It's looking like today could be rather nice - at least compared to recent weather. The latest revision to the forecast only shows a one hour gap to the sunny spells at 5pm, and many of hours today will feature full sunshine. That should warm my front rooms up nicely, and also warm up the great outdoors to as 18° C, but sadly not to the 19° C shown for 4pm in the screenshot above - which seems odd because 4pm is shown as cloudy in the screenshot above, but is now shown as sunny spells. Tomorrow is back to the misery of just 16° C, and a dull and wet morning, but later in the afternoon the sky should clear enough for sunny spells until sunset. Of course the forecast for tomorrow will probably change beyond all recognition in the next 24 hours.
  Today is another day where I'll have to write this in two parts. I am due at the surgery for a 'flu jab at 10.30am, and before long I will have to drop tools, have a shower, and then go to the surgery. I can report on my visit when I resume writing after the event.

  Yesterday was a good and bad day. The morning, featuring some nice sunshine, was good, and from 4pm, when the rain started, it was bad. Incidently, it seemed to be a rare time when the forecast for rain going its starting time close to the minute. The first drops of admittedly very, very light rain, fall almost at exactly 4pm. It was another hour or two before it really started to rain heavily. It maybe wasn't "torrential", but it got everything very wet, very fast !

  Well before it started to rain, but after the best of the sunshine, I went out to buy some stuff from Poundland. At the top of my shopping list, or would have been if I had an actual shopping list, was candles and even more bird feed. I was disappointed with the range of candles they had, and the prices. They had 12 packs of the tall, long burning tea lights, but not many of them, and they were rather more than a Pound. They were £2, and possibly £2.50. I still bought two packs. I was disappointed that they had no cheap pillar candles left. I assume other people had noticed how they can take the chill off a cold room.....well 3 or 4 of them burning at once can.

  There was just one other physical thing I did yesterday, and it was to do a bit of laundry by hand. It was only a small amount because I knew I had to dry it indoors - just two t-shirts and 4 pairs of underpants. I hung it on the clothes horse in the front room, and used a desk fan as a local wind to blow it all dry. Unfortunately, with the room down to 18° C it was not going to dry very fast. Six or seven hours later, when I checked shortly before going to bed, it was still very damp. I think it is just about dry this morning.

  It's hard to account for a lot of the hours yesterday. One thing I did only once was to lie down and do some reading. It was too cold for that except for near midday when there was some warmth from the last remnants of the sun for the day. I ended up having a short snooze, and woke up almost shivering.

  One useful thing I did yesterday could loosely be called "filing" - moving a few things around on my PC to make the filing system a bit more logical. I started it when I realised I could put an accurate date on some negatives scans if I could find a railway ticket relevant to the day. It is fortunate that for many days out, particularly to the seaside, I did photograph or scan the tickets. Another source of dates, which I only realised yesterday, and so far only used once, is my old physical photo albums of the best prints from the days of using chemical photography - i.e. 35mm film.

  My excuse was that I was feeling cold, and I ate more than is ideal. Most of it, perhaps all of it would have been OK in lesser quantities. I got off to a bad start with two helpings of instant noodles, and then during the day I had a can or two of hot soup, and at least one round of rice cakes with two rounds of rices cakes with cheese on one round, and Brussels pate on another round of four rice cakes. I am unsure why I bought the Brussels pate. It is sort of nice, but probably not as nice as most cheeses.

  My dinner, eaten while watching some TV, was not that big, but I doubt it was healthy. It was a "stew" made with pre-grilled bacon, sprouts and (ready cooked/prepared) chestnuts. If there was one bad thing about it, it was that it seemed very salty. I'm not so sure those chestnuts didn't contain some sugars in one form or another. As far as I can recall it was satisfying enough to not need a top up before bed.

  Last night I watched the usual TV, including QI. It seems like I had not seen the beginning of that episode before, but I had seen the rest of it. It was a fairly interesting episode, and I watched it all before going to bed when it finished at 10pm. It was pretty cold in my bedroom when I went to bed, and although I wanted to try and finish the chapter of the book I am reading before trying for sleep, I didn't fancy trying to read more. I wanted to get everything, apart from my face, under the duvet, and then go to sleep.

  I know I got up to pee a couple of times in the night, and I know I had some good dreams, but it feels like I slept really solidly last night. Once again only one bit of one dream has stuck in my memory. I know the dream was a lot longer, but all except a tiny bit are like trying to peer through fog if I try to remember any more. I can remember vague images, but I think I may have even thought I ought to remember this bit even as I dreamed it.

  I was in a small pub, and I knew almost everyone in there, and they mostly knew each other. They were past workmates, or musicians from bands I know. Despite knowing each other everybody was grouped in twos or threes. Despite being a little odd, that wasn't the stand out thing. What did stand out was the beer I was drinking. I don't think it exists in real life, but it was called "Crews Hill ale", and it was the most delicious beer I have ever tasted. I think I downed my pint in just three of four gulps !

  This morning I did what seems to be almost normal now - I woke up some time after 5am, checked the clock, and decided it was too early. Evidently it was because I fell asleep again rather too easily, and it was getting on for 7am when I woke up again. This time I did get up. I felt basically OK, and until the effect of the warm duvet wore off I didn't even feel cold. Of course I did later because despite it now being October, I don't want to waste money on heating.

  The big disappointment this morning was my blood glucose - probably more disappointing because it was the start of a new month. The reading was 9.0mmol/l. That isn't awful, and I would hardly remark on it if it were 8.9mmol/l, but it spoils the start of the month, and it should limit what I eat today. With the nice sunshine we are still scheduled to have, plus the fact that a maximum temperature of 19° C has been re-instated in the latest revision to the forecast, means I should feel too much cold hunger today.

  There is another reason for being careful with what I eat today. There are no trains today because of the rail strike, but I am still thinking of going out to a gig tonight. Hell On Tap are playing in The Oak pub in Bromley, and they are playing two sets tonight. The first starts at the very reasonable time of 7.30pm. The only catch is that the pub is a long-ish walk from the nearest bus stop for a bus from Catford. I think there is a bus that goes along the road the pub is on, but I don't know if I can be bothered to wait for a bus just to go two stops. Of course it is possible that when the time comes I won't feel like going out.

  Before I forget, I have had my 'flu jab. A last minute visit to the toilet meant a rush to the surgery, and I think I broke past records by getting there is little more than 4 minutes. I was actually just 2 minutes early, and was seen only about a minute or two after my appointment time of 10:30am. I was jabbed and out again in little more than a minute, and home again by 10:40am. If only all appointments ran that smoothly !