The forecast for today, as predicted yesterday afternoon, was for a day a lot like yesterday - sunny spells in the afternoon. That changed to rain all afternoon in last night's forecast. This morning they have settled on it being dry after this mornings rain, but it will be rather dull. Maybe there is still hope because the very latest revision does show midday as now featuring sunny spells. Maybe there will be more in reality (fingers crossed). Whatever happens it is going to be very cool at just 11° C.  Maybe tomorrow will feature a lot of sunny spells, but the temperature will remain at just 11° C as we head into full winter in maybe just a few weeks.

  I think I have to describe yesterday as a good day, although perhaps good until mid to late afternoon was good. I suppose sunset killed any remaining enjoyment of the day. It is hard to enjoy deep gloom, and a bit later, heavy rain ! The sun had started to appear before I finished writing yesterday, and that spurred me on a lot - not that I needed a lot of encouragement.

  I didn't bother to wash my hair yesterday, as I would usually do on a Wednesday, because I only washed it the day before, and in this weather it doesn't get greasy from sweat. I did have a wet shave, just in case, before my shower. I was dry and dressed an hour before I needed to, and that allowed some time to cool down after the hot shower. The sunny spells were making me eager to go out, and it turned out that I could have left to get a train before the one I actually got.

  I could have walked to the pub, but I wanted to get a copy of The Metro (for the crosswords) to take with me to the pub for some entertainment if things got a bit dull. I was not expecting Angela to turn up, although I left some clues that I would be there in case she changed her mind. Despite getting the train, I seemed to spend a fair time in the park, and didn't get to the pub until just a few minutes before 1pm.
  I had hoped to walk through the park in sunshine, and I almost did but one cloud came along and covered the sun just as I was getting into position to take what I hoped was going to be a nice high contrast picture of the sun on the grass, deep shadows behind trees, and a lovely deep blue sky. In the picture above the sun would be in the centre of the picture. The camera has toned down the extreme brightness, but you can still see it is very bright there - right in the densest part of the cloud.
  The view to the north, and apart from a few whisps of almost transparent cloud, the sky is a lovely blue. It is such a shame that there was no sunshine for another 5 or 10 minutes. I could have waited, but I had a few more things to photograph, and I was looking forward to a pint of Guinness.
  It seemed bright when I took this photo of a squirrel, but there was not enough sunlight to cast a shadow. I was getting close to hand feeding this squirrel, and another nearby (it was burying a nut I had thrown to it), but as always happens in the vicinity of St Mary's church, as soon as one pigeon sees there is free food, the whole flock descends to harass the squirrels, and grab any nuts meant for the squirrels.

  It was just a few minutes before 1pm when I went into the pub. As expected, but not as hoped, Angela didn't show up. I still had a very pleasant time. With no Angela to distract me, I am getting more friendly with a few of the regulars in the pub. There is often no more than five of us in the entire pub, and that gives plenty of time for Asia, the barmaid to chat. She is such a dear, and often does table service rather than ordering at the bar.

  It was such a shame that she was suffering from really bad back ache yesterday. One of the other customers had given her a couple of Co-Codamol tablets, and over the course of an hour she improved a lot. The general chit chat going on in the pub, including stuff about Asia's back ache was so distracting that I was having difficulties doing the crosswords in the paper. I managed all but one answer in the quick crossword, but I could only manage one single answer in the cryptic crossword.

  I gave myself some extra time by having a third Guinness. It is very rare for me to do that. It didn't help with the crossword puzzles, but I enjoyed it. After the third pint I decided I had to go, but I didn't go straight home. A bit earlier Asia had been saying that she wanted something to eat, preferably something sweet. Someone had left a Flapjack behind the bar, and she was debating whether to eat it or not. After I left the pub I went into the Romanian shop next door, because the bakers in the shop after that was closed, and bought some little sweetmeats for Asia. They only cost £2 for a bag of 5 assorted types, and I went back in the pub for just 30 seconds to give them to Asia.

