Today is seeming to be a lot like yesterday. There should be plenty of thin winter sunshine, often shining through thin misty clouds, but today could be a whole degree warmer ! From mid afternoon to 6pm it should be 4° C. In broad terms, it seems the description for today also fits tomorrow, and maybe even several days after, but it should slowly warm up a few degrees during those days.
 
   Most of yesterday was like the day before - not a lot happened ! However, once again, not a lot means that there were a few things that happened. One positive thing was that the postman delivered three of the Edmund Cooper books I had recently ordered via Amazon. I have to finish the current book I am reading before I can start the first of those three, and by the time I have read maybe a couple of them, I should be receiving two more books that seem to be taking a longer route to get here.

  As I think I mentioned yesterday, I didn't want to use the bath for anything yesterday because it was certainly cold enough for the waste pipe to have frozen again. I had intended to have a flannel wash over the handbasin which uses a different waste pipe, but to be honest, apart from brushing my teeth, I didn't wash at all yesterday. What I did do was to put on a quick blast of deodorant, and clean clothes before stepping out of the house.

  My destination was Poundstretcher. Stuff I bought there included 4 cans of sugar free Irn Bru, some spare bin bags, the last two bottles on the shelf of Magic Unicorn flavour shower gel, some spare hay fever tablets, and a couple of small cans of refried beans. Small cans meant that it was easy to moderate the "dose", and a check on the can showed they contained very little sugar - unlike, for instance, Heinz baked beans that are swimming in sugar !

  In a peculiar way it was nice walking to and from Poundstretcher. I was wearing a thick winter coat, and gloves, and it didn't feel uncomfortably cold like that. Normally I don't enjoy walking when all trussed up, but as I mentioned at the top of the page, the light and air seemed to have a very soft quality. I suspect it might have been good for some types of photography, but I didn't take a camera, and I can't imagine any views along the way that would look good under any sort of lighting.

  It was gone midday when I went out, and time for lunch when I got home. It seemed like a good day for some soup, and to go with some soup I managed to slice into three slices the thick end crust from a loaf of Polish sourdough bread. I had eaten the rest of it several days ago, and I thought it was be really stale and rock hard, but it toasted beautifully. The only trouble was I don't think it really went with chicken soup. I ate all the toast with that soup, but then I wanted another. I had a can of Tesco Irish stew which is like a thick chunky soup.

  After lunch there was one other thing I did that took up at least half an hour. I attempted to change the tap washer on my dripping hot water tap over the kitchen sink. The first hurdle was getting the tap handle off. I had a strong feeling that the small grub screw was a Torx screw. Fortunately I had a suitable screwdriver, and it came off easily. The next stage was to use the service valve on the water heater to stop the water getting to the tap.

  To my relief that service tap had not seized up over the years, but it was now not fully cutting off the water. It did reduce it to a slow trickle, and that was good enough. The next stage was to try and undo the tap mechanism. I couldn't seem to find an adjustable spanner, and I couldn't find a spanner that fit. That left trying to undo it using a pair of nut pliers (sometimes called a waterpump pliers). It was a very awkward angle to work, and my most grimacing with fluent swearing effort failed to get the bugger to move.

  I can't believe that tap mechanism is held in by a left hand thread, and it seems I must be furred in with deposited limestone. The other explanation is that the whole mixer tap came out of a skip, and my old friend Lee had bodged cleaning it up, and maybe had cross threaded it or something. Sooner or later I will have to get back to that leaking tap, and the next time I will make sure I have the correct spanner, or find my adjustable spanner.

  Other than the above, I had a typical lazy afternoon. I just read, and maybe I had a snooze at some point, but basically I did nothing until it was time to start cooking my dinner in the early evening. Last night's dinner was a departure from the usual. It was some sausages with a very small portion of oven chips, plus a small can of refried beans (one of the cans I had bought at Poundstretcher). The only thing of note was those refried beans. They were not exactly horrible, but were definitely not pleasant. They had been flavoured with cheap and chips cumin seeds in an attempt to make them seem more "Mexican". Cumin can be good, but only when carefully blended with other spices, or otherwise used in restrained quantities.

  Last night's TV viewing the typical selection I always seem to watch, except I didn't fancy one of the QI episodes, and I couldn't be bothered to stay up and watch the next. It seemed more comfortable, and more entertaining to take my book to bed and read for a while. It could have been a very long while, but after about an hour I tried to go to sleep. Once again it took ages before I could get to sleep. I think it was possibly just after midnight.

  Like most recent nights, once I was asleep I slept OK. I didn't even seem to get up for a pee as often as usual (or at least as far as I can remember). By 4am it did seem to be getting chilly in my bedroom despite having the heater on low. I turned the heater up full, and after about an hour for the room to warm up, I started sleeping really well. That included another session where at just gone 6am I decided for another five minutes, and woke up again at about 7.50am !

  I only had 10 minute to take screenshots of the weather forecasts before they were revised, and I lost an hour from the beginning of the forecast. It all seemed like a bit of a mad scramble, but it wasn't long before I had got those screenshots, been to the toilet,l checked my blood glucose, weighed myself, and taken all the pills I take every morning. It was no surprise that my blood glucose had gone up to 8.8mol/l. It is a shame it was up, but after what I ate yesterday it was to be expected. What wasn't expected is that since I last weighed myself a couple of days ago, I have lost a little weight. Little is the operative word here. It was only a small drop, and within the usual range of it bobbing up and down over a period of time.

  Today is Wednesday, usually the best day of the week. With luck I shall be spending a very pleasant hour with Angela in the pub at lunchtime. I'm thinking of getting there a bit early, and going by train so I can pick up a copy of The Metro st the station. I think I will pick up a few copies so I can give one to Ayse the barmaid, and get to take one home where I can hopefully complete the two crosswords in there.