The weather forecast has changed quite a bit in the latest revision. The heavy rain for this morning is now shown as light rain, but the sunny spells at 1pm and 2pm are now shown as part of a dry period of light cloud between midday and 4pm.There now may only be light rain at 4pm and 10pm The temperature should reach 13° C for a single hour at 2pm. The BBC weather forecast, which previously said rain all day, has reduced it to light rain and a lot of drizzle through the whole day. The Met Office says tomorrow will be dry, but with only a few sunny spells. The BBC predict tomorrow may feature a mix of sunshine and sunny spells through the whole day. Both forecasters predict 11° C tomorrow.

    I think I have to describe yesterday as a lot better than such a wet and gloomy day deserved to be described. Aside from the diabolical weather, there were quite a few good things about yesterday. My day (after writing yesterday's stuff) started with finishing the laundry I had started the previous day.

  That laundry was no more than a hand towel and two pairs of underpants. The hand towel was easy to handle and wring out, but like most towels it needed a lot of rinses before I was happy to hang it up to dry on the small clothes horse. With the bath clear of washing I had a shower. Once I was clean and dressed I waited for the rain to slacken, as it was forecast to do, and then, after donning my hooded raincoat, I ventured out into the big wet world.

  My destination was Poundstretcher. There were a few things I definitely wanted from there, and top of the list was some big packs of big kitchen towel. I took two bags with me, and thought there would be plenty of room for other stuff, but those 3 packs of kitchen towel are very big, and left little room in my two bags. Nevertheless, I did get quite a bit more stuff that I shoved into any space I could find in those shopping bags.

  The most bulky stuff to shove into the bags was 5 or 6 instant noodle pots, otherwise known as "Yumsu cup noodles". I even stuff in two big bags of crisps. It seemed like a good idea at the time when I bought them, but later I had misgivings about it after considering how unhealthy they are. That didn't seem to stop me eating over half of a big bag of paprika flavoured crisps for my lunch.

  I was lucky coming home because the rain had stopped, and it even seemed to be trying to brighten up a bit, but I can't recall a single ray of sunshine finding it's way through the clouds. After my bit of fresh air, and a naughty lunch, I had nothing better to do than to lay on my bed reading. I almost fell asleep, but I was jarred into full alertness when the doorbell rang.

  I thought that maybe it was Jodie arriving extremely early, but it was a parcel delivery. I was expecting it, but I was also expecting to get some notification of an expected delivery time. I had checked the Hermes/Evri website, and it confirmed that my parcel was ready to go out for delivery, and that I would be notified of when to expect it. I wasn't ! That annoyed me, and there was an extra reason to be annoyed.

  Today I am expecting another delivery, and once again the website says it is ready to go out for delivery, and promises to let me know an approximate times of delivery, but I feel angrily sure they won't. I'll be left keeping a close ear out for the doorbell until it arrives !

  Despite the uninspiring weather forecast, the sun is possibly just coming to the end of a sunny spell that has lasted at least 15 minutes - it should be raining according to the weather forecast. I'll admit it is still very cloudy !
  I took the above picture just before I started writing at 08:57am. It shows how cloudy the sky was, but also the bright glare of the sun trying to push it's way through the clouds. Looking at the sky now (09:46am) I can see quite a few small patches of blue sky between the clouds to the west, and some to the north. The east looks more dense, but that is where the sun has just been shining ! It is still trying to break through again as I write this.

  Back to yesterday, and Jodie did indeed arrive earlier than expected. Not only that, but she wasn't suffering from a hangover. I thought that might mean we would get some serious drinking in, but we didn't. She was intending to go to some special beer event in a bar or brewery called Craft Metropolis (https://www.craftmetropolis.co.uk/), and didn't want to get too "beered up" before the event (which was probably just a new delivery of imported beers that Jodie could not wait to sample and buy some cans).

  We stuck to mostly low strength beers - one was just 3.5%, but it was not exactly nice. The good thing was that Jodie was a bit more talkative than usual, and that made for a better session. She left to get the 6pm train to Clockhouse station, and The Three Hounds - a bar where she would be meeting Alan before they got the bus to the beer venue. It felt almost odd to finish a session almost sober. I could have had another beer or two, or even some whiskies later, but I didn't seem to want to.
  While we were drinking I was cooking my very simple dinner of grilled sprouts and lamb. As I am sure I have mentioned before, I now tend to think that grilling, or oven cooking (same difference in my mini oven/grill) is the best way to cook sprouts. They come up so different to the boiled to a paste sprouts my mum used to cook when I was a kid. Maybe I was not as sober as I thought because that is a pretty rotten, out of focus picture I took.

