09:42 BST

  There was less rain than promised yesterday (Unless you were Patricia walking around central London). On the whole we had little more than a some light showers in the morning. As 2pm approached there was a long sunny spell, but most of the afternoon seemed dull. The forecast probably undersold the sunshine in the last few hours before sunset. I think I could almost call one of the hours "sunny" (which is better than sunny spells). Once the rain had finished the temperature slowly rose from 16° C to 21° C.

  Today will be generally dull until a few hours before sunset when we can expect/hope for sunny spells. The latest revision gives a 50% chance of rain at 2pm, and a 40% chance at 7pm. The rest of the day should be dry. It will not be a warm day, just tepid with a high of 19° C. Tomorrow may feature a few more light showers, and will be another dull day until, once again, the last couple of hours before sunset. It should be a bit warmer at 21° C.

   Yesterday was a good and bad day. The weather, as explained at the top of the page, was not all that good, and that made the bad a little worse. The main feature in the morning was Patricia leaving to very slowly make her way to Gatwick Airport for her flight back to Italy. Her plan was to have a walk around some of her favourite spots in London, which I know she did because she sent me a few pictures.

  I don't know if she had time to visit The National Gallery - one of her favourite places in all the world. I also don't know if she managed to meet her friend Natti for lunch in Croydon. I do know that she experienced far more rain in London than we had here - it was obvious in the pictures she sent me. I do know she arrived safely at her flat in Italy.  Meanwhile I had a very lazy morning as I got myself ready to have a lunchtime drink with Angela.

  It was very nice having Patricia here for a couple of days, but it was also nice after she had left because I could wander around in just underpants as I prepared for a shower, and last night I could also watch TV in my underpants. What a little luxury that is - not necessarily doing it, but being able to do it ! Although I said I had a lazy morning, I did find that I was showered, dressed and ready to go out earlier than needed.

  I particularly didn't want to go out too early because it was still raining. As 12.30 approached it seemed that the rain was stopping, and any residual was light enough to chance going out without a coat. There were a couple of times when I doubted that decision, until I realised that it wasn't the rain starting again, but the wind blowing drip free from the trees. Most just landed on leaves lower down, rather than on me below, but it did sound like moderately heavy rain at times.

  The peculiar thing was that when I left home to walk through the park I thought I felt very tired, but it seemed easy to walk quite fast for long intervals, and it also seemed no bother to walk the long way to the pub. There are many variations of "the long way", but this one was to stay on the west side of the park, and walk all the way to the Ladywell Road exit, and then circling round to go down to the bridge that takes you to the back of St Mary's Church. It probably only adds 100 yards, maybe a bit more, to my walk, but it seemed good to do it.

  One slight bother of walking fast on what seemed a humid day was arriving at the pub feeling a bit sticky. There was nothing I could do except mop my brow a few time before Angela arrived about 10 minutes after me. It was almost a very pleasant hour with Angela, but I must have been talking a lot because I had to gulp my last half pint down as 2pm approached. Usually I would often have finished it before 2pm when Angela has to go back to work.

  I had noticed even before we left the pub that the sun had come out, and as we walked out I wished I had brought my sunglasses. That sun was blinding ! When we arrived back at her office she offered me a very warm hug. It was because I won't be seeing her for a fortnight. Next weekend she is going camping with lover boy, and I think they depart as early as the Thursday, and so she will need Wednesday to get ready. I think she has Wednesday off work, and the Wednesday after next to sort things out after they come home (and possibly to get a good sleep after sleeping under canvas for a week).

  It wasn't long after that very warm hug that the sun went in again. At least it didn't start to rain, but it started me off feeling a bit sad. After a glut of good company I was going to be reduced to nothing for a fortnight. I felt a bit miserable all afternoon. Fortunately I did manage a good snooze in the afternoon, but not before eating a triple pack of cheese sandwiches I had originally bought for Patricia in case she was hungry at any time. Maybe a bit of guilt was involved, but while I enjoyed then, I didn't enjoy them as much as I thought I should have.

