I had high hopes for a nicer day, but the forecast for today shows it will be mostly a dull day. It has certainly been very dull so far this morning, and the idea of sunny spells at 9am doesn't seem likely when I look at the sky. Maybe there will be a sunny spell or two later today. The highest chance of rain today is just 10%, and so it will probably be dry, and it seems it may be a little less cool today with an afternoon high of 21° C. Tomorrow is currently shown as having a few more chances of sunny spells, and even when cloudy it could be lighter cloud. It may even reach 22° C in the afternoon.
 
  For some reason I tend to think of yesterday as being a good or successful day. In reality I only did one significant thing. The rest of my day was almost a lazy day, but even that may not be quite correct when measured against one metric. However it is measured, I definitely had a lazy hour or two after I had finished writing yesterday. I started writing quite late, and it usually takes a couple of hours to write all this because I am not a touch typist !

  In that free time in the morning I was quietly reading, and even resting my eyes now and then. I was not feeling that inspired because it was rather dull outside. It felt like I should be going to bed rather then getting up. After an hour or two it started to brighten up, or at least it seemed to, and I thought it was high time I had a shower, and get dressed to go out. I still wanted to go to either Savers and/or Poundstretcher.

  While I was in the shower the sky got darker and darker again, and before I had finished my shower it started chucking it down with rain. It seemed so heavy at one point that I would not have been surprised if there had been a clap of thunder. After my shower I became resigned to a dull and boring afternoon, but just as quickly as the sky had darkened, it got lighter again, and continued to get lighter still.

  Suddenly it was a sunny day, although really just a moderately long sunny spell. I quickly put my jeans and boots on, grabbed my rucksack, plus a spare shopping bag, and went out into the dazzling sunshine. My first port of call was Savers. I bought some vitamin tablets plus some bottles of toilet cleaner from there. At the moment they have some very pleasantly perfumed toilet cleaner bleach for what I suspect is far cheaper than the local supermarkets sell it for.

  Before I left Savers I extracted my shopping bag from my rucksack before I put the rucksack on, and crossed the "road" to go in Poundstretchers to buy lots more stuff. I wanted to buy more hay fever tablets, but they only had the wrong ones. Another thing they didn't have was any of the glass bottomed food storage boxes with the clip on lids. The glass bottom is good for cooking stuff in the microwave, and once cooked, the lid, with it's red gasket, is such a good fit that it becomes a vacuum seal, and the clips aren't really needed. To get the lid off you either bugger it up by forcing a knife or something under the gasket, or more simply, and safely, pop it in the microwave for long enough for the contents just starting to boil. That releases the vacuum, and the lid is just held on by gravity.

  There were four things I did buy in sufficient quantity to end up with quite a heavy bag to carry home. I bought four cans of sugar free drinks. The Fanta (at least I think it was Fanta, but it might have been another famous make) sugar free berry and peach was very delicious in small quantities - like just one 330ml can. I bought even more toilet cleaner in there. This time it was "Forest" (aka pine) smelling Toilet Duck. It smells nice, unlike Lavender which smells like an explosion in a chemical factory.

  I think I have mentioned that I am buy up cheap candles to use as supplementary heating in the winter months. I have this stupid idea that as a fuel they are cheaper than gas or electricity. Of course this only applies to "poundshop" quality candles, and not expensive branded candles. I bought several, and two of them were semi expensive (£2) scented pillar candles. My other heavy purchase was quite a lot of bird food. Poundstretchers seems to have a very big range of it at the moment.

  When I got home I had a can of pea and ham soup. I had originally heated it up when it was all horrible, dark, and wet outside, but left it in the microwave when the sun came out. I wouldn't have have had hot soup while the sun was shining, and warming up my front, south facing rooms, but with it already in the bowl I gave it a couple of minutes in the microwave to warm it up again, and ate it.

