As I write this the sky is a clear blue, and the sun is shining. Later on some cloud will bubble up, and it will increasingly become cloudy. The latest revision to the forecast now says that from mid afternoon it will get cloudy enough to block all the sunshine. It will also be a much cooler day that the previous few days. Just 23° C is expected, but that is still very pleasant. All that cloud is practice for Wednesday, when rain is expected, but tomorrow should start bright. The afternoon may be dull, and the temperature as low as 21° C, but it should stay dry.
  Yesterday turned out to be very different to how I expected the day to be. I thought it was going to be a nice lazy day where I could spend ages laying on my bed, with the big fan pointed on me as I quietly read or dozed through the heat of the day, but I got a text message.....

  I had got off to an early start yesterday, and finished writing this diary/blog/thing much earlier than usual. The next thing I did, after taking a 20 minute breather from my PC, was to start selecting and editing the pictures I had taken of Ukedelix - the band who I thought were going to be a punk band, but weren't. In fact they were far from being a punk band, although maybe had a similar, but older and wiser spirit....maybe.
  As can be seen they are a bunch of older ladies (except for Warren Elias, the drummer they borrowed for the gig). The play a variety of instruments, and seemed to change them for each song.
  This lady, the best looking one (in my opinion), was a bit like Bob Dylan in two ways. The obvious was playing harp (Harmonica/mouth organ) using a neck brace thing so she could play guitar ukulele at the same time. The less obvious was I never managed to see her smiling - which is a shame because it would have made her face looks so much prettier.
  A few songs in they got out the hardcore stuff - an accordion !  I don't think I recognised a single thing they sang, and I can't remember any of the tunes. It was fun taking quite a lot of photos, but I don't think I enjoyed their performance. I probably only stayed for about 15, maybe 20 minutes before I left to go home, but as often happens, for reasons I can't even begin to suggest, I took more good pictures during that sprint than I took more deliberately of The Entourage band.

  After I had finished my photography I was going to have a shower and wash my hair, but I decided I couldn't be bothered to do that. I was not expecting to see anyone yesterday, and so it didn't matter if I was stinking. What I did want to do was to wash a duvet cover, and the idea was to get it done fast enough so it could finish drying outside quick enough that I could wash and hang a second duvet on the line.
  Hand washing the first double duvet cover was hard and hot work. It was too hard to wring it out by hand to any extent past almost not dripping. I couldn't have dried it indoor in that state, but it didn't matter if it dripped in the garden, and as expected, it did completely dry in the hot sun  very quickly. I can't deny it was a struggle doing the one double duvet cover, but the second one I thought I was going to tackle was of thicker material, and would have been a titanic struggle !

  I was saved from doing the second duvet by a text message. It was from Jodie asking if I could put the beers from the box that Alan brought over last Thursday, into the little beer fridge. I was not expecting Jodie because I thought she was off to a (heavy) rock festival in Finland, but it turns out it is this coming Thursday, and I won't see her then, nor next Sunday. Even the Thursday next week is in doubt because she only gets back the day before and may need a day to dry out/recover.

  I suddenly found I needed a shower after all, although I didn't feel I had the time to wash my hair. I actually had a full three hours between the exchange of text messages, and Jodie arriving, but it still felt like a mad rush to do this that and the other. I didn't even manage to polish the beer glasses until Jodie was actually here, although they had been washed a few days earlier.

  The idea of changing the beers in the little fridge was that the replacement beers were supposed to be light lager style beers. They were all brewed in Spain, and sadly is seems the Spanish have come down with the same disease that makes brewers make unpleasant beers from weird hops and stuff. Most of the were bitter and a bit hazy. I don't think I enjoyed any of them.

  The good thing about the session was that Jodie was a bit more talkative - maybe because she didn't have to try and talk over the top of non stop talking Michael ! Ah well, at least it was a good excuse to not have to tangle with washing the second double duvet. I think all the beers were relatively light, 4 to 5% tops, and I still felt very sober at the end, although I should say I was drunk so I can blame that for eating badly yesterday.

