Today the weather takes a turn for the worse. From 11am heavy rain (according to the latest revision) will fall, and it will continue until 8pm when only light rain will fall for the next couple of hours. It will still be mild. It is around 10° C now, and the middle of the day should be 11° C, and perhaps a little more. There seems zero chance of seeing the sun today. By contrast, tomorrow is forecast to feature full sunshine, and a blue sky from dawn to dusk. At the moment the late afternoon temperature is predicted to only be 13° C, but maybe all that sunshine will raise it further - unless there is a nasty wind to blow it all away.

  Yesterday morning I was complaining that I was feeling uncomfortable because I hadn't been to the toilet. Fortunately that was partly resolved a few minutes after writing my last words for yesterday. It wasn't much, but it was enough to feel comfortable, and maybe I could have chanced going for a walk. Hindsight says I would have been OK, but by then I had decided to do some gardening.

  That idea was partly spurred on by the early forecast for today. A forecast 2 days ahead is usually partly wrong, and indeed the latest forecast for tomorrow is even worse. Anyhow, any rain would be good for the garden, and particularly good for any seeds sown. I'm not sure what time I actually started my garden work. It was probably around midday, and if it was then I spend a full 2 hours of backbreaking labour out there.

  The first thing I did was to get the strimmer out, and cut and slash the remains of the lawn. As I knew it would, it revealed many bald spots, and countless weeds. All the weeds have been decapitated, and some even dug up. I find using the strimmer hard work. Obviously the actual cutting head is powered by electricity, but I still have to support the thing, and guide it where needed. I only have a very small lawn, but I had to take at least three short, probably little more than a minute, breathers while strimming it.

  The strimming was hard, but the next thing I did was in some ways harder, in other less so, but definitely more backbreaking. It seemed like a good time to relay the end of the garden path near the big tree stump. The paving had sunk a lot while under the growing tree. The tree is essentially dead now, although the stump is far to big to even think about trying to get it out of the ground.

  As well as getting the end of the path a bit more level, I had an idea to extend the path around the tree stump. It meant a fair bit of digging, and lugging bits of broken paving slabs, and assorted flat bits of concrete around. I also decided to edge  it with bricks. I have quite a pile of old bricks at the end of the garden, and they are home to a family of mice (or miniature rats). The finished work will never win any awards, but once it weathers it will probably look good enough.
  This is the view down the path. Some of the paving slabs are very muddy, but today's rain will wash them, and settle everything down. The area to the left of the path extension, round the tree stump, is where I had all the earth piled up, and essentially wrecked any remnants of the lawn. I have generously seeded it with new grass seed, but I expect the pigeons will eat most of the seed. I am relaying on today's rain to wash the seeds into the soil, and get them germinating.
  Here's another view of the path extension around the tree stump. It all looks very variable at the moment. That is partly because it is made from assorted oddments of anything that had a flat surface, Some of it is actual broken paving slabs of assorted textures and thickness. Some are when must have been the remains of a concrete path - smooth on top, but very lumpy underneath. I am keeping my fingers crossed it will look OK after it all weathers. I think I may have taken crazy paving to a new level - maybe bat shit crazy !

  It was 10 past 2pm when I took my gardening boots off, and I felt I had done quite enough. I was working topless, and while mild, it was not warm, but I still managed to raise quite a lot of sweat. I claim that it was good exercise ! It wasn't until I had had a late lunch of a the last pair of cod in batter that I could start to relax. Before that I was buzzing to much to relax. Incidently, those last two bits of cod in batter were the same as I had the day before, and partly blamed for a high blood glucose reading.

  I didn't do much for the rest of the afternoon. I spent most of the time reading. I also think I had a snooze. I know I closed my eyes, but I'm not sure if I fell asleep or not. The fact that the rest of the afternoon seemed to fly by suggested I probably did have a snooze at some point. It didn't seem long before I was preparing my dinner. It was to be a very healthy dinner from one perspective, and yet very unhealthy from another.

  It was grilled salmon with salad. The two catches here were that the grilled salmon was peri-peri flavoured/marinated, and I think the flavouring was based on the spices suspended in a light syrup. It wasn't until I was opening the packet that I saw that the sugar content was rather high. Unadulterated salmon would have a very low sugar content. The other "problem" is that my home made salad had a rather high content of new potatoes. To make matter worse I had cooked double the amount of new potatoes that I needed, and ate the rest as a sort of dessert.

  I watched some assorted TV last night, but at 7.30pm I turned the TV off until 8.30pm when I watched a repeat of "Yes, Prime Minister" on BBC4. When that finished at 9pm I went straight to bed, and didn't even bother to read. It all feel very vague now, but I think it didn't take long before I was fast asleep. I had the heating on low, and until the early hours of the morning, my bedroom was just warm enough to sleep with the duvet pushed mostly to the side. It was probably around 3am, maybe a bit later, before the room had cooled enough to pull the duvet over me.

  During the night I can remember fragments of a lot of dreams, but not enough to write any coherent account of them. I remember one was about being back at work repairing TVs. One thing from that dream was how it sort of blended memories of the TV workshop and school. The work benches were very close together, and all facing one way  like desks at school. Another dream featured a visit to a pub with someone.

  That someone could have been Jodie, but I can't remember her face, and while she is most definitely a beer drinker, I can't imagine her demanding a pint of "Heavy". There was indeed a beer pump labelled as "Heavy", and it was just £3 a pint. I think the pub may have supposed to have been The Fox And Firkin, although it was an altered version of it. One notable thing was that it was "instrument practice night". In one corner there were several people making a racket with some brass instruments, and in the opposite corner were a small group with stringed instruments.

  One thing I am happy about this morning is that my hard work has only left a slight legacy of a stiff lower back, or maybe hip joints. That seems to be fading now. I may have pulled something in my always delicate chest. Every now and then I get an odd twinge when I make certain movements. Unfortunately I can't seem to work out what those movements are so I can avoid making them. The very worst thing is a legacy of eating lots of bad stuff (for me). My blood glucose has now gone up to 9.1mmol/l, and that is starting to get worrying. Today I need to try and fast until dinner time, and then have a sensible dinner, but today will hopefully involve booze and so all bets are off !

  Unless I hear anything to the contrary, I hope to be meeting Angela for a lunchtime drink. She called off last week because she felt off colour. I hope she feels OK today.  It could be an interesting session because it looks like it will involve a walk through the park in the pouring rain (and the same going home). I shall take a waterproof camera with me, but I suspect there will be close to zero photo opportunities.