Today is another day that should be generally bright and sunny, but the times of full sunshine, sunny spells, and no sunshine keep getting shuffled around as the forecast is revised once an hour.As is often the case, The BBC are firmly of the belief that there will be full sunshine for all daylight hours. Both forecasters predict a high of 24° C today. Tomorrow is either forecast to be another very sunny day (BBC) or sunny spells most of the daylight hours (Met Office). Both forecasters say the temperature could each a brief peak of 25° C. That is warm !

   To call yesterday good I would either had have to gone out, or did a lot more useful stuff than I did. I think yesterday is best described as "satisfactory". Maybe the best bit was that I had a shower, and then went to Tesco to buy stuff for a few dinners, and some food for other times, and even a little bit of almost, but not quite, junk food.

  I must admit that I had a slow and lazy morning, and I didn't have my shower until almost midday, and I didn't get to Tesco until almost 1pm. After my shower I put three t-shirts, and one pair of underpants into soak in detergent. I did it with strict instructions to myself to try and finish that laundry, and get the stuff hanging up to dry on the clothes horse (with desk fan blowing at it) before mid afternoon. I just about made that !

  One oddity about my shopping is that I felt a desire for some kippers. I have no idea what triggered this desire. Maybe it was something I saw on TV, but it could have come from a forgotten dream (but then what triggered the idea in the dream ????). I was quite dismayed when I saw the shelf price for kippers before I did a double take and saw that it was the price per £1, and that each cook in the bag was individually priced. The two I bought may have both been £1.47p - which is probably reasonable.

  I only bought one full price pack of diced beef to form the core ingredient in some future dinner.  Fortunately I found a reduced price pack of diced lamb, and a reduced price pack of sausages on the reduced price shelf. I also found a few other things on the reduced price shelf, and one of them probably falls into the very nice, but probably unhealthy category. It was 3 or 4 lamb samosas. I hope they are good when I have them because even at reduced price they were marginally expensive.

  I didn't buy any drinks in Tesco, so my bags were moderately light when I walked home. I still felt like I might be very slightly out of breath, and it seemed hard work keeping up the pace. The warm sunshine heated me up too, and although I was not actually sweaty, I guess I was moist when I got in and changed my clothes - most exchanging long trousers (jeans) to a pair of shorts, and exchanging shoes for flip flops.

  I was quite keen to have kippers for lunch. I decided to eat them on their own, rather than with bread or toast. I followed instructions and microwaved them in the bag for 2 minutes and 45 seconds (although with a dial only marked in whole minutes it was probably closer to 3 minutes). As I opened the bag there was a nice kipper smell. However they didn't taste good. I feel confident the fish wasn't off, but maybe the artificial smoke flavour and colouring wasn't quite right.

   It is also quite possible that the same taste receptors killed or altered by Covid, that now make cucumber taste soapy, also did something to make the taste of kippers seem odd and wrong. I sort of checked this by heating up some ready cooked, ready to eat, smoked mackerel as a sort of taste comparison. The mackerel didn't taste horrible, but I can't say I enjoyed it as fully as expected.

  One thing that mackerel, or kippers did, or maybe did, was to start some gassy effects in my gut. I guess it was more likely to be something else I ate, possibly even the kebab I had the night before, but I do definitely know that as I lay on my bed to left the fish start to digest, I could hear and feel lots of gurgles, and bloops, and bubbling inside my gut. Eventually I began to feel some pressure that suggested a large fart brewing.

  I had a sneaky feeling it could be a very wet fart, and so I went to sit down on the toilet and wait for some action. It was indeed a wet fart, or at least the second one was. There followed quite a lot of wet farting. Looking at the toilet pan before I flushed it showed a considerably amount of almost liquid poo. Clearing that out is probably the reason why I haven't gone to the toilet so far this morning.

  By late afternoon I had a fully cooked dinner ready to be warmed up again before eating. It was a lamb and broccoli stew, but after eating so much fish I thought a slightly lighter dinner might be appropriate. I decided I would eat the two pot noodles, of types I had never tried before, that I bought in Tesco. One of them is pictures on the left.

  Someone had to try a Doner kebab flavoured instant noodle, and I sacrificed myself so you didn't have to. I have to admit, that once or twice i did seem to get a hint of the taste or smell of a donor kebab, but mostly it just tasted mildly unpleasant. I don't wish to repeat that experiment again !

  The second one I ate was a version of a flavour, and make, I usually buy in a packet, but it came with it's own mug, or "pot", and just needed boiling water added. It was spicy Korean flavour which wasn't Kimchi, but something similar. I have to admit I didn't enjoy it, but at that point it was possible my taste buds were still in disarray after eating the (alleged) Doner Kebab flavoured noodles. If I am feeling rich I may buy another and give it another taste, but it was rather expensive for what it was.

   Last night was almost a typical night of watching three Star Treks before going to bed. What made it slightly different is I had two 550ml bottles of ales to drink while watching TV, and TV also included an episode of QIXL. It was another old one hosted by it's originator, Stephen Fry. I can't help but thinking he was better than Sandi Toskstig, and also had better guests.

  I was in bed very soon after 9pm, and I think I was asleep as little as half an hour later. I seemed to sleep very well last night except for one time when I must have kicked the duvet aside and woke up feeling cold. I can't remember waking up to pee more than twice in the night (if I don't count the one less than an hour before I got up). I was actually awakened at about 6.30am by two men with quite thick west Indian accents arguing in the road not far from my house. I have no idea what they were arguing about. Neither seemed extremely angry, but there was some anger in their voices. I could only make out maybe one word in twenty, and so I have no idea what they were arguing about.

  This morning I suspected that instant noodles for dinner would not make for very good blood glucose readings this morning. They were nowhere near as good as the day before. 8.9mmol/l on the new meter is a little bit on the high side. The oldest meter, The Bayer Contour, almost agreed with a reading of 8.8mmol/l. The older meter almost gave a good reading fo just 8.3mmol/l. With readings like that I don't have to do any more than just try to eat more safely today, and don't have to do anything drastic like fasting. Fortunately my dinner is ready to be reheated, and should be very safe.

  Once again it is another day when I will be making up what I do as I go along. If I manage to go to the toilet (for a poo), and it is normal I might take a chance and go out somewhere to stretch my legs, but otherwise I will have to find some stuff to do at home - of which there are plenty of things I could do if I can find the enthusiasm for them.
  A bit of added brightness in the warm sunshine as I walked home from Tesco yesterday. I originally called these sunflowers, and indeed that name is partly correct, but their proper name is Jerusalem Artichokes. They are related to the giant sunflower by way of a distant ancestor of daisies. The way they seemed to have spread from one front garden to the next is a clue to a correct identification as Jerusalem Artichokes. They spread via rhizomes underground, and are almost classified as an invasive species. The tuber at the base of the plant is edible cooked or raw. More info here > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_artichoke