09:05 BST

  Yesterday was a warm day, and in direct sunshine it was almost hot. There was quite a lot of sunshine, although for nearly half the day it was just sunny spells. The late afternoon temperature probably hit the forecast of 19° C, although it felt a bit cooler indoors (but maybe only when being very sedate).

  

  I would describe the last few hours as being sunny, rather than just featuring sunny spells. The latest revision to the forecast does acknowledge this, 10am to midday may only feature sunny spells. The worst thing is that the latest revision now says there is a 50% chance of light rain at 4 and 5pm ! The sun may not be seen again after that until just as it is setting. It may still be warm with 21° C predicted for early afternoon. Tomorrow may start wet but the afternoon may feature a mix of sunshine or sunny spells, but the highest temperature may only be 18° C. The day after tomorrow may be very wet, but that gloomy forecast will hopefully change before it happens.

   Yesterday turned out very different to how I thought it might. The thing that changed everything was a slightly wobbly stomach. Nothing was dramatic, but I had to visit the toilet three times in the morning, and the last time was not all that long before I was going to go out. I did start out to the station, but there were two flies in the ointment. The first was that there are no trains from Catford Bridge over this entire 4 day weekend (yesterday and today are bank holidays). The second was that while walking to Catford station I felt some disturbance in the aether. It turned into just a small fart, but it was enough to worry me.

  I continued to walk as far as Catford Bridge - right on top of the bridge so I could see up and down the railway line where I expected to see, but didn't see any engineering work taking place. By then I was feeling more or less OK then, but I still chickened out of an afternoon travelling to the south western limits (by train) of my Freedom Pass. It did seem very noce out at that point, and it did feel a shame to give up on the sunshine, and fresh air, but that is what I did.

  Rather than waste the short walk I had done I came home again via the little supermarket on Catford Bridge (or the eastern slopes of it). I bought a selection of stuff in there that included some tins of East European style smoked bacon and giant beans, and a lot of instant noodles. I didn't have a strong bag with me, and I knew their own bags are not terribly strong, and so I didn't even bother to look at their beer section.

  I haven't seen any new and exciting beers in there for ages, but they still carry a fair range of exotic imported beers. It was getting on for 1pm (actually just a little after 12:30), and despite my high blood glucose yesterday morning, I felt like an early lunch of one of the cans of smoked bacon in giant beans in a thin, but nice tomato sauce. It was very nice, and makes Heinz stuff seem like rubbish, although I would admit that the thicker sauce of the Heinz beans would be better on toast, but don't even consider any American styled beans with meat in them. They are pure rubbish !

  After my early lunch I read for a while, and I think I had a snooze, although this morning I can't remember if I actually fell asleep, or just thought it might be nice. It may have been 2pm, or perhaps later, when I decided I ought to do something, and that something was to dig out a spare old laptop style hard disk, and try installing Windows XP on it with it fitted in the old Toshiba laptop. It went rather well. The laptop, being an expensive "Pro" version, meant that the Windows XP install disk had all the drivers for the laptop.

  I can't say it was a quick process - particularly with a reboot needed after installing each service pack. I then had to go through my archive to find software to install on the laptop. Fortunately I seem to have kept the installers for most of the stuff I would want on that laptop, and even some stuff that would stretch to the limits the capabilities of a laptop with such a frugal amount of RAM installed (but still the maximum it can take).

  I was fairly sure before I even tried it that any web browser from the days before most web pages are served over an encrypted connection was even going to work in this day and age, but the three web browsers installed on it would open some pages, including my very own web pages. One such browser was Sea Monkey, the very same browser, using it's compose feature, that I use to write these web pages. I actually set up the upload part of the composer section, and did a small, and temporary edit to this "today" page yesterday. It was a very smooth operation.

  By about 6pm I had just about done all I needed to that laptop, and I could have consigned it back to a dusty old cupboard, but there was one thing I wanted to check, and that was how good the battery in it is. I did a short test a few days ago, and it looked promising. Last night I just left it running with only a screensaver running, and I think it managed about 90 minutes before it auto shut down. I get the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the more I "exercise" the battery, the longer it lasts. At the moment it seems to last long enough to actually be useful for something - if only I could think what that thing is.

  I know I had at least one other snack after my lunch, and I think it was some rice cakes with cheese on them. I definitely had 5 cubes of strawberry flavour Turkish Delight. The latter seems to be fairly safe provided I wash all the sugar off the outside of each cube. With no icing sugar on the outside it just becomes flavoured gelatine (maybe with some sweetening in it). When it came to dinner I couldn't be bothered to spend any time cooking. That might have meant a takeaway, bit not this time !

  I had a new flavour of instant noodle to try. It had a Chinese sounding name, but was probably made in Wolverhampton, or somewhere equally dull. I bought a 5 pack of alleged tomato flavour, and they are rubbish ! Even the concentrated dry "soup powder" only had a sort of hint of tomato. They were disappointing, and I will be prioritising their fist use to get rid of them. I had two bowls of instant noodles for dinner, and the other was the known very good Polish made beetroot flavour. Later on, while looking for a snack, I remembered I had a pack of "warm up and eat", "buffalo wings" chicken wings. I had selected them because the spicy coating looked dry rather than a sugary glaze. They were OK, but rather unexciting.

  While I ate I watched some TV, and tried, but failed to be distracted from keeping an eye on the laptop as it's battery ran down. One minute it still seemed to be going strong, and the next minute it had shut down. I estimated the time it had lasted based purely on what TV I had watched. The next time, maybe today, I'll try and use a stop watch or something. When the last programme had finished I went to bed. I read for a while, and then, sometime between 10 and 10:30pm I went to sleep.

  Initially, and finally, I seemed to sleep well, but I did have a period of insomnia at about 2.30am. It was because my chest felt uncomfortable. I had got up to go for a pee, but before I went (because there was no rush) I straightened up the duvet. It was a bit of a mess - maybe my sleep was not as peaceful as I believed it to be ! The final bit of straightening was to pick up the bottom end of it, and give it a flick. In doing so it seems I upset my chest and it's scar tissue etc. When I went back to bed I found it hard to find a comfortable position to sleep without an assortment of aches from my chest (plus lots of clicking and popping as I moved around).

  I tossed and turned until almost 3am, and then suddenly I realised it was light outside, and the clock now said 4.30am. It was like magic. I don't think I actually needed it, but I got up and had a pee. I think I do it out of habit these days. Before I got back into bed I turned the heater on low. It was not a particularly cold night, but it was far from warm. It took almost no time to get back to sleep, and I seemed to sleep very soundly before the heater had even warmed the room by half a degree.

  I almost had a lie in this morning, but 7am is hardly a lie in. After a while I checked my blood glucose, and it had dropped to a better figure, 8.8mmol/l. It looks a lot better, but in reality it wasn't a lot lower than yesterday (9.1mmol/l). I was going to skip breakfast, but after reading through some of a backlog of IT news stories on the internet, and also feeding the birds, I decided to feed myself. I had another of those almost flavourless Koo Lee (or some such name) tomato flavour instant noodles.

  The main thing today may be beer tasting/drinking in the afternoon with Jodie. There is some doubt about it because I seem to remember that the plan was Alan to meet Jodie here before getting a train to a gig somewhere. Jodie may not be impressed that there are no train to Catford Bridge today (tomorrow and Sunday !). There is also some doubt about another activity today - laundry. I was hoping for a warm and dry afternoon, but the last revision I saw said rain at 4pm, but having checked again, I find the forecast has been revised again to say it will be a warm and dry afternoon, although lacking in sunshine for most of the afternoon. I think I will be doing that laundry after all !