Until this morning the Met Office predicted that today would be generally dull. Meanwhile the BBC were more optimistic with predictions of sunny spells for much of the day. This morning both predicted some sunshine and sunny spells. That has now been revised again, and the Met Office now says the sunny spells will end at midday. The BBC are far more optimistic and say sunny spells until 4pm. Curiously enough, although both forecasters seemed to get there by different routes, they agree there will be rain this evening. Both agree that the temperature will rise to 12° C. Tomorrow could be wet in the afternoon, but a few sunny spells before may be possible, and the temperature should reach 13° C, and possibly just touch 14° C for a very short time.
 
  I almost failed to take advantage of yesterday's sunshine. As I said yesterday morning, I didn't really fancy another walk because I was sort of recovering from the previous day, although I expect I would have probably been OK if I did a short walk. In the end I did a very short walk - to Tesco and back. I must admit I did not feel too spry walking back with a heavy load of shopping (mostly liquids).

  It seemed to take a long time for it to warm up yesterday, and I didn't go to Tesco until about half past midday. I could have gone earlier, but I had "a cunning plan". That plan worked, and it was to wait until the temperature just about hit 10°, and that seemed enough to chance walking in the sunshine without a coat on. It was very slightly chilly when walking through the shade of the multi storey car park, but in the sunshine it felt wonderful.

  Top of my shopping list for Tesco was some meat and green vegetables for last night's dinner, and dinners for the next few nights. I was lucky that I found 2 packs of diced lamb on the reduced price shelf - although the buggers did not reduce it by much. For vegetables I bought another bag of the shredded cabbage and leeks. That had prove qualities that I wanted again - very low sugar, and rather nice when cooked as part of a stew.

  Maybe the only dubious thing I bought was a reduced price pack of two cheese and ham slices. I had them for my lunch yesterday, and they were rather disappointing. They were not horrible or anything, but they did seem to be rather bland compared to what I was hoping for. The bulk of the weight of my shopping was in my rucksack, and it was 2 x 2l bottles of diet coke, and 8 x 330ml cans of sugar free drink. Four were of Orange and the other four were of Cream Soda. At just 25p per tine (with Clubcard discount) they seem like a bargain.
  One thing I spotted, but didn't buy, were these slow cookers. When I got home I checked on Amazon to see how the price compared. My thought was that if Amazon did something similar for a similar price it would be easier to get it delivered. In fact it seems they couldn't get anywhere near £17.50, and I decided I would have to get buy one, and carry it home from Tesco. I almost went there again yesterday afternoon, but I thought it would wait for a day or two.

  One plan that I quickly discounted was to go out in the warm(ish) afternoon - probably on trains to avoid too much walking - but I couldn't raise the enthusiasm. I ended up spending a lot of the afternoon copying files from old DVD disks to external USB hard drives. Most, except for one were 20 year old (maybe) Magazine cover disks. Even when new most of what was on them was rubbish, but all contained a few (possible) useful things.

  Admittedly nearly all the programs were for Windows (and even DOS), and so of little use to me as useful stuff, but I do have a couple of old legacy PCs that I keep for nostalgic reasons, and some of the stuff could be used on them. A few of the biggest items to copy were complete Linux distributions. In many cases they are freely available on the internet, but a few disappeared when the companies promoting them gave up on them.

  It doesn't really matter what I copied and what I didn't, but the fact is it took a long time. The exception to the magazine cover disks was another of my old mp3 back up DVDR disks. There was a lot of stuff on it to copy to my master collection (plus back up of it). It wasn't all that long ago that I learned my lesson that having stuff split up over assorted disks was not a good idea. It started that way because it was not until maybe 5 or 6 years ago that big usb hard disks were relatively cheap to buy, and the idea of getting all my mp3 files, some of which must date back 20 years, onto one big disk.

  This general idea of moving away from optical disks (CDR and DVDR) to far bigger hard disks, now I have started it, is going to take a long time to complete. One of the increasing problems now is weeding out a few files from among many duplicates. I still have a pile of optical disks, almost a foot high, most of which contain duplicate after duplicate, that I need to carefully check and copy anything novel. It should have been a job for dull and wet winter days, but it seems I have started it too late for that. I'll get there in the end.

  Last night I watched the usual Star Treks, and ate my dinner while watching Star Trek: Enterprise (I think). It was a lamb stew with a heap of sliced white cabbage, and a few small potatoes. I added more of the smoked chipotle paste that I have mentioned before, and it was all rather delicious.

  I turned the TV off after Star Trek: Voyager, as usual, and then turned it on later for QI, but it wasn't QI I found on, but Have I Got News For You. That was a good substitution, and probably better than QI. It finished at 10pm and I went straight to bed. I had intended to finish a short story before trying for sleep, but I was tired enough to put the nook down after reading little more than a page, and was soon asleep.

  As much as I would like to, I don't think I can complain about my sleep last night. It all seemed to go very smoothly. As far as am aware it was dreamless until the last hours of sleep. I then had lots of little dreams that had no beginnings or endings - as far as I can tell. Most seem to be about working in Telephone exchanges, but some seemed to be about after work. There was one where I seemed to be working in Bromley telephone exchange (which I did for a few weeks in real life) and decided that I should try and walk home.

  In another dream I had got off a bus in Catford, and it had parked up behind another bus. Both buses carried almost the same adverts down their side, but there were differences that meant it would look better if the two buses could change the order they were in. There were several bus spotters there, and they persuaded one of the drivers to drive his bus around the block so he could come up behind the other. At this point the driver got off the bus that was not moving, and declared it to be boring, and she was going for a cup of tea. She actually said this to me because she remembered me being on her bus in the morning. She was actually my favourite barmaid from The Jolly Farmers, and who used to be a bus driver !

  This morning, despite those ham and cheese slices, which were not exactly healthy, and the potatoes in my dinner last night, my blood glucose has dropped a very small amount to 8.1mmol/l. That is almost very good, but is only merely good ! I can't say I feel particularly good this morning. It seems to have settled down a little bit, but my right shoulder has been very sore, and my right elbow and wrist have contributed to my discomforts a bit.

  The unknown is how my legs are doing this morning. They don't seem to be too stiff when walking indoors, but the test will come later. If I feel I have enough time I will rush out to buy one of those slow cookers from Tesco. My principle aim is to go by train, so I can pick up a copy of The Metro at the station, to Ladywell, and the Jolly Farmers. Once again I will be on my own, but the crosswords and some banter should still make it an enjoyable drinking session. If I haven't had time to go and buy a slow cooker before going to the pub I could possibly go afterwards. If not there is always tomorrow.