  Jodie left to get the 6:29pm train to Clock House where she was meeting Alan in The Three Hounds. I got my dinner together - not that it needed hardly any work. It was over half a bag of mixed salad leaves, and two slices of pork and egg, gala pie. I think I made a mistake of giving the salad leaves a rather generous sprinkle of balsamic dressing. I think it was too vinegary after the sour beers.

  My dinner was, or should have been quite nice, but the acid of the balsamic dressing cried out for some sort of sweet to balance it. I opted for a tub of ice cream. I knew that was pushing my luck, but it was by the same makers as the ice cream I seem to tolerate really well. The trouble is was that Tesco have run out of what seems now to be the safe stuff, and I ate was is not nearly so safe - if indeed it has any safety at all. Double chocolate even sounds very dangerous, but at least it was very nice.

  Once again I was thinking of bed well before it was dark, but I decided to stay up just a tiny bit later to watch an episode of QI on Dave at 8pm. I barely watched 10 minutes before I was convinced it was a recently seen repeat (maybe from several months ago).  I gave up after the ten minutes and made moves towards going to bed, which translates to brushing my teeth, and taking a couple of Paracetamol tablets (because I had a few unwanted aches and pains).

  I estimate that I was asleep by, or not long after 9pm. Like most nights recently, I would sleep for several hours, and then seem to wake up for 10 to 20 minutes. During those periods of being awake I would curse that I was losing out on good sleep, but then suddenly realise that 2 or 3 hours had passed unnoticed - except when I knew I had been dreaming. I had two distinct dreams, but as I type this I only seem to remember one now.

  The dream I remember seemed to be set on Catford Bridge station that sometimes had characteristics of a tube station, and sometimes like it was on an embankment/viaduct like Catford station. I was probably there for train spotting, but no trains seemed to be running, and the customer information display was useless because it had been hijacked by a pirate ! Eventually a sort of "train" came in on the other platform. It was a motley collection of road vehicles with their tyres replaced by train wheels, and had been assembled by the (Clarkson era) Top Gear Team.

  I don't recall anything happening to this train - one minute it was there, and the next it was gone. It was like a portion of my dream had been edited out. The next event was another strange train arriving at the platform I was on. It was like a modified London bus, and once again it had been made/converted by Top Gear. Unfortunately it chose that time to break down. The crew, who were obviously the three presenters, although not clearly seen, ran away like naughty schoolboys, and left the line blocked. At that point I suggested to the friend I was with that we see if anything was happening at Catford station. As we started to exit from the station it was then that the station took on the characteristics of a tube station. It was also when the dream seemed to fade out, and I woke up.

  I can't remember what time it was when the dream ended, but I don't think it was when I woke up for the last time, and got up. I was up early again this morning, just before 6am, but only because I couldn't imagine being able to going back to sleep again. maybe I just didn't try hard enough. It wasn't long before the truth of that chocolate ice cream was revealed. My blood glucose reading was a dangerously high 10.3mmol/l. The worst thing is that I have at least one more tub of the same ice cream in the fridge. I am going to have to be very careful when I eat that. I'll probably get away with maybe half a tub eaten at lunch time.

  I should be extra careful of what I eat today, and ideally fast until dinner time, but I have already had a packet of chilli flavour instant noodles for breakfast. One straw I am going to clutch at is that the high glucose reading could also be caused by some overnight dehydration. In the first half of the night, until it cooled down a bit, I had to turn my pillow around 3 or 4 times because it was saturated with sweat. I had plenty of water I could have drank during the night, but I had barely drank a litre all through the night. I must have peed more than that during the night !

  The main thing today is an annoyance. My next door neighbour has invited me, and several other neighbours around for an afternoon drink and nibbles in her garden. Now I must admit I feel nosy enough to pop in for a short while, but I don't really fancy staying any more than half an hour, or less. The trouble is, unless I can come up with a good excuse, something like a broken leg, it might appear rude to go so early. This is one of those times I'll just have to play it by ear.