So far it has been a nice sunny morning, although in most directions the sky is a rather grey blue colour. There must be a thin fog at altitude. The latest revision to the forecast has downgraded the sun to sunny spells at 11am, but has extended them to midday. It should be dry today, but once the sun goes in 7° C is going to feel rather cold. Tomorrow may see sun or sunny spells extending from the morning until 2pm, but then it will probably cloud over, and rain is expected from about 5pm onwards. Once again, the maximum temperature is going to be a cool 7° C.

   In theory, yesterday was an awful day if measured by certain metrics, but it mostly felt good to me. The day centred around a parcel delivery that was predicted to be between 1 and 2pm, and was actually close to 2pm. The contents of that parcel, or at least some of the contents were a good distraction from the cold, grey and rainy day that was going on in the outside world.

  The parcel contained many items that are very bad for me. Stuff like chocolate. I had deliberately ordered some items, mainly to pack the order out enough to get free delivery, that were very bad for me. My intention was to have them as very occasional treats. In fact as soon as I had put everything away I had 4 white chocolate biscuits like things. I am not sure if it was guilt that spoiled the flavour, or if it was the continuing change to my taste buds after getting what must have been Covid in February 2020, but I found I didn't really like them in the way I expected to. The alternative explanation is that now Cadburys has been taken over by an American conglomerate they have substituted sugar and lard for chocolate.

  I spent almost all the rest of my day reading, and it was during the late evening, as I was putting the book down before going to sleep, that I came to the conclusion that in one specific way I am very rich. That specific way is in the books I own, and that I have accumulated since I was kid. In the latter years it has been useful to use Amazon to fill in the gaps, and now I have complete sets of books covering a particular chronology/character set from several authors.

  I am currently reading Isaac Asimov's "Robots And Empire", and it is the final book of the robot series, but also the start to the Galactic Empire/Foundation series. The books were not written in the suggested reading order (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_series#Asimov%27s_novels_set_in_the_greater_Robot/Empire/Foundation_universe) that Asimov suggests they are read. That does mean there are a few inconsistencies here and there, because they were originally written purely as stand alone books, and not part of an intended series. Some were written long after others to act as a sort of bridge. The book that links all together was only finished a few weeks before Asimov's death. There are a few minor books that I haven't got, but I am very happy to have the main books, and to be able to re-read them in the correct order.

  I was rather less happy with my dinner last night. The first course was nice - peppered smoked haddock - although with hindsight it is possibly better as a breakfast dish. It was the next course that was a disappointment. Another item from my parcel delivery was 4 boxes of "Korean street food". Basically they were BBQ flavour instant noodles. The idea seemed very exciting, but the reality was that the consistency of the noodles was very stodgy, and the BBQ sauce was almost insipid.

  The worst thing is that after eating two last night, I still have another two to eat at some point. I finally finished my dinner with 4 slices of Mr Kipling's Xmas cake slices. They contained so much sugar that they gave me a sort of high. I thought a sugar high only existed in The Simpsons TV cartoon series, but I now know it really does happen (albeit at one hundredth the strength of a comedy cartoon high).

  I watched some TV last night, but the greatest distraction was from reading. As I mentioned above, it was when putting the book down to go to sleep, that I realised how wonderful it was to be able to re-read my books in the authors suggested reading order - and that was from more authors than just Isaac Asimov. I have complete, or almost fully complete, series from Ben Bova, Harry Harrison, Robert Heinlein, and maybe Arthur C. Clarke.

  I mostly slept well last night. I had a nice, or at least I think it was nice, dream in the early part of my sleep. I made a point of trying to remember it because I thought it was worth recounting. Sadly it seems to have gone the way of most dreams - out into the aether, never to be retrieved. Toward the end of my sleep I had a bizarre dream about having a shower, and washing my hair in the middle of a lawn. A garden hose pipe seemed to be delivering nice hot water through a shower head attached to the end of it. A small segment of the dream concerned trying to find the shower gel. I found it in the pocket of a dressing gown I was wearing, and the top had come loose and spilled the shower gel in the pocket.

  My sleep was good enough that it was 8am when I finally woke up. This would be good in some respects, but I would still prefer to get up early, and get to sleep early. I was expecting a very high blood glucose reading this morning. I ate so much sweet stuff yesterday that I expected the reading to be well into the danger zone. It was with much surprise that it was only 9.4mmol/l. It has been far worse than that just by accident ! Although I am not getting the unusually low readings that I got for a few weeks after my Covid booster shot, it does feel like something has changed, and changed for the better.

  There is only one thing happening today, and it is good enough that the happiness is happening before the event, and hopefully will last well beyond it. It's Wednesday, and better than most Wednesdays, I have known that Angela is actually looking forward to seeing me this lunchtime since she sent me the message on Sunday. I now have to have a good shower, and wash my hair. I hope to be ready to go out in time to go to the pub via a cash machine, and to feed a few squirrels along the way.