There should be sunshine as I write this, and there almost is now the sun is high enough above the nearby houses, but it looks as if one, possibly small, cloud is part blocking the sun. Most of the sky looks clear so sunshine lasting as late as 2pm in the latest revision, should be possible. The rest of the afternoon could be dull, but the temperature will be an almos warm feeling 11° C (unless there is enough breeze to cause some wind chill). Some warm and very wet air is heading our way, and so tomorrow morning could see some heavy rain, but the sun might break through, albeit as probably sunny spells for the last hours of daylight. The temperature could rise to 13° C - which would be great if it wasn't pouring with rain.

   I think yesterday went quite smoothly. It was a shame about the rain because it detracted from how good a few extra degrees could feel. Even so, 7° C, compared to 5° C the day before, did seem to make it easier to heat a few bits of my house. The dining room, for instance, was nice and toasty for the Thursday beer tasting session.

  As is so often the case recently, it was gone 11am before I was ready to have a shower, and prepare myself to meet the world. I still managed to get to Tesco just before midday, but only just.  The actual time of shopping is of little significance, on the other hand midday does seem to be a good time to find useful stuff on the reduced price shelf. I found two things on there that I snapped up. One was a pack of seafood sticks, and the other was a pack of mini beef pasties.

  There were two categories I was really shopping for. One was meat and vegetables to make low sugar dinners, and the other was more whisky. I couldn't resist on stocking up with another bottle of Haig whiskey with £10.50 off a one litre bottle. I also took advantage of £5.25 off a 70cl bottle of Proper Number 12 Irish whiskey. I had never tried it before yesterday, and when I did I found it was not as smooth as most Irish whiskies. That was a disappointment, but it is still very drinkable.

  Before going out to Tesco I had a sort of hint of some wheeziness, and I had a couple of squirts from my blue asthma inhaler. That did the trick (despite now being a couple of years after it's use by date), and I was able to walk at about my normal, medium fast, walking pace with no ill feelings - except for my feet. I have no idea why, but my previously comfortable shoes felt a bit uncomfortable.

  Even carrying quite a load home, I didn't feel much discomfort, and what I did feel was mostly my feet, although on the way home they didn't feel as bad - maybe they were turning numb or something. Once I had put all my shopping away I retired to behind my PC to read stuff while scoffing the entire pack of mini beef pasties. They definitely were "mini" - two bits and they were gone ! It was stupidly easy to scoff the entire pack for my pre-drinking lunch.

  By the time I had started on my lunch I had heard from both Michael and Jodie. Jodie text messaged me to say she had finally got to see a doctor after a week wait, and been prescribed antibiotics - just as she was feeling almost well anyway. The significant thing was that she would be joining us for beers later. Michael called to say he had seen the dentist, and was running a bit late, but he would probably still make it on time for some beers.

  It seemed I had a couple of hours with no interruptions before the drinking started. I spent at least an hour of that time laying on my bed reading, and trying to snooze. I am unsure if I did snooze. If I did it was so calm that I barely noticed it, although maybe more time passed than I can account for when awake. One little thing I did during that time period was to order more beers from Beer Merchants.

  They had emailed me to say I had just over £8 worth of reward points that were due to expire soon. I decided to spend them, and after some sort of brain storm I decided to but a couple of quite expensive beers as well as some more normal priced beers. One thing I noticed later was that I had deliberately bought a normal, and large bottle of the same beer. That is fine because it is a beer I like, and most of these beers I ordered yesterday were mainly for me. However what I should have done is order two big bottles, because the big bottle was about twice the price, but contained over twice the beer !

  At about 3.30pm, the usual time, Michael turned up to moan for half an hour about the dentist he had seen, Apparently he was a new man, and told a completely different story to his previous dentists at the same practice. The new man said his teeth were in bad condition - six months ago he was told they were perfect. He was ordered/recommended to buy a good (i.e. at least £100) electric tooth brush, and lots of other stuff all contradicting earlier advice. The trouble was that I think Michael actually believed some of it when to me it sounded like the dentist was in the pay of several commercial entities, and was trying to drum up extra business.

  When Jodie arrived, and stared using my cold kitchen to prepare her lunch, she was coughing a lot, and sometime it sounded quite throaty. Once she started drinking it all calmed down. We ended up having quite a good drink, although to my mild annoyance Jodie did her usual thing of ignoring older beers in favour of more recently purchased beers. A couple of weeks ago she was looking forward to 4 (or 5) dessert style beers from the same brewery, and said they must all be in the fridge together so we could try them the next week. The problem was that she had ordered, and got sent to me, a beer advent calendar, and of course those beers now take precedence over the older beers.

