08:37 BST

  The weather, and weather forecasts were terribly discouraging yesterday. The morning did feature some sunny spells, but the sky never seemed clear enough to give nice sharp sunshine - mostly it was like sunshine in soft focus. I am not sure if those sunny spells lasted as long as 1pm, as per the forecast. I think it was getting quite gloomy before midday. A lot of the afternoon was so dull and grey that it looked like it could rain at any minute, but it stayed dry until the end of the day. The BBC had forecast showers from 8 or 9pm, and the Met Office forecast showers at 10pm. To the best of my knowledge it stayed dry. I think the temperature exceeded the 21° C forecast by as much as 3°. There were a few periods mid afternoon, and also in the early evening when it seems to feel hot and humid - as if a thunderstorm was just about to break, but nothing happened.

  The latest revision to the forecast has added some more sunny spells this morning, and added an extra hour of light rain in the early evening, but otherwise is the same as the early version shown above. With an afternoon temperature of just 19° C it ain't going to be a great day ! At this point it is worth mentioning (in case it should come true) that the BBC weather forecast shows sunny spells through a completely dry day, and an after temperature of 20° C. Tomorrow could be completely dry, very sunny, but still only 20° C in the afternoon.

   Yesterday fell apart when it got so gloomy in the afternoon, and rain was (incorrectly) forecast for the evening, but that is jumping the gun, It took me a long time to get myself into gear, but the sunny spells in the morning did eventually inspire me to do some work - housework !

  I suddenly realise I can't remember what order I did things in. I think that before I started any housework I went to Poundland once I was washed and dressed. Now I think about it I am sure that is what I did because I would have wanted to get that out the way before anything else because I was expecting a delivery of quite a few bottles and cans of beer, and I did not want to miss that !

  The main housework I did was to hoover the dining room. It took an awful lot of hoovering, and I was given a strong reminder to do it more frequently. I hadn't realised until yesterday just what a messy eater Jodie is ! All around where she sits for our beer drinking sessions were crumbs and seeds, plus other debris. The only good thing is that there was no sign of any mouse action around that dropped food. I feel sure there is still a mouse in the kitchen despite seeing hardly any evidence for it, and I am glad that it doesn't seem to be able to get under the kitchen door to get in the dining room.

  I also hoovered the front hallway, and the bottom of the stairs. That too was well overdue. By the time I had finished the dining room and the stairs I had to empty the hoover because it was just about full ! There were two other important things I did. One was to wash all the sticky beer stains off the "wipe clean" dining room table tablecloth. Some Dettol spray cleaner helped speed the process. A bit later I also filled the bookshelves in the front room with all the books on a big teetering pile I had left in there.

  With those things done I still had plenty more work to do, but I had made a good start. I was fortunate that I had some clarification from Patricia about her plans. She won't be arriving here until Monday evening, and will be leaving to fly to Italy on Wednesday morning. That gives us enough time to catch up with more news, and to have a Wetherspoons lunch together. More importantly it means I have more time than I thought to get the house straight for her two night stay.
  I was approximately 1.30pm when my beers were delivered. The original order was inspired by Jodie being a bit insistent that we (she) needed to try the beers, pictured above, that she saw advertised. She is going to be very disappointed that they are actually brewed in the UK, although presumably to something like the original Ukraine recipe. Of course to get free delivery I had to order a lot more than this. I ordered another three boxes of other beers as well as this box of ten cans.

  Many of the extra beers are specifically for me, although Jodie may well want to taste some of them. The box of English ales is more diverse than I thought, and maybe 9 of the 12 bottles are from breweries I have never heard of, and quite possibly Jodie has not heard from them either. The "European mega-pack" of 12 cans turned out to be disappointing in terms of variety, but as far as I can remember, all 3 different types are very drinkable.

  It was quite remarkable that my beer delivery happened almost exactly 24 hours after ordering it. I thought that was very good going. Also, once again, Yodel were super efficient despite their reputation of being useless. With the beers safely delivered, and checked I feel a weight lifted off me, and I could go on to do....nothing, or at least not much.

  What I did do was to heat up two cans of soup for lunch. It wasn't cold, but it was very gloomy by then, and it did really look like there could be a thunderstorms with heavy black clouds sliding under heavy grey clouds over my head. Something warming seemed somehow appropriate. I had some lentil and bacon, and a chunky beef soup. After that the best option was to lay down, read for a bit, and have a snooze. I managed all that except the snooze.

