At 6am it might have been as low as 13° C, but the sun was already adding some warmth to the day. Now the sun has risen high enough it is feeling like a slightly cool summers day. By mid afternoon it should have warmed up to 23° C. That is not that warm, but warmer days may be on their way. Tomorrow should see a mix of sunny spells and sunshine, the majority should be sunshine. That should warm tomorrow up to 24° C. The day after tomorrow could be very similar. the last few days of the month could be even warmer, but that is so far ahead that it could equally be snowing.
 ° C. 
   Yesterday was not particularly an exciting day, but in a sometimes slightly dull way, it was fairly productive. The good news is that I did two things to check how well my new patch on the crack of my bathtub was working, and it seemed to be perfect. How long it lasts before I have to redo it is anyone's guess, but for now, everything is fine.

  The first test of that bathtub patch was when I washed my hair, and had a shower. There was not a hint of a leak, and that was an additional reason to feel good besides being clean and fragrant again. Once I had finished with the bathtub for washing, I got out my two big buckets, and started some random items soaking in detergent. Those items were a small hand towel, a pair of shorts, and the usual pairs of underpants.

  Having got clean and dry I gave it a short while to cool off. That may not have been essential because it was not particularly warm outside - probably just 20° C. I got dressed ready to go shopping in Iceland. Just as I was leaving, the postman arrived, and he had two letters for me. Both were bills, and after a brief glimpse of them I started to walk to Iceland. It seemed a fairly OK walk, maybe even slightly enjoyable in the sun, but I was just getting some discomfort when I arrived at Iceland.

  That was nothing like the discomfort of discovering that Iceland are trying to go down the self checkout route. Two proper tills still exist, and one was being intermittently manned. There were very few people in the store, and it was as if everyone had been scared away. I did not see a single person use a self checkout, but I was one of three who went to a staffed checkout,

  I seemed to buy quite a lot - enough to fill a hand basket to the brim. That was unfortunate because I now know where they hide the 2 litre bottles of Diet Coke - at 3 for £5. I haven't done the maths, but I think that may be very slightly (a few pence maybe) cheaper than Tesco. I couldn't buy any because I had already put a single 2 litre bottle of sugar free cherry flavour Tango in my basket.

  Mostly I bought their low sugar meals and biscuits, but I did buy a whole lettuce (and forgot to buy some tomatoes) plus some ready cooked meats to make some simple salads. I also bought some potato salad, and some posh variety of Coleslaw. I must admit I neglected to check the sugar content of the potato salad and the coleslaw. I still haven't, but I will before I use them. The final item was a bit unusual - two pint bottles of semi-skimmed milk.

  Maybe it was because I was carrying shopping, and walking a bit slower, or maybe the sun seemed even stronger, but the walk home seemed more pleasant than the walk to the store. Once home I put all my shopping away, and then got my lunch together. As an experiment I thought I would try milk and sugar free cookies. It did seem to work, but it was not as sugar free as I hoped.
  These milk chocolate oatmeal biscuits look like they may be zero sugar, but there is a clue boldly written on the label that they may not actually be zero sugar, despite being from the "Zero" range. No added sugar sounds good, but is it ?
  The nutrition information on the back tells us there is 3.6gm of sugar per 100gm. The whole pack weighs 180gm, and so there is just under 7gm of sugar in the whole pack. On reflection, that is not as terrible as I first thought, but with every gram counting, it is not nearly as good as "zero" sugar. That wasn't my only sugar problem.

   I was rather surprised to see than semi skimmed milk has 4.6gm of sugar per 100ml. It was a 568ml (one pint) bottle, and if I drank all of it, it would be a significant amount of sugar. I had approximately half a pint of cold milk, with 6 small choc chip cookies. Those cookies were actually labelled as zero sugar, rather than no added sugar, but they too contained 3.6gm of sugar per 100gm.

  My idea of having a very low sugar lunch of milk and cookies turned out to be not very accurate. It was still rather nice, and that distracted me from trying to calculate exactly how much sugar I was ingesting, but I assumed it was definitely not trivial. Not only was it nice, but it also felt like I had had a fair lunch, although it was only a couple of hours later that I scoffed 6 "Firestick" Pepperami sticks.

  The next thing I did tempted terrible indigestion - I did some of my finances. One of the bills that came before going to Iceland was my BT phone bill. It is only a very small amount, but I still felt abused by getting it, and having to pay it. The other bill was actually my Tesco credit card statement. It was not for a large amount, but it is complicated.

  The headline amount on the Tesco credit card website is the total I have spent in the last month, possibly calendar month because it never tallies with the amount on the end of period statement. I usually over pay by paying that amount instead of what the statement says. That overpayment just goes towards the next bill, and so it could be handy. Even so, I was still a bit surprised just how little I had to pay this time. I guess not ordering boxes of beer for a month or so now is the reason why I have spent less than usual.

  I didn't stop at the Tesco credit card, but also paid off my other credit card. With most of my purchases made on my Tesco card, and almost only Amazon orders paid on the other card, it was a tiny amount to pay - less that I felt I owed considering my recent Amazon order was already shown, but apparently that has to go on next months bill. My forst offer was refused as being more than I owed (despite what was shown elsewhere) and I just paid the almost miniscule amount that was wanted.

  With my finances out of the way, I tackled the laundry I had left soaking in detergent. It looked like a lot, but it seemed almost quick and easy to complete. The hand towel, which I had decided to wash quite early after first use, because it seemed to start smelling a bit funny, didn't seem to need more than 4 rinses before the rinse water ran clean. The pair of shorts were sort of easy to do, although completely wringing them out seemed too difficult. The underpants were as easy as ever. One thing I didn't do was to use any conditioner. That was because I find I like hard and rough towels because they soak up water a lot easier than soft, fluffy, and shiny conditioned towels.

