Here has been some drizzle this morning, and there could be more for the next couple of hours, but from midday it should brighten up. At the same time the temperature could rise to 15° C for a couple of hours. Unfortunately the chances of any sunshine seem slim in the extreme. Tomorrow is currently predicted to be grey with just a 10% chance of rain. The afternoon temperature will probably be 14° C.

  I did two things, that are easy enough to describe, yesterday. One was to wash some clothes by hand, and hang them up to dry indoors on the clothes horse. The other thing was something that has needed doing for a while now. It was to quieten down the CPU fan in my firewall box. It had been getting louder and louder for over a month, maybe over the last few months.

  That firewall box is my link to the (internet) outside world, and so I wanted to take care I wouldn't put myself "off the air" for too long, and ideally not at all. I took the box off the shelf, and the leads were long enough to place it on the dining room table while still working. I then took the lid off and considered that noisy fan. The biggest problem is that it was loose in it's fixings, and vibrating. The screws holding it to the heatsink didn't appear to appear to be able to be tightened up. It was as if they had stripped their threads, or maybe a bit too small (they were self tapping screws, screwed into the plastic case of the fan).

  I had a look through all my spares and odds and sods, but didn't find a possible replacement fan (although I am still sure I have a few somewhere). To replace the fan would be a major undertaking because I would definitely have to power down the box, and then start dismantling it to actually get at the fan. One thing I realised I could do was to use a small knife to peel off the sticker on the fan. With that off I could put a drip of light oil onto the bearing. I did just that, and suddenly  instant silence !

  I spent the rest of the day doing a bit of this and a bit of that, but nothing of great importance to the working of the world. The next "big" thing I did was to cook my dinner.
  It was my bacon and sprouts recipe. This time I used some better bacon - it had a bit more fat, and so was less dry. Unfortunately I still haven't got my timings right, and the sprouts ended up getting a bit burnt. They look worse than they really were because I had sprinkled dark soy sauce over them before putting them in the oven to cook. That slight char did spoil the taste a bit, but it was still fairly enjoyable. One other change to the previous time I have cooked this is that I only used 4 rashers of bacon to make it slightly healthier.

  I was lucky to find two more Carry On films on last night, but the first one did clash with Star Trek: Voyager. I opted to try and see as much of Star Trek as I could, and just flipped over to Carry On Up The Kyhber during the commercial breaks. Fortunately Star Trek finished in time to see the grand climax to the film - possibly the funniest bit of film ever. I watched all of Carry On Camping though. That finished at about 8.15pm.

 It was obviously quite early to go straight to bed at that point, but there was nothing to stay up for. I did have a book I was reading, and I read a chapter of that before turning out the light, and going to sleep. I don't think it was long after 9pm when I fell asleep, and I didn't wake up again until almost midnight. I had slept under the duvet, but when I woke up I found I was feeling far too hot. Thinking about how my sleep was messed up by the room being a bit too warm, I decided to turn all the heating off. I soon fell asleep again, and seemed to sleep well for the rest of the night, although I did wake twice more in the night before getting up at 7am.

  I had allowed myself a few treats during the day, and so I knew that my blood glucose would not be as low as desired. It was 8.5mmol/l - around my most common end of month average. At another time that would be perfectly OK, but I should have been more disciplined yesterday so I could have got a lower figure, ideally something under 8 so it would get my average down a bit more. There seems no way I can ever get the average down to 8.5mmol/l at the end of the month now.

  I have a definite plan for today, and it is to meet Angela for a lunchtime drink. Last Wednesday she said that today it might be possible to have a slightly extended lunch break, but it all depends on her workload. There is one fly in the ointment in that I am expecting two packets from Amazon to be delivered today. They did leave the depot at just after 9am, and in theory they could be here before I have to go out, but Amazon's latest estimate says between 1.15pm and 5.15pm. If I am very lucky it will be closer to 5.15pm, and I will be home in plenty of time to take it in. I believe if they can't deliver it to me today, because I am out, they will try again tomorrow automatically. Whatever happens I will give priority to seeing Angela.