  As usual, we finished with a small shot of spirits as "one for the road". Michael had 2 because he needed to try and compare Fireball and Jack Daniel's "Tennessee Fire" hot cinnamon flavoured spirits. He went again the usual choice by declaring the Jack Daniel's better because it was sweeter ! Jodie tried the Proper Twelve Irish whiskey, and came to the same conclusion as me, that it was not as nice as most Irish whiskies.

  I decided I just had to eat the dinner I had been cooking, on and off, for 48 hours in my slow cooker. I think the final nail in the coffin was the pasta I had added to the stew. After so much cooking it was just soggy, and spoiled the whole stew - not that the stew itself was that great to start with. I had one bowl, and decided I would possibly have to flush the rest down the toilet. I cooked some sausages, and although it stretched my patience waiting for them to cook, they were very nice,

  I don't think I enjoyed any of the Star Treks I watched last night. The better entertainment was an episode of QI that finished at 10pm (I think). I brushed my teeth during one of the annoyingly frequent commercial breaks so I could jump into bed the moment it finished - which I did ! I probably read for little more than 15 minutes before putting the book down, and turning out the light. I can't seem to remember much time passing before I was fast asleep.

  I think it was around 1am when I woke up feeling far too hot. I needed a pee, and before I tried to get under the duvet again I checked the temperature. It was quite warm in my bedroom because it was quite warm outside at that point (it did cool down a lot by this morning). Although I describe my bedroom as warm, is still felt slightly chilly without the duvet. I think I got back to sleep on my side (as usual) with my back covered by the duvet, and my front uncovered.

  It was on the later hours of the morning that I had a dream that has left some memories.  It started off in a Telephone exchange in Wandsworth - an exchange I have seen the outside of, but never been inside. One of my workmates had returned to work after being off with 'flu for a fortnight, and was still feeling a bit week. he said he was going to slip away at 2pm. Is said I didn't feel too good, and I would join him.

  We left the building apparently without knowing our best ways home.  I had an idea I had to get a bus to New Cross and change buses there, but I was not sure where the bus stop was until I saw a bus stop at it the the other side of a busy dual carriage way bit of road. There then started quite a long adventure trying to get to that, or any other bust stop. It seemed every time we went down a road there would be some reason to have to turn off it when a bus stop came into view.

  For one bit of the adventure my workmate turned into a sort of girlfriend. I think that happened as we passed through the rubble of a part demolished factory. She was also there at the end when somehow we had walked off a street straight onto the remains of plane. I don't know why we couldn't go back the way we came, but it seems we had to get out of the plane by slithering down between two seats where the flooring had been removed. Maybe it was just too complicated at that point, and I woke up.

  I managed an extra half hour of sleep, maybe even a full hour, before I got up a bit later than usual. It was pleasing that one of the first things I did after getting out of bed was to go to the toilet for a poo as well as the usual pee. Then it was time to check my blood glucose readings. After what I ate yesterday, I wasn't expecting good results, but they were not as bad as feared.  The Contour meter read 8.1mmol/l, which I would usually consider pretty good. The GucoRX meter read an very good 7.0mmol/l, and that is excellent. The Sino Care meter read 8.5mmol/l, and while not bad, is a bit poor compared to the others. I guess my real glucose level was close to the Contour reading of 8.1mmol/l.

  Today is going to be almost warm, and it is going to be sunny until as late as 3pm according to the latest revisions. I feel I ought to do something with today - like going out train spotting for a few hours, but.... I have several things I could and should do. Once is to finally finish washing the towel I mentioned yesterday, and the day before. Yesterday I gave it four rinses, and it was still coming out a bit soapy. I estimated it needed another 4 rinses, but had run out of time and energy. I must finish washing it today !

  I also have a lot of washing up to do - including all the glasses we used while beer tasting. I would also need to wash myself if I were to go out. There is one uncertain thing today. It is possible, but unlikely now, that I could be getting a beer delivery today. it is one of those cases where the supply company has booked delivery with a courier, but has not actually passed the box of good to the courier. There could be a 24 or even 48 hour wait until the delivery is finally on the road.

  I would probably be safe to go out, but there is one other diversion. That is to re-install the full Mc OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) to the iMac 8. Once installed I cans see if it can play high definition videos without crashing. If it can, I might be content to keep Mac OS 10.6 on it. However, if it does crash then I would have nothing to lose by wiping the whole hard drive, and re-installing Linux on it.