I noted there was some rain in the middle of the night, but if the forecast holds true, and the latest revision to the forecast suggests there is reason to hope that should, today should feature loads of sunny spells, but no full sunshine. The full sunshine, shown in the early version of the forecast above, has been replaced by just sunny spells. The good thing is that the light rain shown for 2pm has also been replaced by sunny spells, although 3pm is now shown as just white cloud. The temperature today could briefly touch 13° C. Tomorrow could start with several hours of full sunshine, but there could be some isolated showers later - the BBC disagree and currently predict sunny spells all day.  The afternoon high could be just 12° C.

   I had several good triumphs yesterday, but sadly none of them were anything to do with mending dripping taps... One good triumph was some cooking for my dinner, but more about that later. My day, after having a shower, and putting some laundry in to soak, started with a shopping trip to Tesco.

  My shopping trip to Tesco was very typical of recent, and maybe older visits - I took great care to be very selective about what I bought, until I was suckered in to two items with reduced price stickers on them. In my instant euphoria they seemed like a good idea. One of them, a packet of three sausage rolls, even claimed a very low sugar content, and maybe it was somehow very low.

  The other thing was a leek and potato pie. Ideally it would have bacon in it, but I don't think that was mentioned on the packet. It still seemed to have some sort of potential to be nice, but as I write this I have not looked at it again to see what it might say about sugar content. The expensive items on my shopping list were three packs of meat, although I feel instant noodles are moving towards being luxury items, or at least the new additions on the shelves are.

  Apart from the shoes I was wearing, it was a pleasant walk to and from the store. Carrying 8 litres of Diet Coke in my rucksack meant coming home made it a less pleasant than the walk to the store with empty bags. Maybe that walk home put me off the already rather tenuous idea that I might go for a walk in the sunshine after shopping. Instead I sat down and had some lunch.

  I munched my way through the sausage rolls I mentioned above. I didn't bother to heat them up, or even give them an extra cooking, and just ate them cold. That is probably why I thought they were stodgy, and not very sausagey (a word that my spell checker refuses to believe exists !).  After that lunch I lay on my bed reading a copy of New Scientist. I haven't read a copy of New Scientist since the early stages of Covid and lockdown made it difficult to go in supermarkets without wearing full PPE.

  My only complaint about the issue of New Scientist I bough was that it seemed very thin, but there was still a lot of interesting stuff to read. I read some select bits, and then closed my eyes against the bright sunshine coming through the windows. I ended up snoozing for maybe half an hour. I woke up feeling cold, and decided that one way of warming myself up was to go and finish the laundry I had lefty soaking after my shower.

  That laundry was three t-shirts and four pairs of underpants - about the right amount without overfilling my washing buckets (large builders size) and overloading the clothes horse. I sort of wanted to take a break halfway through, but it was only because I was keen to start another project. I ended up doing all the rinses and conditioner in one process before hanging it all up to dry on the clothes horse in the dining room, and with the fan heater blowing on it for an hour or so before reverting to just the usual desk fan.

  The other project I was itching to do was to convert a cassette recording to an mp3 file. It was only by chance, when looking for something else, that I came across the cassette. It was one of Jodie's bootleg recordings of part of a gig played by the band New England, who we used to follow until they became a bit too weird. They eventually quite the music scene, or at least the band broke up, when their van, with all their instruments and PA equipment was stolen.

   The recording, made using headphones as the microphones, plugged into Jodies Walkman was made in The Camden Monarch pub on 2nd May 1994. It only included 3 songs, but it was a pretty good recording. Most importantly was that the vocals were not drowned out by the rest of the band. I wish I had had a decent camera in those days, but at most gigs there was security who would stop you bringing cameras in, although I did take in a camcorder to at least one pub gig with no problems (except the light was so low that the recordings were a bit muddy).

  It was while doing the recording from cassette player to my PC, and then doing the editing - mainly just topping and tailing, but also a slight tweak to the recording level - that I had a snack, and it was rather delicious. It was no more than small squares of ready sliced corned beef on rice crackers with a small dollop of mustard on each. It seemed to keep my going OK for the next couple of hours until dinner time.