  It was unfortunate that we had lost the sunshine just before I left the pub, and I am not sure I saw it again for the rest of the day. The previous two Wednesday's I have gone home via Ladywell Station, but both times involved quite a long wait for a train (the first time I gave up and walked home). Yesterday I decided to walk straight home. I was hoping having three pints of Guinness sloshing around inside me would not make for an uncomfortable walk, and it almost didn't.

  I was walking moderately fast, and after 10 minutes I could feel a sort of series of developing aches. In some ways it reminded me of angina, but it wasn't exactly like that. If anything it reminded me of being out of practice. This happens now and then. I think it was before lockdown, a couple of years ago, I used to consider walking to Ladywell and back to be completely knackering, and the halfway point, going up the slope to the Ladywell Road entrance to really knock me back, but with a bit of perseverance I improved, and it left me in a good place to build up to the 6 or more mile walks I did during lockdown.

  Just to prove the point that it was not angina I forced myself to speed up a bit, instead of slowing down when I was about 5 minutes from home. I was feeling quite uncomfortable when I got home, but I recovered in minutes once home. I treated myself to a plate of oven chips with cheese on them for my late lunch. Once I ate that I transferred my pictures, all taken on my new mobile phone, to my PC, and then I laid down, and read for a bit before I had a long, and least I think it was a long snooze.

  When I woke up it wasn't exactly dark, but the clouds had got really thick, and it was quite gloomy. Sunset was probably still 20 minutes away at that point. I suddenly remembered the discovery I had made the day before, and turned on the TV to watch Star Trek: The New Generation. I followed that by two more Star Treks. I think it was during the first that I had 4 Marmite rice cakes with cheese on them because I was feeling peckish. Just before 7pm when The Simpsons was due on Channel 4+1 I fancied some dinner, but after the cheese on chips, and then the rice cakes, I didn't feel like, or dare have a big dinner....

.....so I had a big dinner. Except it was supposed to be a light dinner of two cans of soup. As I was selecting my cans of soups my eye lit on a can of Tesco canned Chicken Korma curry. I knew it to be rubbish, but I had it anyway. I think the reason it was hiding among the soups was because only after buying it I realised it had a high sugar content. At this time I don't know that was definitely the case, and I haven't bother to dig the can out of the recycling bin to check. The second soup I knew to be fairly low sugar, but just the quantity of the two cans made it a big dinner.

  Maybe my afternoon snooze was as long as it seemed like it was, and maybe after that, plus feeling slightly bloated, gave me another night that featured several periods of insomnia. I think it must have been almost midnight before I finally fell asleep. I woke around 2am for a pee, and then had another short period of insomnia. It wasn't helped by another struggle between feeling too hot or too cold depending on the amount of duvet I covered myself with. One oddity is that it seemed my legs were feeling hotter than my chest and face. My legs felt like the were producing just enough sweat to very lightly stick to the duvet, and every time I m9oved my legs they would sort of pull at the duvet.

  I woke up for another pee at just after 4am, and before I went back to bed I turned the heater on low. With the mornings now getting so cold it is tempting to turn the heater up to full blast. It has been on low for 6 hours now as I type this, and my bedroom is merely tepid. Maybe it will warm up a bit more now that we have some hazy sunshine. I am wondering if the forecast from yesterday afternoon may yet prove to be right - a sunny afternoon.

  I guess I have to blame it on the soup last night, but this morning my blood glucose reading was very high. It was 9.5mmol/l. That has ruined a good run of low readings, but hopefully it is a one off, and won't have ruined my rolling average for the month too badly. Apart from that, I am not sure how I feel this morning. It seems unlikely, but I think I appear to feel fairly good, but then again I have done almost nothing to prove that true or false.

  My plans for today are very simple. Once I have finished writing I shall have a shower, and after that I need to go to Tesco for some things. This afternoon should be a beer tasting session. It may start a little earlier than usual, and it may finish a little earlier. Jodie is off to a gig tonight, and will, in effect, just be passing through. Quite how she enjoys a gig while tanked up is a mystery to me !