This morning's dull start should be over by now, but if anything it seems even duller now ! The latest revision to the forecast shows 9am as being dull, but the forecasters have a great conviction that the sun will burst through "soon". The afternoon may yet end up as full on sunshine until sunset, and that should raise the temperature up to 20° C. It seems this June is not going to live up to it's reputation as flaming June.  It is possible that tomorrow may do better. The current prediction of both the BBC and Met Office forecasts is for a bright start, and full sunshine from mid morning. A afternoon high of 21° C is expected.

  Yesterday was a rather different sort of day to most days - mainly on account of how it finished. The start was fairly normal - a couple of hours writing here, and then a shampoo and shower. In a clean and fragrant condition I then went shopping in Tesco.

  I spent rather a lot of money in Tesco, but I did seem to but quite a lot of stuff, and it included a 70cl bottle of Haig whiskey (£28 reduced to £17 when bought with Clubcard). The worst things I bought were three packs of sandwiches from the reduced price shelves, although I have to say the discount was rather miserly. It was about 1pm when I got home from Tesco, and once I put away most of my purchases, I stuffed my face with those sandwiches.

  As a general rule, ready made sandwiches are bad for me. They seem to have a surprising amount of sugar in them. Yesterday that didn't matter too much because apart from a handful of salted peanuts, they were all I ate for the rest of the day. After eating the sandwiches I went into extreme resting mode - which included a snooze that may have lasted as long as a full hour (although that is pure guesswork).

  By 6.45pm I was ready to walk to the local Wetherspoons pub to meet a couple of people I hadn't seen for maybe 30+ years. One of them, Alan, I had had no idea he was even alive, and I'm guessing that it could have been more like 40 years since I last saw him. The other, Nick, I knew was still around, and we had passed a couple of emails over the years, but I was in for a shock when I saw him.

  Nick always was "portly", but he was very active, and apart from his early days of running the pirate radio station Radio Jackie, he was into caving and other stuff better suited to the slimmer man. Last night he was more than portly, he was the size of a house. He has really let himself go, and had no qualms about eating a double burger and chips from the pub, and two individual apple pies that someone gave him.

  Alan, who I only knew from early pirate radio days, had turned into a real ale enthusiast, and between the two of us we ended up drinking about 5 pints of ale. Towards the end he was starting to get a bit over excited, and that seemed a good time to leave the pub. Nick accused him of being very drunk, but said I still seemed to be sober. I must say I enjoyed the evening, but I came away with a few impressions.

  One impression was that we had probably said all we could say without repeating ourselves. I would like to meet again, but not too soon, and not too frequently. The bigger impression was how I could end up if I let myself go like Nick. He had a lot of trouble moving, and even more of getting up from his seat in the pub. He blamed his knees, which I can sympathise with, but to see him rocking backwards and forward trying to build up some sort of momentum to to get off the seat was sort of frightening.
  Alan, on the left, and Nick on the right, outside the Wetherspoons pub at just before 9pm last night.

  Prior to all that, and back when I was eating my sandwiches at lunchtime, I wondered if I would be able to skip any dinner. After seeing Nick it was quite easy to do, and I feel I am going to try and cut down on eating a bit more in the future. It will help my blood glucose readings, and losing some weight would be most beneficial. I also skipped putting on any heating last night.

  Late in the morning, when the post arrived, I had a begging letter from EDF energy. My gas payments were in arrears, but only by £39, and I think it is possible that since the bill was printed my most recent monthly standing order payment might have covered it. The electricity bill was the big shock, although I knew I was using excess electricity because of how slow the weather has warmed up. I could look back at my diary/blog entries from June in previous years to prove the point, but I know I am not the only one who thinks summer has still not arrived.

  It was feeling quite cool in my bedroom when I came in last night - close to 11pm. It was obviously a night when I would have to force myself to sleep under the duvet to keep warm. I can't say I enjoyed it, and while it is probably coincidence, I woke up several time with cramps in my lower legs. I have heard suggestions that cramps can be caused by a salt imbalance. After not eating any dinner, which would usually has some source of salt in it, even if only from a stock cube, and peeing out any salt with "recycled beer", I guess my sodium levels could have been low.

  What with the cramps, some mild hunger pains, and often feeling too hot (under the duvet) or too cold (if I kicked the duvet to the side), I can't say I had a very good night's sleep. Towards morning I was actually looking forward to getting up, but it did mean getting up into a chilly feeling bedroom. I am writing this wearing similar clothes to what I was wearing last October as I tried to delay the time when I was forced to put the heating on. It feels wrong for June !

  Of course there is good news at the end of this, although it is not quite a good as hoped for. My blood glucose reading was just 8.2mmol/l this morning. That is below my typical average, but I had hoped for less. It is quite annoying that sometimes it is really easy to get lower reading, but yesterday I had to go to extremes to get the reading this low.

  Now comes the question of what will happen today. I can't see Angela being keen to go out on such a dull morning, and I am going to make the assumption that she won't be out today. I think I am going to go to The Jolly Farmers by myself today. It must be a month since I was last there, and they will think I have abandoned them. After the pub my bedroom should have been warmed by the sunshine we are supposed to get, and I shall go into lazy mode and have a snooze. After that.....who knows ?