I have to say that after yesterday, today seems rather disappointing. The latest revision has changed the last hour to feature sunshine to 10am. After that it will be dull, but at least the temperature should reach 17° C again. It is worth noting that the ever optimistic BBC weather forecast says only 3, 4, and 5pm won't feature at least sunny spells !  Tomorrow will feature an hour or two of rain in the middle of a long dull spell. There may be some sunny spells in the evening. Once again the temperature should reach 17° C, although it may be late in the day. Funnily enough, both forecasters broadly agree on tomorrow's weather.
 
   Yesterday turned out to be a fairly busy day. The one thing I was definitely going to do was the one thing I didn't do. I did got to the Pharmacy, as intended, but I found they have changed their opening hours, and only open for a few hours on a Saturday morning. I got there at (I think) 11:20am, and they had been closed for 20 minutes.

  I am not sure when I decided that I would go to Aldi after the Pharmacy. It was I know I mentioned it as a possibility yesterday morning, but it turned into fact just before I left for the Pharmacy because I took my rucksack with extra shopping bags in it with me.

  There was nothing essential I needed in Aldi, but there were several "nice to have" things like Man sized tissues - identical to those Tesco sell, but about 50p cheaper. I bought a few bits of meat for stewing in the slow cooker, and some extra green vegetables to go with the meat. Then I bought other stuff - stuff it may have been wiser not to get.

 The problem with Aldi these days is that unlike Tesco, they prefer everyone to use the self service checkouts. They do open manned checkouts, but usually refuse you if you don't use shopping trolley - basket users are directed to the self service checkouts. I will not use self service, and so I use a trolley, and of course I have to fill it up !

  I bought things like pies, crisps, and other nibbles to help fill the trolley (not to the top - just enough to make it look like it had to be used). One potentially good, but probably bad things I bought were some Aldi special beers that looked like they were probably new. Two were dubious fruit beers. the most dubious being watermelon flavoured beer. Four were definitely new because they were coronation beers, although to save paying royalties (on Royalty) they show pictures of dogs wearing crowns.

  It was about midday when I left Aldi, and the temperature may already have reached 14° C. Even though I didn't have a coat on, lugging two moderately heavy shopping bags, plus a rather heavy rucksack how was a hot and sweaty affair. It was good to get home and put the shopping away. With that done I had some lunch. It was a pack of ready cooked, and ready to eat Teriyaki flavoured chicken wings. Their sugar content was a little higher than I would have liked, but not too bad. They had to be tried because they were ***NEW***. They were pleasant, but nothing to get excited about.

  After lunch I lay on my bed to cool off and rest. I had been thinking about going for a walk in the nice sunshine, but my walk to, and more so from Aldi, convinced me my legs were not in great working order for the sort of walk I had imagined doing. Then the thought came to me that I could do some work in the garden. The whole garden was long over due, probably a whole year overdue, for at least a hair cut !
  What is laughably called my lawn was well out of control until yesterday, and sort of remains so today. There were clumps of grass at least a foot high, as well as weeds in it. It was hard work, and even the thought of it makes me feel exhausted now, to use the strimmer to cut everything down to size. The picture above is an "after" picture, and it still looks quite shaggy, but at least is slightly more manageable. I also used the strimmer on the most weed infested flower beds.
  My crowning achievement, and one that really need a "before" picture was here the camera is pointing in the picture above. There was a huge clump of something like reed, but was probably sedge.  One day it was just a few green things sprouting, and the next was almost like a bush with some seed heads reaching at least 4ft high. Digging it out was a major exercise, and carrying it, in one clump, to the garden waste, wheelie bin taxed me to the extreme.

  Some of the flat, almost like palm leaves, leaves can be seen on the fresh ground, but the more significant things are buried under a few inches of soil. There are 15 or more small bulbs for some flowering plants whose name escapes me, under that soil. The packet label said I was just with the ideal time window to plant them, but eralier would have been better. Hopefully a bit of rain tomorrow will start them growing, and with luck one small bit of my small garden will have a nice display of coloured flowers. (Maybe they were begonias).
  The last of my tulips has reached the end of their lives now, but at least they brought a little more colour to the garden than dandelions and the little blue flowers of false nettles. The tulips grew from bulbs left behind from last year. If I could find a picture I might find that more flowered this year than I saw last year.
  I am hopeless at remembering the names of most flowers. I think these flower heads, which are close to opening, are Asters. I know they open looking like a ball of small flowers. There are 7 flower heads in this photo, and maybe another 7 off the right hand edge of the photo. Once they open I will have another very small display of flowers in the garden. One day I might keep the flower beds weed free, and sown with enough variety of stuff to have a continuous display of flowers through the year, but probably not this year.
  I did all that hard work, and it was very hard work for me, with no short on ! I'll admit it was a flagrant display of man boobs, and could have sickened the neighbours, but it was very enjoyable to feel the warm sunshine on my bare skin. Several more sessions like yesterday could see me getting a waist up, all over tan !

