Maybe today really will feature light cloud for most of it, although sunny spells are still forecast from late afternoon. It should be a dry day.At the moment every single one of my thermometers agree it is 20° C outside, or 2° higher then forecast. By mid afternoon the temperature is forecast to rise to 22° C, but maybe after a higher start it may reach as high as 24° C. Tomorrow will likely follow the same pattern as today, but the temperature is forecast to reach 23° C.

 Yesterday was a mixed day. It seems that doing the gardening I did the day before, and then going to a gig the same evening, drained all my resources. I felt quite tired yesterday, and it wasn't really a sleepy sort of tired. It was tiredness of body, soul, mind, and tonsils...or something.

  It took a bit of time before I felt ready to do anything yesterday morning, although I did force myself to write my usual morning scribble. The extent to which I was tired showed up in the amount of times I had to go back correct words or phrases, and I doubt I caught all of them.

   It must have been after 11am before I felt ready to start checking, selecting and editing pictures of the previous night's gig taken on my big Nikon D610 camera. My mood was worsened when I saw all those pictures. Many were very drab looking. Some of that can be blamed on the drab background, and the lack of front illumination of the band. Sometimes my camera could just not see enough to focus, and that caused the flash not to fire.
  My troubles did not end there. I was hoping to get a pictures of the whole band playing together, like the picture above, but with everybody looking towards the camera. In every version of this photo someone, and often two, were looking away from the camera, or their face was hidden behind a microphone and stand.
  This picture of new guitarist Greg looked really drab, and I tried to zap it up a bit, but with hindsight I am not that happy with it.
  This picture almost came out well, although I don't like the way Jo's hair is falling across her face.
  This picture was better, and Jo does look very happy, but the background feels annoying. That wooden background reflects light in all different ways, and it looks messy.
  My "crane shot" looks a bit squiffy, but it may be one of the better pictures of the night. It is unfortunate that a couple of pictures that I did think came out particularly well, were in portrait mode, and don't fit nicely on these pages. I might show one or two tomorrow - probably side by side, but I'll worry about that tomorrow.

  By the time I had finished in my "digital darkroom" it was definitely time for a slightly late lunch. It was a two part lunch, and I can't remember how it started. It might have been a packet of crisps, but I definitely know what part 2 was. It was about a quarter of a big tub of plain vanilla ice cream. It was very nice - particularly on a warm day. Of course the sugar in it was not good for me, but I have often got away with it in the recent past.

  I had one more thing I had to do before I could switch to completely lazy mode. It was to finish washing a small hand towel that I had left soaking over 24 hours earlier. It was one I had been using to protect my pillow, and in the previous week it had soaked up a lot of sweat, and the grease from that made it almost shiny....well, maybe it was not quite that bad, but.....

  Even after soaking for so long in genuine Surf detergent, that towel did not come out spotless. The towel I replaced it with was not clear of sweat stains, but at least it smelled fresh. I think I am going to have to hugely increase the frequency that I wash these towels to at least once a week until they look cleaner, and maybe the worst of the hot and sweaty weather is over (which feels like today, but obviously, I hope, isn't).

  Once that towel was hanging up to dry (and incidentally looks much cleaner when dry) I could finally relax - read my book, and have a snooze. I wanted to have my dinner early so there was less chance of any heartburn when I was trying to go to sleep later, but there was a problem. It should not have been a problem because I could have eaten something more sensible, but I didn't.

  For unknown reasons, possibly with the idea of finishing what I should have started and finished last Thursday - a single, special day of intended gluttony after seeing the nurse - I had set my mind on enjoying a kebab for dinner. I couldn't order that until almost 6pm, and that meant I would be eating closer to 7pm instead of a better time like 5.30pm.

  I tried a new restaurant/takeaway last night, and that meant trying several things, and also spending enough for a smll, but useful discount. I ordered small chicken, and lamb shish kebab, and also a chicken donor meat and chips. I had actually intended to order a lamb donor meat and chips, but my finger slipped (or something). My intention is that I would save the two shish kebabs for today, and stuff myself silly with the meat and chips.

  Despite ordering a small chicken donor meat and chips, it was quite a big portion, and the idea of stuffing myself silly with it was not far from the truth. I expected terrible trouble when I tried for sleep at around 9pm, but to my great surprise I didn't seem to end up with any heartburn, and in that respect I was actually fairly comfortable. Less comfortable was that last night seemed to feel very hot and humid.

  I tried to sleep with the fan, set of it's lowest speed, blowing over the top of my body. That actually started to feel too cool, although I think I may have got a little, maybe less than an hour, of sleep like that. I had to get up and turn the fan around so it was not blowing at me, and that was almost better, but of course I then felt too hot. It was a sort of prickly heat, and that was probably the chilli sauce's contribution.

  I seemed to wake up a lot during the night feeling thirsty.....or maybe not exactly thirsty, but a dry and sticky mouth. I drunk around 1.5 litres of water in the night (although I had started it a couple of hours before sleep). The odd thing was how little I peed. I went to the toilet several times in the night from force of habit, but from the amount of pee I produced I could almost have done it one go.

  I suspect that I lost a lot of water in the night as sweat. To my great surprise, after eating and drinking all I did, I had almost lost weight.....but only when measure against 2 days ago. Yesterday, as a result of a lot of sweating while working in the garden, and going to the gig (where I only had two pints of Guinness) my weight was exceptionally low. It is surprising that I could have lost any weight at all considering all I ate yesterday, and maybe I'll see the results of that tomorrow morning for some twisted reason.

  All the lack of peeing in the night (and earlier in the day) would suggest a nice low blood glucose level. Thatw as definitely not to be, although the high readings I got could have been because of dehydration. The Contour meter read 9.0mmol/l, and that was bad enough. The GlucoRX meter read an even worse 9.5mmol/l. The Sinocare continued the trend with a terrible 9.6mmol/l. The only good thing is that all readings were under the red line at 10.0mmol/l.

  This morning I need a good shower after not washing at all yesterday. I don't think I need to go as far as washing my hair, but I'll double check before I commit myself. I think I will be really lazy for the rest of the morning. This afternoon the trains are definitely running, and so Jodie should be over for a beer tasting session. We had new beers delivered just yesterday, and among them are some I hope I will like.

  One thing I did yesterday, but forgot to write about further up the page, was to order even more beers. I did this order unsupervised, and that meant I ordered a few that Jodie might like, and a few that I hope I will like. I also included some basic, but semi exotic, lagers that Michael may like if he manages to join us again some Thursday before Jodie and I have drunk them all. I think I am expecting this order of beer to be delivered on Tuesday - assuming that they were packing it ready for despatch on Saturday afternoon. It could then be collected by the courier on Monday, and delivered here on Tuesday. I shall be most annoyed if it turns out it will be delivered on Wednesday when I will want to be in the pub !