The latest revision to the forecast shows less black clouds, but there is still a 10% chance of rain for the whole day (even at 11pm now). The most significant thing about today is that it has started as, and will continue as, a very mild day. It is about 12° C, and before the morning has ended it will be 13° C. The next 3 or 4 days will be similar to today, but each day may lose a degree until by next Thursday the temperature will be down to a normal "chilly".

  I'm not sure if it was a plan, or an aspiration, to go for a walk yesterday to see some live music in Hither Green. As I finished writing yesterday I was already having doubts about it. The latest weather update said it would be pouring with rain at 3pm, just as I would probably be going home. That did not sound helpful. I was just about ready to go out when I decided to feed the birds. As I walked down to the bird table I noticed the path was slightly wet, and I could feel very light rain falling.

  At that point I had all the ingredients to want to stay in the warm and dry. If that wasn't enough I had a phone call from Jodie. She told me there were no trains today, and there aren't, but I can't see where any engineering work is going on that might block the line (https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/nkl1). Jodie suggested that we could move the drinking session we were going to have today (Sunday), to Saturday. That was another reason not to go out.

  It wasn't a very exciting drinking session, but most beers we had I thought were very nice, but with one exception, and that was only less nice than the others, and not horrible. I wasn't keeping count, but I think we only drank through 5 or 6 cans, and each can was split in two so we could both taste the contents. In pub terms it might have been equivalent to two and a half pints - hardly the stuff of legends.

  Up until the time I knew I wasn't going for a long walk (although long is only about a mile, and the same coming home again, but both directions mean walking over a hill) I made a point of not eating much so I didn't feel all stodgy. I think I just had some Mini Cheddars as a sort of crap breakfast. For lunch I just had three strips of Crackerbread with some cheese on them.

  After not drinking much (although I did have one spirit after the beer) I wasn't really drunk enough to get a raging hunger, and in fact I felt a fair bit of restraint at first. I decided I would just have two bowls of noodles for a very light dinner. The trouble was that those two bowls slipped down so easily that I ended up having another two. The only thing I didn't do was to add any Carolina Reaper mega-hot chilli sauce to them. I fear it is that chilli sauce, that never seems to be that hot, that may have caused a few explosive stomach upsets recently.

  While eating dinner, and for some time afterwards, I was watching the 1989 Venice concert by Pink Floyd on Sky Arts. It was great to listen to, but the visual looked rather dull compared to what people there would have seen. For one thing it was old enough to be in Standard Definition, and 3:4 size. More than that though was that the cameras in use then were not good enough to capture all the dynamics. I think there are many mobile phone cameras that could have taken much better footage than "broadcast quality" cameras in 1989.

  There was one other thing that spoiled my enjoyment. Sky Arts added a commercial break between each and every song. I know that many Pink Floyd songs are quite long, but even so.....  I forget the exact time it finished, but I think it was maybe in the region of 7.20pm. At 7.30pm I had brushed my teeth, and taken a book to bed. I think I knew what the time was really, but it seemed to feel so much later. By 8pm my eyelids seemed to be drooping, and it was probably no more than 5 or 10 minutes last 8pm when I had put the book down, turned out the light, and was fast asleep.

  As usual I woke up several times in the night for a pee, and I had lots of dreams that I can't remember anything of now. On the whole it seemed like I slept really well until sometime before 4am and 5am. It was sort of obvious that I was starting to wake up then after having enough sleep. Maybe the most obvious indication that it was getting close to time to get up was that the nature of my dreams changed...although maybe it was just the one dream.

  In this dream I was trying to take a picture of a small sports car that belonged to one of my work mates, and possibly the senior engineer at my second to last job. Unfortunately my camera was playing up, and doing all sorts of weird things. It seemed to be generating random files that couldn't be displayed. I tried this, that and the other before concluding that it was either the memory card or the battery. I think that in the lasts seconds before I woke up I changed both, and the camera worked OK again.

  I must have got 9 hours of sleep last night, maybe even a tiny bit more. I did my best to try and make it 10 hours, but I just could not get back to sleep, and that was because I couldn't get comfortable. I was feeling very stiff and creaky when I hauled myself out of bed. I mostly feel OK now after moving around a fair bit. I even went out to put more food on the bird table, and than to it being 12° C it didn't even feel that cold without a shirt on !

  The very latest update on the weather is that against all odds, the sun has just come out. It is slightly hazy, and may not last long, but it is strong enough to cast shadows. I note that there are quite a lot of small patches of blue among the grey clouds. It would be nice if these sunny spells could last a few more hours because I probably ought to try and get a bit of exercise today. This morning my blood glucose is 9.1mmol/l, and that is higher than I would hope for, and possibly proof that 4 bowls of noodles were far from "safe".

  The curious thing now is that I have just spent 10 minutes on the toilet doing what I usually hope to do sooner after getting up. None of that is relevant except 10 minutes have passed, and now it looks like the road is wet as if there has just been a bit of rain. Not only that, but the small patches of blue sky have all disappeared, and the sky is looking grey all over. Whether this means I will or won't take a walk is still unknown, but if I do go out I reckon that my sleeveless denim jacket will be all I need while the temperature is 13° C. Not having to wear a full coat could make a walk a lot more pleasant.