The weather has changed today to a bright sunny day....or maybe that should be morning, and not day. The latest revision has the sun giving up at midday, but it might breakthrough the clouds to give a few sunny spells at 2pm. The temperature dropped a lot once the sky became clear last night. Despite what the forecast may say, I don't think it has actually made it up to 4° C yet. The afternoon may be no more than 7° C. At least it will be dry today. The clouds return tomorrow - light cloud in the morning, and medium grey in the afternoon. The temperature should peak at about 9° C.

   I can't say that yesterday was a very productive day, but I think it was almost enjoyable. Any lack of enjoyment could only be guilt from being mostly lazy.  I am almost forgetting I was briefly busy when I went shopping in Poundstretcher early yesterday morning, but I wrote about that yesterday.

  One thing I was thinking of doing was to start going through all my heaps of computer spares, and other debris, and try and choose to stuff to throw away. I didn't do any of that, but I did make a very small start in trying to get rid of a box of old paperwork. Most of it was railway stuff I used to collect when I was out and about on the trains more frequently than now (which currently is not at all). I was aided in this pointless collecting by commuting everyday.

  I got about halfway down the box of railway stuff, and over three quarters of that stuff is going in the bin. The other quarter I may end up scanning, and saving as image files on my computer, and then throw it away. In preparation for this I put my laptop, and scanner on the dining table. I was hoping I might do more of it today, but there is a problem I'll come to later.

  I seemed to eat a fair amount yesterday. That was predictable on a grey miserable day. I can't quite remember what all my breakfast was - it was something followed by a couple of big, melt in the middle, fishcakes. Later on, I had some easy peeler oranges, and an apple, and early in the afternoon I ate a packet of tomato sauce flavoured corn balls. I suspected they wouldn't be good for me, but maybe they didn't turn out so bad after all.

  My dinner was the sort of thing I might eat if I wanted to improve my health in several ways. It was diced lamb cooked in some chicken stocked, and then cooked a little more with a heap of sliced Sweetheart cabbage. I added some mint sauce, and some hot pepper sauce, and it was rather nice. It was also, thanks to the amount of cabbage, fairly filling. I washed it down with a big bottle of Belgium Abbey style beer, and then 3 x 330 sized cans of Guinness.
  One of the things I bought in Poundstretcher in the morning was this scented candle. It claims to be "Meadow Breeze" scented, but I think "Faulty Gas Appliance" would be a more appropriate name. It smells smoky and sooty like a gas flame burning without enough oxygen. I do hope it is not actually producing Carbon Monoxide like a faulty gas appliance. I think I am going to cut/melt all the wax out of it, and once given a good clean up, use it as a drinking glass.
  This is not a good picture of Angela sitting in the pub, but it has a sort of historic licence. The picture is spoiled by two things. One is that the flash has made her face look shiny, and the other is that Angela was going through some hardship at the time, and that always affects anyone's beauty. The more significant things about this picture is that it was taken two years and a day ago on the 8th January 2020.

  The other significant thing is that it was taken with a digital camera I had bought from the Salvation Army shop for £4.80. It was a Toshiba PDR-M61 camera, and at the time I estimated (unless I had found a definite date) that it was 20 years old.  That would have made it quite an early example of a digital camera, and yet it boasts 2.3 megapixel resolution, and a zoom lens. It is a bit big and clunky, but seems to produce very good pictures if the conditions are fair.

  It uses four ordinary AA cells, and so there is no problem powering it. The biggest catch is that it uses a MMC memory card. These are obsolete, and almost impossible to get hold of now. It is the same memory card as used in my Olympus C100 camera - my first ever digital camera. I have exactly two working memory cards - one for each camera, and I have doubts I will ever buy another one, although the chances of actually needing one is practically zero.

  I spent some of the evening watching TV last night. I started watching a recorded concert by The Doobie Brothers on Sky Arts. They had a few good songs, but it seems most of their stuff was crap, and even their most famous song, "Long Train Running" sounded terrible when played live at the concert. I quickly gave up on that and did some other stuff. I came back to Sky Arts for Stevie Nicks in concert.

  I watched, or just listened to more of that, but I just don't like her whiny Californian voice. When that finished there was a repeat of the documentary about teh making of Rumours - Fleetwood Mac's most famous album. The odd thing was that much of it was very familiar, but some of it seemed new to me. I wonder if there were two documentaries about it. Obviously both will tell the same story, but use different interviews, and also have subtly different emphasises.

  There was more stuff on Sky Arts that I could have watched, but the documentary finished at 9.15pm, and I decided I had had enough TV. I then took my book to bed to read for maybe half an hour. Maybe the Guinness helped, or maybe I was just tired, but I seemed to go to sleep very easily last night - at least I think that is how I remember it. I then slept solidly, apart from maybe getting up to pee once or twice, until 3pm.

  All sorts of things happen at 3pm. It is popular time for deaths, births and other stuff - including insomnia. It was like my brain caught fire or something. Suddenly I was thinking about a dozen things for no good reason, and it was gone 4am before I managed to get to sleep, and maybe half an hour after that before I was in deep sleep. I would have liked a lay in this morning, but I had plans, and got up soon after 7am.

  If only I knew then what I know now, I could have stayed in bed another hour. My plan was to go to Poundland as they opened at 10am, and that is what I did, but they didn't. I got there only to find they open at 11am on a Sunday. I turned around and came back home again. When I got home I meant to weigh myself before I did anything else. The reason for that was because before I went out out I had to make another visit to the toilet, and it was very productive !

  Going back to when I first got up.....As usual I checked my blood glucose, and it was nice and low - almost on my personal target. It was just 7.6mmol/l, and that helped my running average come down a bit. It is a bit high after a bad start to the month, but several nice low (below 8.5mmol/l) readings are slowly getting that average down. I also weighed myself. I had a very productive visit to the toilet, but I saw no reduction in the small amount of weight I seemed to have gained. That is why I intended to weight myself again after the toilet visit before going to Poundland, and after I had taken off my street clothes when I got back. I forgot, and I guess I'll never know now.

  I had one plan for today, but that has now been called off. Jodie was coming over for an afternoon beer session, but there are no trains to Catford Bridge today. I suggested she might like to do tomorrow instead. She is busy tomorrow, and we decided to leave the next beer session to Thursday as normal. That gives me space to do other things. If I could be sure that the sun would keep shining I could go for a walk.....and maybe I will because the latest revision to the forecast says the sunshine will continue until 1pm, and the next 2 hours will feature sunny spells. The downside is that it is bloody cold out there. My left hand was almost numb just from the walk to Poundland and back. I think I will think about it, and report back tomorrow.