It is bright and sunny as I write this, and my thermometers agree it is already 13° C. The temperature should continue to rise with a peak of 18° C expected. However the last sunshine could be very soon, sometime after 10am. By 11am it is forecast to get a bit dull, and for a couple of hours, very dull. There doesn't seem to be much wind at the moment, and that may make it feel a bit warmer. It is worth noting that the BBC says the sunny spells may last until midday, and start again for a couple of hours at 6pm. Tomorrow could see 19° C, and there could be sunny spells in the morning, and then from mid afternoon. Once again the BBC shows more sunny spells/sunshine than the Met Office.

  On the whole, yesterday was not a bad day. It didn't end as maybe it should have, but I felt OK about it. Maybe the more important thing was that the day wasn't completely wasted. I did two important things, but little more in terms of productivity. The morning started with a shopping trip to get those missing salad leaves I mentioned yesterday.

  The shopping trip was quite entertaining - in a masochistic sort of way. I had always wondered what a lab rat felt when exploring a maze, and now maybe I know. Right in the middle of Tesco there were temporary walls put up while some sort of work went on. I speculate it was something to do with correcting whatever it was that has caused a loss of heating for months, and various electrical outlets not working (for instance the one for the coin machine at the front of the store).

  The similarity to a lab rat was that we were both trying to solve a maze to get food. It was not easy to see the shape of the walled off area, but it blocked the end of many aisles, and I had to search dead ends for some things, and my usual simple route across the store became quite complicated. The worst thing for me was that the last two shelves of the "World Food" aisle was blocked off. They contained the source of many of my favourite instant noodles.

  I did get some very nice, but rather expensive instant noodles from elsewhere in the store. Fortunately I know nothing about the ensuing maze when I went in the store, and headed straight to the salad section where I bought several items, including two bags of salad leaves plus a bag of short celery sticks.Generally speaking I don't like celery, but I find it OK in small quantities, and it does add some extra flavour to a well mixed up salad.

  While in the salad section I also bought a ready made Caesar salad "kit". By kit they meant the ingredient were in separate sections, or pouches in the plastic container. I had that for my lunch when I got back, and it was very nice. I also had a lunch part 2 an hour later. That was rather less healthy. It was a couple of slices ham and egg pie from the reduced price shelves. It can't be long before they stop stocking it because it is a favourite to be found on the reduced price shelf, near the end of it's sell by date.

  I must admit there was quite a gap between starting and finishing an important job yesterday. A job that needed some physical exertion. I had a small white hand towel to wash, but obviously I didn't want to wash it with black t-shirts. Rather than leave it festering I decided I may as well wash it with my small bath towel. All to frequently I wait until my bath towel has a hint of staleness before washing it. By then it seems to have soaked up a lot of shower gel where it seems I haven't rinsed myself off 150% before drying me.

  Washing that towel a lot earlier than I seem to usually leave it, did make the job easier. I had left both towels soaking in detergent for at least a couple of hours before I started doing the long series of rinses. This time that long series may have only been 6 rinses before I hung those towels out to dry on the washing line. While doing the rinses it was looking dull outside, but the moment after I had hung both on the washing line the sun came out.
  Now I must admit this is not the greatest picture, but the shadow at the bottom of the towels shows there was bright sunshine above. I took this picture by a rarely used camera from maybe 20 years ago. It was a Praktica DC Slim 315. It is a 3.1 mega pixel camera, and was probably instrumental in making me wanting bigger and better cameras leading  up to any serious work usually being done on a DSLR camera. Although this picture could easily have been far better from a few generations of mobile phones.

  I think the washing was only out for 3 or 4 hours before I brought it in 99.5% dry. I shall be using the bath towel when I have a shower today, and the hand towel goes into the hand towel drawer until I need to wash the current hand towel in the bathroom. That washing was almost the last of he day's productivity. All that was left was to prepare the salad I had for dinner. It was a mix of all salad things plus some ready cooked and sliced sweet chilli flavoured chicken. The pack of chicken could have been enough for two salad, but I fancied something extra tasty.

