Yesterday was often dull, and it was a lot cooler, although 23° C is still very comfortable. I can't make up my mind if there was more or less sunshine (as sunny spells) than forecast. 
       

  The big problem today is that The Met Office have changed the coding of their web site, and it displays rubbish on my usual browser. I had to fire up a browser I rarely use to get the screenshot above. If they don't correct their error I may have to go back to using the BBC weather forecast as I once used to. Anyway... As I write this the sky looks mostly clear, and the sun us shining. This is not what the net Office Forecast says, but the BBC forecast does at least show sunny spells, and it also says they should last all day. The temperature forecast is the same, and both forecasters expect a high of just 21° C today. Tomorrow, according to the BBC, should be very sunny, and the temperature should peak at 24° C.

   It is surprising how much time playing with old cameras, and topping up their batteries, can soak up. It didn't start that way, and maybe I got carried away, but it painlessly used up almost half the day. Apart from eating, I did almost nothing else of note.

  It all started when I decided to check a couple of cameras. As far as I could remember they were both faulty, although maybe it was only one that was faulty. It was a Canon ELPH 500hs that was once a great little camera, bought from a second hand shop for not that much money, that had developed a fault where the image sensor stopped working. All the on screen display, including touch functions, worked perfectly, but all the sensor could see was deepest black.

  I looked to see if there any firmware updates for it in the hope that it was a software error, but Canon said no firmware updates had ever been issued. Had I still been at work, with all the tools for microscopic work, I might have opened the camera up to see if there was anything I could diagnose and repair. I suspected that it might be an internal power failure, but I'll never know because I took the memory card, and battery out, and filed it in the rubbish bin.

  The second camera was branded "Polaroid" but as far as I can see it was just some cheap Chinese manufacturing buying the rights to use the name. It was not a very good camera, and in this case it was the battery that had failed. I could probably order a new battery, but I decided to throw the camera away. I doubt I paid more than £10 for it as a curio. The rest of my camera collection is all working OK, and all have good, or good enough batteries. Of course it is very rare that I use any, except for my nice Nikon S6300, small, pocket sized cameras, but it is nice to take them out for an occasional walk. Most of them, if used within their limits, can produce great pictures with the aid of a little editing.

  After my high blood glucose readings the day before yesterday I almost unconsciously set out to be careful about what I ate yesterday. I do find it sort of odd how easy it is to control my diet - particularly when I don't consciously think about it. My lunch was just some rice crackers with strong, aged, Red Leicester cheese slices on them. I must admit I did snack on a small quantities of peanuts, and I had some sugar free choc chip cookies. I guess I didn't really go hungry.

  After I had finished playing with my small camera collection I passed a lot of the afternoon reading. At 5pm I was distracted by the first of three lots of different Star Trek's on Sky Mix. I don't think any of the three episodes were particularly good, but it was still a distraction - but not from dinner. My dinner was the last two quarter pounder burgers from the packet that had been open in the fridge for a day and a night. As I think I predicted, I had those burgers with a great heap of coleslaw, but I didn't add any potato salad. It was not a bad meal, and it seemed to satisfy.
   It was 10:17pm, nearly an hour after sunset, when I noticed this view outside my bathroom window. The view is to the north, and the sun had set to the left, but the sky was still not completely dark, but much lower in the sky was a string of small clouds that were being missed by any diffracted, over the horizon, sunlight, and so appeared to be black. It is not a unique phenomena, but on this occasion I grabbed a camera and took the above picture (by standing in the bath !).

  I suddenly seem to be watching a lot of TV. A fortnight or more ago I went many days without even bothering to watch any TV. Last night, as well as three Star Trek episodes, I watched an episode of QIXL, and an edition of Have I Got New For You. That kept me up until 11pm. I went to bed straight away, and I read a couple of pages in bed before putting the book down and turning out the light. I did wonder if I would ever fall asleep, but I think I was fast asleep before I had fully considered the question.

  Apart from waking up too early this morning (around 5am) I did seem to sleep well again. I remember one long and convoluted dream about visiting/being on The Radio Caroline Boat, The Ross Revenge. It was obvious it was not one dream but many shorter dreams because sometimes the boat was at sea, and sometimes tied to a quayside. One amusing (with hindsight) thing was that I was watching a new DJ studio being built. Instead of partitioning off part of a much large space using wood and something like plasterboard, the builder decided it would be simpler to build a brick wall on the deck plates.

  It is hard trying to describe most of the dream(s) because not a lot happened. I did meet an old friend aboard the boat, and I was surprised to hear he was a regular visitor, and had even stayed on the boat to do radio programmes. I can't seem to think of anything more to say about this dream, or dreams. It seemed pleasant at the time, but I can't think of any special reason why it should have been.

  It was probably a bit after 10pm that I got curious and checked my blood glucose. I thought that, based on what I remembered eating, it should have been modestly low. I only used the Sinocare meter, and it read 7.9mmol/l. This morning I was back in the green, but only the light green (not as good as the rare dark green). The Contour meter read 7.5mmol/l - spot on target ! The GlucoRX meter read a slightly higher 7.8mmol/l, and the Sinocare meter an even better 7.3mmol/l. My current monthly running average is just 7.79mmol/l, and although there are stil two more days to go before the end of the month, it seems that I may end up with the lowest monthly average for about 4 or more years.

  Today is a day when I would probably go out somewhere, but I doubt I will go further than Tesco. As I think I mentioned a day or three ago, I could go out to do some exploring and train/rail photography. It would involve very little walking, and so the chances of a lot of angina pain would be very small, but even a little bot could spoil an entire outing. With no definite need to go out, apart from a mild need for some shopping, I think I will be staying in again today. I wonder what I will do ??? 


 





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