08:37 BST

  Yesterday was one of those days that can be described as pleasant, and at times, very pleasant. Most of the day featured no more than sunny spells, but the sun felt very hot, and of course it stayed dry. The afternoon temperature was around 23° C.

  The only change to the latest revision to the weather forecast is that the single hour, at 4pm, which was originally forecast to reach 25° C, has now been reduced to 24° C, but other than that it should be full sunshine all day today. Tomorrow should start sunny, but the afternoon may feature light rain, and then there could be heavier rain in in the evening. It should still be a warm day with the temperature around 22 or 23° C.

   Yesterday had the potential to be another day of rest, but I was feeling just about fully recovered from my afternoon at Chislehurst Rocks last Saturday. It does feel a bit sad that it can take me 2 days to get over what I would once do overnight. Anyway, I didn't fancy going overboard yesterday, but I did do some useful things.

  One of the first things was to get the hoover out from the under-stairs cupboard, and to empty it out, and try and clear the filter as best I could. I didn't actually get around to using it yesterday, but at least it is now in the middle of the dining room floor, and ready for action. I thought I was going to use it in the spare room ready for Patricia to stay, but when I checked the dates that Patricia may stay, I realised I didn't need to rush too much.

  What I did do to the spare room was to gather up all the loose books, and dump them in the front room where they should end up carefully sorted on the book shelves down there. That has been the plan for many months, but now there is a reason to actually do it. One useful thing is that I came across the book that is the sequel to the book I finished reading yesterday. Until I found it I had no idea there was a sequel !

  The final bit of work in the spare room was to try and wash the windows. I have a mop and squeegee on a pole that is supposed to make washing the outside of the glass easier, but I still couldn't get to all the glass. Those windows were pretty dirty, and when I thought I was finished I saw I had left some dirty streaks. I had to re-do the cleaning as best I could, but it is not great. I reckon it is still a big improvement, and at least that is something.

  I took a breather before my next job. I didn't feel like doing it all in one session, but it had gone midday when I started hand washing some laundry. There was one t-shirt, and hand towel, and 5 pairs of underpants. I did end up doing it all in one session, and I think I had it all on the washing line before 1pm, but only just. I am not sure why I was panicking because when I brought that washing in it was bone dry and warm from the sun, and the best of the sun would continue for a few more hours.

  I didn't really do anything that constructive after that, but I did spend a quite a long time doing something important, but hardly taxing. It was to replace the batteries in one of my outdoor, radio linked, thermometers. It would have been quicker if I had replaced the batteries in the right sensor ! Apart from the time consumed doing the right sensor there is the time it takes to get the sensors recognised again by the indoor units. That generally means turning off the indoor units, and then turn them on again so they can find the signals beamed from the outdoor sensors.

  The problem with rebooting the indoor units is that it is tedious re-setting their clocks. The tedious part is because it all has to be done using just 3 or 4 multiple purpose buttons - hold the "adjust" button down for three seconds, and then press the "clock" button four times to set the BST/GMT offset - etc etc etc ! Both indoor units have radio controlled clock, and to speed things up it is best to set the time manually to close to the exact time. Then you wait and wait until it picks up the standard time transmission, and sets the clock exactly - but not to BST. You then have to try and find the bit in the manual where you hold one button down for 3 seconds, pules another button a set amount of times, push another button to set the offset, and then push the memory button. It is one of those things were lots of little very short times add up to a long time !

  I had a strange selection of eating yesterday. I started the day with a bowl of instant noodles, and so that wasn't strange. Having an early (just after midday) lunch of a can of smoked bacon and beans, and then a can of bacon and lentil soup was a bit strange on a hot(ish) day. but both went down well. By about 4pm I fancied a snack, and it turned out to be a fair sized snack. It was a tub of Tesco coleslaw with added grated cheese. It felt quite filling, and after eating it I decided it must have been an early dinner. I didn't eat anything after that.

  I watched 1 and a half programmes on TV last night. The first was an episode of The Simpsons - one I can't recall seeing before. I then watched half an episode of one of the most infuriating, but still interesting programmes - "Abandoned Engineering". It is infuriating because they spin out the explanation of what they are showing, and all the presenters are programmed to utter the words "strange", "eerie", "scary", and similar at random intervals. Eventually they get to the point, and sometimes it is interesting, and sometimes you think that it was pretty obvious after the first few minutes. One segment last night was about a town in Iceland that is suffering from land falls. It was all pitched from a climate change point of view, and that was fair comment, but in the opening shots of piles of mining spoil I immediately thought of the Aberfan disaster. The Icelandic town has not had a disaster on that scale, but it could do.

  The last thing I did before going to bed was to have a brainwave....well, sort of. One thing I often have to do is to get out of bed just before turning out the light to turn the volume done on my PC (playing one of currently three huge radio-like music playlists). I suddenly remembered a little gadget I bought out of curiosity back in the day when I may have been using Windows 2000. It was a USB infra red receiver and remote control handset. I wondered if it would work on my current PC. I had to change the prehistoric, but thankfully not leaking, batteries in the remote control handset, before I tried it, and when I did it worked perfectly.

  I went to bed, read for 15 or 20 minutes, before turning the volume down to very low and turning out the light. Like the previous night I took some painkillers about half an hour before I expected to go to sleep. I think they helped again, although I wasn't nearly so creaky last night, and I got another good sleep. I can't say it was dream free, but I can't remember enough of any dream to try and describe them.

  After my unusual eating pattern yesterday my blood glucose was nice and low this morning - just 7.3mmol/l. In celebration (probably) I treated myself to some very thoroughly grilled "dry cure" bacon. It was nice, but it would have been nicer with a heap of lettuce and mayonnaise. I did put low sugar and salt tomato sauce on it.

  Today could be a busy day, albeit with probably a very lazy late afternoon and evening. Once I am washed and dressed (and today washing includes a wet shave and washing my hair) I want to go to Tesco to get a few items - including more mealworms for the sparrows and bluetits. After that, plus a short rest if there is time, I will take a slow stroll through a warm and sunny park to the pub for a lunchtime drink with Angela.