08:54 BST

  Yesterday was a far better day than the weather forecast predicted. The first version of the forecast predicted lots of sunny spells or sunshine in the morning, but no sun in the afternoon. A later revision reduced the sunny spells in the morning to just two hours. That just made the forecast even further from reality. What I saw was sunshine or sunny spells through a lot of the morning followed by a few hours of greyness from midday, or maybe from 11am. After that period of greyness there were a lot of sunny spells, albeit often rather hazy sunshine, for the whole afternoon. It was also warmer than the most optimistic forecast. All three of my outside thermometers said it reached 24° C by late afternoon !

  

  The BBC (Meteogroup) forecast originally said today would be dry, but there would be no sunshine. It now says that there will be drizzle at 9am, and sunny spells at 5 and 6pm. Meanwhile, as shown above, the Met Office was far more optimistic about it being a sunny afternoon. It still does according to the latest revision, but it is now showing light rain for 11am, midday, and 1pm. After that the sun will/may come out. There has definitely been some light rain this morning, but so light I could easily count the individual drops on the garden path. A bit more rain would benefit the garden. The temperature should just reach 20° C for maybe a single hour today. Tomorrow is currently looking dull, with rain in the early evening, and the temperature only rising to 18° C. It has to be remembered that a month or so ago that would be called very warm !

  My day turned out complete different to how I thought it might yesterday. Actually "completely different" is not the strict truth (it was more the flavour of the day). I did do the laundry I said I was going to do, and I had it hanging on the line to dry before midday, but from then on everything changed. I didn't feel inclined to wash my hair, and have a shower straight after doing that washing. What I did do was to lay on my bed reading, and having a snooze.

  Eventually I got bored with that, and considered the original idea of possibly going out. At the time it looks a bit grey out, and uninviting. It was while examining the state of the outside world that I came to the conclusion that I really ought to do some work in the garden. I needed to weed the back flower bed, and the grass was well out of control. I put on my gardening trousers, and boot, but didn't bother with a short because it was feeling quite warm out.

  I had a crazy idea that I might cut the grass using shears. I thought I could do a neater job that using the strimmer, and for a few square feet I did do a better job, but it was so knackering. I was forced to get out the strimmer. That just rips either the tops of the grass (and numerous weeds), or rips out the roots if you try and get too close to the ground. It wasn't long before all the bald patches became visible, and my arms began to ache. I think I had to stop every 5 or 10 minutes to get my breath back.
  I used what must be my worst camera to try and take this "before" picture of what I sometimes jokily call my lawn. That camera, a Nikon Coolpix S3500 is theoretically from the same stable as the Nikon Coolpix S6300, but it is more like a toy from a Xmas cracker. I thought it should be good, but it is why I made an effort to seek out a S6300, and eventually buy 2 of them because that are so good. Perhaps the biggest problem with that S3500 is that it is so slow - slow to get ready to use after turning it on, slow to auto focus, and slow to adjust the exposure.

  I don't know how long it took to cut the grass, but I was outside for over 90 minutes, and maybe even 2 hours, and cutting the grass consumed most of the time, but I did do other little jobs, like sweeping the path, and pulling a few weeds, but I was too tired to do everything that needed to be done - particularly weeding the rear flower bed. It was all worth it though ---- It think.
  This is a screenshot of my CCTV camera showing the new and improved short grass. It is a nice long shot, and of only medium resolution, and thankfully you can see just how patchy the "lawn" really is, although the more you look at the picture the more you do notice just how uneven it is.
  While I was working, and apparently unperturbed by the noisy strimmer, I was aided by at least two, and possible three robin who were looking for any grubs I might have disturbed. I never saw three robins at the same time, but I definitely saw two. I'm not sure why I thought there might have been three, but that was the feeling I got.
  This is a far better picture of one of the robins. It was often a matter of them standing still for long enough as that slow camera got ready for action. Even then ready it is not the greatest picture.
  I think this was the same robin as in the picture above this one, but the first one did fly out of sight for a few seconds before this one alighted on the fence - and without anything in it's beak. Maybe this is why I thought that maybe there were three robins. On the other hand, it could have been a husband and wife pair. I am sure there is a nest in next doors tree, and so maybe while the one that had something in it's beak (the middle one of the three robin pictures) flew to feed the chick(s), the other flew onto the fence during that missing few seconds.

