Yesterday morning the forecast underestimated the bright morning. This morning they have gone the other way, and forecast more brightness than there is. Like yesterday, there is some hazy sunshine, but it comes and goes. It is enough to cast a fuzzy shadow. Later on it looks like it will possibly be bright-ish with white cloud covering the whole sky. The temperature is probably going to be similar to yesterday - still just 21° C in the latest revision, but maybe like yesterday we can expect another degree or two. Tomorrow may feature a lot more sunshine, although by mid afternoon it may only be in the form of sunny spells. It should push the temperature up to 25° C.

   Yesterday was generally a good day, but it didn't end well. I was feeling good that I had cleaned and tidied some of my bedroom, and I was looking forward to a lunchtime drink with Angela. Mostly I had a relaxed morning with plenty of time to shave, shampoo and shower, and then enough time to cool off before setting out to walk through the park.

  I thought I had left a bit early, but it wasn't really. I sent a text message to Angela saying I would see her at 1pm, or earlier. She replied "see you soon xx". I thought that it would mean she would be in the pub before 1pm, and so I didn't go the long way to the pub. I arrived at the pub at about 12:45, and ordered drinks for two. Then I waited. I think it was a few minutes after 1pm when Angela arrived. I had already drunk nearly half my pint of Guinness at that point.

  As usual, it was great to see Angela. Oddly enough there was not all that much to talk about, but there were no long silences. One topic that was covered briefly was gig going. Angela went to a sort of busking session in Bromley last Saturday. I was thinking of going myself, but I reserved my energies for the evening, but then just didn't feel like going out. The next gig where I could meet Angela is on Saturday at Chattfest. I hope I feel up to going there for a few hours, but I don't think I'll know it until the day.

  I continue to be slightly confused about Angela's relationship with lover boy. Except when on holiday together, it seems they only see each other  3 or 4 times a week. Last night Angela was going to her son's place for dinner. Apparently he is an excellent cook, and last night he cooked a roast beef dinner. I gather that at these dinners there is a very strong Greek ambience, and possibly Ouzo drunk. As far as I am aware, lover boy does not go - either because he is not invited, or because the culture is a bit alien to him.

  I had my usual two pints of Guinness before we left the pub. I walked Angela back to her office, and then walked straight home. I didn't measure it, but it felt like I kept a fairly fast pace going all the way home. I felt quite tired when I got home, and also rather peckish. I usually have a bite to eat after these lunchtime sessions, but I might have got a bit carried away. I wanted a bit more than just a snack, and put in 4 ready roasted, but very insipid looking chicken thighs into the mini oven for about 20 minutes. That gave them a better colour.

   I scoffed the lot, which was not my first intention. The thing that made it all worse was those chicken thighs were not very enjoyable. It's hard to say why they didn't taste good. Maybe it is because they came from battery hens or something. After eating I laid down on my bed to read and relax. I'm sure I must have had a snooze too. Nothing of great significance happened after that until dinner time.

  I thought that after my heavy lunch I would have a light meal. Maybe it wasn't so light because while it was based on four rice cakes, I may have given those rice cakes a rather generous topping of either cheese or ham (2 of each). I suppose the truth was that it did seem a fairly filling dinner, and I didn't want any more after it. I settled down to relax with a bit of TV or recordings of TV. It was barely 8pm when I started to hear noises. It was soon apparent that in blocking the mousehole the day before, I had trapped a mouse in my bedroom.

  At first the noises were intermittent, and would stop every time I moved an inch. My initial thought was that the mouse had got inside am open topped plastic tote box under my desk. I pulled it out, and took it to the bath. I surrounded the box with a fine sprinkle of talcum in the hope that if there was a mouse in it, and it got out, I would see foot prints, or something in the talc. I hoped that maybe I might "get it" (by which I probably mean bloody murder - somehow) before it got itself out of the bath, and ran amok in the rest of the house.

  It turns out it wasn't in that tote box because later on the noises increased to distinct gnawing sounds. It was too late to pull my bedroom apart last night, but a quick kick to the little set of plastic drawers, under my desk, shut it up. I suspect it was behind those drawers. By 9pm I was keen to go to bed, but I wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that mouse was chewing something up - maybe even trying to chew a hole through the skirting board.

  There was one cure, one way to shut the mouse up, and that was to make sure it was light under the desk. I left a bright LED work light on all night under the desk. That did seem to make the mouse shut up, although it could have sent it deeper under cover. It will be a disaster if it has got behind what is supposed to be a bookcase, but is just stuff with all sorts of stuff. Moving that will be a major undertaking. The other problem with the light is that it would have driven the mouse away from the one trap I put down for it.

  I guess that light gave me a quiet night, but I was still feeling tense and stressed. I seemed to get a fair amount of sleep, but this morning I had to get up earlier than desired because my legs were aching. When I got up I found other bits of me ached too. I had a lot of upper back pain, mostly centred around my right shoulder blade. My right wrist and elbow also seemed very sore. It almost felt 'flu like, or maybe a Covid symptom, and that would have gone well with the 5 minutes of Covid like coughing (possibly) at 5am this morning.

  Since getting up all my aches are  fading away. In fact I think they have all faded to nothing. My blood glucose was up a bit this morning. It was 8.8mmol/l. That is a bit above my typical average, but still in a safe place. My temperature seemed to be about 0.3°  higher than normal this morning, but is now about 0.3° C lower than at the same time for the last couple of days. Just to be inclusive, my blood pressure last night was slightly up to just under "normal".

  A fair bit of my day is already mapped out for me. I have already done some stuff. I've taken out the stuff to go in the recycling bin which will be emptied some time this morning. I've emptied out the plastic tote bin I left in the bath overnight. I concluded there was no point in saving some of it - just empty boxes for now obsolete technical stuff. I guess it is possible some museum would have liked the original boxes with their original contents, but they are heading for the bin now.

  There was also a fair bit to save from the box, but I'll store that elsewhere. There was evidence of the mouses existence in the box, but oddly enough it wasn't droppings. There was a sheet of paper that had the edge chewed off. There was also one box, and strangely only the one box, that looked like it might have had old mouse pee on it. I guess it is obvious this mouse problem has been going on, maybe very intermittently, for quite some time. If only it hadn't tried to gnaw through the skirting board at 3am it might have go away with it !

  Once I have washed and dressed properly I shall dig a little deeper to find the mouse, or at least to try and work out how it moves around and try and stop it. That job could last as long as my patience holds out. More definite is that between 1.30pm and 3.30pm (maybe at 2.30pm) I am expecting a delivery of assorted beers from Beautiful Beers. Probably around 3.30pm I am expecting Jodie to come over for another beer tasting session. Hopefully we will make a bit of space in the beer fridge for some of the beers from expected delivery today.