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 !