The sky has been clear for some time now, and that has allowed the temperature to drop to 6° C. I'm not sure it was a degree higher an hour or two ago. It will soon be gloriously sunny once the sun has climbed high enough to shine over the houses to the east, and it should stay sunny all day long. It will still be cold though, although the latest revision to the forecast predicts it could reach 8° C by 2pm. Tomorrow might manage 10° C. There could be sunny spells in the morning, and rain from about 6pm.

   It seems impossible to say why, but yesterday wasn't bad for a Sunday, and even not bad for a Xmas day. Somehow the day seemed to pass by very painlessly. I think I only did two things of note - one important, and the other almost frivolous. The important was to wash a bath towel. The frivolous was to start ripping a Futurama box set of DVDs.

  I had left it too long before I washed that bath towel. It hadn't gone detectably smelly, but it seemed to have soaked up a lot of soap during the time I was using. As far as I am aware, I always think I rinse all the soap off after a shower, and yet it takes ages to rinse the detergent and all that soap from the towel. After 8 rinses I gave up, but the rinse water was still slightly frothy. I hung it to dry in the dining, and because I intended to do a bot of stuff in the dining room, I hastened the drying by using a fan heater on low. By last night the towel was just about dry, and I hung it over the banister rail ready to use when I have a shower today.

  I very, very rarely use the big TV in the front room, and do all my video/TV watching on one or other of my PCs. It is far more convenient to watch mp4 video files on the PC rather than DVD disks. So it is my habit of ripping my DVDs to mp4 files. Yesterday, with rather a lot of time on my hands, I thought I might binge watch episodes of Futurama. In the end I didn't do that, but I did start to rip the disks in a 23 disk box set containing every episode of Futurama ever made (plus some extra stuff that isn't always terribly entertaining).

  I have no idea of the brand new price of that box set, but I suspect it was considerably more, perhaps by a factor of ten, than the £15 I paid for it in a secondhand shop. By this morning, having let the PC in the dining room run overnight, I am only halfway through the second series - and there are 8 series in total.  I can't be sure, and in fact I think I may well be wrong, but I have this feeling that series 8 may not have been shown on English TV.  By the time I have binge watched the first 7 series I will have probably forgotten series 8 if I had seen it before. I look forward to seeing it.
  Yesterday morning I mentioned something to the effect that though it would probably be a boring day (as Sundays and Xmas days tend to be) I would have to try not break the boredom by eating. Somehow I managed it. Maybe it was because I did have three "proper" meals and very little snacking. My breakfast was the now usual instant noodles. Lunch was special cheese on toast, as shown above.

  I used the last three slices (one was actually the crust) of the Polish sourdough bread, and started by toasting it in the mini oven/grill. I then added some dried sage to the little pot of finely diced onion and other stuff that is usually for eating with poppadoms, and came with my Xmas even Indian takeaway. I put that on the toast, and then covered that with cheese before popping it back in the mini oven/grill. I have to say it was rather delicious.

  Later on in the afternoon I did have a snack of some ham with a chunk of cheese. My excuse was it was to use the ham up before it hit it's best before date. I must admit that from as early as 5pm I was salivating at the thought of my dinner, but I held out to about 6.30pm before I zapped my dinner of Chicken Pathia with Pilau rice for 5 minutes in the microwave. It was predictably very nice, but somehow seemed to be a slightly small dinner. I reckon about an extra 10% would have been right....or maybe an added vegetable side instead.

  Most of last night's TV was appalling ! Sky Arts were showing a whole evening of Elvis bloody Presley. I would rather stick my penis in a hornets nest than watch that. Fortunately Dave were showing two episodes of QIXL, and although there was a break of an hour between them, I watched both episodes before going to bed. One of the odd seeming things about last night was that while it was cool, it didn't feel cold.

  I took the opportunity to turn the heater off by about 8pm, and didn't turn it on again until about 4am this morning. In theory I should have slept better because I would spend less time fighting the duvet. That did not turn out to be fully true. I still felt a bit too warm under the duvet, and to my detriment, I did spend a cold hour or two sleeping mostly uncovered. By 4am, or thereabouts, my right elbow was feeling very painful where it had got chilled. Earlier on my head, which is always uncovered while I sleep, was evidently hot enough because it was sweating enough to give me a damp pillow.

  Once again I don't think I managed to fall asleep until almost midnight. Once I was asleep I seemed to sleep reasonably well, but I still felt fairly uncomfortable. My right shoulder has felt a bit stiff and aching lately - although not all the time. Then there was my right elbow as I mentioned in the last paragraph. The odd thing is that it doesn't always feel like the pain is centred on the elbow joint, but using a elbow support bandage type thing, seems to have stopped the pain.

  I remember having lots of dreams, but just one bit of one seems to have stuck in my memory. I think there was some sort of lead in to it, but the first bit I remember was walking up to a front door, and ringing the doorbell. I don't know who it was I was supposed to see, but I knew I was supposed to guide him to the hospital where I think he was due to start a new job. I have a feeling that I was working there, but I have no idea what it was. I don't think I actually saw the person I was supposed to meet. The house seemed very dark, and very old fashioned. I was lead through to the kitchen to wait. I think it was his dad who had answered the door, and standing at the stove was what must have been his grandfather. It was like stepping back to the 1950s, or earlier, and I didn't enjoy it. It was much nicer when I woke up.

  I would like to say I had a carefully planned diet yesterday, but it was really rather random, and driven by what I had available. I am sure that cheese on toast shouldn't have been ideal, and usually a curry has bad results. However, once again I had a lower blood glucose reading this morning. At best I hoped for another 8.5, but this morning it was just 8.2mmol/l. If I carry on like this I might even go below 8.0 tomorrow. If I do I will celebrate by eating the cake that has been in the cupboard for maybe a whole year, maybe even more. I bought it because I was in the mood for something nice one miserable day, and then I lost my nerve, and didn't eat it. It is fully sealed and so is probably OK.

  If my blood glucose reading is lower tomorrow I shall have the cake for breakfast, but this morning I had a big bowl of instant noodles as usual. Lunch will probably be cheese on toast, but with a twist. The toast will actually be naan bread. Tonight's dinner will be another Indian main dish with a vegetable side dish (I've eaten all the rice). I will try not to have any snacks, but if I do I think it could be corned beef on chilli dusted rice cakes.

  I know there are a few things I will do today. The most important is to have a good shower, and maybe wash my hair two. I didn't bother to wash at all yesterday because the chance of seeing anyone was so close to zero that it was not worth the effort. I think I have a bit more laundry to do today. I have a hand towel that has gone smelly, and I can wash that with a t-shirt and a pair or three of underpants.

  I will continue ripping those Futurama DVDs, and then..... I am contemplating going to the pub at lunchtime. If I do I think I will stick to just a couple of pints of Guinness. The four double Jameson whiskies were very nice on Xmas eve, but the early evening hangover was not such a great idea. On the other hand, I might just stay in and pass the day like yesterday. That seemed moderately pleasant even if unexciting.