Yesterday was much better than forecast. The forecast said there would be almost non stop showers until late afternoon. There were indeed some passing showers, but not many, but there were also loads of sunny spells - some short, and some long. From about 6pm, an hour later than originally forecast, it was bright and sunny, and looked a bit like summer. Sadly it was still a quite cool day, although I think it was possibly one or two degrees higher than the miserable 16° C that was forecast.
       

  The BBC are painting a terrible picture for today's weather. So far their forecast has been correct. We had sunny spells, but now it is rather dull. If the forecast is correct, the first rain should fall at 10am. From 11am onwards there could be thundery showers (the BBC love their thunderstorms, although most predictions of them are wrong). The last couple of hours of daylight could see some nice sunny spells. Once again it is going to be a very cool day with the temperature apparently going no higher than 16° C. Incidently, apart from only two thunderstorms predicted, The Met Office agrees with the above forecast. It seems to be a certainty that today is going to be very wet ! Tomorrow may only see generally light rain from midday onwards, and it could be a tiny bit warmer at 18° C, but still extremely low for July !
 
   Yesterday was rather a good day for me, but not for someone else (I'll explain that further down the page). In one respect, the best thing was after a few last minute tweaks, my new web server (serving up this very page you are reading) was working in a nice stable manner. That allowed me to relax after a frantic day, the day before yesterday.

  After I finished writing yesterday's diary I didn't have my usual rest, but went straight to the bathroom where I had laundry in soak. It was actually only three items, and they had been soaking in Bio detergent to remove some bloodstains (don't ask) for over 24 hours. It did not take long to finish washing them, and hanging up to dry on a clothes horse. Once the bath was free of buckets of laundry I had a nice shower.

  After my shower I had a bit of a rest, and laid on my bed to read. I was soon interrupted by an incoming email to say that my Amazon delivery was out for delivery. Upon checking on Amazon's web page it said the typical "before 9pm" as an estimate of delivery time.  I then relaxed again, but was it didn't seem to be long before I was disturbed by a beeping sound of something reversing outside, and a glance out the window showed an Amazon van just parking up.

  Another minute and my doorbell rang. It took less than 20 seconds to get down to the front door, and open it. My Parcels were on my doorstep, and the van was driving off ! The smaller parcel had glucose test strips for my Sinocare blood glucose meter. The big box had my new cordless strimmer in it. I can't imagine it is a very good quality strimmer because at just £50 it was very cheap, and that price included quite a set of accessories.

  It included two 24V batteries and charger, plus a wide selection of blades. There were about 5 or 6 very lightweight plastic blades for doing a light trim of a well kept lawn. Then there were a few metal blades for cutting slightly tougher stuff, more blades for really tough stuff, and a blade that was more like a circular saw for cutting through small tree branches or thick stemmed shrubs.

  There was also safety gloves and eye protectors. Secateurs, and a flip open light saw - similar to the infamous zombie knives so beloved of black gangsters. If there was one thing it did not come with, it was a box of warm, and dry summer days. There were some extended periods of sunny spells yesterday, but none seemed as if it might last for enough time to go out into the garden and test the new strimmer.

  It must have been about 2pm, which was a lot earlier than expected, when I finished inspecting the new strimmer. My next little job was to go to Tesco to buy more soup, and more instant noodles. I noticed that Vifon, Vietnamese, beef flavour instant noodles were reduced to just 38p a packet to clear the stock. I bought 6 packs of them. They are not the best flavour, but I had one packet for breakfast this morning, and they were "OK".

  I bought a couple of simple salads, and a few other bits and pieces, which included a couple of sandwiches I noticed on the reduced price shelves. One was a pack of sandwiches, but the other was a couple of wraps. Both were Caribbean inspired. They looked like they might have been nice, and in a way they were when I had them for a late lunch after getting home. The only trouble was that the nutritional information suggested that each had the equivalent sugar content as a large chocolate covered chocolate cake !

  After my late (approx 3pm) lunch I only had a few simple things to do, and so I could be pretty lazy for the rest of the day. One little job was to do a small backlog of washing up, but much of that was to simply rinse out some containers to go in the recycling bin. The other simple job would be to prepare my dinner, but as that was mostly two ready made simple salads with added grilled ham, it was not exactly a taxing job.

  It was around 4pm when I heard a lot of barking from outside, and wondered what was going on. A look out the window showed it was a police dog barking it's head off at a villain who was already in handcuffs, and held by another copper.  Quite why the dog had to keep barking is a mystery, unless it was just deliberately meant to annoy the man in handcuffs. It certainly did that because despite being in handcuffs, and held by the other copper, he took a dive at the police dog. Quite what he could have managed is unknown, but the copper holding him jerked him around, and he lost his footing he was slammed chest down onto the pavement.

