After the frost in the night the temperature had risen to about 3° C at sunrise, and apparently it will continue to rise, even after sunset, to 8° C. Today we return to cloudy skies with a 10% chance of rain at most times today, but rising to 20% by 8pm, and rains seems very probable just before midnight. The cloud will be thicker tomorrow, and there could be a fair bit of rain, but it could also be 9° C - which will only be useful to slightly reduce my heating bill.

   Once again I didn't feel inclined to do that much yesterday, and I achieved very little. I did spent a little time doing some housekeeping on my main PC - backing up some files, and tidying the files system up a bit. I also managed to finish part one of the job I was doing in the dining room.

  That job was to sort out the wanted from the unwanted of a box of old paperwork - all stuff gathered on many rail journeys - stuff like timetables and other information. At the end I was able to throw away at least a carrier bag full of paper, and the cardboard box it was in. Part 2 of the job will be to scan some of the paperwork before throwing it away. I hope the remaining stuff will fit into an A4 file pocket for storage somewhere.

  There were many time yesterday when I felt bored, although I am not sure if "bored" is exactly the right word. I am not sure there is a word for what I was feeling. Anyway, "bored" is good enough for now, and in such a state I couldn't help but think about food rather more than was good for me. I can't remember what I ate for breakfast, albeit a late breakfast, but it may have just been a heap of "Mini Cheddars". I was to get through quite a lot of them before the day was over.

  Maybe those Mini Cheddars kept my stomach amused until beyond lunchtime, although I am sure there might have been something else involved. Maybe it was a few easy peeler oranges, and an apple, but I think that could have been the day before.  The next major eating event I definitely remember was between 2 and 3pm - possibly closer to 3pm. The fact that I gave in to my hunger then does suggest that I hadn't eaten much apart from ever more Mini Cheddars !

  It is only with hindsight that I realise I made a silly mistake with that late lunch/early dinner. I had started off with a can of stewed steak served as if it was a soup - 90% of it is just gravy ! That was nice, and then I looked for another soup, probably a real can of soup, buy my eyes fell on something I had bought from Poundstretcher the last time I was in there. It was a sachet of red kidney beans in some sort of tomato based sauce.

  One thing I learned about those sachets was when I tried to microwave one of the same make. It was borlotti beans in (alleged) tomato sauce. The sachets look to be the same as used for other stuff that can be directly microwaved. Unfortunately I quickly discovered they are lined with foil, and give off a spectacular lightning display. I didn't try and microwave it in the sachet yesterday, and that was not my mistake.

  My mistake was in not realising that if I had microwaved the stewed steak, and the red kidney beans, with plenty of hot chilli sauce, I could have made Chilli-Con-Carne.  Maybe the actual mistake will be to not do that next time if I get some more of those sachets of kidney beans in sauce.  Perhaps I did the right thing yesterday because I primarily wanted to find out what those sachets were like. I think the red kidney beans in sauce was the best of the two, but I will buy more of whatever they have left in Poundstretcher the next time I go there.

  The funny thing is that apart from a few more occasional servings of Mini Cheddars, I didn't seem to eat anything else yesterday. During the evening I had a couple of whiskies, and found a few things on TV to watch, or just listen to. I both watched and listened to a Genesis concert on Sky Arts.  I am coming to the conclusion that while stuff performed on a small stage, such at the old "Old Grey Whistle Test" studios, could be interesting to watch, stuff filmed on a huge area stage is sort of boring because you can only see what the cameraman/producer wants you to see. If you want to see, for instance, what the guitarist is doing while there is just a close up of the singer, it can get tedious to watch.

  I don't know what time I got to sleep last night, but I'm guessing it might have been around 10pm, and I seemed to fall asleep with no trouble at all. I had been reading before than, and I'm not sure if I looked at the clock as I put the book down, and turned out the light. It was a night when the same bed that was lumpy, too hot, or too cold, and the pillow was the wrong height, and every other thing that could be wrong, just didn't happen last night. The same bed was comfortable and cozy last night.

  That's not to say I didn't wake up several time for a pee in the night, but at all except one time I got back to sleep really quickly. My one period of insomnia was at 4am when for some unknown reason I had hiccups. It was a real bugger because I thought it had stopped a couple of times, and I would just get comfortable again when....Hic ! I think it finally stopped after I had fallen asleep about 20 minutes later.

  It might have been at 4am when I turned the heater up full.By that time I think the frost I had seen on the cars earlier had melted again, but it was still very cold. The extra heat was probably the reason I didn't wake up until gone 8am this morning. That left me in a bit of a rush to get up so I could go out shopping in Aldi. I still had time to check my blood glucose, and although it wasn't as good as yesterday, 8.2mmol/l was still pretty good. I also weighed myself, and although we are talking about quite small changes, it seems I have lost the small gain I had a week ago.

  I had aimed to get to Aldi at about 9am this morning, but I was probably around 20 minutes late. That didn't matter because the store was still not busy, but just busy enough for someone to be unloading a trolley at one of the manned checkouts. I quickly got in behind her, and another visit passed without having to abandon my loaded trolley because they wouldn't open a manned checkout.

  I had rushed out without checking I had a £1 coin for the trolley, and for the first time ever I had to use my special trolley coin that I had originally found in a trolley that hadn't been "parked" properly. I did know that I didn't have enough cash in my wallet when I went out, and I had to use my debit card to pay for my shopping. I seemed to spend quite a lot, and I only bought two bottle of beer this time. I did seem to buy probably more meat than I should have done, and definitely more fish than I should. There is no room in the freezer for the packet of "jumbo fish fingers". They are now slowly defrosting in the fridge. I may have then for lunch, although I did have cod in breadcrumbs for breakfast this morning !

   It looks too cold and miserable to go out for a healthy walk today. In this weather a walk could potentially be unhealthy - particularly for my scar tissue and wonky ribs. My chest seems to be mostly behaving itself recently, and I would like to keep it that way. I guess today will be a lot like yesterday - a bit boring, and lacking motivation to do anything that can't be dropped and ignored on the merest whim. I might do a bit of laundry, and I will probably do some of the document scanning that I mentioned further up the page. Other than that, I still have a book to read, and then another 5 of so in the same series.