  After eating the soup I went back into relaxation mode - laying on my bed reading and resting my eyes. I can't quite remember if resting my eyes translated to a snooze or not. I feel sure I must have had at least one snooze. I did very little else yesterday afternoon, but maybe I did enough small things, like scanning a few documents, to stop me becoming too bored. I think there were a few times when the sun was shining through my bedroom window, and I was feeling warm, when I wished I had bitten the bullet, and gone out somewhere. I was quickly cured of that idea when the next rain fell. There were quite a few showers yesterday, and generally they were separated by sunny spells - that was not the picture the weather forecast painted.
  It wasn't just the forecast that was wrong, but today it seems like the weather itself has got it wrong today. Last night, specifically at 7.37pm, there was a red sky, although maybe only in the view to the north, like this picture shows. That should have heralded fine weather for today, but as I look outside it looks pretty grim out there, although I will admit it is not raining, and it doesn't look like it will rain any time soon.

  My evening was spoiled by many TV stations allowing the schedules to be disrupted by endless repeating stuff they had been showing all day about the death of the queen. The Simpsons was still shown in the electronic programme guide, but was never shown. I was hoping to see Have I Got New For You on BBC1, but that too was in the programme guide, but was never shown. The really annoying thing was that the "Special News" was listed as being on before Have I Got New For You, but the "Special News" just went on and on and on and on, endlessly repeating the same stuff over and over again. While Have I Got New For You was supposed to be on it looked like they were showing every home movie reel the royal family ever shot.
  There is some sort of good about all this. Just like in 1952 we can look forward to a new set of coins being minted with Charles III on them. The coins in the picture above are from my collection of coins from 1948 showing the likeness of George VI on them. That was the year when I had examples of four different coins, a 2/-, a 1/-, a sixpence and a half penny. I do have a couple of example of 1951 coins, but not 4 different types. I have none from 1952, when I think George VI snuffed it, and then the Liz II coins start at 1953.

  With nothing worth watching from 9pm I went to bed and spent a fair time reading. I found myself in that curious state of not being tired, but feeling sleepy (or was it the other way around ?). I think it was getting on for 11pm before I fell asleep properly. I can't seem to remember much about the night at all. I think I might have heard rain falling at one point, but I barely remember getting up to pee, but I know I did at least 3 times, and I can't seem to recall anything about dreaming last night, although once again I feel like I did dream.

  The only notable thing about this morning is that my blood glucose is up a little bit, but still a very good, below average 8.3mmol/l. I feel OK-ish, but I don't feel like I have any enthusiasm or even strength for anything. Maybe just one sunny spell could improve my mood. I really don't know what I am going to do today. Last night I was thinking I might try for the ultimate station on my quest to visit all the limits of my Freedom Pass, but this morning my enthusiasm has dried up.

  That ultimate station is Reading. It is a very long journey from here. It is a long journey just to get to Paddington station where I could get the Transport For London rail service that I can travel on for free using my Freedom Pass (It may be called The Elizabeth line now [which is gradually being changed to be called the purple line]). From Paddington it is a very slow, stopping at a multitude of stations, over 50 minute ride to Reading. It is probably quicker to fly there !

  The only good thing in favour of going today, but also a reason not to go today, is that trains from Catford station are terminating at Victoria station today for some reason. Victoria would be a good point to get the District line to Ealing Broadway station which would short circuit some of the travel to get to the purple line, but it is still a boring 14 stops on the District line to Ealing Broadway. Whichever was you look at it, it is going to be a very tedious journey. I can't help feeling that it is better done on a weekday, and even better on a sunny week day.

   Oh, to make matters worse still, the service from Catford station to Victoria is only once an hour !! I don't think I'll be leaving Catford on such a dull day, and I am not sure I'll even be leaving my house today ! Having said that, a very strange thing has just happened. One of the songs on my 1500 song playlist on my computer is Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting", and it has just been playing. As she sang the words "the sun is coming out" the sun actually came out for real here. Suddenly the world is a nicer place, but for how long ? 10 minutes ? Half an hour ? A full hour ? The latter seems too much to hope for.