  On the subject of birds...One lucky corvid, either a magpie, or crow, had a nice tasty treat yesterday. I noticed one of my mousetraps that I had put in a plastic box with a small hole cut in the end, and baited with bird seed, had caught a mouse. It is odd that I have seen no evidence of any mice in the kitchen for many weeks, but evidently there was still one in there (and there could be more I guess). There is definitely one less now, and one happy magpie or crow. It was a very small, and maybe even malnourished mouse, and I think it might have been eaten whole. One minute it was there, and the next minute it was gone, and I didn't even get a glimpse of what had taken it off the bird table.

  I felt knackered when I finished in the garden, and various bits of me ached, but somehow it felt like it was all worthwhile. I definitely felt very gritty, or grubby, and on top of it all it was warm outside, and so I also felt very sweaty. I rested for some time, and then, in the middle of the afternoon I washed my hair, and had a shower as I had intended to do a lot earlier. Apart from feeling good for it, I wasn't going anywhere, or seeing anyone, so it didn't really matter that I was probably very smelly and generally disgusting !

  I basically relaxed for the rest of the day, and all the while I looked forward to my dinner. I had eaten about 8 rice cakes with either cheese of ham on them, but that was all until dinner time. My dinner was to be the bbq chicken drumstick I had bought for a reduced price in Tesco a few days earlier, and had cooked the day before yesterday. Originally I thought I might have them with some salad, and maybe pickles, but in the end I just had them, quickly warmed in the microwave, as they were, but themselves. It is a shame that I found them very disappointing. I had to sprinkle hot chilli sauce on them to liven them up.

  I did very little in the evening. I watched one episode of QI, but I didn't think much of the second episode, and went to bed soon after it started. I read for maybe 20 minutes, and by 9.30pm I was trying to sleep. I don't know what time I got to sleep. I had a very vague night last night. I seemed to be awake a lot, trying to get comfortable, but I also seemed to get some long periods of sleep.

  It may be that some of my aching muscles interfered with getting comfortable, but mostly it was they current problem, as the seasons change, of trying to get the ideal sleeping temperature. I think it was around 3am, but it might have been 4am when I turned the heater on low so I could almost push the duvet aside, although later on, with the temperature still falling, I did start to use at least a corner of the duvet. The odd thing is that outside it was almost mild this morning (15° C or so).

  I know I had some dreams, and I think they were about robots in some way, but any details have long since evaporated. My blood glucose seems to have "evaporated" a bit too. It was down from 8.7mmol/l yesterday to 8.2mmol/l this morning. It feels that for the moment I am back on track. I know I didn't eat anything too contentious yesterday, but it did include a couple of bottles of ale (some of which can contain a fair bit of sugar). Even so, I still seem to think my recent run of high readings was something to do with fighting an infection, or something similar.

  There is one or two things I will probably be doing today. I want to go to Poundland to see if they have any of their cheap white trainer socks, and once in there I will probably end up buying all sorts of rubbish. While I am in the vicinity I may also go into the Polish shop opposite, and see if they have any interesting beers and/or Polish instant noodles. I would still like to go out with a camera to take more snaps of the class 455 trains that are due to be withdrawn in just 4 days time, but I will want it to be bright and sunny for that, and I may find some other diversion before the sun comes out.

  I have just checked to satisfy my curiosity: It seems that male and female robins look identical. They are also very territorial, and so the idea that I saw three different robins in my gardens seems unlikely, although having said that, I am sure one flew off over the back fence, while the other two flew over the side fence. There is more to read about robins here - https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/robin/