Once again the BBC and Met Office have conflicting views about the weather. At the moment the BBC is closest to reality. It shows a thunderstorm for 7am. Well it is that now, but no thunderstorm, or any rain, but the pavements were definitely wet when I looked outside. I'm guessing there was a shower at around 6am. Both forecasters warn of thunderstorms today. The BBC chart shows lightning bolt icons for most of the afternoon. The Met Office show heavy rain from late afternoon until early evening - but no lightning bolts at all. All they show is the yellow bar across the forecast, as seen in the screenshot above, with it's Yellow warning of thunderstorms. I think yellow probably means it won't happen ! The afternoon temperature could be 23° C (BBC) or 25° C (Met Office). Tomorrow could feature some or more sunny spells with an afternoon high of around 23° C.   Yesterday was a good day, or at least parts of it were good. I was still feeling what I shall call "under enthused" (which I think ought to be just one word, but probably isn't). Among the good bits were an unexpected delivery, and fruitful shopping trip. On the downside I had a bad feeling about my guts even when they didn't feel too bad.

  I think I had barely finished writing yesterday, when I finally got the feeling that a visit to the toilet was in order. It indeed was, but ultimately it seemed unsatisfactory. The amount I passed just didn't seem enough to account for how I felt earlier, but at least I felt comfortable enough to have a shower, get dressed, and prepare to go out, although my entire journey was little more than about 3/4 of a mile.

  I wanted to go, and did go to Poundland for one specific item. I knew they had some computer keyboards, and I wanted one with a USB connector. What I didn't know was their price. I had a feeling it was a bit expensive. It turns out it was, and wasn't. A comparison with Amazon showed the one I bought was indeed cheap, but then again it seemed cheap and nasty.
  It does look a pretty keyboard with it's LED backlighting, but it seems to be made of very thin plastic. I suspect that the qualities of the key switches below each key cap probably have a lifetime measured in days rather than years, but I hope I am mistaken. It came with no instructions at all, but on the box it said it was compatible with Windows, and also Xbox. I imagine they come with some sort of little program to turn the back lighting on and off. Linux has no point and click switch, but I discovered there is a very simple command line way of switching the LEDs on and off - "xset led on" or "xset led off".

  Of course the keyboard was not all I bought from Poundland (incidently, it cost £12). I bought all sorts of other stuff including hair shampoo and conditioner, some sticking plasters, and more significantly, an adjustable spanner. The spanner seems quite chunky, and may be reasonable quality. More importantly it might have enough grip to let me finally open up the hot tap on the kitchen sink so I can (hopefully) change the tap washer.

  It was about 10 minutes after getting home from Poundland that I became powerfully aware that I needed the toilet again. I tempted fate by not rushing, and continues to put my purchases away before going to the toilet. I did what I thought I might do first thing in the morning (but didn't) I say down and exploded. I must admit I felt far better for it ! I then felt like some lunch. I think it was just two small packets of crisps.

  One thing I had started straight after my shower was to put two towels in to soak. The more important one was a grey bath towel. Before drying myself on it I thought I detected a hint of staleness in one corner. It seemed an excellent time to wash it. While doing so I thought I may as well wash the hand towel as well. I was determined not to ignore those two towels, and forced myself to start the rinses, prior to hanging them on the line to dry.

  I was on the third rinse when there was a knock at the front door. It was the man from Evri delivering a small parcel. I stopped doing the laundry while I investigated. What I was expecting was a new internal CD/DVD drive for my PC, but what I seemed to be getting was an external, USB connected, CD/DVD drive. At first I thought my earlier order of an external drive had been duplicated, but it was indeed an internal drive put inside the cardboard box of an external drive. That worried me a bit because I thought I was buying a new, unused internal drive, which should have come with it's own packing. I think my "new" drive is a pull from a scrapped PC, and may not be any better than the one I want to replace.

