08:10 BST

  Yesterday's weather forecast was a poor guide to the coming weather. The morning was dry, but dull. From midday there were a few light showers. 2pm saw a heavier shower, but paradoxically it was not long after that when the sun put in it's only appearance. There were a few brief sunny spells before the clouds really thickened, and the rain started again - and this time it really was heavy rain, with several cracks of thunder. It calmed down a bit after a couple of hours, but I think lighter rain fell for a lot of the evening - if not all of the evening ! I didn't keep an eye on the temperature through that, but I think the forecast 12° C was probably about right.

  

  The latest revision to the forecast is not quite as optimistic as that in the screenshot above. It is bright and sunny as I write this, and I can see a lot of blue sky, but the latest version of the forecast says only sunny spells, and they will finish after 10am. They may resume for a couple of hours after 1pm, but then it will just be dull until a final sunny spells just as the sun is setting. The afternoon temperature should still reach 12° C. The light rain shown for 5pm above, isn't shown in the latest revision. Tomorrow may see the temperature down to 4° C in the morning, but it should warm up to at least 10° C despite it probably being a 100% grey day.

  I think I could describe yesterday as a good day. Seeing Angela always makes for a good part of a day, but sometimes I feel a bit low afterwards because I know I have to wait a full week to see her again. That didn't seem to happen yesterday for various reasons, and maybe for not reason at all. The afternoon did provide two exciting things.....well, sort of exciting.

  The only real significant thing in the morning happened while I was having a wet shave. I managed to nick my skin near the top of my right ear, and maybe about an inch towards my nose. A little bloodletting when wet shaving is not that newsworthy, but thanks to Clopidogrel, the blood thinning drug I am prescribed, I sometime bleed like a haemophiliac. My wound is less than a tenth of an inch long, but with hardly any provocation, it is still bleeding this morning.

  I thought it had stopped when I went out to walk through the park to get to the pub, but maybe I scratched it or something, or more likely I just rubbed the very soft scab off when I dried my face when I got to the pub. I hadn't noticed anything was wrong until Asia, the barmaid, came over to me and asked what I had done to my face. There was not a lot of blood, but just the action of using a tissue to clean it up started the wound leaking again.
  With rain expected, I took my waterproof Fuji XP71 camera with me for my walk through the park. One of the first flowers I saw that deserved a photo was the Dead Nettle - so called because it is related to the stinging nettle, but doesn't sting. Assuming I have identified it correctly, it is an edible plant. I've noticed it growing along the fence line of many parks I have visited. Officially it is a weed, but some suggest growing it as a food source, although if used for a herbal tea it has a laxative effect - which could be useful, or a disaster !
  In St Mary's churchyard there are many flowers growing, but only a few of these marigolds were flowering. later in the year they might provide a magnificent gold glowing display. As usual I am not 100% sure about my identification of this flower. I thought they had far longer stems, but maybe there are several varieties. When I was a young kid I had a non-biological aunt who lived on The Isle Of Sheppy, and her garden was thick with these bright gold flowers, but they did seem to be about 3 or 4ft above the ground. The one in my picture is barely 6 inches above the ground.
  The significance of this picture is twofold. The first thing is that I don't recall seeing two hire bikes parked, ready to be re-hired, together. More often you just see them dropped by the roadside, or even thrown into a bush. The other significant thing is that the bikes are parked by the entrance to the maternity wards of Lewisham Hospital. It make me wonder if some pregnant lady cycled to the hospital, with her husband, to give birth ?

  I arrived at the pub about a quarter of an hour early, but I tried to pace myself, and I only had my usual two pints of Guinness. It was lovely to see Angela again after a weeks wait. Like the week before (I think) it wasn't an intense meeting, but it still felt warm, and I wouldn't have changed it for anything. I didn't even want to rush off home too early even if it meant missing a parcel delivery. Of course I didn't encourage Angela to get back to work late, and she was back more or less on time. We parted on a soggy hug - there was some light rain as we walked back to her office.

  I was about halfway home when the sun burst through the clouds, and although the sunny spells usually only lasted a minute or two, there were quite a few of them until I had been home for 10 minutes or so.  The first thing I did when I got home was done more by reflex than need. I grabbed a big, but featherweight bag of what I could described as foamed potato snacks flavoured with salt and black pepper. It was an interesting experiment because it looked like they would be quite low in sugar content despite the value for a standard 100gm being high. They were so light that I expect you would need a barrelfull to reach 100gm.

