There are two main, or negative weather features forecast for today. One is that most of the day will feature rain, although half of it will be light or very light. The other half could be heavy. The second feature is for a Yellow warning of strong winds. The peak may be around 6pm when gusts of 47 mph are predicted. The steady speed of the wind will be in the region of 22 mph all day, and maybe all night because the Yellow warning extends into tomorrow. It should be almost warm today with an afternoon temperature of 12° C. That should reduce my heating bill, but outside, in the rain and wind it is still going to feel perishing ! Tomorrow the strongest gusts of wind will be about the same as today, but in the late morning. The temperature may reach 11° C, and it should be a dry day. There might even be a few sunny spells in the last hours before sunset.
  Either I am getting so used to days when nothing really exciting happens, or yesterday seemed like a fairly good day because it actually was. It was a day when I didn't go out at all, and a day when I don't have a lot to show for it. The best I have to show for the day is two clean towels. One was a medium sized bath towel, and the other was a brand new hand towel. The latter had a sort of dusty, musty smell, and it was a mistake to try and use it when brand new without a wash first.

  I decided to wash that towel, and while doing I thought I might as well wash my bath towel before it started getting smelly (or perhaps too smelly - I will confess that it was probably on the turn). The trouble with towels is that by their very nature they can soak up a lot of water, and become very heavy when being hand washed. The other trouble is that they need far more rinses than ordinary washing (like t-shirts for example). Instead of the usual 3 rinses I had to give those towels 5 rinses. I made life easier by having a short rest halfway through the process.

  The other thing I was doing yesterday was more CD ripping. I had noticed a few CDs seemed to have corrupt tracks, and wouldn't rip properly. The cure was to dig out an external, USB connected, CD/DVD drive, and try that. One CD remained adamant that the final track would not rip, but the others sailed through. In fact that external drive was faster than the internal drive.
  I tried the Kohlrabi yesterday. I bought the vegetable in the little supermarket on Catford Bridge when I ventured out into the storm on Friday. I had first heard of it in the pub with Angela a fortnight ago. I knew is was supposed to be like a sort of cabbage, or was a member of the same family - brassicas. Upon cutting it open the smell was very much like fresh white cabbage. The vegetable itself is the size of a typical orange, not much bigger than a tennis ball.

  Once I cut it open it was like a cabbage that had such a dense core that it all melted into one. It does indeed taste of cabbage, but it probably a bit stronger, and also something like a sweeter taste. I don't think it is actually sweeter, or indeed contains any sugar, and maybe more "mellow" is a better description than "sweeter". The flesh is softer and less fibrous than cabbage. It can probably be likened to a firm apple.

  I ate half of it yesterday, and I liked it. I had most of it with some slices of a big Polish sausage. The two seemed to almost go together. I also had a large and sweet orange, and the three items were basically my lunch. I was sort of saving myself for a naughty dinner later. In the meantime I was on high alert waiting for a delivery from Amazon. That delivery was nothing more exciting than two spare batteries and a charger for my Nikon S6300 camera. They may not have been exciting in themselves, but I was excited when they finally arrived at 7pm last night !

  Last night several thoughts and facts came together, and it seemed like a good time to order a takeaway. I have been thinking for some time now that the very good blood glucose readings I am managing to achieve (somehow) deserved a reward. It also seemed like a good time for an experiment to see how I was tolerating some foods I didn't seem to be able to tolerate well in the recent past. I also had a voucher code for a 20% discount from Just Eat.

  Of course even with that discount code, and the restaurant itself doing a 10% discount on orders over £20, it was still going to be an expensive meal. On the other hand, that one order is going to end up doing 3 meals, One of which was breakfast this morning. To test my tolerance to the extreme, but more so that I really fancied one anyway, I ordered a Chinese takeaway. It was very nice !

  I don't think I could find anything I wanted to watch on TV last night, and instead of watching TV while I ate I read some stuff on the internet. My package wasn't delivered until 7pm, and I had eaten dinner a little later than usual, and in the end I went to bed to read not all that long after 8pm. I read for a long time before putting the book down, and turning out the light. I reckon I was fast asleep before 10pm, and I seemed to sleep well.

  I kept think I was not going to sleep well, and particularly after each time I woke in the night. I had the feeling that I wasn't going to be able to get to sleep again, but before I knew it two or three hours had passed by without me noticing it. I can only remember a few details from a serial dream. The first I can remember is being with two other people, and going into an industrial estate very similar to where I once worked.

  In this dream I was not going to work, but into a pub. We entered through a couple of very shabby doors, and once in we found the pub was not due to open for another 15 minutes. I don't know where my friends went, but I exited through the back doors, and it seems those doors exited in a very large basement that turned out to be a sort of exhibition hall. The first thing I saw was a man setting up a large stand to show off Toshiba TVs. I asked if he had any freebies to give away, and all he could offer me was a handful of Toshiba beer mats !

  I think I woke up soon after that, and I seemed to be feeling unusually good. That was just before 6am. I had a pee, and contemplated getting up then, but I did some of my contemplation inside my warm bed. I was quite surprised to see it was gone 7am when I next looked at the clock. That did feel like it really was time to get up. I went to the toilet, and then gave my hands a good scrub before pricking a finger for a bead of blood for my blood glucose meter. After a Chinese takeaway I was quite prepared for the worst, but to my surprise the reading was only 7.7mmol/l. and my running average didn't change at all. It seems I am still in the running for the lowest monthly average for a good few years.

  Although it is mild on the thermometer, a walk down the garden to top up the bird table convinces me the wind makes it definitely not mild. It will soon be very wet as well, and so today is another day to stay indoors. However I might put on a raincoat for a bit of shopping in Poundstretcher. The main feature today will probably be a visit from Jodie, and some more beer tasting. The element of doubt is if the trains keep running. As the wind picks up there could be obstructions on the line, and the train network could come to a grinding halt again.