08:23 BST

  Yesterday was one of those days that the forecasters describe as unsettled weather - their way of saying they really don't know what is going to happen ! The overall forecast was that it would be a generally dull day, and that was about right, but there were the odd sunny spells. Rain was forecast for 1pm, 2pm, 7pm, and 8pm, but it actually rained at about 10am, and even that was only a passing shower. The lack of sunshine made it feel a cool day even with the temperture possibly a degree or two higher than the forecast 19° C.

  Today was originally forecast as a sunny day, but the cracks are beginning to show already. 1pm is now shown as dull, and 11am, 4pm, and then 6pm through to 9pm are now shown as just sunny spells. That still leaves quite a lot of sunshine, but the afternoon high may still be just 21° C. Tomorrow may start very sunny, but from late morning to mid afternoon there could be light showers. The evening could be dull, but the sky could be clear by 9pm for 10 minutes of full sunshine. It may not be a warm day with just 19° C predicted.

   Yesterday was yet another day when it seemed to take ages before I felt like doing anything. I guess the root of the problem is that since retiring I don't really have to do anything. Once upon a time I would be spurred into action by the need to commute to work. Now I can be, and I am very often, lazy. Of course with Patricia due to stay here for 2 nights starting tomorrow, I have to do somethings.
  The brakes were applied even harder yesterday morning when there was an unscheduled fall of rain. The sky was very murky, and I felt mild despair (or something like that). Fortunately it was only a passing shower, and it did brighten up for a bit. By the time I was washed and dressed the sky went dull again, but at least it was dry, and I went out to see if Poundstretcher had any shower curtains.

  Unfortunately they didn't, and that means I'll have to use my last spare pair when I try and get the bathroom looking a bit nicer sometime later today. Of course I didn't come away from Poundstretcher empty handed. I had quite a collection in my rucksack. It included Toilet Duck "Floral Moon" scented bleach (two bottles). Two cans of sugar free Irn Bru, and two cans of some drink I had never seen before. It was sugar free "marshmallow" flavoured pop. I also bough some nuts and, Ibuprofen, and dried mixed insects bird food.

  There were a couple of other things too, and one of them was a bag of lentil based "lime and chipotle" flavoured crisps like things. They seemed very moreish, and yet after eating the whole 80gm bag I felt no desire to buy any again. They were claimed to be very high in fibre, and low in sugars. Instead of doing any work I just stuffed my face with them, and rested afterwards. Over the next few hours I also seemed to demolish a bag of dry roasted peanuts.

  It was quite late in the afternoon before I started the work I had intended to do. One reason for the late start was because I got distracted. I am unsure why I chose a particular Billy Connolly DVD, and decided to see how well it ripped using the PC I mostly use for playing music in the dining room. That is the PC that cost something like £49 (plus postage) - an ex-office Lenovo PC. It is not terribly powerful, and ripping a DVD can take well over an hour. I guess it manages it in about real time.

  Unfortunately it would not rip that particular Billy Connolly DVD at all. A closer inspection of the DVD case showed it was using some sort of copy protection. I can't be sure, but I seem to remember there was some sort of court case many years ago that forced any company that used that copy protection to not call the the disk a DVD because it was out of specification of the DVD standards. I think it is no longer used now.

  I will still an mp4 copy of that DVD so I can play it on a PC, but I will have to do the copy by recording the analogue signal - that is assuming I can find a DVD player that has an analogue output. My current player is a BluRay player, and it only has an HDMI output, but maybe I might buy a HDMI recorder box. I did rip a couple of other Billy Connolly DVDs yesterday - they all originally came from the Poundshop !

  I finally got to work doing a fair bit of housework. I started with a bit of tidying up, and dusting in the front room, and also polished the coffee table in there. Next I lugged the hoover upstairs and did a lot of hoovering ! The first priority was the spare bedroom that Patricia will be using. There wasn't a great deal of dust in there, but there was things like bits of cardboard where I had cut up some boxes in there, and also hair. I guess a fair bit was Patricia's own hair, but elsewhere it was my own hair, and there was an amazing amount of it.

  After hoovering te spare room I did the hall and landing at the top of the stairs. Once again there was plenty of my own hairballs, but there was also a fair bit of dust. I think I might give the stairs and top landing another hoovering if I have time, but it is OK-ish for now. I next moved onto my own bedroom. It was in there that I started to have trouble. I needed to do a lot of bending over, and trying to drag the rug straight under my computer desk. At some point I pulled a muscle, or popped a rib, or hurt my chest in some other way.

  With the easy to get to bits of my bedroom done (leaving loads of not easy to get to bits), and my chest hurting, it seemed like a good time to give up cleaning and relax. It was conveniently getting near dinnertime, and that was also a good reason to stop. It wasn't that near dinnertime, and I put my feet up while I considered what I might have for dinner. I didn't have much in the fridge/larder, and I didn't really fancy what I did have.

   It seemed a poor excuse, but a sufficient excuse to waste money on a take away. I opted for a takeaway from a kebab shop, and as usual I ordered enough for dinner tonight as well as dinner last night (and thus earned a 15% discount). I knew I shouldn't have done it, but one of the four items I ordered was lamb donor with chips. I had that last night. I also had a quarter pounder burger. The only way to order that was with chips. I thought I might feed those chips to the birds, but I also ate them too. It is fortunate that both portions of fries (they were actually halfway between chips and fries) were quite small.

  I expect it was the fries/chips that did it - I still felt lightly bloated when I went to bed. I thought I would be too uncomfortable to get to sleep, and it did indeed take a bit of time to get to sleep, but once asleep I seemed to sleep fairly well.  Maybe the biggest disappointment was waking up thinking it must be almost time to get up, and finding it was only about 1am. It was a little cooler last night, and it was probably before 3am when I started to pull the duvet over myself. By 5am I was sleeping fully (except for my head) under the duvet.

  Once again I had a dream that had the potential to be erotic, and it was very, very strange. I seemed to be at a house that was owned by a close friend. She was away at a residential training course for something or another. The odd thing was that it was only half a mile away, and so she could have stayed at her own house. She had asked a friend to house sit for her. It wasn't the same woman from the dream I had a day or three ago, but we did seem to be very close, and there was some mild hugging going on.

  There could have been more than mild, and occasional hugging going on because we were not alone. For some reason there was a man there, and he was the somewhat unlikeable friend of the house owner who had dropped by, and wouldn't go away ! About the closest I got to the woman of my desire was an arm over her shoulder while watching something boring on TV. There was so much potential for something more interesting, but misery guts just dampened the whole dream.

  This morning it was inevitable that all the fries/chips I ate last night would ruin a nice run of low blood glucose readings. I suppose I was lucky it wasn't higher than 9.5mmol/l. That didn't stop me feeling very peckish this morning, and I had some well grilled bacon for breakfast. I shall try not to eat too much now until dinner time when I'll have the safe bit of the takeaway - the shish kebabs with salad.

  I think the plan for today is to have a shower, and then do some laundry. It is currently a bit dull outside (and feeling cool), but there is still a lot of blue sky to be seen. Hopefully it will stay dry, as per the forecast, and I can dry that laundry on the washing line. After that it will be back to the other housework. Today's main target will be the bathroom. I need to measure and cut new shower curtains before hanging them. Before I put them up I will give the bath a good polish. I partly cleaned and polished the hand basin the other day, and I'll give that a quick once over as well. If I can find the inclination and energy I might clean up inside the fridge and see what can be thrown away. I know there are pickles and stuff that have been at the back of the fridge for maybe years. I doubt I will use them now.