I started the first bit, soaking in detergent, after I had a shower. I'll have to dry it all indoors, and that means running a fan heater. Maybe I can take advantage of a warm, if slightly steamy, room to do something productive. Hmmm, I'll think about that....