  I doubt it was much earlier than 3pm when I hung that washing on the line, and Sod's law ruled that it would be during one of the dull periods. It wasn't dull for long, and after 2 or 3 hours in hot sunshine I brought all the washing in stone dry, and feeling nicely hot. Drying laundry in hot sunshine makes tips the balance between a pleasure and a chore, but pleasure only wins by the thinnest of margins.

  Eventually it was time to turn the TV on for some Star Trek, and it was soon time to get my dinner cooking. My dinner was to be Chicken Teriyaki with Yakisoba noodles. It sounded like it might be wonderful. Sadly it was very mediocre, and to rub salt into the wounds, it actually listed sugar as an ingredient, and while I can't remember the quoted figure, the nutritional information seemed to suggest quite a high sugar content, but maybe it just seemed high for one of Iceland's "My protein" range.
  I suppose some bits of this meal were nice-ish. I thought the noodles were the worst part. Even the chicken seemed like it probably was "reformed meat".  Maybe it's worst sin was that it fell far short of my hopes and expectations.  Maybe tonight I will have another Firecracker chill meat balls from the same range. I know that one to be quite nice, but for a dish that claims to be hot, it needs a lot of hot pepper sauce to actually make it pleasantly warm.

  I don't think any of the Star Trek episodes I saw last night were all that good. In fact the episode of Deep Space Nine was one of the terrible episodes all about that blood Bajoran religion, it's prophets, and the power crazy woman who wants to be Kai (some sort of religious leader) for the power it brings, and not for any religious reasons. Star Trek: Voyager was another awful episode.

  Between 8pm and 9pm I amused myself readings some stuff on the internet, and then at 9pm I turned the TV on again to watch and record another episode of The New Avengers. I followed than by switching channel to watch a repeat of an old (but not that old) edition of Have I Got News For You. I enjoyed it, but it took me up to 11pm. By the time I had shot everything down, brushed my teeth, and read in bed for a while, it was close on midnight before I got to sleep.

  Once my head hit the pillow I had no trouble getting to sleep - no angina like pains, not heartburn, just pure tiredness. My sleep was not perfect because I had started drinking chilled water early in the evening, and I love drinking chilled water. I must have drunk one and a half litres of it. It meant several trips to the toilet in the night, but apart from a small delay to turn my sweat dampened pillow around, I was asleep again almost instantly. It seems to be another night where I had very few dreams - at least as far as I can remember.

  One dream I do remember snippets from was about going to a gig in a big night club. I am not sure if I was supposed to have been drunk, but when the band did a quick warm up song outside the main dance floor, it seemed like I had no idea how to use my camera. I think at one point I was trying to use the main lens as the viewfinder ! maybe it was just the psychic shock of being in a nightclub !

  One thing I was looking forward to seeing was some sort of exotic stripper. She was introduced after the band had done the quick warm up song. She didn't do any stripping at that point, but wandered around saying hello to the few people who were there. I am now wondering if we were all actually back stage with back stage passes. I spoke to the stripper, and we talked for quite a long time. I mentioned that it was a shame I couldn't take some pictures of her too, and that the bouncer would soon have me out on the street if I tried. She said "nonsense" and said she would be happy to be photographed, and would tell "security" that she had given me specific permission to take as many snaps as I wanted.

  It seemed such a shame that almost on the dot of 6am I woke up before I could take any raunchy photos (or see the band doing their full show), but it seemed it was time to get up. Oh well, at least one wish partly came true. This morning, within a few minutes of getting out of bed, I did a pee and a poo ! I must admit it was smaller than I thought it should be, but at least it was something. I'm expecting more later, because this morning, despite taking some care, maybe not enough, my weight seems to have risen by 200gm !

  My weight may be slightly higher, but my blood glucose measurements are the best for a while. The Contour meter read a very nice and low 7.6mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read a little higher at 7.8mmol/l, but still in the light green area. Once again, the Sinocare meter was the odd one out with a slightly higher reading of 8.1mmol/l. The average of all three is 7.83mmol/l, and only three other days this month have been as low as this.

  My blood pressure is a bit odd this morning. The systolic pressure is slightly higher, but still low, at 118mmHg. The diastolic pressure is slightly lower at 44mmHg (although I have had several similar low readings this month). My pulse rate is also very slightly lower than usual at 52bpm. My morning average is around 54bpm. I think this all means I am fit and healthy again - in a pigs ear !!

  There are two things I think I'll be doing today. The first is to have a shower, and the second is to go to Tesco. There are are only a couple of things on my shopping list, and they are to probably get 4 two litre bottles of Diet Coke, and the other is to to top up my dwindling supply of instant noodles. No doubt I will end up buying other stuff too. After I have done those two things I can switch to complete lazy mode, but I doubt I will.

  It promises to be a nice bright, warm and sunny day, and that often inspires me to do something more than laying on my bed reading. One possibility is to do some more work to tidy up my garden. I don't feel over keen to to do that, but maybe I feel a whole 1% keener to do that rather than a couple of other things I have been putting off for a long time. One is to get back to sorting out, and filing all my paperwork. i have quite a pile of loose bills and the like that need filing away (and maybe older ones destroyed). One other thing I have been putting off for far too long now.

   It is to possibly open up my number one laptop, and see if I can clear the fault that seems to be a the left button by the track pad permanently operated. One cure is just to disable the track pad, probably by unplugging it, and using an ordinary mouse - which is my preferred way of operating a laptop anyway. I'm soor of hoping I can disable it in software because opening up a laptop can be a really frustrating experience.