There was a thick frost this morning, and even now, with 9am approaching, the temperature outside is still hovering around 0° C. By 1pm it will be 5° C, and that is as high as it will get today. At daybreak the sky was mostly clear apart from thin streaks of cloud that were looking very pink. The cloud is thickening now, but there are still enough breaks for the sun to break through for some short sunny spells. We almost had one just now. The latest revision to the forecast shows optimistic sunny intervals at 9 and 10pm, plus at midday. After that the cloud will be thick enough to completely block the sun, but it should remain as white cloud. Tomorrow may be warmer, 9° C, but the price for that will be thicker and dark clouds, plus some rain.

  There were a few things I suggested I might do yesterday, when writing in the morning, and I think I achieved them all except to be very careful about what I ate (I was merely careful, and not very careful). Such things included doing some laundry, going shopping, and transferring/digitising another one hour VHS tape. One other thing I did was to check to see if some of the tapes I have been digitising are available on DVD, and it seems a few are, and a few of the few are at reasonable prices. I ordered three DVDs and one might even arrive before Xmas.

  The slowest job I did was the laundry. I had put all the stuff in to soak after having my morning shower, but it was almost lunchtime until I started the agitating, kneading, pummelling, or what ever it is I do prior to wringing it all out, and starting a series of three rinses. After the final rinse I took another break before I did the fabric conditioner, and then, after one final wringing out, hanging it up to dry.

  The break before that fabric conditioning was because I has a text message from Michael. He said he was doing one last shopping run to Tesco before Xmas, and did I want another 6 bottles of Diet Coke while he was out with his car ? I said yes, and stopped doing the laundry, and changed into dry clothes so I could go out to his car and collect the bottles from him.

  That was in the afternoon. Going back to the morning I went shopping in the little supermarket on Catford Bridge. It was a walk I made with some trepidation because at that point I hadn't been to the toilet, and I was feeling slightly uncomfortable. There were several things I wanted from that shop. One was a loaf of (I think) Turkish bread. Another was some Clementines, and some tasty looking apples. The more important thing was two packets of cigarettes that I will be giving to Angela as part of her Xmas present.

  I knew that cigarettes had gone up multiple times since I last smoked, but I was shocked to have to pay £27 for two packs of 20. That took my total bill to over £30, and that can trigger something that I suspect is at the discretion of the lady behind the till. If you are nice and polite, and maybe smile too, two things many of her customers don't do, you can get a free gift. Mine was an expensive looking bottle of Olive Oil. It was getting very close to it's use by date, but I suspect it will last a lot longer than that.

  After getting back from the shop I made myself a nice sandwich with the new bread. Until I realised how much sugar there was in it, I would have used some generous squirts of Peri-peri mayo instead of butter or margarine. Yesterday's sandwiches (I think I had two during the day) used olive oil based margarine, and maybe that was nicer than the mayo.

  After the sandwich had settled in my gut I plugged in all the plugs of my old PC with keyboard, mouse and monitor, plus the VHS player, ready to start another VHS tape digitising. I may have given the impression I had done all the wiring up the day before, but all I had done the day before yesterday was to put all the bits on the dining room table, ready to be wired up. I only digitised one tape yesterday, but I have left everything set up, and maybe I'll do another today.

  Yesterday's dinner was a sort of hybrid affair. It was an experiment I don't think I'll be repeating. It was well cooked Lincolnshire sausages served with tomato flavour instant noodles. It was perfectly edible, and slightly nice, but it didn't fulfil my expectations of the experiment. I now have doubts that instant noodles can be an accompaniment to anything except something vaguely Asian.

  I had an apple and a couple of Clementines for a dessert after my sausages. The apple was really rather nice - slightly crisp, and fairly sweet. The odd thing was that as soon as I finished it I fancied a cigarette. Of course I didn't, but it is another example of how unexpected things can trigger that desire. The Clementines were nice, but I was worried that their sugar content (together with that of the apple) would affect my blood glucose in the morning after eating them relatively late in the day. ( I suspect they did).

  Last night was another night when it seemed to take a long time to get to sleep despite all the yawning, and drooping eyelids earlier. I think it is because I am getting up so late now (relatively speaking). We have passed the solstice now, and sooner or later the sun will start rising earlier, and I expect I will be following the trend - possibly until I am rising at 5am. On the other hand, if I ever want to get out, and stay out to late gigs then I guess I ought to stick to getting up late in the morning (where late, by my standards, is 7am).

  I was probably asleep before 11pm, and I think I slept for at least 2 hours before waking from a dream. Question: what is worse than a glass squirrel ? Answer: A glass Dalek ! I have an idea this was supposed to be funny, but I can remember the build up to it, and I woke up before any later punchline. Oh well, at least it was weird, as dreams should be. Some of my later dreams were not weird, but were unpleasant in various ways. Having a traveller family trying to squat in my house while I was living in it was not nice at all !

  I awoke from a less unpleasant, but still not that nice dream at a few minutes past 7am. I find it odd how you know it is time to get up at a precise moment rather, than, for instance, half an hour earlier. I normally wake once or twice in the final 90 minutes, or so, before getting up time, and each time there was no urge to get up, and indeed getting back to sleep too little effort until 7am when I just knew it was time to get up by some subliminal trigger that didn't happen the previous times.

  This morning my blood glucose was 8.8mmol/l. That is OK, but disappointing after yesterday's lovely 7.7mmol/l. On the whole I feel fairly OK. Maybe that is because I am looking forward to a lunchtime drink with Angela. I hope she is able to make it so I can give her her Xmas presents. It is possible that we will be joined by Michael. Three is a bit of a crowd, or would be if there was anything intimate going on, but there is no chance of that.

  My next main task it to have a wet shave, wash my hair, and have a shower. It is possible that I may be able to leave early enough to do some walking, but while that would be nice, it won't be as nice as the main event (seeing Angela). Maybe I will, or maybe I won't.