  Once I had stuffed my face a bit I transferred the pictures I took along the walk to my PC. I had a brief look at them, but decided to do the selecting and editing later on. I had a few more potato things, and then I felt like laying on my bed, reading and/or snoozing. It is at this point in the narrative I find myself being unable to remember what came first, or the order of things, but the simplest things is to get the simple thing out of the way first.
  There was a ring at my doorbell, and earlier than expected (I was expecting it to be after dark based on previous experience). It was the man from Amazon delivering my latest booze supplies. All but the Jameson's "Stout Edition" were bought out of pure curiosity. Fortunately all were relatively cheap, and so worth taking the chance on that curiosity. The Jameson's I know well, and it is a very smooth Irish whiskey.

  The Arrack, from Ceylon, is more like a light brandy. It is distilled from fermented coconut flowers, or at least coconut flowers are involved in the recipe. I am not a fan of brandy, and so I can't say I am taken with it, but fear not, it won't be wasted. The Cachaca from Brazil is distilled from fermented cane sugar. It is like a very light rum. It doesn't go down that well neat, but a splash of Diet Coke makes it a very palatable drink.

  I have had a couple of different Ouzos, and one of them may not have actually been Greek. Metaxa Ouzo is definitely brewed and bottled in Greece. It has the usual strong aniseed/liquorice flavour, but there is something that sets it aside from other Ouzos I have drunk, and I can't quite put my finger on it. It may be the the thimbleful of Cachaca I had before did something to my taste buds, but I think I would claim it is smoother than other Ouzos.

  I think it was after the delivery, and while relaxing on my bed, that I heard the first peal of thunder. I think I probably saw the flash, but because I was definitely not expecting a thunderstorm, it didn't really register. As I lay on my bed reading, I saw another three flashes, and heard the peal of thunder. I think the thunderstorm passed about a mile away, but the heavy rain didn't. At times it was coming down like stair rods. It eased off an hour or two later, but it didn't seem to stop until sometime very late in the night.

  I deliberately only had a tiny sample of the three spirits I mentioned above so I wouldn't stimulate my hunger too much. It meant I could keep my dinner simple, although not exactly small. I tried an experiment - I roasted a whole pack of minced pork. It must have been remarkably fat free because hardly any fat came off in the roasting pan, and sadly the meat was rather dry when I ate it with some cherry tomatoes and rocket. It was a low fat and sugar, but probably rather high calories dinner...but who knows ?

  In the absence of any earlier entertainment on TV, except for a single 30 minutes of The Simpsons, I kept the TV off until the first of two episodes of QI were shown on Dave.  I wasn't sure I wanted to watch the episode with Matt Lucas in it (I really don't like him), but he was supported by two other very funny people on the panel. The second episode finished at 10pm, and I went straight to bed afterwards.

  Perhaps I was just feeling good, or maybe I had had a good amount of sleep the night before, but I felt no rush to go to sleep last night. I had time to read one short story before turning out the light. I seemed to go to sleep very quickly after that. There was one similar thing to my previous night's sleep, and that was I seemed to have many dreams, but I picked out one particular detail to remember about those dreams that I could recount here, but this time even that has evaporated since waking up.

  I felt comfortable to go to sleep with the heater off last night, but turned it on low after feeling a bit cool after coming back from a pee at 1 or 2am. At 5am I woke for another pee, and turned the heater up full so my bedroom was nice and warm when I got up nearly 2 hours later. I think it was about 6.40am when I woke up, and had that undefinable feeling that it was definitely time to get up.

  One of the first things I did was to go to the toilet, and this morning it was not like the recent new normal, but a slightly explosive experience. After giving my hands a good scrub, to remove any sweat or anything that might spoil the blood glucose test strip, I checked my blood glucose. I was very happy to see that my blood glucose had dropped, and was spot on my target of 7.5mmol/l. The odd thing is that while I tried to be aware of what I was eating, I didn't make any special effort to try and get that low reading.

  The main feature today should be another afternoon beer tasting with Jodie. There is a small chance that Michael will join us too. He has been suffering from something like I was suffering from this morning, but 10 times worse. Last week he said that it had seemed to have cleared up, and he was hopeful that if he had a clear week he would join us for a drink. I hope he is feeling well.
  I kept forgetting to show this picture for he last few days, and this morning I remembered it in the nick of time.

  It is the latest CD (white vinyl, and digital download also available from Bandcamp) from Matt Donovan. He is a drummer who drums for Whitestar, and others, but he also writes and records his own records using a variety of instruments.

  It is the second CD I have bought from him (via https://mattdonovan1.bandcamp.com/). The first was called "Underwater Swimming" and I likened it to a melange of early Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, and some other assorted prog rock. It was more in the style of "Ambient" music, rather than get-up-and-dance music. Sadly this second album is a bit samey, and I am just a little disappointed by it.