The potentially brighter hours seen in the screenshot above have disappeared in the latest revision to the forecast. It seems now that the whole day will be sometimes dull, and at other times even duller. The afternoon could still reach 13° C, but there could be rain at midday, 3,4,and 5pm....or probably at any time. There could be a lot of sunny spells tomorrow, and the temperature may peak at 14° C.
 
  Yesterday morning was a bit busy. After wet shaving, shampooing, and showering, I dashed out to buy the slow cooker that I mentioned yesterday. I felt almost full of energy as I did a moderately fast walk to Tesco, bought the slow cooker, and then did a moderately fast walk home.

  I only had enough time to unpack the cooker, and skim through the instructions before I went out again to head for the pub. As seems normal now, I went by train so I could pick up two copies of The Metro (one for me, and one for Ayse the barmaid). The odd thing is that it seems my walk to and from Tesco wore me out. Walking to the station is a very similar distance to Tesco, but it felt like hard work for some reason.
  I took about 8 pictures of trains on my way to the pub, and going home again, but none were of trains I had not previously photographed. That was a bit disappointing, but not surprising. However, I did take a snap of tulips, and daffodils in the Therapeutic Garden behind St Mary's Church. As you can see in the picture, the sunshine had completely failed, and the picture looks a bit grey.
 Had I hit the shutter 1 second earlier I would have snapped a bee inside this tulip, but alas it had flown away in that one second. I hoped it might be in a nearby bloom, but sadly, no luck.

  I had a nice time in the pub. There were few people in there, and only a couple of drinkers when I left. Even so there was a fair bit of banter, and I had to stay for a third pint to give me more time to do the crosswords. Of course after the second pint solving clues got that little bit harder.
  This was the state of the crosswords shortly before I left the pub. I didn't make things easier for myself when I spelled Toboggan incorrectly for 32 across in the quick crossword, but even if spelled wrong, at least I had the right word. The quick crossword was one of my poorer efforts while the cryptic crossword was possibly one of my better efforts.
  I don't think I have noticed this sign next to the downside (towards Hayes) entrance of Ladywell station. The path down to the entrance is, or seems to be within the park, and presumably is railway property. I can only presume that the "wildlife area" on the park side of the fence along platform 2 is also railway property, and this is what the sign is about. There seems nothing to mark any boundary between the park and the railway property. I tried scanning the QR code in the bottom right of the sign. It points to a web address, and that resolves to "page not found" !!!

  The first thing I did when I got home was to cook some lunch, although by the time I had it, approximately 4pm, it was probably teatime, and not lunchtime. I should have been cleaning and trying out my new slow cooker, and I wish I had because I am not sure of the 4 cod and parsley fish cakes were good for me. While they cooked I transferred the picture from my camera to my PC, and then selected and edited the pictures I've used today. After I had my extra late lunch, or extra early dinner, I had a short snooze - at least I think it was short, but I have some doubts.

  I watched the usual Star Treks yesterday evening, and i had a sort of light dinner while watching. Part of it was four beetroot, pea, and lentil veggie cakes with cheese on them, and the other half was a pile of jumbo prawns with salt, pepper and vinegar. Maybe those prawns weren't good for me in two possible ways that would only become apparent later on. I can't believe they contained any sugar, but I have to admit there might have been a possibility. It is also possible they could have caused a mild, but annoying allergic reaction.

  It is also possible that the two very sour beers I drank last night may have had sugar in them, but they were so sour it seems unlikely. They were from a very small stash of beers that Jodie had already had, and so was not interested in them, and being sour I was not interested in them until I decided the day before yesterday to give them a second chance before they were poured down the sink. The three small cans I had the day before yesterday didn't seem to bad. The big cans I had last night were more of a struggle to drink. I actually did tip about 10% of the second can down the sink !

  For some reason I watched almost a whole episode of QI last night even though one of the guests was the vomit inducing Johnny Vegas. Fortunately he was very much overshadowed by three other far more interesting guests. QI was followed by Have I Got News For You, and that was enjoyable. It finished at 10pm, and I went straight to bed, but I read a few pages before trying for sleep.

  I mostly slept OK last night. I started with the heater off because it was a mild night, but by maybe 2am I turned it on low. I think it was a couple of hours later that it seemed to feel a bit cool, and so I turned the heater up - or at least that is what I though I had done. I had actually switched it to just blowing cold air. I think it was almost 6am when I thought it was feeling very cold, and checked the heater. That is when I realised my mistake, and turned the heater up full. It was still a little cool when I got up at about 6.30am.

  Until I checked my blood glucose this morning I thought I had eaten carefully yesterday. Apparently not because it had shot up close to the red line at 9.7mmol/l. I think I have to pin the blame on the cod and parsley fish cakes. I know that some of the fish cakes from Aldi have a fair bit of sugar in them, but I was sure the Tesco ones claimed to be low sugar. The problem could have been because I didn't look at the small print. They could have done something dastardly like giving the figure per bit of fish cake or something stupid.

  Today I have the opportunity to make things worse. Jodie is busy today, but I think Michael and me will have our own beer tasting session. In preparation for this I ordered some lager type beers for the occasion, and I am happy to say they have already been delivered this morning. They are allegedly lagers from Mexico even though two of them are brewed in the UK, and of those one is that abomination that I would expect no one in Mexico has ever heard of - Desperadoes, lager with tequila. The main trouble with these lagers is that they are all mass produced, and that means that are pasteurised once they reach the specified strength regardless of whether the yeast has finished converting the sugar to alcohol. In fact they often do this on purpose to make them taste sweeter so that children can get hooked on them until they know better (possibly).