I thought it looked very bright outside before opening the curtains just before 8am, but I don't think it was full sunshine, and I haven't seen even a sunny spell since. The latest revision to the forecast says sunny spells at 10am, and then sunny spells from 2pm until sun set. The afternoon temperature is forecast to reach 12° C, and the whole of the day should stay dry (but I am not sure that the big black cloud blocking the sun as I write this, got that message - it looks very threatening). Tomorrow may feature a few sunny spells at the crack of dawn, but the rest of the day may feature a 100% cover of white cloud. It should be dry, and the temperature may only reach 11° C.

   All the sunshine and sunny spells had a very positive effect on my mind - except when it didn't ! I must admit that by 3pm I was feeling cheated out of good day because the weather forecasts, from both whose web pages I check, kept saying it was not going to be a nice day at all. I should have ignored the forecasts, and just used my eyes.

  It seemed like it all came to an end at just before 4pm. I don't think it even waited for the sun to go in when I heard a noise, looked out the window, and the rain was so heavy that it made it look misty outside. That sudden, ultra heavy downpour probably lasted little more than 5 minutes. It was followed by maybe 10 minutes of light rain, and the sun came out before it stopped drizzling.
  I expected to see a rainbow, but maybe the rain eased off before the sun was bright enough to cast a rainbow. It took this picture while hoping to see a rainbow. Note how brightly lit the hoses on the right are lit from the dazzling sun behind me, and how black the sky is to the east.
  I took this picture of my shadow just after the previous photo. The sun is quite low in the western sky, and shining on my back. It is a tiny bit over exposed, and the shadow looked darker to my eyes. The really curious thing is that I seem to look a lot slimmer than I am in reality !

  Back to yesterday morning. After not washing the day before, I obviously needed a good shower, and the sunshine made it seem nicer than it would have been if it was all gloomy outside. Less important was my hair, but I shampooed and conditioned that as well. After drying my hair, and getting fully dressed, it was just about midday, and my thoughts turned to lunch.

  I had semi planed my lunch the day before. I had to use up the last slices of bread that only had a spot of two of mould growing on the crust. There were four slices that were OK to use, and I had to throw away the end crusts - one of which showed a lot of green mould on it. Four slices of bread were more than I though were suitable, particularly with what I would do to them, but they had to be used, and used right then !

  I made toast with them, but I can only do two slices at once. When toasted I put a slice of mature cheddar cheese on each slice of toast, and grilled that until the cheese was melted and bubbling. I then added some slices of (alleged) BBQ flavoured beef brisket, and made a sandwich using the two slices of toast. As I ate that I did the same to the next two slices of bread. It did seem to be quite a substantial lunch, and to make matters worse, the brisket didn't even add any useful flavour - it was completely overpowered by the taste of the toast and the grilled cheese.

  I had a little lie down, and did some reading after lunch, but half an hour, maybe three quarters of an hour later I started doing some laundry that I had put into soak after my morning shower. It seemed like a lot, but it was only 6 items - two t-shirts, a pair of lounge pants, and three pairs of underpants. I kept think I was going to stop, and take a break before continuing, but I did it all in one go, and hung it up to dry on the big clothes horse in the front room - which had warmed up with all the sunshine coming through the windows.

  I had another resting and reading break after that. It was probably then that I started moping that thanks to bad advice by the weather forecasters, I had missed out on some outdoor activities in the sunshine and sunny spells that weren't suppose to happen. After a while I thought I ought to try and do something useful indoors.
  One such thing was testing the other cheap, own brand, sugar free Cola from Aldi. The ZX cola I had tried over the previous 2 days was not bad. I expected this even cheaper Diet Cola to be pretty awful, but I am still drinking the last of it even while I am writing, and it seems very acceptable. I can't decide which of the two is the best. Both are not quite the same as real Diet Coke, and both are slightly different to each other, but both are very drinkable. I think the next time I am shopping in Aldi I will buy two bottles of each one.

  The next time I am shopping in Tesco I must be brave an buy a bottle of their own brand sugar free colas. I am not 100% sure, but I think like Aldi, they do one in a very bland bottle, and another made to look a bit posher. Like Aldi, they used to do a very nice substitute for Diet Coke, and just like happened to Aldi, the label changed, and it suddenly tasted disgusting. I feel sure it didn't happen at the same time as Aldi's sugar free cola - there could have been several years difference between the two disasters. Maybe Tesco's own brand is now drinkable again. Only one way to find out !

