There are two schools of thought about today's weather. The latest revision to the Met Office forecast has changed 9am to dark cloud instead of the sunny spells shown in the screenshot above. Everything else is about the same. The BBC still say there should have been a few sunny spells around now, but the clouds in the sky show no cracks where the sun could shine through. The major difference is that The BBC predict rain, including a thunderstorm for the first hours of the afternoon, but sunny spells in the evening. They also predict a couple of hours at 19° C compared the The Met Office's single hour at 18° C. Tomorrow could start very dull, but it may brighten a bit as the temperature rises to 18° C, and there may be light rain for the evening. The BBC broadly agrees with this forecast, but, as usual, tomorrow may actually be completely different to the forecast.

   Yesterday was a very productive day, but I really wanted to go out for some exercise. I couldn't do that because I was expecting a parcel delivery from Amazon. It actually arrived fairly early at about 2pm. In theory I could still have gone out for a walk around the park, but I don't seem to have much enthusiasm to go out once the afternoon has started.

  Not only did I not have the enthusiasm to go out in the afternoon, but I started doing stuff I never imagined I would do, and having got started, I didn't want to stop until I felt tired enough to call it a day. I probably didn't really reach that point, and stopped when I could stand back and congratulate myself for what I had done. Most significant of all was getting the hoover out and cleaning, as best I could with my crappy hoover, and worn out carpets.

  I hoovered much of the front room, but there was some stuff I couldn't be bothered to move to get full access to the carpet. I then moved on to the hallway. Sadly that carpet is really faded where the sun shines through the windows in the front door almost any afternoon there is some sunshine. Finally I started on the dining room. On one side of the room was fine scraps of cardboard where I have cut up beer boxes, and on the other side there were all the crumbs that Jodie drops when eating.

  I was almost enthusiastic to hoover some of the upstairs, or possibly the stairs themselves, but as I was finishing the dining room my shoulder started to ache, and just before I stopped it became very uncomfortable. I can only think there is an old "war wound" there. It is also one of the places where just cold damp weather can get it aching. It did seem sort of strange about how quickly that pain went away once I stopped pushing that hoover around.

  One job I was very glad I still had the right enthusiasm to do, was to sponge down my new, long, leather coat that I swapped for the biker style leather jacket that was 3 or 4 sizes too small for me. The new, longer leather coat is still a bit of a marginal fit, but once I have moved the buttons over it should be wearable. As I reported here, I did make a start in moving the buttons, but that coat had been stored on the back of a kitchen door, and was deeply infused with cooking smells of all mixed varieties.

  It is the sort of smell that once you get up close to it, is rather nauseating, and I stopped doing the button moving. Yesterday's sponging down with dilute Fairy Liquid, followed by a rinse, has helped a bit, but before I wear it, for the first time in some wintry weather, I think another wash would be a good idea. I hung it up, on it's clothes hanger, on the washing line to dry, and it seemed to dry quite quickly in the warm, breezy air.

  It wasn't much later that I started to track my parcel on Amazon's web site. Maybe I should say I actually started to track the delivery. Before they showed a map, showing how many stops before mine, it was simply saying "before 9pm". It seems they only show the map, with the van's approximate position, only when they are well within the neighbourhood. I did little more that watch my PC screen for perhaps half an hour as it edged closer and closer, until at 2pm it arrived.
  As soon as I had it in my hands, I rushed into the dining room, and opened up the box it came in. It was exactly the same Redbreast whisky I had tried with Kevin in The Blythe Hill Tavern. I semi agree with Kevin, who got his delivered a few days earlier, that it doesn't seem quite a wonderful as it did on that sunny afternoon after 3 or 4 pints of Guinness, and single Jameson's whiskey. However it did still taste very mellow with complex flavours in the background. I would say it is definitely a whiskey to finish with rather than one to start with. All I have to do now is to use it very sparingly because at almost £50 a bottle, it is not a whisky to get drunk on !

  I took another half hours break, but my chores were still not over. One chore was fairly simple - a bit of washing up, and a wipe down of the most used kitchen surfaces. I also cleaned and started cooking in the microwave, some boiled new potatoes. Pretty soon it was time for some more taxing work - doing laundry by hand. I had left two t-shirts. a pair of lounge pants, and 3 or 4 pairs of underpants, soaking in detergent earlier.

  It was time to do the wringing out, three rinses with a wringing out after eat, and finally the fabric conditioned followed by the final extra strength wringing out (all by hand) before hanging it all up to dry. The only problem is that I had left it far too late to hang it all on the washing line. I guess I could still have done so, but 5pm seemed a bit late. If I had done so it may have all been dry in a couple of hours, but I hung it on the clothes horse in the front room with a desk fan blowing on it all night until this morning.

  Early in the afternoon I had a snack/lunch of rice crackers and cheese. For my dinner I had two Sainsbury's ready made salads, one Greek style, and the other Italian style. I lightly bulked them up a bit with the boiled new potatoes I had cooked earlier, and were, as intended, cold when I added them to the salads. With hindsight I am not sure those potatoes were needed, and I have doubts that they were as innocent as hoped.

  I made a tragic mistake in the evening. I phoned Sue. That actual mistake was not drawing a straight line as to when the call would finish. She sounded a bit drunk, and just went on and on. Even when I did say I had to go so I could go to bed, at half past midnight, it still felt a bit rude to cut her waffling short, and say goodbye. Once I went to bed I expected to fall straight into a coma like sleep.

  That didn't happen. What did happen was that many hours after eating, I seemed to get heartburn as soon as I turned on my side to sleep. At least I thought it must be heartburn, and antacid tablets did help, but maybe the ache faded out with no help after a time, but I think it was still in the background for the first few hours of my sleep, or seemingly lack of sleep.

  Logically I know I was sleeping quite often, and maybe in at least one hour chunks, but I also seemed think I was awake a lot. Apart from the fading heartburn discomfort, I seemed not to be able to get comfortable enough for sleep for sveral reasons. One was the old "too hot under the duvet, and too cold without it" problem. If it had been colder outside I might have said "to hell with it" and turned the heater on full blast so I could kick the duvet aside completely.

  I had actually started with the heater off, and only turned it on low at maybe 3am. It took a long time to warm the room up, but at least I was comfortable in the temperature. One unusual pain, and I think it blame it on the hoovering, whether that is right or wrong, was aching elbows. I should have been able to relax in two different positions, but in one my left elbow ached, and in the other the other elbow ached. The pain from either could be quite strong until I had wriggled around a bit to find the least pain.

  I have no idea how much sleep I got, but I do know I seemed to get longer and longer periods of sleep as morning approached. I even managed to oversleep by about 90 minutes, but even so, I feel I probably have at least a 2 hour sleep deficit, and probably more like 3 hours. I hope I sleep well tonight, or have a very good snooze this aftenoon.

  There is good, bad and indifferent news this morning. It haven't managed to have a good poo this morning, but I feel sure it will happen sooner or later. Despite that I seemed to shed a little of the excess weight again, and while it is not that low, it is over half a kilogram below what I might call the base rate. My blood glucose readings were "OK" but not as low as hoped. They were 8.9mmol/l, a bit high, 8.2mmol/l, mildly good, and 8.8mmol/l, "OK" but also higher than desired.

  Just one important thing is happening today. It is a Wednesday, and I'll be going for a few Guinnesses in The Jolly Farmers. Today may be, but there is no guarantee, an extra special lunchtime. Today is the day Angela said she hoped to join me. I hope she has not forgotten, and won't be put off if the BBC's prediction of rain (and possible thunderstorm) comes to fruition.
        







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