Even the very latest revision to today's forecast says it will be uniformly grey today, although at least it has dropped the rain shown for 10 and 11am in the screenshot of the early version of the forecast. It's almost 10am, and the sky is now starting to look rather grey. Earlier on the cloud was very patchy, and there was a lot of clear sky, but sadly not in the right part of the sky for the sun to shine through. The weather was doing it's best to live up to the red sky last night, but it seems the weather may now be following the forecast. I woke up to it being 14° C, and it seems it will still be 14° C until several hours after sunset. Tomorrow may start with some light rain, but there seems to be a chance of a sunny spell in the afternoon (but maybe just one of them), and the afternoon may peak at 15° C.
  Before leaving the subject of the weather, this was the sunset last night. To my naked eye it looked rather more dramatic in it's shades of reds, pinks, and oranges, that my camera managed to capture.

  Yesterday was rather dominated by my plan to meet Angela for a lunchtime drink, and I didn't really do much yesterday apart from get ready to go out. Of course that really only took about a tenth, or so of the morning. I can't really say what else I did because I don't really remember any details beyond reading some more pages from the book I am reading. The biggest use of my time was writing this blog, or diary, or whatever it is. I don't know how many words I type in the morning, but sometimes it could be over 1000, and it usually takes me a couple of hours !

  I wanted to leave to walk to the pub as late as possible because I was hoping a parcel delivery from Amazon would get here before I left - despite the last estimate I saw being between 1.15pm, when I hoped to be at least a quarter way through my first pint, and 5.15pm when I would hoped to have been home for hours. I left in time to take a medium slow walk by the most direct walk to the pub. That still gave me enough time to take a few snaps.
 I didn't have to walk far before I realised I had walked into the middle of a big argument between two trees of Ring Necked Parakeets on opposite sides of the railway line. From the racket they were making it might have been some sort of territorial dispute, but it could equally have been them wishing each other "good morning". It was definitely loud, and those parakeets were not attempting to hide them selves in the tree.
  If there had been some sunshine, from the right direction, this could have been a great picture, but there was no sun to illuminate the front of the parakeet against the bright grey sky.
  This fungus is intact, and not nibbled on like the one I pictured in almost the same place as this the last time I passed there (a week ago ?). This bit of the river bank is where they gardeners/tree surgeons often dump wood chippings, and the fungi love that a great food supply. Over the years I have seen a variety of autumn fungi pop up here.
  I really should have taken a long shot as well as this close up to put the sign into context. About 12ft below the sign is a very narrow (12") ledge of mud that is itself only a few inches above the water level of the river. To get to the grill above the sign, and huff the "medical gases" you would need a long ladder standing in the river. I suppose the sign has to be there for legal reasons, but it seems to serve no genuine purpose that I can see.

  On the way too the pub I got a text message from Angela to say she would be a little late. That turned out to be no more than 10 minutes late. That would have been of no consequence if things had worked out as once thought. Once Angela arrived we had a very pleasant time together. The only thing that was a bit sad is that she said she didn't enjoy all her Xmas because she was very nervous about having lover boys folks over for (I think) a boxing day Xmas dinner.

  Angela told me that she was nervous about her cooking, and the state of her house. The silly thing is that she is a brilliant cook (I once told her she had cooked me a better dinner than my mum could cook - and I meant it). She also keeps a very tidy house. It is not like a show house where you dare not even breathe too deeply for fear of upsetting something, but it is clean, tidy, and homely. I'm sure that when I was Angela's lover for an all too short time, she had far more confidence than she has now. I blame lover boy for not supporting her enough, and not having a positive attitude.

  We both had two drinks, and were heading for a probable third when Angela's phone rang, but she didn't answer it (or atl least not in time) . I saw the name on it, and it was Angela's boss (or team leader ?). She was apparently not working yesterday. Maybe it was a call to tell Angela to go home early if her work was up to date, or maybe it was some crisis. I never did find out because Angela said she ought to get back to work before she was too late, and then find out what the call was about.