  Apart from reading, and snoozing, I didn't do anything all afternoon. As dinner time approached I did do one thing. It was part inspired by some stray thoughts circling my mind. I went online to check the balance of my two credit cards, and to fully pay them off. The MBNA card, the one I have been using for years was quite a small, and obvious amount. However my Tesco credit card seemed to show I owed a lot of money !! I had a brief look at all my transactions, and they all seemed OK, and so I paid off the entire amount.

  I then went back to looking at those transactions, and I suddenly realised something. The figure in 24 point white type in a blue box, the figure that was so high, was the amount I had spent, but didn't include the amount I had already paid. I think the date of my statement, or when payment id due, is something like the 2nd July. On that date the reckoning up is done, and the true figure revealed. The silly thing is that the web page to pay the account was saying amount due on my statement was just £23. I think I could have just paid that, but instead I seemed to pay for the whole of the previous month a second time. It's all very confusing, but provided I don't get any late payment "fines" I am happy - even if my credit card has actually got a lot of credit on it instead of debit. It will all get spent eventually.

  Having worked out that my finances were probably in better shape than I originally thought, I gave in to the idea that had been circling the interstices of my brain, and ordered a takeaway to cheer me up. I had forgotten about the cheese sandwiches I had eaten earlier, and which were made with (usually) sugar saturated sugar, and opted for an Indian takeaway. Indian cuisine uses less sugar than Chinese, but I've been caught out before, and I tried to be careful what I ordered.

  Well, I was mostly careful with the main dishes. I had a tandoori mixed grill, and a chicken tikka as a big starter. I also ordered a spare naan bread, and as well as a vegetable curry side dish, I also added a chilli alloo (potatoes with green chillies) side dish. It turned up about 10 minutes before the predicted time, and it was delicious. The chilli alloo was particularly good. The green chillies were very hot, but they had used them sparingly so it wasn't agony on every bite. I didn't eat the naan bread, nor the free poppadoms.

  I watched two episodes of QI last night, and the second finished at 10pm. By then I was feeling rather tired. I hoped I was so tired that I wouldn't bother with any painkillers. I read for 10 or 1 minutes, and then turned out the light and turned over. For maybe 5 minutes it seemed like I couldn't get to sleep, and then suddenly I was waking up for a pee at almost 2am.  Once again I tried getting to sleep laying on my left side, then my right side, and then back to the left where I fell into a deep sleep until just after 5am. It was light then, and I wondered if I would be able to get back to sleep again - particularly after refreshing the weather pages on my PC (it's why this morning';s screenshot starts at 6am).

  To my great surprise I did fall asleep, and slept for almost another two hours. I seemed wide awake then, or almost wide awake, and I wondered what would happen if I turned over, closed my eyes. It didn't really feel like anything had happened, but mysteriously the clock now read gone 7am !  Some time in the last hours I had the only dream that I can remember a fragment of because it was a new take on weirdness.

  I had been on a bus, possibly coming home from work. When I got off the bus I found that despite it being summer, Catford seemed to be covered with a blanket of snow. I walked a bit to wait to the pavement to clear of people who had also got off the bus, and then got my phone out of my pocket to use the camera on it.  So far, so normal, but now the weirdness started. Every time I pointed the camera at the snow, and it started to focus, the snow would melt away to show the pavement covered with gravel. I woke up as I was trying the photograph the snow.

  This morning I am still using past-their-us-by-date test strips for my old blood glucose meter. I have just checked, and there is hope that brand new test strips for my latest blood glucose meter will be delivered in time to start next month (tomorrow) with hopefully accurate readings. This morning, despite a few indiscretions, such as those cheese sandwiches, my blood glucose would appear to be back down to 8.4mmol/l. I can't really trust that reading, but maybe it is close to correct, and as such it is perfectly acceptable. My final average for the month is 8.45mmol/l. That is just under the highest reading, but also only just over the next reading down. Only the average of April, which was unusually low, breaks what is other wise figures with only small differences between them. In other words, this month was very average for this year, and a useful improvement over the average for last year. I reckon I am doing quite well.

  Two things could happen today. If I have time, and it is getting late already, and I still unwashed, I will go and get a bit of shopping from Tesco. A bit later this afternoon I think Jodie will be coming over for a beer tasting session. It is possible that today may feature more moderate strength lagers, but I expect there will also be at least one strong, or maybe even very strong beer too.