  The copper essentially sat on him until reinforcements arrived. Meanwhile the police dog continued to bark it's head off. It took maybe 10 minutes for reinforcements to arrive, and they put what looked like velcro straps around his legs so he was completely immobile. They also put a spit mask over his head.  It may have been 20 minutes before he was allowed to sit up, and another 10 minutes before he was allowed to push himself over, with no help at all, so he could lean back against the wall. Meanwhile the dog was still barking.

  Quite a long time passed as one copper, maybe a senior, spent ages and ages on his phone. Another copper spent a long time on his phone too, and the villain was largely ignored. At some point he must have said he was feeling unwell, and an ambulance was called. The senior paramedic gave the villain a once over, and must have declared that he could find nothing wrong with the villain. The ambulance crew went back to their ambulance, but were the last to drive off.

  Eventually a police van arrived, and after lots of discussion, and further hunts for evidence (it looked like they may have found some small packets of drugs at the side of the pavement), the villain, plus several bags of evidence were put in the police van, and eventually driven away. My legs were really stiff from just standing up, discretely watching out the window for at least 90 minutes. I must admit I do not understand why the whole thing took so long. If a police van could have arrived 10 minutes after the dog squad had handcuffed the villain they could have had him back at the police station in another 10 to 15 minutes. It would have save a lot of trouble and police time, and saved that poor police dog from ripping it's throat out from continuous barking for at least an hour !

  By the time the excitement was over it was dinner time. I looked forward to watching an episode or two of Star trek while eating my grilled ham salad, but of course it was a Saturday, and there are no Star Treks shown on a Saturday. A quick flip through the electronic programme guide showed there was nothing on until 9pm, and I didn't think I could be bothered to watch it anyway. I opted to watch an old recording of The Avengers while eating my dinner.

  When that episode of The Avengers finished I took to my book and read several chapters before making one last check for stuff on the internet, and heading for bed once I had brushed my teeth. Despite my two quite fibrous salads, and also a couple of small apples as a dessert, I didn't seem to get any indigestion/heartburn as expected, and I think I was fast asleep not all that long after 9pm.

  On the whole I seemed to sleep well, although I did wake up to pee a couple of times in quick succession in the first few hours of sleep. I seemed to have lost of dreams that seemed quite memorable at the time, but as always the details are fading fast. One dream seemed to be about a sort of talent contest. It was a series of contests between pairs of people. They were supposed to imitate something or someone. The main bit I remember, but still not that clearly, was that the loser of the pair had his or clothes ripped off down to underwear. That bit was obviously park faked by using clothes that were only held together by Velcro or something.

  One other dream I can part remember was very weird. It seemed I was exploring a volcanic vent with what, or who, could have been Star Trek's Data (the android). I seemed to be leading the way up the volcanic vent to the surface. It was hot, and some of the rock was red hot and glowing. I knew that if we kept to the right we would be OK, but very near the top, on the right, there seemed to be what looked like a double bus seat covered with red hot boiling lava. Going to the left was potentially dangerous, although I am not sure why because it looked OK, and ultimately was OK for me, but the Data character needed to make a big leap over some obstruction.

  It seemed quite chilly outside my duvet, and so I didn't get up until almost the last minute....or until I was bored laying there unable to get to sleep again. I think that was about 6.30am. Another reason for getting up then was to have a pee, but it seemed a lot smaller than expected. I thought I would poo too, but that was just wind. before checking my blood glucose readings I weighed myself. it seems that this morning, without even having a poo, I had have lost the recent weight gain, and I am back where I was - which is rather good, and rather unexpected.

  After those Caribbean inspired sandwiches with their mega high reported sugar content, I could only predict disaster when I checked my blood glucose readings. It seems it doesn't work like that (somehow). The Contour meter read just 7.7mmol/l, in the light green area, and that was rather good. The GlucoRX meter was not so friendly with a reading of 8.2mmol/l, although that is not exactly bad. The Sinocare meter read 7.9mmol/l - in the light green area, and so good.  My blood pressure is a bit higher this morning, 114/47, but that is still in the "optimum" (better than "normal" area.

  Today I have just a few very small jobs to do, and really all about a bit of tidying up for a beer tasting session with Jodie this afternoon. That assumes she is brave enough to come out (or go home again) in a potential thunderstorm. The next thing I will do is have a shower, and than if it is still looking like it might stay dry for half an hour, I might pop out to the shops, but I am not after anything special, and it is more likely I will waste time laying on my bed reading and maybe snoozing.