  The original plan, or more accurately, Angela's original hope was that yesterday was going to be an extended lunch break. So sadly we cut it short, and I walked Angela back to work. We parted with a brief cuddle, and a peck on the cheek. I the world view of things that is almost nothing, but to me it was very, very special. Angela said she would see me soon, and by soon it sounded sooner than next Wednesday. The previous week she had mentioned that maybe she would find time for a quick after drink work one day. I have big doubts it will happen, but maybe "soon" might be a quick drink on her way home some day before next Wednesday (but really I am clutching at straws).

  In one sense it was good to leave early. I was still expecting the delivery from Amazon, and I didn't want to miss it (although they would have tried again at roughly the same time today when I would be in). I walked back home as fast as I could. I found it a bit stressful to do it, but it felt like I was keeping up a fair pace, but that could be more self delusion - who knows ?

  When I got home I found one of my potted artificial plants had been moved unto my front door step, and behind them was my two packets. One had some SD memory cards in it, and the other was another spare USB external hard disk. With those safely in my grubby hands I could relax, and I did, although before I completely relaxed I cooked some lunch. After eating that lunch of chicken strips in tempura batter, I read for a while, and the snoozed.

  I woke up feeling cold, and also strangely sad. I'm not sure why I felt sad, but it was probably the disappointment of not having an extended lunch break. It just felt incomplete. The next thing I did was to process the pictures I had taken as I walked through the park to show here this morning. It was also about the time I took the picture of the sunset. That was at 4.21pm, and so it was not all that long until dinner time, and some possible entertainment on TV.

  I sort of switched around lunch and dinner yesterday. My lunch was the chicken I was going to have for dinner, but I somehow had yearning to have it for lunch. That meant that my dinner was a can of chunky beef and vegetable soup, and a can of stewed steak masquerading as a can of soup. Funnily enough that can of stewed steak had very similar nutritional qualities to the real soup, and both had a low sugar content.
  I always concentrate on my blood glucose level, because problems with that can give some nasty results, but I do try and remember to see how my blood pressure is doing from time to time. Bad blood pressure could result in death or a hospital stay, and both are quite pleasant. Soon after finishing my cans of soup for dinner I checked my blood pressure, and it was surprisingly low (as pictured above). At this point I remember I had a snack of rice crackers and cheese with some silverskin pickled onions at some time in the afternoon, but I can't seem to work out where it fitted in, in the sequence of events.

  I was fortunate that there was some entertainment on TV last night. Fortunate because I seem to have exhausted the internet for things to distract me (very little new stuff being generated over this holiday period). Last night I watched some QI, and Star Trek: Voyager. I also listened to some of Pink Floyd in Concert in Vienna. I didn't bother to watch because despite the on stage visual effects being spectacular, they didn't come over well on a small screen - besides which I only saw the same thing a fortnight or so ago.

  I was in bed early again, and once again I read of half an hour or so. I seemed to fall asleep easily enough last night, but before I did I turned the heater off so my bedroom cooled enough to make sleeping under the duvet comfortable. Once again I slept well until the early hours. I think it was about 4am when I woke up for a pee, and to turn the heating back on...although I maybe confused about it. I am very sure that it was 5am when I turned the heater up full, and maybe I didn't turn the heater on low at 4am.

  With the outside temperature at 14° C there was not a lot heat needed to get my bedroom nice and warm. As I type this I have the heating off, but I must admit it is a bit marginal, and I might be turning it on again soon. As usual, one of the first things I did when I got up at 7am was to check my blood glucose. It was 8.4mmol/l, and that was perfectly OK. As always, lower would have been even better, but at least it is a fraction lower than my typical monthly average, but not this month, which will be higher by a small amount than all previous months this year except one of the early months.

My plans for today are very simple. Sometime in the next hour and a bit I should be getting yet another parcel. This one will be a 12 pack of hot Caribbean chilli sauce. Maybe an hour after that I expect I will get a text message from Michael asking if I want anything from Tesco. At about 3.30pm I will probably be joined by both Jodie and Michael for another Thursday afternoon beer drinking session.