  After a rest I should have dragged the hoover upstairs, and done more hoovering, but I didn't feel in the right mood for that, or even feel like I had the energy for it. Maybe finding I was in less of a rush than I thought was playing tricks on my mind. The fact is that if I did everything I would really like to do I would need something closer to a week of hard work. it could be even longer than that if it included things like painting some doors, and even the spare room. Maybe those things will be done later, but not in time for Monday afternoon !

  I spent most of the afternoon reading - some from the book I am reading, and a lot catching up with news and stuff on the internet. It didn't fully occupy my mind, and it kept wander towards food. I don't think I ate anything more outrageous than some mixed nuts, but I could cheerfully demolished a double kebab and a tub of ice cream...or something like that. Fortunately I was more restrained than that.

  When it came to dinner I had a starter of a ready made Sainsbury's mixed salad. It was a couple of days after it's use by date, and just starting to deteriorate. I had to add lots of cheese and extra mayonnaise to distract from the wilting lettuce. The main course was bacon on a heap of lettuce. I maybe be starting to get bored by bacon and lettuce, but it is still tasty, and seems to be good for my health.

  I had a couple of those Ukraine style beers to wash down my dinner, and for something to drink while I watched some TV.  I started by watching an episode of The Simpsons, and as soon as that finished I switched over to Talking Pictures TV who were showing Doctor In Distress - part of the Doctor film series. It is one of those films that is terribly outdated, but somehow is still extremely entertaining despite repeat viewings over the years. I followed that with some QI before going to bed.

  Last night was another night when I slept well without the aid of painkillers. Like the last few nights it was warm enough to discard my duvet until about 4am, and even then I only needed part covering to feel warm. I seem to remember two bits of dreams from last night. The first was in the first part of the night, and to be honest it is really only the "punchline" that I remember.

  In this first dream I seemed to be out in the countryside with my camera. Then the scene jumped to coming out of a country church. I don't know what I was doing in there, but it could have been some sort of photography - maybe even a wedding, but equally it could have been a funeral. Alternately it could have been some sort of lecture about photography. All I can really remember is saying to someone "it was a shame they brought God into it because it was interesting until then". I probably only remember that bit because I woke up to go for a pee at that point.

  The other dream was happening in the last minutes before I woke up. I would have got up at that point, but desperately tried to go back to sleep in the hope the dream would continue because it was getting quite erotic. I seemed to be at someone else's house, and there were a a few of us there. I suddenly found myself in bed, or at least under a blank, fully clothed, being tightly hugged by an also fully clothed young lady. The last bit of the dream was us plotting to meet again at my place at the weekend where we could have more privacy, and take things further......

  When I woke up I thought I knew who the young lady was. She seemed familiar in some way, but I have no idea if she was someone from real life, or someone seen on TV or film. She was certainly very cuddly, and we got about as close to sex as you can do while fully dressed ! It is probably just as well I didn't get back to sleep because if I did start to dream the chances of it being a continuation of that dream were very slim, and it would probably be another dream about being at work !

  Yesterday I thought I had eaten stuff I really shouldn't have, but more in the sense of quantity rather than sugar content. It was sugar content that my main worry was about, and I thought the beer I had seemed to taste rather sweet as if it hadn't been fully fermented. It turns out I needn't have worried too much because this morning my blood glucose was just 7.8mmol/l for the second day running. I'll admit it is a bit higher than my target of 7.5mmol/l, but it is still nice and low - particularly when compared to some of the very high readings I was getting nearer the start of the month.

   The curious thing is that getting the recent run of good readings has felt too easy. It make me wonder if something has changed, or if the short run of high reading was caused not by what I was eating, but some sort of infection. If it is an infection then I seem to get one about once a month lately. It could be some sort of Long Covid thing, or something serious like brain cancer. My brain does seem to be deteriorating lately ! I'm not sure I can do quadratic equations any more, although I guess I haven't really done any at all since my last days at college. Maybe I am getting a bit rusty !

  As was obvious from what I wrote further up the page, what seemed like impending awful weather (which didn't happen) convinced me to not consider going out last, and tonight I don't think I fancy going out for the simple reason that there is no particular gig I fancy going to. Hell On Tap are playing, but I probably won't get the t-shirt clean in time for that. I think today I shall just resign myself to doing more housework. Before I start that I want to go to Poundstretcher and see if they have any shower curtains. I have one spare pair I intend to put up before Patricia gets here, but I would like to have replacements ready for them in the future.