  There was just one more bit of hard work to do before I could rest. It was to lug the garden waste, brown wheelie bin through the house, to leave it out front for the bin men to empty next Thursday. It bin was full to the brim, which was handy because it hid the log Iog I decided to dispose of. At least a third of the bin was full of very smelly, because it was food waste, heavily compacted compost. It was mostly that, that made the bin so heavy. I could barely haul it up the step from the kitchen to the dining room. The bin man is going to moan when he has to drag it to the collection vehicle - but he shouldn't because he only has to drag it, on it's wheels, on level ground, and the the vehicle hydraulics has to do the hard work of lifting it.

  I though I deserved a lie down after that work, but I digitally  processed the pictures before I could relax. I also had another naughty snack of some ***NEW*** breadcrumb covered pork balls with a BBQ filling. They were terribly unhealthy, and sadly were not tasty enough to justify eating them. They were sort of nice, but far from wonderful. It was nice to lie down, but not for long.

  I had dinner to cook, and there was stuff on TV to watch, although, to be honest, reading a book would have been more entertainment. Dinner was simple, and not very nice. It was four little beefburgers with a small can of refried beans. The latter were a lot like mud with some nasty ground cumin in it. I could have done a lot better if I had bothered to spend the time preparing stuff and cooking it.

  TV was not terribly exciting last night. The best, except like most cheap satellite TV station documentary programmes, it was thin and crap with an over reliance of repeating the same shots. It was about disastrous buildings where the builders and financiers didn't really follow the architects plans. A few of the building featured were actually in London. The building dubbed "the walkie talkie" was a prime example of it's convex glass face reflecting the sun like a burning glass.

  I also watch, and then listen to some of a documentary about Eric Clapton and the Blues. It was good in bits, and bad in others. I guess for true blues aficionados it was interesting to hear Eric Clapton breaking down the styles of countless blues musicians from the 1940s onwards, but maybe it was just too technical for me. It may have been 9pm when I headed for bed, or it may have been earlier, but initially I just read in bed for maybe half an hour.

  All the sunshine during the day had "charged up" the house with warmth, and although the temperature was dropping from sunset, I found I didn't need any heat on all evening, and I went to bed without turning on the heating. By the time I wanted to go to sleep it was starting to feel a little cool, but then I had the silly thing of it feeling too hot under the duvet. I am not sure what time I went to sleep, but I would estimate to was a bit before 10pm, and I fell asleep partly covered.

  I took the precaution of taking a couple of Paracetamols before going to bed because bits of me were slightly sor eor aching from the work in the garden. Maybe they did help me get a good sleep last night. I think I may have only woken for a pee a couple of times in the night. When I woke for one at about 3:30am I turned the heater on low, and when I woke at about 5:45am I turned the heater up full. I still felt a bit cool when I got up at about 6:30am.

  The fact that I only seemed to wake for a pee a couple of times in the night, gave me some hope that my blood glucose would not be too high after yesterday's eating excesses. I was right and wrong. It wasn't very high, and it wasn't low. It was right one the edge between OK and a bit too high at 9.0mmol/l. That was good enough, but if I can I will try and take enough care that I can start May with a nice low figure.

  It all depends on what I do today. The plan is, or maybe was, to go to The Sweeps Festival in Rochester where Spyplane and then The Flame Pilots will be the last two bands on the live stage. The plan is already showing some large cracks.... First of all is the stiffness, if not some actual aches after my gardening work yesterday. In theory that should fade after a hot shower, and when, and if I get moving. Another decisive factor is that as I type this it is almost 10:30am and I still have not been to the toilet. I have farted a fair bit, but still not passed anything solid.

  There is also the factor of the weather. Neither forecast, BBC and Met Office, predict rain, but it still wouldn't make for an enjoyable day if it was all nasty and dull - which it might be.
  The Met Office forecast for Rochester says that Rochester will lose it's sunshine before I even leave Catford.