08:30 BST

  It wasn't particularly warm, but a lot of yesterday was bright and sunny, although sunny spells might better describe some of the hours. There were a few quick flashes of sunshine in the early morning, when only grey clouds were forecast. The "official" start of the sunshine was at 10am. For all the sunshine the temperature struggled to reach 19° C. That was probably because there was a fair bit of wind.

  

  There seemed to be a pure blue sky at 6.30amm but at that time the sun was too low in the sky to make much impact. A couple of hours later and the sky remains blue. The latest revision to the forecast says sunshine for 9 and 10am, and then only sunny spells from then until just after 1pm. The rest of the day, apart from 6pm (in the latest revision) will just be a light grey sky. At 6pm there could be some sunny spells. I don't know whether to trust this forecast, even though it has started correctly, or go for the far more cheerful BBC forecast of only sunny spells, but lasting for the while day. Both forecasts predict the afternoon temperature to reach 18° C. Tomorrow may start with sunshine again, but it may not last long, and the rest of the day will be cold and grey. It might even rain. The best temperature could be no more than 14° C.

   Yesterday was nothing like I had predicted or planned ! The one exception to that was that I did do the laundry that I said I would probably do in the last paragraph I wrote yesterday. I could only do half the laundry that needed to be done. This was in part because there is not that much room on my washing line, and mostly because I couldn't fit it all in one of the big buckets I used to do my washing.

  The end total was just two t-shirts and seven pairs of underpants hanging in the sun to dry. If I had started that washing a few hours earlier, maybe before I started writing, I think I could have got them on the line, and dry in plenty of time to wash the other half, and get that on the line drying. We lost most of the sun in the early evening, and that second lot wouldn't be feeling warm, and sun kissed when I brought it in, but it would still have been dry....I think.

  After a quick rest I tackled something I really hate, and at the moment, and in the past, there has been no reason to hate it, but somehow I still hate it. What is it, you may ask. It is paying bills ! With luck I have paid off completely my two credit cards, and also paid my BT phone bill. It is the latter that hurts my soul most. In paying my BT phone bill I had to log in to my bank account, and that enabled me to see how much money was in it. It wasn't showing the money I had just paid to the credits cards, but a very rough (in the extreme - rounding things up to multiples of £100 almost) estimate of my bank balance showed that things were still going OK. Somehow I seem to almost instinctively balance my budget (what ever that means).

  Seeing the balance looking healthy inspired me to spend more money. I think it was a fortnight ago I got a marketing email from one of the beer suppliers I have used in the past, saying they had some clearance bargains. It seems I was too late to take advantage of that, or at least I didn't see anything on the website that was described as "clearance". The email made me think that they had made up boxes of random clearance items, but I saw nothing like that. I did see a few mixed boxes with SALE in big red letters by them.

  I suddenly realised I made a big mistake. There was at least one box of Belgium beers I could have ordered, but didn't because Jodie would claim that most of them could probably be bought in Tesco, and that she had tried them all anyway. I ended up choosing three boxes of beers (32 bottles/can in total) of beers that I thought there was a chance that Jodie might approve of. My mistake is not thinking I could have ordered a box, just for me, of beer that I know (or hope) I would enjoy.

  The entire bill for this extravaganza was £114, and that is more than I really intended to spend. On the other hand, it is not as if all that beer will go to waste, or be drunk in one session. Like the last box of beer I bought, they should provide drinking pleasure for well over a month - possibly two months. It works out at roughly £3.50 a bottle, and I doubt many of them would be any cheaper in a supermarket, if indeed a supermarket stocked them, plus carrying 32 bottles back from Tesco would break my back !

  Paying my credit cards, and my BT bill, was enough to fry my brain, or something. Adding to that the stress of buying all that beer, just about paralysed my brain. I didn't want to do anything after that. Before I did all this financial stuff I had been thinking of getting the strimmer out to cut the grass, and/or do some weeding. I didn't fancy either, or anything else. I went into pure lazy mode.

  I ended up spending a fair amount of time just reading either from a book, or sometimes on my PC. I think I even watched a bit of daytime TV, but I can't remember what it was. I know I turned on the TV to see if ITV4 were showing another episode of their Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett playing the part of Holmes. They were, but I had just missed it. That is when I think I watched something else, but as I say, I have no idea what.

