The weather forecast doesn't tell the whole truth this morning. It has been raining since the early hours, but I wouldn't describe any of it as heavy rain - so far. It has been more like passing showers with as much as half an gaps in them.  The latest revision to the forecast hasn't changed the above screenshot much, but it has added rain for 6pm. The thick cloud is the result of warmer and wetter air coming out way, and it has made quite a change. At midnight it may have been as low as 0° C, is now 7 or 8° C, and it should reach 10° C by midday - not that it will do any good except lower my heating bill, but going out in it would be stupid unless you have a wet suit and water wings. Much of tomorrow could be sunny, and the temperature back to about 6° C in the afternoon.

   I predicted a few possibilities for yesterday, but also said I had doubts I would do anything (although maybe not using those exact words). My doubts were well founded - I did almost nothing all day (although for this argument I am counting quietly reading, book or online, as nothing). I did do some very light tidying up. I also had a long hard look at what I should do next to make further progress rehabilitating my dining room. One day I have to make some more hard decisions about what to throw away, and what to keep. I have a feeling I need to throw away a lot of my old computer junk. I seem to have less time to experiment and play since retiring - I never expected that to happen !

  I can't remember exactly what I ate yesterday, but it seems I was favouring the low sugar angle at the expense of the calories. It was another day where I sort of reversed lunch and dinner. My lunch was some "Pork breakfast patties". They were essentially thin burgers made from pork instead of beef. They were nice, but would probably have been much nicer with some apple sauce.

  My dinner was a strange variant on cauliflower cheese. For a start it was cauliflower and broccoli. I cooked both in a little bit of rather strong chicken stock (about half an inch deep in the Pyrex casserole dish I was using). Once both vegetables were soft, but long before they became squidgy, I covered them in slices of Cheddar cheese, and a good sprinkling of Parmesan. I probably should have drained off most of the stock because instead of melted cheese on the vegetables I ended up with a sort of cheesey gravy. It was nicem but not what was intended.

  There was one other thing I ate yesterday, and ate rather a lot of them - Twiglets ! I had believed, but never tested before the idea that they had a very low sugar profile, and maybe, just maybe were fairly low in calories. I'm not sure about the later now though. The first assumption seems like it might have been true.


  I wouldn't be English if I didn't make more comments on the weather. As I said at the very top of the page, it was nice and sunny yesterday - except in my garden. The picture above shows the view from the back bedroom window. Beyond my garden it is bright and sunny. The sky is blue apart from a few whispy or fluffy clouds. Meanwhile, my garden is in the shadow of my own house, and is just cold, damp, and miserable.

  By 8.40pm there was some dispute about the temperature outside. I have three outdoor sensors - one is upstairs and the other are in two positions downstairs (all three mounted on external walls).  I think one of them, maybe the one just outside the back bedroom window said it was just over 2° C. The one nearest the garden said something like 1.1° C, and the one with the more photogenic display is by the back door, and as shown, it said 1.8° C. At about 9pm I noticed a rime of frost on the cars outside.

  It seemed very sensible to leave the heater on low last night. That did have the side effect of the room feeling a bit too warm when I was under the duvet when I first went to to bed not all that long after 8pm...maybe 8.30pm. It was probably an hour later when I put my book down, and tried for sleep. I felt very uncomfortable in a multitude of ways, and one way was feeling just slightly too warm.

  The rest of the multitude of ways of feeling uncomfortable did not happen all at once, but changed with every slight change of posture. I never knew I had so many potential creaky joints from my big toe up to the very last wingnut holding on my head. Only one or two could actually be said to hurt, but as I am sure I mentioned yesterday (maybe the day before that), in the quiet and dark of night even something you wouldn't be aware of in daytime can cause irritation.

   Maybe I just wasn't tired enough to ignore these things, and fall asleep faster. Once I did get to sleep, maybe around 11pm, I seemed to sleep extremely well. I seemed to sleep for longer periods, and fall asleep faster after waking than tends to be typical these days. I feel sure I had some nice dreams to, but I can't really remember anything of them apart from one featuring a very complicated visit to a supermarket.

  The odd thing about that dream, was if the few snippets I remember are representative of the dream it was about not being able to find what I wanted. It wasn't because the shelves were bare. On the contrary they were groaning under the weight of stuff I wasn't looking for. I would have thought that if I was going to dream about supermarkets it would be face masks that were the centre of the story, but apparently not.

  This morning my blood glucose has come down to a rather nice 8.3mmol/l. That is not nice because it is low enough to get close to what I would like, but it is low enough to help my running average start to approach my typical monthly average, and as usual, if I can keep up what ever I did yesterday, I could end up with a new monthly low. History tell me that is unlikely. Unfortunately, while my blood glucose has come down, it seems my weight has gone up enough that even a big second and third visit to the toilet won't be able to get it back in the downwards direction.

  This morning I have been to Poundstretcher. I was in there soon after they opened, and there were only 2 or 3 people in the shop - not enough to form a lynch mob for the man not wearing a face mask. Curiously enough the girl at the till wasn't wearing a face mask either. I was particularly after more bird feed, but all they had were bags of mixed dried insects. One thing I did notice was something I have been thinking about for some time now. It was a bird feeder on a pole. It has brackets to hang several feeders on it. I am thinking that I could put one nearer the kitchen window where I could see some of the smaller birds more easily.

  Once again I have no real idea of a plan for today. I am definitely not going out in the rain, and so whatever I do will be indoors. I think the black, general rubbish, wheelie bin was emptied yesterday (one day late because of the bank holiday). Now would be a good time to throw out a few things that ideally should be hidden in the bottom of the bin. Maybe I'll try and thin out some of my old computer stuff.