The sky seems to be fairly clear this morning, and all my thermometers agree that at 7am it was barely 9° C. So another cold start, but there could be either sunny spells or full sunshine until midday. After that it will probably revert to a dull, but dry day, although there is a 10% chance of rain some time later this afternoon - maybe 3pm, or maybe 5pm according to the latest revision. The temperature should match yesterday at 17° C. Tomorrow forecast shows a milder morning, but the same old 17° C in the afternoon. There may be some sunny spells in the middle of the day and there may be some extremely dull hours.
 
  I guess that yesterday was another semi-successful day, but I do feel I didn't make all that much use of a rare (for the moment) bright and sunny day. My final thoughts when I was writing yesterday morning where that I wondered if I would feel good enough to go out exploring on the trains. Like many times in the past, it was only with hindsight that I realised I could have gone out with little problem.

  Yesterday was sort of half and half. By 11am it seemed like I would probably not need the toilet again, and indeed I didn't, but a bit later on, when if I had gone out, I could have been on a busy train, I started a few vile in the extreme farts. I guess you could say they were curry flavoured ! I would not have been popular on a busy train if I let those go !

  I did make use of the sunshine in another way. I did some laundry. It was only one t-shirt and some underpants, but it did include the pair of shorts I had been wearing indoors, when by myself, for most of the summer months and beyond. I have to admit they were a bit smelly, and had a few food stains on them. I hung all that washing on the washing line to dry, and a combination of sunshine and a fair breeze dried them in little more than 4 or 5 hours.

  It was probably another couple of hours later that I did another small load of laundry - once again all by hand. That lot included another t-shirt, and a pair of pants that are somewhere between lounge pants and pyjama bottoms. It also included 5 face flannels and a bar towel. There was an interesting reason for so many face flannels....

  One other little job I did yesterday was to put away all my pairs of shorts (except for the pair drying on the washing line). Many of them had nice big pockets where it was useful to keep a face flannel to dry my face off when walking on on hot and sweaty days. I think I found three face flannels that way. They reminded me that I had face flannels tucked away in camera bags - also useful on hot days, or in hot pubs when I was taking pictures of a band.

  When the sun had moved around and was no longer shining in my front rooms, it began to cool down a lot. I had a snooze in the late afternoon, and woke up feeling very chilly. I decided it was time to put on thick sweat pants, and a moderately thick (compared to a t-shirt) long sleeved top rather than turn on any heating. It seems far too early to start burning very expensive electricity. I would like to try and hold out until at least November before I (hopefully) use some heating sparingly.

  When I took the picture on the left it was still bright outside, and sunset was hours away, but with no sunshine coming through the window the room was cooling quite fast. I took the picture at 6.39pm according to the time shown as part of the filename. It must have been around that time that I went out to bring my laundry in. The two items at the end of the line, the t-shirt and pair of shorts were still feeling warm where they were just about catching the last rays of the sun.

  Before I put those shorts away until next summer, I did a bit of work with needle and thread. It was because I only wore those shorts indoors that I never wore a belt with them. That resulted on all the strains around the waist band falling on just one button. Gradually the button had got a bit loose, and the button hole was a bit stretched. I put a few stitches around the end of the button hole to re-inforce it, and than I cut off the button, and sewed it on a bit further from the edge. I didn't try the shorts on after my needlework, but I expect they would have been a bit tighter than before. More importantly the zip should say closed now instead of falling down to half mast. The only trouble is that the button hole is now too tight, but I expect it will all wear in next year.

  I can't seem to remember what I ate through the day. I had one bowl of instant noodles for breakfast. I think I had a single can of hot soup to warm me up around lunchtime, and I am sure I had four rice cakes with ham on them. So far so good, if indeed that was all I had. Actually, I did have a handful of peanuts at some point. It was hard not to eat more because I was so looking forward to part two of my Indian takeaway.

  Maybe it would have been good to have another can of soup or something because my first course of Indian takeaway didn't seem to satisfy me. That was lamb pathia (or maybe bhuna - I can't remember which one I had the night before) with pilau rice. It really should have been enough, but I couldn't resist the urge to eat the tandoori mixed grill. It is entirely possible that, and that alone was my downfall.

  I spent some of the evening watching a few more old episodes of Drop The Dead Donkey. Unfortunately many of the episodes in my collection are of quite low quality, but it seems the humour or satire, or just absurdity, is strong enough to not need a high definition picture. If it didn't I could spend £30 and buy the complete series on DVD from Amazon, but on the other hand I doubt a crisper picture could make up for any lack in those three things.

  I had contemplated going to a gig in Greenwich last night ("just one bus ride away" I was reminded). If it had been an 8pm start I might have made a little effort at going, but last night I was in bed, reading, before the gig even began. It was nice and warm under my duvet, maybe even too warm at first, and that was another reason to not stay up, and be tempted to put on some heating.

  I can't remember when I turned the light out, but it was probably not long after 9pm. My right elbow was getting cold as I held the book, and as it got cold it started to really ache. I started to wonder about some sort of way of keeping it warm, or give it extra support or something. It is a legacy of the elbow being dislocated for a few months before it popped back in it's socket when I got a small electric shock at work. I'm sure I can recall seeing some sort of elbow support thing among the first aid items in Poundstretcher. If they have I will probably buy one the next time I am in there. In the meantime I might cut the end of a thick sock off, to leave a thick woolly tube (that will probably unravel after a day or two) and use that as an elbow warmer.

  Much of my night was OK. I did have one short period of insomnia at around 1am. By then it was definitely feeling very cool in my bedroom, and it is then that I probably spent some time thinking about what to do about my elbow. It is probably then when I came up with the idea of using a sock to keep the elbow warm. I was also awake for a short time around 6am. Had it been warm I would probably got up, but I fancied warming myself up under the duvet for a bit after a cold 5 minutes in the bathroom. I don't think I expected to fall asleep again, but the next thing I knew was that it was just gone 7am.

  It is lucky I did get up then because I would otherwise have been wakened by a text message on my phone. It was just 7.15am, and my initial thought was it must be something very important. Believe it or not, it was form my GP surgery, and it was a reminder to book my appointment for my covid booster jab - the one I had at the hospital a week ago ! When I saw the nurse on Friday I asked her to check and see if it appeared on my medical record. Unfortunately it hadn't been recorded, but the nurse said not to worry because like the previous 3 jabs, it would turn up sooner or later. I said I hoped it would be sooner so I wouldn't get spammed by their practice computer which is well known to have verbal diarrhoea. Well it seems it has started already. I am not sure why the nurse couldn't update my records when I showed her the card the hospital gave me with all the details of the jab.

  The bad new continues this morning with my blood glucose reading. That Indian takeaway has shot my reading well into the danger zone at 11.3mmol/l. As I mentioned further up the page, I think the tandoori mixed grill is probably the main culprit. I have a theory that to get all the golden brown colours of the meat and stuff, they glaze it with syrup. Some of it almost feels sticky. As a hopefully one off reading it is not a disaster, but it means I ought to try and fast for as long as possible today.

  There is a major flaw in that plan. I still have a naan bread to eat, and they can be fairly sweet, and the mixed vegetable side dish I will have on it will not be that innocent. Not only that, but Jodie will be over this afternoon for some beer tasting. Trying to control eating while drunk is very, very hard ! Maybe I should just say "to hell with the consequences" and eat that last bit of Indian takeaway this morning to get it out the way, and then to just have some cans of very low sugar soup for dinner after the boozing.