Once again there is a significant discrepancy between the Met Office and BBC forecasts. The BBC gives the most benign with a prediction of white cloud until early evening when there could be a few sunny spells before sunset. The Met Office, in the latest revision to their forecast have dropped the rain shown above for midday, but left in the sunny spells for 1pm. The BBC say just 21° C, and the Met Office say 22° C max today. For tomorrow the BBC have gone for all doom and gloom with a prediction of a thunderstorm for tomorrow morning. Both forecasts predict that there will be a lot of rain tomorrow, but as well as a thunderstorm, the BBC predict some heavy rain. It is almost the opposite of the forecasts for yesterday, and this time it is the Met Office predicting just light rain until about 3pm. Both roughly agree that tomorrow will be cool again with forecasts of 17° C (BBC) or 18° C (Met Office).

  I didn't think I would ever go out yesterday, and yet I did go out in the early afternoon - but not for long. The morning was just dull and depressing, and yet if I avoided looking outside I felt reasonably content. I think I passed much of the morning just reading and snoozing.

  It was probably at midday when I looked out the window, an d instead of the torrential rain the met Office were warning us about, the rain looked very light. A lot of the time the rain was barely visible unless you looked carefully at the surface of puddles to see the ripples of falling raindrops. I mentioned yesterday that I might consider going to Tesco, and that is what I did after a very superficial wash with a "damp flannel" instead of a proper shower.

  It was drizzling when I ventured outside, and even if it wasn't then, there was a high chance of that or more while I was out. Wearing a hooded raincoat seemed essential, but there was a catch. I have three choices of hooded raincoat, and none of them allow the body to "breath". It was mostly on the way home, carrying some shopping, that my raincoat was like wearing a portable sauna. After getting home, and unzipping the front of the coat, it felt like a plume of steam rising across my face. Most unpleasant !

  Until yesterday I was almost succeeding at keeping my cool about Tesco's very slow refit - the work being done in small steps when the store is closed at night. It is rather annoying when stuff is moved around inside the store.  It is double or treble annoying when stuff that has been moved once is moved again. I thought I had started to learn the new layout until I got there yesterday, and found it had all changed again.

  In one respect it is me who is suffering, but maybe Tesco is suffering more in many ways. Not only are most of the customers aimlessly wandering around not finding what they want, but you see the same thing with staff members too. Although I didn't have a hard and fast shopping list, I know I didn't buy all I wanted to because my memory was not triggered by passing what I would have bought, and I made plans to complete my shopping on Monday by going to Aldi !

  On the plus side, the whisky and whiskey is still in the same place, and yesterday there were approx £11 discounts on 70cl bottles of Jameson and Bushmills Irish whiskey - I bought a bottle of each. I also found some reduced price (near their sell by date) Scotch eggs. I bought two packs and had one for a sort of afternoon snack. (I had eaten 4 rice cakes with salad leaves, cheese and ham for my official lunch).

   I will probably have the second pack of two Scotch eggs as a some sort of snack today. The other reduced price item was a Tesco "Finest" cheese and caramelised onion quiche. I don't know when I will have that, but this time, when I do, I will following the cooking/heating instructions of 20 minutes in the oven, and hope it tastes nicer than the last one I had. The last one, also bought reduced price (of course) tasted a bit bland when eaten cold from the fridge. It did seem to be completely cook though.

  As the rain poured down, more often just light rain with an occasional heavier burst, I was not inclined to do much in the afternoon. To help pass the time, and to pass it quite enjoyably, I watched another hour long Sherlock Holmes story as produced by Granada TV in 1984. Fortunately I have every story they covered as mp4 video files stored on an external hard disk, plus a backup hard disk. In a curious way I find it hard to decide to watch these excellent productions because I stupidly fear I'll be tied down to watch it until the end, and yet, having made the decision I have never regretted it.

  One of yesterday's goals was to be very careful about what I ate, and somehow I really did. Maybe the two Scotch eggs were a bit of a luxury snack, but the nutritional panel on the pack did say they have very small amounts of sugar in them. Probably the most significant thing in achieving my goal was the early decision that I would have a kebab takeaway for my dinner.

  Shish kebabs, just grilled meat with lots of crunch salad, plus a pitta bread that I discard, have proved time and time again to barely affect my blood glucose level. What was rather less certain was whether a doner kebab was also basically sugar free. I had a £10 voucher for Just Eat, and the restaurant I usually use does a 5% discount for orders over £20 (or £25 ?). I made good use of these discounts and ordered two large shish kebabs and as an experiment, a "regular" lamb doner kebab. Last night I thoroughly enjoyed the doner kebab and one shish kebab. The other shish kebab I'll eat cold for dinner today.

  I was reading in bed sometime after 9pm. I read for quite a while, and I think I put the book down and turned out the light at around 10pm. At 11pm I was still awake, but asleep very soon after. Prior to 11pm I could not seem to get comfortable, and one or other elbows seemed to ache (depending on how I was laying in bed). I thought I would leave of the Paracetamol this time, and try a couple of Ibuprofen tablets. I haven't used those for ages because I found they seemed to be causing heartburn like pains, but I thought my gut full of kebabs would provide protection. It did, and because they tend to act a lot faster than Paracetamol, and maybe are better suited to calm joint inflammation, I got comfortable quite quickly.

  It is difficult to say how well I slept. I did seem to wake up more often than usual, and not because I needed a pee. I would thrash around trying to find the ideal sleeping position, and was probably back asleep far faster than it seemed at the time. Last night was notable for seeming to be dreamless. I do have a very faint memory of dreaming something a couple of times, but I can't remember a single thing about any dream.

  What I do remember was a rather typical waking up about 30 to 60 minutes before I wanted to get up, and surprising myself when I realised I had fallen asleep again for about 45 minutes (at a guess). It was soon time to see if my efforts to control my blood glucose level had worked or not, and that included the test of the doner kebab. I am very happy to say it all worked splendidly. My new meter showed I had hit my fantasy target of a nice low 7.5mmol/l. The old meter was not so generous, but 8.0mmol/l is pretty good these days. One curiosity is that from time to time one or other of the meters gives a much higher reading than the other, and yet the running average for both is almost identical.

  Today there are two events, and a very small possibility that those events could sort of merge. Today is the day of the "Fun, Fold, 'N' Food In The Fields" event in Ladywell Fields. it all happens at the north end of the park, near ladywell Station (in fact you cans see most of the goings on looking over the fence of platform 2). It is probably a 15 minute walk from home to the middle of the action - if indeed there is any action (judges by my own criteria).

  For a while it looked like it might be a washout today. It is almost certainly going to be a dull day, and the grass will have been turned into a quagmire after yesterdays rain, but otherwise it should be dry. There are potentially three things that draw me there. One is very possible - the Birds Of Prey display. Another is the very slight possibility of a decent beer tent. The third thing is really pot luck. There is a live music stage. There is a very slim possibility it might have a band worth watching, but I fear most of it will be total crap.

  One possible problem is that Jodie should be coming here for a beer tasting session. If I feel that it is worth hanging around in the park for any length of time I will tell Jodie to stay on the train and get off at Ladywell station and walk through the park. She is familiar with the walk, and has done it quite a few times before, but only on very warm and sunny days. If there is a beer tent with any "interesting" beers it would make the detour worth it for her, as would any vegetarian food stall - if their idea of vegetarian food coincides with Jodie's - i.e. not hot and spicy.