It started so gradually that it is hard to say when the sun appeared this morning, but I feel sure it was probably before 9am, and possibly before 8am. It is definitely sunny now, and although the sky looks more white than blue, the cloud is thin enough for hazy sunshine at worst, and fairly strong sunshine at best. Later this morning even that thin cloud should disperse to give strong sunshine for the rest of the day. That should raise the temperature to a very nice 24° C. Tomorrow gets interesting. For a few days now the BBC have been warning of thunderstorms, and now the Met Office have joined in. The trouble is that both say that there will be strong sunshine all day with the temperature climbing to 28° C. That could "boil up" a thunderstorm, and it could happen at almost any random time, but I suspect if it happens it will be late afternoon/early evening. It could be a real BBQ destroyer !

  I keep thinking of yesterday not being a very good day, but I have to admit it did have some good points. I think the problem is all the times when nothing exciting happened. I could have gone out in the morning, even if it were just to get a bit of shopping, but like today, I started writing so late, and I seemed to have so much to say, that most of the morning passed by while I was writing. I fear the same thing could happen today.

  One diversion for the last hour of the morning, and maybe the first hour of the afternoon, was playing about with re-writeable DVD disks. As I think I mentioned yesterday, Handbrake, the DVD ripper (and other video file converter) has it's own special way of reading non standard DVD disk - disks that have been written by a TV set top DVD recorder. I must admit it is a special case that involves only my own DVD recorder, a cheap Tesco own brand model. It works (worked) perfectly, but it always failed to "finish" a disk, or whatever they called it to make the disk readable by a normal DVD player (or PC).

  Handbrake can read directly from the drive itself, and knows the non standard file structure that is used on these DVD recordings that haven't been "finished", or "closed". It occurred to me that copying old VHS (and maybe camcorder) tapes to a digital format by using that set top DVD recorder would be so much simpler than the methods I have to resort to at the moment. One problem is that it seems the DVD drive on my PC may be dying, or just insensitive. It is fine on nearly all disks except some old ones, where the dyes they use may be fading, or re-writeable disks.

  Yesterday I had a re-writeable disk that it could read enough to show there was something on it, but not what. I tried that disk in one of my laptops, and it read it instantly. Not only that but when I went to copy the contents (a backup of my old work PC) to a hard disk, it did it really quickly. Based on that I decided to seek out a new DVD drive for my PC. They were mostly a lot more expensive than expected, but I did find one that looks like it should fit, and it was cheaper than most. Maybe the low price warns of an inferior product, or hopefully not. I also ordered a USB powered/connected CD/DVD writer. The surprising thing is that most use the same drive as I wanted for my PC, but with added electronics for the USB connection, and yet for all that they are cheaper still - and there were many to choose from. I wouldn't mind betting that if I opened up the case I could have taken the drive mechanism out and fitted it straight into my PC - which would make the high cost of only the drive seem like a ripoff.

  The highlight of the afternoon was a beer tasting session with Michael and Jodie - except we didn't drink/taste that many beers ! I think Michael, who, as usual, had brought a few of the lower alcohol lagers her prefers, probably drank more than I did.  As usual, Michael was a bit of a gas bag, but yesterday I found it verging on irritating. Jodie spend much of the session head down doing stuff on her phone.

  If Alan doesn't manage to bring a spare box of beers from Jodie's place before (or on) Sunday, I shall sit down with Jodie and make a beer order - probably from https://www.beermerchants.com/. I won't buy anything from Beer 52. They are a subscription based distributor of beers. You have to sign up to be a member, and they send out a box of beers every month - with no choice of what is in the box. This is how Jodie has amassed 5 unopened boxes because she and Alan can't drink them fast enough. Hopefully one of those boxes will get here soon.

  I ate completely different to usual yesterday. My breakfast was 5 mini oven/grilled sausages with just some hot sauce. Lunch, which was needed before drinking, was a couple of steak slice bakes (from frozen). I think they had a nicer filling than the cook at home steak pies I have tried recently. They seemed as if they may have had a medium sugar content. Low would obviously have been better, but most of the sugar was probably in the pastry.

  My dinner was a whole pack of marinated pork mini steaks. With a full accompaniment of vegetables and stuff there would have been enough pork to feed maybe three, but I wolfed the lot down with a small tub of potato salad. They were nice, but maybe not that nice. I had to eat them all because they were about 5 days past their use by date. After eating that dinner I felt a yearning for more. I really wanted something sweet, but fortunately I don't really have anything like that in the cupboard, but I did have a red cabbage, and a large chunk of red cabbage was strangely enjoyable.

  After Star Trek: Voyager finished at 8pm I couldn't think of anything else to do. By 8.30pm I was in bed reading, and I could have been asleep 15 minutes later, but I think it safe to say I was fast asleep by 9pm. What I do know is that I woke up at 10:36pm, and thought I had had a great night's sleep. It took a moment or two to realise that it was not 10:36 in the morning - the clue was that it was dark outside - but it did really feel like I had been asleep for a whole night.

  I probably woke because I needed a pee. I know I woke at least once more thinking I needed a pee, but all I could manage was a quick trickle, and I hadn't needed to get out of my warm bed and go to the cold and draughty toilet at all. I only remember having one dream last night, and now I can't even remember what it was about. I woke up at around 6am, and thought I had had plenty of sleep, but after going for a pee, which I did need this time, I jumped back into my warm bed because it was pretty chilly in the bathroom. I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew was that I had added a whole extra hour to my sleep !

  Like several of the recent mornings, my lack of peeing in the night, and also not feeling thirsty in any conventional sense, but instead, needing occasional sips of drinks in the night because of a gummed up mouth, all suggested a low blood glucose. After what I ate yesterday that seemed unlikely. My blood glucose reading was 9.3mmol/ - the same as yesterday. I do seem to be getting a lot of these readings in the low nines, and it means something is going on. It seems almost as if my natural glucose level, that ideally should be in the sixes, is now a lot higher, but is that purely because I have not taken enough care with what I am eating, or is it my pancreas now on it's last legs, OR is it something funny about the batch of test strips I am using. The latter is possibly ruled out by some of the rarer low readings I have had, but they could equally rule out the other possibilities. I should be getting new test strips with my next repeat prescription in about a fortnight, but maybe the ultimate answer will come when I have my next full laboratory blood test after my next diabetic check up - whenever that is.

  Today I have sort of painted myself into a corner. I would be free to do anything - walking, trains spotting, anything - on this (hopefully) warm and sunny day, but the USB connected CD/DVD writer/reader I ordered yesterday is going to be delivered today. I had no choice but to use the next day service instead of my preferred free delivery - which can also be next day in some circumstances. I guess I could do anything until early afternoon. The latest delivery information is the hateful "before 10pm". I have good mind to go to bed at 8pm and ignore the delivery if later. In theory they will try once more the next day, but I have never tested that, and I guess when it comes down to it I wont tonight either. The chances are it will be here much earlier....I hope !