08:24 BST

  Yesterday was like a summers day. It was bright and sunny, and the temperature reached 25° C ! There was rain forecast for late at night, and just before sunset there were some dirty looking clouds covering a lot of the sky, but I was not aware of any rain.

  

  It has been bright this morning, but it is slightly dull as I write this. The forecast says it should be full sunshine right now. The latest revision to the forecast starts at 9am, and shows sunny spells right through to 3pm, but after that it will probably get a bit dull. The afternoon temperature should reach 22° C, and while not as good as yesterday, is not bad at all.  Once again rain is forecast for late tonight, and also for the first few hours of tomorrow morning. Tomorrow forecast looks a bit random at the moment. It is as if they threw a load of weather symbols at the wall to see what would stick. It shows a mix of sunshine, sunny spells, and duller hours at random through the day, but it probably will be 22° C by late afternoon.

   Yesterday was one of those days that couldn't be predicted. Almost the only certainty, for certain values of certain, was that I would get another box of beers delivered. That did happen, but later than I was expecting, and also towards the end of the estimated one hour delivery slot that was revealed late in the morning. The actual delivery was about 4.30pm. If I had known for definite that it was going to be so late I could have gone out.

  I guess I could have gone out anyway, but in the end I chose not to. What I did instead was to do two lots of laundry. The first was a couple of t-shirts and five pairs of underpants. It was one way of taking advantage of the hot and sunny weather. A few hours later I decided I might as well wash anything else that needed washing, and I washed a hand towel, another t-shirt, and a pair of lounge pants.

  Everything was bone dry, and feeling warm when I brought that laundry in. I did it in two stages. I moved the towel and t-shirt from the second wash to the sunnier end of the washing line, and left them out an extra hour to dry.  It seems a shame that the weather is deteriorating again. Today won't be as good as yesterday, and tomorrow may be the last day with any sunshine for quite a while. If it was sunny like yesterday I would probably be washing my bedding today.

  Earlier in the day I was keeping an eye on my washing, and I noticed a rather large rat in the garden. That was not a good sight. It ambled about, finding the occasional bit of dropped bird feed, and then investigated the drain just outside the kitchen. After a while it went back to the end of the garden, and I lost sight of it in the thick clump of assorted plants, mostly just weeds, in the corner of the garden.

  I think it was around 5pm when there was a ring at my doorbell. It was the young lady from next door - the girlfriend of the son whose parents own the house, and who seems to be a permanent resident there now. She looked as white as a sheet, and asked if I had any rat poison ! It seems she went into the shed/wet room at the bottom of their garden, and a huge rat brushed her leg as she went in there.

  I don't have any rat poison, and I couldn't really help her. I get freaked out when I see a mouse in my house, and the idea of going into that shed - it is big, but still an enclosed space - was too much for me. She was far braver than me because she did go back in there, armed with a big stick, but couldn't find it. One thing she did do, rather wisely, was to remove some sacks of rice from the shed, and store it in their kitchen. She then started to take everything else out of the shed, and there was a lot of it. That shed is actually more like an extra room for the house - complete with lights, and running water for the washing machine in there.

  After a few minutes I realised there was one thing I could offer her. I was a can of expanding foam that she could use if she found a hole where the rat got in. While she was on my doorstep it seems that Sue, my neighbour on the other side, heard of her plight, and so later, after a few short conversations over two garden fences, Sue went to help Loisa, the young lady from next door.

  Sue is one of those people who is often timid, but has great reserves of strength, and she was straight in the shed, poking around in all the corners trying to flush out the rat. Eventually the two of them had the shed emptied. They could find no holes, and no rat. Eventually they found the rat outside casually eating rotting fruit on their compost heap. I would hazard a guess that the rat was drunk if it was eating rotting fruit.

 The theory is that the rat followed Loisa into the shed, and then ran out when it realised there was nothing in there for it. I noticed a garden spade among the stuff that had been removed from the shed. Neither of the two ladies had the courage to bash the rat on the head with it, and I must admit I am not sure I could have done it....although maybe acting the hero in front of the two of them might earn some kudos. As far as I am aware the rat was just left to go about it's business.

  There are reasons why I suspect my memory may be faulty, but I don't remember eating all that much yesterday, and certainly nothing I know that would be bad for me. I did have a few beers, but apart from some very malty tasting ales, which I didn't drink, they tend to be fairly safe. I do remember snacking on Twiglets, but they have always seemed fairly safe. My dinner was Haslet, and a little bit of ham on a thick bed of lettuce.

  That lettuce was probably instrumental in making me feel very drowsy last night. I started to watch QI on Dave (which I thought they had dropped from the new schedules, but evidently hadn't), but after 5 minutes I opted to go to bed. I think I managed to read one page from the book I am reading before I felt asleep. I slept mostly uncovered all night because it was quite warm after all the sunshine and warm breezes.

  I seemed to sleep well, and as far as I am aware I didn't wake up to pee as often as usual, and even when I did I think I went to the toilet more out of habit than any strong need. Maybe the beer I had late afternoon, and finished by early evening, had made me pee enough to dry me out before I went to bed. It still feels a bit of mystery as to why I peed so little in the night. It is a mystery because this morning my blood glucose was very high - into the red ! It was 10.5mmol/l.

  When it is that high I would usually be very thirsty, and peeing a lot. I have done neither. On top of that, as I was explaining a few paragraphs up the page, I can't remember eating or drinking anything that might raise my blood glucose to such a high level. I am starting to think that maybe it was a faulty test strip. I am just about to take another reading....Hmmm, something must have been wrong with that early reading. Only just over an hour has passed, and the new reading is just 8.9mmol/l. That is still higher than I am happy with, but far, far better than the early reading, and a drop from 10.5 to 8.9mmol/l would seem very unlikely in just an hour.

  Today is not going to be such a great day as expected. I had a phone call from Angela half an hour ago. She says she can't meet me today because she has to go into Lewisham to change some clothes. That is annoying, but it does give me time to do other stuff. I was going to pay a quick visit to Tesco this morning, and I shall still do so. A bit later on I think I will go out with my camera to snap a few more trains for my collection.