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Wednesday 12th January 2022
08:49 GMT

  Once again, yesterday was a sunless day, but unlike the day before, it was a rather wet day. I don't think there was any heavy rain, and for a lot of the time, maybe most of the time from early afternoon until 9pm, it was just persistent very light drizzle. The only good thing was the temperature reaching 10° C, but that was only good for using less heating indoors. During the night the temperature fell enough for a frost this morning.
cold but
                                bright day
  There was a frost this morning, and that suggests the temperature was even lower than the 3° C shown for 8am above. The good news is that the latest revision to the forecast hasn't changed a thing. There should be glorious sunshine from dawn to dusk. The only catch is that the sun rose nearly an hour ago, but it is has yet to rise high enough to clear the roofs of the houses over the road. The highest temperature predicted for today is 8° C, but that may only be for a single hour. Behind glass, or under a dark coat, it could feel much warmer in the sunshine. Tomorrow could be a re-run of today, but the day after, Friday, could start with a freezing fog.

   I can't really say why, but yesterday almost felt like a busy day, although I was probably busy achieving nothing except eating naughty things. When I think back to yesterday I can't really remember doing anything "solid" until the afternoon, and yet I don't remember feeling bored. I think I spent a lot of the time just reading, and a lot of that was online rather from a book.

  One reason for reading a lot of stuff online was that there were many websites I often read to pass the time:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/
http://newsthump.com/
https://www.thepoke.co.uk/
That is four of the most common. The first is a serious, with humorous undertones website about computer and other technology. The other three are just humorous with slants on the real world. One reason for doing so much reading online is that unlike reading a book, the online stuff is just small bites, and so I can come away at any time without losing the plot. This was important because I was expecting an order from Amazon yesterday, and I didn't want to be too distracted. That order arrived at about 4.30pm if I recall correctly.

  It must have been late in the afternoon, maybe 3pm (which is only late in the afternoon when the sun sets just over an hour later) when I set up an old PC to try and install Devuan on it - the operating system I had been playing with in a virtual machine the day before. That "old PC" was not very old at all when I salvaged it from a skip when I was at work. It was an attractive find for two reasons. One was it was very small, and the other was that it was powered from 12 volts. It could have been very useful if I had a car or van, but I have neither....

  The other thing about it that makes it "modern" is that it has a locked BIOS, and while installing Windows on it is easy, installing Linux can be very tricky. I installed Devuan on it several times, and while s failed because I did something stupid, like choosing it all being in Ukrainian, which I can't read, the big problem is that I just can't get it to boot. Some later research suggests the boot loader needs to be installed in it's own small partition which needs to be formatted into FAT32 - a windows disk format. I can make that disk partition easily enough, but I am not sure I can force Devuan to use it.

  Playing with the computer was frustrating, and I ended up munching on some, and any is too much, choc chip buns. I had been limiting myself to no more than a couple every other day (well, sort of). Yesterday I convinced myself that if I didn't use them all up they would go stale. The rest of what I at was more sane. I had sausages for a slightly late breakfast, and then I had some well cooked (so the fat was crunchy) pork belly strips with cauliflower. I thought the cauliflower was a sort of healthy touch. Oddly enough it was almost tasteless compared to the pork.

  I read a fair bit when I went to bed, but I think I had put the book down, and had fallen asleep not long after 9pm (but it could have been 10pm). It was one of those nights where I both slept well, and I didn't sleep well. There were several times when I woke up not feeling good. The first time, maybe around 1am, I could taste some acid reflux at the back of my throat after burping. I had to take some time to have a couple of antacid tablets.

  Another time, maybe 3am, I could not decide if I was hot or cold. With the duvet over me I felt a bit sweaty, but without it I felt just a little too cool. I think I did fall asleep again mostly uncovered. I seems to be constantly dreaming, but there was no dream long enough to form some sort of describable narrative. For instance one dream was set in a classroom. I have no idea where, or even what age I might be, although there was no feeling of being young. The teacher, if indeed it was a teacher said she would print out a travelcard for someone else, and I said I would like one too because I didn't drive. I think it was just before the start of of the Xmas holidays, but the dream was over in mere seconds, and I can't add any more information.

  There was one other dream that impacted the real world, and as such it disturbed my sleep. I was in a car driven by a woman, and it was an enjoyable experience, although she did tend to drive down the middle of two lanes - presumably to stop anyone overtaking her. We reached what ever the destination was supposed to be, but couldn't park where we wanted because there was someone else parked there, although it did look like they were about to drive off. We were still moving at that point, and I suddenly felt the calf muscles on one leg start to cramp. I said to stop the car so I can get out and stretch my legs, and as the car stopped I got out.....of my own bed ! One calf muscle was cramping in the real world, and standing up is usually the cure for me.

  In reality I probably had a lot of good sleep, but somehow it didn't feel like it, and so when I woke up at 7am I decided I may as well get up. Ten minutes later I had confirmed that eating those choc chip buns yesterday were very bad for me. My blood glucose had shot up to 8.9mmol/l, and in doing so it messed up the downward trend of my running average for the month. Oh well.....

  I haven't been out to do any shopping this morning, but I still have a busy morning. It's Wednesday, and I hope I'll be meeting Angela for a couple of pints of Guinness at lunchtime. Prior to that I need to go for the whole none yards, or whatever the saying is - a wet shave, shampoo and condition my hair, and have a good shower. I will then be fit to face the world. I think I am going to make some effort to go out a bit early today to allow time for some picture taking.
Toshiba
                                    PDR-M61 frontToshiba PDR-M61 rear

  I mentioned this old digital camera a couple of days ago. It is a Toshiba PDR-M61, and it was first released in 2001 - which makes it over 20 years old. I bought it in a Salvation Army charity shop for £4.80. I reckon that for an old timer it is a good camera. Under fair conditions, like a sunny day, such as today, it can take excellent pictures if used with care and common sense. It's shutter speed is not very fast, and that rules out taking pictures with fast movement - such as trains. I am hoping for some nice bright landscape pictures today, and maybe the odd squirrel. You can read the full spec of the camera here - http://www.digitalguide.co.uk/cameras/Toshiba/PDR%20M61.html It may be the case that I won't be getting this camera out again this year, and so I hope I'll have something good to show from it tomorrow.

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