Today we could see 38° C for a while, but that is still short of the 40° C splashed across the front page of some newspapers. Maybe some will see 40° C, but apparently not in Catford. It was a very warm start to the day. After yesterday's extremes 25° C looked, and almost felt slightly cool, but of course it was abut all we would expect on a typical summers day - in the afternoon ! The most interesting thing about today is how we may start to lose the sunshine as early as 6pm, and it could start to rain at 8pm. 10pm could possibly see some thunder and lightning. It was a feature that appeared and disappeared in earlier predictions, but this morning it has survived one revision (although the BBC still hasn't shown it on their forecast). Tonight should feel cooler, and tomorrow may only reach 25° C. There might even be a few light showers in the early evening.

  I thought yesterday was quite nice until mid afternoon or later. The evening was a bit oppressive. Just before midday I went to Tesco. As I walked there I could feel a nice cooling breeze, and it seemed ideal walking weather (for me). The bulk of my shopping was 4x2 litre bottles of Diet Coke. The rest was nowhere near as heavy as that. It didn't feel quite so fresh walking home again, and as expected, I was feeling rather hot and sticky when I got home.

  I didn't do all that much yesterday. I seemed to spend a fair amount of time just reading, although a lot of it was reading I.T. news stories. I was actually catching up with a load of item from last week, and as I did that more and more items came in. During the day I did manage to catch up on them at one point, but not for long. The other thing I did yesterday was an altogether hotter job !
 I did some laundry ! In this weather I only wear a t-shirt indoors if I have company, and so one t-shirt can be usable for several days or more when only worn for maybe half an hour to go out for some shopping. On the other hand I change my underpants every morning. This means that at this time of year in particular, I was more underpants than t-shirts. I also washed a pair of shorts. All this was done by hand.

  By the time I had done a wash in detergent, three rinses, and then fabric conditioner, wringing everything out between stages, I was dripping with sweat. I think the temperature was at least 33° C when I finished, and hung the stuff on the line to dry. In that bright sunshine and heat, everything was bone dry in little more than an hour, but I think it was closer to 2 hours before I brought it in.

  It was during the hot afternoon that I made what was probably a big mistake. Until then I had eaten nothing but some nuts....maybe too many, but usually they are safe for all but my waistline. In the afternoon I would have liked a heap of ice cream, but I can't have that these days. What I did have may have been almost as bad. I had some cheddar cheese flavoured coleslaw. I really wanted to buy the yoghurt based coleslaw, but maybe only Aldi sells that.

  A tub of chilled coleslaw was not exactly a substitute for ice cream, but it was cold, and it was nice......or was nice until I looked more closely at the nutritional information. What looked like a low-ish sugar content was actually for just a quarter of the tub, and I ate the whole tub. That was a surprising amount of sugar, and I have no idea why there should be any sugar in coleslaw.

  My dinner was much more wholesome. It was a couple of small, ready cooked, chicken breasts on a heap of mixed lettuce leaves. I did add a generous squirt of mayonnaise though. I thought the chicken would be dry, and something to lubricate it might be good. In fact it seemed to be soft and moist - which surprised me. I also added a sprinkle of salt on the theory that I will be loosing a lot of salt in this hot weather. As a general rule I don't add salt to anything I eat.

  The heat indoors did seem fairly oppressive in the evening. Although I did watch a bit of TV, with QI ending at 10pm being the last thing I watched, I was sort of keen to go to bed. I had dug out a second, small fan (about an 8 inch blade), and I clipped that to my bedside table to blow air over my face while the big (12 inch) desk fan blew air across the rest of my body. It worked surprisingly well.

  I seemed to be very comfortable in bed, and sleep came easily. Once again I had that thing where I didn't even realise I had been asleep until I saw the clock now read 2 or 3 hours later. As odd as it may seem of such a steamy night, I feel I probably had my best sleep for ages last night. I even seemed to wake at a good time - just after 7am. Of course I woke 3 or 4 times in the night for a pee, although my bladder was far from full each time. I think I do it more from habit than need on some or more nights now.

  Apart from the potential effects of the dubious coleslaw I ate yesterday, I was keen to see what my blood glucose was like this morning. It is with some desperation that I think I should have waited a bit longer for the pint of chilled water I started to drink soon after getting up, to take effect. This morning the meter said 9.0mmol/l. That does seem rather high after a mostly careful day of eating.

  The positive effect of trying to eat carefully to try and keep my blood glucose down is that I am definitely losing weight. I just tried my blue shorts on, and they are now almost easy to do up. A week or two ago it was a bit of a struggle to do them up. I have even dared to get on the scales this morning, and that shows a drop of probably about 2kg compared to last time (several months ago). Even more amazing is that readings was without having a poo this morning ! I have eaten so  little recently that I might not even need one today, but I would be happier if I did.

  As well as feeding the birds, I have also washed my hair, and had a shower this morning. It was delightful not to dry myself, and to walk around wet for a bit, although getting underpants on over wet legs was not so easy. My aim is to go for a walk in the park today. I don't think I will attempt to go too far, or do any hill climbing, but maybe a couple of miles before it gets too hot might be nice.