 I passed a lot of the end of the afternoon, and into early evening, watching the last three episodes of series three of Star Trek: Picard. I believe there is a fourth series in the making, and a fifth series is contemplated. I feel in no rush to try and get hold of the new series because I think the first two, and definitely the third series served up as much nostalgia as is reasonably possible. In the last couple of episodes the writers threw in virtually any past character who was still alive enough to act, and most of the last foes of The Federation Of Planets.

  That final episode finished around 8pm, and I was contemplating going to bed to read, but some weird curiosity made me check the TV listing where I found there was a special concert in memory of Peter Green - one of the founders of Fleetwood Mac. It was arranged and hosted by Mick Fleetwood. I only caught about the last 20 minutes of it, and it was good, but maybe also a little bad.

  Mick Fleetwood had assembled a huge cast of musicians, and some just didn't seem to fit. On the other hand one did fit in remarkably well. I had never heard of Jeremy Bentford (I think), but apparently he was one of the earliest members of Fleetwood Mac while they were a basic blues band. He looked to be in his 70s, and maybe even older, but he definitely hadn't forgotten his licks as he lead the rest with a couple of ancient blues numbers.

  On one of the numbers there was extra guitar work from Kirk Hammet (from Metallica). To my mind he was just a bit too flashy. One musician who disappointed was Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd. He was playing slide guitar along to Albatross. It was like he was improvising on the spot, and worse was that it was like his sound monitor, possibly a personal earphone, had about half a second delay. Every thing he played seemed to lag the rest of the band by that half second (maybe even a full second).

  Despite these and maybe a few more minor niggles, it was worth seeing. I think it ended around 9.30pm, and then I really did go to bed. Compared to the previous 3 or even 4 days, I was feeling curiously good (or maybe just OK), and I seemed to fall asleep with little trouble, and I almost slept OK - initially with no heating on, and under the duvet. There seemed to be no night sweats last night, but by 3am I had seemed to have kicked the duvet aside.

  I woke up feeling cold. I grabbed the duvet from behind me, and as I went to pull it over me my right shoulder gave a strong bolt of pain. I had evidently reached too far, pulled to fast while my shoulder was stiff with cold. That seemed a great cue to turn the heater on. I slept OK like that, and as my bedroom warmed up I slowly pushed the duvet aside, or at least partly aside. My right shoulder gave little trouble for the rest of the night, but even now, over three hours since I got up, it still feel sore.

  This morning was the great experiment of seeing if my run of high blood glucose readings would stop after putting fresh batteries in my blood glucose meter. It wasn't a carefully controlled experiment because what I ate yesterday was different to the day before, but some of what I ate, particularly the gala pie was not the lowest sugar containing food. Maybe it was for some other unknown reason, but this morning my blood glucose reading was just 8.3mmol/l. That is below my typical monthly average, and equal to two other readings as the lowest so far this month.

  I have contemplated going for a walk with a camera today, but I probably won't. This afternoon we, we being Jodie and me, should be trying the probably awful "Soup" beers that I pictured earlier in the week and were originally going to try last Thursday. I think I need to preserve some energy for that, and a long walk would definitely knacker me. In preparation for after the drinking I have already started to cook some diced lamb that I shall later add some sprouts to.

  A quick word about last night before I finish. I had been asked to go to see The Entourage band in The Wickham Arms - about a 20 minute or less bus rise away. It could have been interesting, but the problem with the band is the lead guitarist is good, but only when not trying to play on the bleeding edge all the time - which he does far too often. In truth they would have been third on my list. First on my list would have been Simply Retro who were playing in The Swan in West Wickham. They would have been easy to get to by train. They were later bumped down a place when I discovered Hell On Tap were playing in Penge. It would be a rather tedious, but almost door to door bus ride to get there, and I could flaunt my new Hell On Tap t-shirt. In the end I felt too relaxed, or maybe tired, to go out, and I stayed in as described further up the page.