The only good thing about today's weather is that there was no rain at 7am this morning. The latest revision to the forecast only shows one very slightly positive, but completely redundant thing - that 3pm may only feature light cloud instead of dark and heavy cloud. Most of the day shows just a 10% chance of rain, and that probably means it will be a dry day. It will be even cooler than yesterday. Just 8° C 7° C is forecast according to the latest revision. The temperature will drop a lot during the night, and we could be just a matter of a degree or two away from a frost in the small hours. The cloud will thicken up during the morning, and at the same time the temperature should rise to 8° C. The highlight tomorrow, if it actually happens, will be some sunny spells at 5pm.
 
   Yesterday was not such a miserable day as the day before. Some of the reason for that was just a matter of getting comfortable with the misery, but it was a day when I did take some positive action. I hand washed two t-shirts and two pairs of underpants.

  Another positive thing, although it was not of my making, was hearing from Michael. He messaged me to say he couldn't join us for any beer tasting today, and he wouldn't be doing his normal shopping run today. However, he did say he was out getting petrol, for a drive today, and while he was out he was going to get some shopping, and would I like some Diet Cokes ? I said "yes please".

  A couple of hours later a message from Michael said he was about to drop those bottles of Diet Coke off to me. That gave a chance to talk to him face to face for 5 minutes while standing at the back of his car in the road outside. I wanted to tell him basically what I have said about Angela being incommunicado since her accident. It was good to actually tell someone who had some sympathy for the situation. He offered some sympathy, and suggested a few weak reasons why Angela is behaving like it, but mostly it was just good to tell someone.

  I almost did nothing else for the whole day, but I ended up doing something that took up far more time than expected. I am no great fan of Star Trek: Voyager, but Michael is. Some individual episodes were good, but most weren't. Michael is most definitely a fan, and so I thought I would try and see if I could find a source to download the entire series. I did find it, and started downloading it before I realised that Michael had no way of playing it.

  It was a huge, 93GB, download, and I got halfway through before I started getting notifications I was running out of hard disk space. I ended up spending a lot of time transferring little used stuff from my main PC hard disk to back up disks. Eventually I had freed up enough space to continue downloading. This morning the full download had finished, and I transferred that 93GB onto my TV and Movies pair of back up external USB hard disks.

  One source of misery yesterday, and I have just been reminded today as well, was how cold it was. That meant burning more energy to keep me warm, and that means a big energy bill will be on it's way. The significant thing is how different it was a few days ago when it was cold outside, but the sunshine warmed my front rooms enough to not need any heating. I was looking forward to spring, and the need for less, or no heating, but suddenly it feels like winter again.
  The plants seem to think it is spring. This, the first of hopefully several daffodils was in flower yesterday. It is in the front garden, partially sheltered behind the little front wall. The front of my house soaks up, and re-radiates any warmth from the sun, and so the front garden is in a sort of sun trap. It is a sign that spring is on the way. I just hope it is a sunny spring, and not a miserable wet spring.

  Yesterday was another day where I had to fight my desire for extra to eat. I managed to just have rice cakes with cheese spread for lunch....and I was going to say "while what I really wanted was a hunk of meat". I suddenly remember I did have some meat, but it was not a big hunk of it. It was actually three rather thin pork breakfast patties. They were nice-ish, but rather insubstantial. I think I bought them ages ago, and they had been in the freezer since then. I think that is why I had a sort of later dessert for that lunch, which was the rice cakes and cheese.

  One thing I was originally intending to do yesterday was to go to The Jolly Farmers for a lunchtime drink. There were two reasons why I didn't go, although maybe the second reason was more a reason why it was good that I didn't go. The first reason was that it looks so cold, wet and miserable outside. That would not have been a problem if I knew I would be meeting Angela, but there was no chance of her being there.

  The second reason, although as I hinted above, was more a reason why it was good that I didn't go. I had a mild stomach upset, and I wasn't feeling completely comfortable at midday when I might have gone out. In other circumstances I might have chanced it, and maybe I might have gotten away with it, but just before 1pm I thought I might go to the toilet and see if anything happened. There was zero urgency about it, but once sitting, relaxed, on the toilet an awful lot happened !!

  My stomach still felt a bit tender after that, but at least it was a different, non gurgling, sort of tenderness. A couple of hours later and I had just about forgotten about it. A bit later still and I was definitely ready for my dinner. I had done most of the cooking the day before, and all it needed was another 15 minutes zapping in the microwave. It was a beef stew with some new potatoes, and runner beans plus a few green finger chillies. It was actually a bit of a small portion, and I will confess I followed it with a couple of small packets of crisps as a sort of dessert. I had been thinking of opening a can of rice pudding, but I managed to resist that idea.

  I watched a few of my usual TV programmes last night, but there was a 90 minute gap between The Simpsons ending, and the start of an episode of QI. I filled that gap in with some reading. QI finished at 10pm, and I went to bed where I read for maybe half an hour. After that I turned out the light, and while I spent 10 minutes wondering if I was going to suffer from insomnia I fell asleep.

  On the whole I slept fairly well last night. I know I had many dreams through the night, but only the last one has left any memory. In this dream I was in a theatre, apparently attached to a university, and so it was packet with students. I have no idea why I was there, but I did seem to be with a small group of three or four people, and so perhaps I had been taken there by them.

  The production was an amateur comedy show. It appeared to be based on Monty Python, but it was very haphazard. I didn't think it was very funny, but a young man on my right was really turned on by it. I think he probably knew the cast because some would wave back to him. The biggest problem for me was a typical problem in dreams, I could see people saying stuff, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. It seems most of us are good at imagining the visual, but fail at imagining any dialogue.

  In amongst all the negativity there was rather good news this morning. My blood glucose had fallen to just 7.8mmol/l. It seems my pancreas must be working overtime recently. It wasn't so long ago that it seemed to be taking a rest, but maybe that rest was good for it. What I want now is some warm, dry, and sunny weather, and try and get into some exercise again, and see if I can get even lower readings. Anything below 7 is a good indicator I am seriously starting to lose weight in a significant way.

  I hope that today I'll be seeing Jodie for a beer tasting session. She is not a great conservationist these days - our interests have diverged over the years, but a beer tasting session will break the monotony of cold, dull and miserable afternoons. Another break from reality could be a small shopping trip to Tesco this morning. I need to top up my instant noodle supplies, and there are other things that would be usefull.