The Met Office have finally come around to the BBC's way of thinking - today should be bright and sunny. Sadly it will not be very warm. The best The Met Office can offer is 13° C, although the BBC reckon 14° C - both should still be bare arm weather when walking. Tomorrow may be much warmer with the temperature reaching 18° C, but only about a random of half the hours of the day will see no better than sunny spells. The BBC predict more intensive sunny spells, but only 17° C. After tomorrow it looks like rain will become a major feature in forecasts for the week ahead.
 
   After a dull, boring and miserable Monday, yesterday was much more interesting, and felt a lot more productive. Although there was not a single sunny spell in the morning that I can remember, it did seem fairly bright (after some early morning darker cloud had moved on), and it felt warm enough to go out without a coat.

  I didn't really start off believing that yesterday could be a good day, but once I thought I would give it a go I quickly had a nice shower, and once clean and dressed I took a wander to Savers to top up on stuff that I buy from there. That included vitamins. I specifically bought some Vitamin D with Calcium tablets. They were not for me, but for Angela to help keep her bones healthy if she will take them.

  I also bought stuff like toilet cleaners - the smelly type rather than plain bleach (where smelly = vaguely nice smells). One purchase turned out to be a bit disappointing. It was Marigold extra strength washing up gloves. The extra strength should theoretically help them last. Some of the cheaper, lighter weight rubber gloves seem to fail, usually a small hole appearing at the base of the thumb, after only a few vigorous wringing out of washing. The disappointment was because I was sure they didn't have large size gloves last times I was in there, and yet when I got home I found I had already bought a pair. Maybe they came from Tesco or some other shop.

  After Savers I crossed the wide pedestrian path to have a rummage in Poundstretchers. I was most disappointed they had no more cans of sugar free dark berry Tango left. While they had them they were a nice occasional change to Diet Coke. I did buy another 4 cans of sugar free Irn Bru - which can also be nice for an occasional drink. I also bought three bags of what I called micro chipsticks the last time I bought some. They are basically flavoured, matchstick sized, potato chips that seem to have a very low sugar content.

  Another purchase was a five pack of "spicy chicken" instant noodles by a company I have never heard of before. I tried one small (65gm) packet yesterday, and it was not very nice. This morning I made up two of them in the same bowl (because they are quite small individually) for my breakfast. I came to the same conclusion - they are not very nice. Oh well, three of the five down, and just two to go.

  When I got home from my little shopping trip I had some lunch. It was a single bag of those micro chipsticks. They seemed nice enough, but I thought the last time I had them they tasted better. Maybe it was the tomato flavoured ones that tasted better than the chilli flavoured ones. After that I had a little rest while I thought up what I would do next. It seemed like it might be suitable weather to dry stuff on the washing line.
  My first thought was that I would wash the sheet and pillow cases I had taken off my bed the previous morning, but for some masochistic reason I washed a double duvet cover. It had been sitting in the bottom of the wash bag for months and months (some time late last year I think). It was quite a handful to wash, and hard to wring out by hand. I couldn't wring it out enough to stop it dripping if I tried to dry it indoors, and so it was ideal to dry on the washing line.

  I have been waiting for a good day to start using the washing line, and the day was made easier after my gardening efforts last Friday made a bit of space under the washing line. It was actually gone mid afternoon when I hung the duvet cover on the line. It didn't feel like good drying weather. There was no sunny spells, and very little wind. I thought I would be leaving it on the line overnight to dry in today's sunshine.....

  I amused myself with some reading, and then a bit of TV, plus cooking and eating dinner. Dinner was a couple of grilled pork chops with some green beans and a bell pepper. It got to about 7pm and I thought I would see how that duvet cover was doing. I was quite surprised that a lot of it seemed to be dry with just a few damp patches. I brought it in so it could finish drying on the clothes horse.

  It was then that I got a bee in my bonnet. Star Trek: Voyager was quite boring, as it often is, and I decided I was going to hand wash a fitted sheet and a pair of (mismatched for some reason) pillow cases. At first I thought I would half do the job, and then leave it to finish off today, but this morning I may not have time for that. Hand washing a double fitted sheet is far easier than a duvet cover, and I decided I might as well do the complete job, and hang it on the line to dry.
  As the picture hints, the light was fading when I got the washing on the line. I had to use flash to get a bit of light on the subject. I did leave them on the line all night, and I hope that when I bring them in this afternoon they will have cooked bone dry in the warm sunshine. Doing that extra bit of hard-ish work set me up for a nice sleep after I had watched Have I Got News For You at 9pm. It finished at 10pm and I went straight to bed.

  I read for 10 minutes or so before turning out the light, As far as I can remember I seemed to fall asleep very quickly.  I did seem to sleep pretty soundly last night, and maybe that produced some inventive dreams. The first dream probably happened around 3am. It was another dream about work, but with a twist. I dreamed I had gone back to work, and had started work with the Post Office. I think it was probably in a sorting office, but "Post Office" was just a convenient handle because there was no real visualisation of a workplace, and nor did I do any work.

  One thing I did do was to make a claim I was probably the oldest person working there, but that claim was almost instantly quashed by a 90 year old who was working there. Like me he was doing it as a diversion from the sometime bored life of the retired. The great thing was that we didn't give a care about being sacked, and weren't doing it for the money, although of course any wages were very useful. I was working on the principal could do almost nothing for a month before being sacked, but still get a months wages.

  I had another dream around 5am (as far as I can estimate). It was about a very strange branch of Tesco. It was strange in that it had no checkouts in the building, and you had to cross the carpark to another building for the checkouts. For reasons that I have no clue about, I arrived at the checkout building without what I intended to buy. Another curiosity is that I had I remembered them, as maybe only 50% of the people had, their shopping would already be in carrier bags, and presumably would have to be unpacked before being scanned. I don't remember that. The last thing I remember from the dream was running across the carpark to find my shopping, but ending up in a sort of Comms room which was full of old grey equipment.

  I woke up at that point, but it seemed too early to get up. I went for a quick pee, and then got back into bed. I didn't think I was going to get back to sleep, but then I suddenly realised that clock had advanced by over half an hour in the space of what seemed like a few seconds, and it was time to get up. I was not sure what to expect when I checked my blood glucose level this morning. My diet was a bit more varied yesterday, but fortunately I seemed to have selected safe stuff without really thinking about it. This morning my blood glucose was down a bit more to 8.4mmol/l. Until there are more warm days to tempt me out for long walks, and even lower readings, that is pretty good.

  There will, hopefully, just be one big highlight today. With luck Angela will be joining me for a drink in the pub this lunchtime. Nothing definite has been arranged yet. I will be going to the pub regardless. I'll send Angela a message a but later to see if she is coming, and also what time she thinks she might be there - plus what she might be drinking today. If all else fails I will have a copy of The Metro, plus a pen to do the crossword while drinking my Guinness.