  It was around 3pm when I finished rinsing the towels (I gave them about 6 rinses), and got them hanging on the line. There didn't seem to be any danger of rain, but neither was there a lot of chance of the sun drying the towels. There was also not much wind to help the drying process. I think it was around 7pm when I checked the towels. There was enough infra red warmth seeping through the clouds to warm up the dark blue hand towel, and apart from the bit folded behind the line, by the pegs, it was warm and dry.

  I brought that towel in to finish drying inside. I left the grey bath towel for another hour, and it still felt damp in places, but I thought it would dry nicely over night hanging on the banister rail (and it seems to have done so, and I'll be using it when I have a shower a bit later).

  I had to stop writing for a few minutes just now while I tried to remember bringing in the towels in relation to having my dinner. That made me remember that my lunch was a lot more than two small bags of crisps. It was actually three mini/individual beef pies. I was going to cook and eat just two, but that would leave one left in a big box cluttering up the freezer. I ended up cooking and scoffing all three. I can't say I found them very filling. They were just a pastry shell with a tablespoon or two of brown goo with a few lumps inside.

  My dinner was far more wholesome. It was a heap of assorted salad leaves and some ham. The most unwholesome thing was some Caesar dressing, but I did my best to restrict how much of it I had. It was nice enough, but not a patch on a shish kebab with a heap of salad. I usually watch some TV while eating dinner, but last night I had to search hard to find something to watch, and it was so bland I can't even remember what it was !
  On the left is the book I finished reading the day before yesterday. On the right is the book I started yesterday. Both are collections of Sci Fi short stories, although the first book tended to have "novellla" length stories. I didn't like that first book. Nearly all the stories were hard to read, and I am not even sure I would call some of them Science Fiction. I was very glad to get to the end of the last story in the book. That last story was about time travel, and was not written in a linear way. What was essentially the start of the narrative came about three quarters of the way through. I guess some like it like that, but not me.

  The second book, The Mammoth Book Of "Extreme Science Fiction" is, so far, an easy, and pleasurable read. Some stories are less than a dozen pages long, and that makes it ideal for late night reading. Although all the stories are very modern, and feature things like computers, they have a sort of classic SciFi feel to them. I've read three or four short stories from it, and the last was just the right length to finish before turning out the light and going to sleep.

 "Going to sleep" was not as easy as it sounds. It was quite sticky last night, and my legs seemed to be aching - probably because I was trying to hold them in odd positions to stop them sticking together. I eventually took a couple of Paracetamols to get the aches out of the equation. Once those painkillers kicked in I seemed to sleep well. One oddity was that this morning, and the sky was just starting to get light, I felt quite cold even though my room thermometer said it was over 25° C. I managed to sleep a little more with one leg, and one arm under the duvet, and nothing else.

  Once again I took a 2 litre bottle of chilled water with me when I went to bed, and I made sure I kept hydrated through the night. It is off how just a couple of degrees can make all the difference - last night, despite feeing very sticky when I first went to bed, I barely dampened my pillow with sweat. I did wee a lot after drinking a lot  of water ! Being fully hydrated meant that my blood glucose reading was nice and low this morning. Maybe those beef pies I ate stopped it going really low, but 8.0mmol/l still ranks as very good.

  Despite all the weather forecasts say, there is some hazy sunshine right now. It is casting a good, albeit slightly blurry shadow. It is sort of appealing, but I find myself exercising some caution. There is no blue sky to be seen. The sky seems uniformly bright milky white. The idea of thunderstorms seems unlikely. The BBC weather forecast is actually predicting the sunshine that is happening, but says it won't last for long, and is insistent that the first thunderstorm will start at midday. The Met Office shows grey skies until 3pm when it shows light rain. For 4pm it finally shows a lightning bolt.

  I guess the chance of a thunderstorm this after is now looking almost certain. I think that rules out any outdoor activities today, although I might do a little bit of gardening. I forgot to mention that I did about 0.5% of the gardening I need to do, yesterday. At this rate, if I do the same every day the garden could look cared for by next Xmas. Maybe the only outdoor thing I'll do today is to go to Tesco, For the rest of the day there is always the new book I am reading to keep me amused. Incidently, Jodie is busy today, and so there will be no beer tasting this Sunday.