  I was starting to feel a bit bored, and so I had to force myself to do something useful. It turned out to be some more video editing to remove crap at the beginning and end, plus the adverts in the middle, of recordings I had made on my big TV downstairs. If I recall correctly I did three programmes. One was very simple to do. It was a recording of "Yes Prime Minister" that was recorded from BBC4. With no adverts to snip out, and a clean and start and finish, it was simplicity to do, and although I did have a VHS recording of the same episode, the new one was in DVD quality !

  Cleaning up an unneeded (as I later discovered when saving it) episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, as shown on Sky Mix, was a tricky operation. The start was clean enough, but the way they had added the very long advert breaks was very sloppy. Editing the one hour recording to just the actual episode left just 40 minutes of story ! An episode of The Avengers, shown on Great TV! was pretty routine by comparison.

  I thought that three TV programmes was good enough for one day, and it was getting close to dinner time. I read some stuff on the internet before going down into the kitchen to get my dinner cooking. It was to be two Aldi's posh quarter pounder burgers, and two medium small baked sweet potatoes. I didn't bother with any vegetables because I had some fruit for dessert.

  Once again, dinner seemed quite a big meal like lunch seemed. I am getting worried that I am eating too much, or at least the portions I eat are getting too big since I discovered my pancreas seemed to be working better, and I almost seem to be able to eat anything not too mad and still get low blood glucose readings.

  I was amused for most of my evening by watching 4 (or was it 5 ?) back to back episodes of The Avengers last night. They were on live TV ("Great TV!"), and so I had to endure the adverts, and because they were all from series 6 when the writers had used up all their better ideas, it was not exactly thrilling TV, but it was just about acceptable, and passed the time until it was time to go to bed.

  I was in bed by 9pm, but I spent a lot longer reading than most nights because I was so near the end of the book that I read on until I finished it. Things are a bit hazy from then on. I can't remember if it took a long time to get to sleep, or if it was almost instant. My guess is that if I can't remember, it was probably close to instant. On the whole, I think I slept well last night.

  I do remember getting up to pee a few times, and I am very sure I woke up once, and decided I didn't really need a pee, and went back to sleep again. It has become such a habit to go for a pee every time I wake up, but there are plenty of times when I have wondered why I thought I needed to. At the hopefully unlikely risk of wetting the bed, I feel I want to "untrain" myself to go for a pee every time I wake up. Maybe last night featured the first of these "untraining" sessions.

  I know I had lots of dreams last night, but it seems they have left no memories apart from what could be described as faint shadows.  The annoying thing is that I have sort of itchy feeling that one or more dreams were quite good adventures, but I just can't seem to force a single detail out of my corroding brain.

  Despite feeling like I ate rather too much yesterday, it seems I still managed to keep my blood glucose level nice and low. I seem to be meeting my imaginary target most days recently. That target is 7.5mmol/l, and when I was struggling to keep my readings below 9mmol/l, it almost seemed like an impossible dream, but this morning: The Contour meter read 7.5mmol/l exactly ! The GlucoRX meter read 7.9mmol/l. The Sinocare gave a very high reading initially, but I pricked another finger, and tried again. This time it matched the other two with a reading of 7.8mmol/.

  Today might have been a good day to try and restrict my eating more, but there is a catch - beer this afternoon. I should have done the same as yesterday for breakfast - one small/medium instant noodles, and an apple or two. This morning I had two small/medium instant noodles, and no fruit. At lunchtime it would be foolish not to have something to line my stomach before drinks loads of lovely beer. Being drunk could make my dinner uncontrollable unless I pre-cook it before starting on the beers.

  I hope Jodie is in a better state of mind when she comes over for out usual Sunday afternoon beers. I will be quite disappointed if after all the fuss last Thursday, she is still using her old phone. Assuming she has finally swapped the SIM card from the old phone to the new, I hope she has fitted the 256GB micro SD memory card I gave her ages ago, but never fitted to her old phone. Add that storage to the new phone will stave off the day when she turns up in a panic because she has filled her phone right up to the top with photos, videos, and more children's games !
      







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