  My dinner was something special. It was my first attempt at trying to make something similar to a shish kebab. I had no charcoal grill, and had to cook the ready diced chicken in my mini oven/grill. It meant the meat was not really browned because it was comparatively slow cooked, and to try and get it to brown would have just dried it out. Earlier in the afternoon I had sliced up a whole, very small, cabbage, and a brown onion. Both had been hanging around a long time, and I had to cut off a few spoiled bits. I mixed and seasoned the cabbage and onion with some olive oil, and plus salt, pepper, and a light sprinkle of dried mint.
  It may not look quite as elegant as a shop bought chicken shish kebab, but it did almost taste similar. Of course the one taste missing was the taste of a proper grill - essentially burnt fat and charcoal smoke. I definitely enjoyed it enough that my next couple of dinners will be similar. Tonight should be based on diced beef. The cabbage and onion should be better marinated after spending 24 hours in the fridge (covered with cling film).  Most importantly, my home made shish kebab had the desired effect - more of which later.

  Being a weekend night, there was no Star Trek on last night, but there were a few things worth watching. Sky Arts were showing a documentary film made in 1965 (if I remember correctly) of The Rolling Stones touring Ireland. Sadly a lot of the camera work seemed very amateur, and was often annoying, but it was still worth watching. I guess it was at a time when suddenly wartime austerity was finally thrown off, and new entertainment caused hysteria among the younger generation - particularly young girls !

  Later on it was time to watch a BBC channel, BBC2 I think. They were having a Beatles evening. It started with a documentary style film with clips music and some interviews. It was quite interesting, and the camera work was a lot better. It was followed by "The Beatles At The BBC" - lots of clips of The Beatles performing directly for the BBC, and some more interviews and the like.

  It ended by showing the brand new Beatles song - 40 years in the making. It was based on a poor quality recording of John Lennon essentially writing a song. It made heavy use of AI technology to lift his voice from the high background noise. Then the two surviving Beatles, Ringo Starr and Paul Mcartney, overdubbed guitars and drums (plus other misicians added a few other instruments.

  Finally a film was made to go with it which cleverly superimposed old footage over the musicians playing on the record, and on some typical sets of the day. I have to say the recording of the song, and the video were very, very clever, but sadly it sounded very flat. I can imagine if it had ever been used it would have taken John Lennon days of polishing the lyrics and tune, but I think he was killed before that could happen.

  I was in bed fairly late (for me) last night - possibly a bit later than 10pm ! I would describe my night, but it was so similar to the night before - apparently long periods of insomnia in the middle of the night. Like the night before, I turned the heater on low around 1am, but it was a cold night, and it wasn't until I put the heater on full blast at 5am that I started to slowly feel warm - and once again I ended up sleeping much later than my usual 6am getting up time.

  I suppose it is going to take another 12 or 24 hours before the raw cabbage and onion will do it's stuff. This morning I may be constipated, although as I sit here.....maybe there is some feeling of movement. Anyway, the good news is that my home made shish kebab worked as well as as a shop bought one. My oldest blood glucose meter gave a magnificent, and very rare reading of just 6.9mmol/l. The other two meters also gave very good, although not magnificent readings of 7.4 and 7.7mmol/l.

  Two things are likely to happen today. One is that I think I might take a wander to the shops. Generally that will be to Savers and to Poundstretcher. There are a few things I want from Savers, and a spare bottle of cod liver oil tablets is possibly the most important, although some bleach or toilet cleaner would be useful. There is nothing specific I need from Poundstretcher, but I will be looking out to see if they have any new stocks of sugar free biscuits in.

  This afternoon should be a beer tasting session with Jodie. At least I think she'll be coming over, I have a feint memory of there being some doubt, but that might have been about the trains, but I have checked they are running. If Jodie says she is not coming, with sufficient warning, I could be tempted to get a bus to Greenwich, and watch an hour or so of a later afternoon (4.30pm start) gig in The Morden Arms with Lord Algea belting out all the heavy covers they do.