  I watched a bit of TV last night, but I rather fancied reading in bed before an early night. I was laying on my bed soon after 8pm, and maybe by 8.30pm I had brushed my teeth, and was actually in bed. I must have read for another hour before trying for sleep. I think it was gone midnight before I fell into a light sleep. I did not sleep well last night....except maybe for the last few hours.

  The reason it took so long to get to sleep, and then only slept lightly for over half the night, was that I was uncomfortable. It was no specific discomfort, but a mix of all of them, plus an almost new one. Some of it was due to the temperature - the usual too hot under the duvet and too cold without it. One unusual thing was a strange feeling like a rash on my legs when they were too hot. It was not a physical rash, but the same sort of prickly/itchy sensation as a rash. It went away almost instantly once I kicked the duvet off my legs.

  The only solution to the temperature problem was to waste precious electricity by putting the heater on full, and mostly discarding the duvet. That still didn't stop some odd aches in my legs. It was a sort of muscular ache, and came and went depending on how I placed my legs. In one position my right knew was quite painful. In a similar way, my right elbow could get pretty painful. On top of all that there were the lumps and bumps in the mattress and pillows that hadn't been there the night before !

  Then on top (or bottom) of it all, I started to get a sort of stomach ache. It was more a sort of undefined hint of ache, and it wasn't until this morning that I realised what it was.  Through all that I managed to get some sleep good enough for some interesting dreams. One dream seemed to be very long, but there were discontinuities in it that suggest, with hindsight, that it was actually several shorter dreams.

  The seemingly long dream started with a sequence that was like going to work, but it probably was more like I specifically wanted to get a special early morning train.  The start sequence was going up a broad covered ramp to get to the platform. I was following someone who seemed to get to the platform as fast as possible, and I was very happy to not only match his speed, but go almost fast enough to overtake him. I was slightly dismayed when we were overtaken by a few people running.

  Once on the platform I realised we had come up the wrong ramp, and would be at the back of the train. I wanted to be at the front, and hurried down the platform towards where the front would be. That was when the first discontinuity happened. The train was suddenly there and waiting. It was old slam door stock, and the front carriage where I wanted to be was all first class, although on this service there was no official first class, and so it was open to all.

  I walked through the second to front carriage, and it was quite nostalgic with it's slam doors, and drop down windows. I then went through the corridor connection to the front carriage, and it was very different. For one thing, it didn't seem to have any windows. What it did have was comfortable armchair seats, several TVs showing a news channel (with no interference from a moving train), and right in the middle a huge great "Space Invaders" screen. It must have been about a 36" display. Apart from looking around I didn't seem to do anything until I woke up.

  Despite all my earlier difficulties, I seemed to have no trouble oversleeping until almost 7.30am this morning. Very soon after I got up I realised the source of one of my discomforts in the night. There was no urgency for it, but once I was sitting down on the toilet I did a rather large poo ! Twenty minutes later I did a lesser, but still moderately big additional poo. Maybe an hour later I went again, although that was a bit less than normal. The big question is where did it all come from?

   I am sure I went adequately the morning before, and I don't think I ate that much in the previous 24 hours, or even 36 hours. It was like a hole had opened up in the space-time continuum or something. Oh well, better out than in. I am still passing some wind, and maybe that suggests there is still more to come before the morning is over !

  I knew that the crisps I ate yesterday would not be good for my health, but I thought there was a chance I might gat away with it in terms of my blood glucose readings. Maybe I did, or maybe I didn't. This morning I got lower than expected readings, 8.3mmol/l (Contour meter), and 8.0mmol/l (GlucoRX meter). The latter was particularly good, and both meters loosely agreed with each other. The Viva Chek meter refused to agree. It first read 9.9mmol/l - a disastrously high reading. I tried it again and it was very slightly lower at 9.5mmol/l.

  Maybe half an hour later, but before I ate anything, I tried the Sino Care meter, and that read 9.3mmol/l. It is almost as if those cheap Chinese meters use a slightly different method to get around a patent, and are maybe checking the blood glucose level by some indirect means. It leaves me in a quandary. Is my blood glucose high or low ? I think I choose to believe the two meters that came from the nurse, and both read moderately low. So I had two small bowls of instant noodles for breakfast this morning.

  One thing is certain about today, and that is I should have a dozen bottles of hot pepper sauce being delivered, but it seems highly unlikely I will be able to plan my day around that delivery because I will not be given any advance warning of it. It is 10:43am now, and the Hermes website says it is ready to go out for delivery, but hasn't left yet, and that I will be warned when it is due (yeah, sure !!!).

  I do have a desire for today, and it is to go to a gig this evening. A new band of youngsters, who no one seems to have seen before, have a gig at The Iron Horse in Sidcup. It is relatively easy to get to, although it does mean getting a bus to Lee station, and a train to get to Sidcup. The thing most likely to stop me going is the late start of 9pm. If it was 8pm there would be a better chance of going, but miracles do occasionally happen.