  During times or mixed boredom and stress it would be easy to eat badly, and I almost did. I was really looking forward to the last part of my takeaway order from the previous night that I intended, and did have for dinner, but thinking about made me almost drool ! I seem to recall having a rather more substantial lunch than usual. I could be getting some of it from the day before, but I think I had a bowl of instant noodles plus some grilled stuff* with the drained contents of a small can of peas. The latter is known to have a fair sugar content.

* "stuff" is the contents of a can whose contents is mostly written in a foreign language that I had bought from one of the small supermarkets that sell international foods. It was described as grilled bacon, but that might have referred to the flavour. It had a consistency that was a bit like spam.

  I was delighted when it was finally 7pm and I could have the kebab I had ordered the previous night. It was extremely meaty, but I am sure it wasn't what I had ordered.....a;though I was drunk at the time ! I thought I had ordered a large lamb shish kebab, and a quick glimpse at it seemed to confirm that, but a proper examination showed that it was a sort of mixed grill. There was lamb donor, lamb shish, and lamb kofta kebab. It was jolly nice, although the salad, which was supplied in it's own box, had been stored at room temperature and the lettuce was really suffering. I had to throw all the lettuce away, but the cabbage and onion was still OK.

  After watching The Simpsons while I ate, I checked the other channels, and Sky Arts were showing a 30 minute documentary about Pink Floyd's history - except they weren't ! They were showing the same sort of thing about Genesis. That was quite interesting. It was informative too. Apparently Genesis released an album I had never heard of after Phil Collins left the band. They used the singer from the band Stiltskin (if I recall correctly), and the clip they showed from it put me right off wanting to get hold of a copy !

  The last thing I watched was an episode of QI. I was in bed straight after that finished at 10pm. I read for a while, and then tried for sleep. It seemed to take a long time to get to sleep, but once I was asleep I slept soundly until around 2am. I then had almost an hour of insomnia. The problem was a well worn one now - my bedroom had cooled down enough that it was too cool without the duvet, and too hot with it. I did eventually get back to sleep partly covered by the duvet, but that sleep didn't last long.

  I was reluctant to waste what is now extremely precious electricity, and double so with "flaming June" just days away, but I gave in and turned the heater on low. I think I then slept fairly well, generally uncovered, until this morning (although I am sure I got up for at least one pee in that time). This morning, at 6am, and particularly when in the bathroom with the window open, it was quite apparent that it had been a fairly cool night. Maybe getting up with the heater of was worthwhile after all.

  This morning my blood glucose had dropped down to 8.4mmol/l. That is very acceptable, and I would be very happy if that was the figure for my end of month average, but I had been hoping for something less. I had been thinking along the lines of going back to bed after checking my blood glucose. I wanted to make up for the almost one hour I had been awake in the night, and somehow getting up at 6am had felt too early even if I had slept perfectly, but I seemed like I didn't need any more sleep, although I can imagine having a snooze or two during the day.

  A couple of things will be happening today, and one thing won't happen, or at least not this morning. I have already started the soaking in detergent first step of washing the rest of my laundry. I hope to get it on the washing line before we lose too much sun - which in the latest revision to the weather forecast is now shown to last until 1pm before clouds take over the sky. Until the laundry is done I won't be able to use the bathtub, and that means I won't be having a shower this morning. I'll just wipe a soapy flannel over the smelliest bits.

  There is a microscopic chance I might go to a gig tonight. Maybe even less than microscopic, but if it does happen I'll have a shower later. The main event today, and one which everything else is subservient to, is the delivery of my beers - the ones I ordered yesterday morning. It seems amazing, but it does seem to be the case that Yodel have already got them to my local delivery depot, and they will be out for delivery sometime today. Yodel have a poor reputation for their deliveries, but I am not sure why. Their website has a good tracking screen that allows you to see with some precision when to expect your delivery. Of course that doesn't become active until the courier has left the depot. It is just about possible the delivery could be made this morning, but I guess some time this afternoon is more realistic.
Update: I've just had a message to say my beers will be delivered between 10:54 and 12:54 today. In practice it will probably be very close to midday.