There a bit of disagreement between the two weather forecasters I monitor. The latest revision to the Met Office says the sunshine and sunny spells may now end at 1pm, while The BBC say they should last all day. Even if the sunshine/sunny spells end, it should still stay dry all day. Both forecasters agree on a high of 12° C today. Tomorrow sees a return to grey skies and rain. Some of the rain might be heavy, but tomorrow morning's forecast may give a better idea of when, and how heavy. Both forecasters agree that tomorrow will see a maximum of 12° C.

   Not a lot happened yesterday, but a few things did happen. One such thing was a bit of laundry that included a very heavy when wet, and hard to wring out, pair of sweat pants. It raised my body temperature a couple of degrees working on them. Other than that, there was a lot of waiting.

  It must be some sort of psychological hang up, or something like that, but I can't seem to relax when waiting for a parcel or packet delivery. Yesterday it was for a packet delivery, and I was on the edge of my seat waiting for it until 3.20pm when it arrived. The silly thing is that it was nothing terribly important, although on reflection it was a bit important.
  The most important thing to be delivered was new test strips for my old Contour blood glucose meter. The test strips are in the canister on the right of the meter in the picture above. My order was for 100 test strips that had two canisters of 50 in it. I have, and use two other blood glucose meters, and so it was not essential to get the Contour test strips, but it is sort of nice to have all three meters able to be used.
  The second item in the delivery was a multi memory card reader - the black box in the picture above. It was very cheap, under £6, and I ordered it partly just to increase the value of the order in the hope I might get free delivery - I didn't. On the other hand, it wasn't just something to bulk up an order, but a useful tool. I have older adapters that will read an assortment of memory cards, but they are all to the USB 1 standard, and a bit slow. This one is USB 3 and a lot faster. Not only that but it comes with an adapter for a USB-C plug that can be plugged into most new Android phones.

  I think I mentioned that Amazon stitched me up because I once again refused to sign up for Amazon Prime. There are some months when I order enough that it would probably be useful and/or economical to do so, but not every month. I feel sure that because I refused to sign up that I was only offered one delivery option - next day delivery at a cost of £4.99. On the plus side, looking back at how much I paid for a single canister of Contour test strips, I did get the twin pack at almost the same price.

  I can't seem to remember if it was before or after Yes I can ! It was while cooking an afternoon snack that my package was delivered. I think it was all the waiting (and Amazon providing no better estimate than "before 10pm" for the delivery time) that I started to feel very peckish. It was part irrational, and maybe part in hope, that I oven cooked a medium plate of chips. past experiments have shown that oven chips don't seem to have much affect of my blood glucose. It was a very tasty snack !

  My dinner, eaten while watching Star Trek:Deep Space Nine, was another of my home made shish kebab. This time it was based on diced beef that I roasted rather than grilled. Unfortunately it was probably over cooked. On the other hand it was probably of a cut that would be much more tender when cooked in gravy as a stew or something. It was a bit tough, and that spoiled the overall effect. Maybe next time I will dice up one of Aldi's cheap steaks instead. The salad was from the batch I made for the previous day using just white cabbage and onion with some seasoning.

  After my usual three Star Treks I continued to watch TV. There was an episode of Abandoned Architecture on the Yesterday channel. (Or was it abandoned engineering ?). The presentation of this series is often terrible, but they do show some interesting things. What I wasn't expecting was the last place shown and described on the programme. Usually they are of far away, sometimes exotic places, but last night they showed the old Ladywell Swimming baths - little more than 20 minutes walk from my own front door.
  I took this picture of the old Ladywell Baths, with it's distinctive round tower, on Saturday 26th December 2015 while out on a morning walk to, and around Ladywell. One interesting piece of information I got from the programme, if it can be trusted, is that the place was originally built to provide baths for washing - with separate facilities for the working and upper classes. The swimming bath was a later addition. Apparently it was quite big for it's time, and a couple of notable Olympic swimming champions trained there.

  I think it was a little after 10.30pm before I fell asleep last night. Once again I took a couple of Paracetamol tablets before I went to bed. That could become a habit that I will resist, but last night I felt I wanted another good sleep, and that is exactly what I got. I think my longest period of insomnia was probably no more than 15 minutes, and possibly less. I know it was not dreamless sleep because I can remember dreaming, bit I cannot recall any details about the dreams.

  This morning there is good and bad news. The bad is simply that, as yet, I have not had a poo. The good is that my blood glucose readings were all very good. They ranged between 8.1mmol/l (Sino Care meter), 8.0mmol/l (Contour meter) and 7.9mmol/l (Gluco RX meter). That is a nice tight set of readings, and in my mind that means they are accurate. I was happy to see that the fresh test strips for the Contour meter gave a reading so close to the other two. Yesterday the last, and possibly contaminated (after I dropped it on the floor) Contour test strip gave a really wild reading !

  I am not sure how I will pass today. With rain expected tomorrow, today could be the last dry, and bright day for a while, and I should try and make use of it by going for a walk. I must admit it is something I probably need to do, rather than actually want to do. There are two reasons why I may not go out. One is that I still have not had a morning poo, and I don't want to go out feeling uncomfortable. The other is that there is a third item from my recent Amazon order to be delivered. It is just a small box of AAA batteries, and it is apparently coming by Royal Mail, but they only provide tracking showing when they got the packet, and when the delivered it. It could come today, tomorrow, or even next week.

  I almost forgot one bit of good news from yesterday. I was putting away the last two pairs of shorts I had out. While putting them in a storage box, together with my other pairs of shorts, I happened to check to see what was in the box under the box that was under the box with the shorts in it. I thought it was just some old bedding stuff, but it had four pairs of trousers in it, and after trying them on I found they all fit except for one pair that is too big, and would need a good belt to hold them up. Among the ones which fitted perfectly was one pair of trousers I have been half heartedly looking for recently.

  That particular pair are black corduroy, jeans style, trousers. The good thing about them is that they seem thick enough to be warm in winter, and yet still seem very flexible and very comfortable. I think a couple or more winters have passed when I have thought it would be good to wear them. Maybe this winter I will - even if corduroy is a bit unfashionable !