09:17 BST

   The sky cleared overnight, and that meant a very cool morning. The forecast for 6am said just 11° C, but I reckon it was 12° C. It is bright and sunny as I write this, but soon it will degrade to just sunny spells, and between 3 and 5pm we could lose any sunshine, although it should be back again, as sunny spells, by 6pm until sunset. Yesterday's forecast was more optimistic about today, but now it seems the warmest it will be could be just 19° C. Tomorrow may be warmer, at 23° C, but most of the day will only see sunny spells.
 
  It is odd that yesterday the weather was so disgusting that I wanted to hibernate, but I was actually quite busy (provided you accept a slightly odd definition of "busy". I only did one thing I predicted I might do, but I found other stuff that seemed to make the day pass without feeling bored.

  Although it was highly unlikely, I still fantasied about going out, possibly no further than the shops, and so I had a nice shower, although I didn't wash my hair. In the end I didn't go out further than halfway down the garden to put some stuff in the garden waste wheelie bin. I noted that the really disgusting smell of the wheelie bin has mostly gone away, although I wouldn't like to breath in too close to it.

   I did a fair bit of reading yesterday, and any gaps in my narrative can be assumed to be when I was reading. My first task after my shower, and reading quite a few pages, was to clean/clear up the kitchen. That was mostly just wiping down the work surfaces, and doing a small backlog of washing up. One extra task was cleaning a stoppered jar that had a scented candle in it until it burnt down to leave some soot, and some bits of wax.

  Boiling water was enough to get most of the remnants of wax to float to the top. Once the water had cooled it was easy to scoop off any wax floating on top. After that it was washing up liquid and a small sponge scourer to get any stubborn bits of wax out. The only tricky thing was getting the label off. I had to rely on "Zippo" lighter fluid/petrol to dissolve the (probably) latex glue. I now have a small, clean, stoppered bottle to go with some far bigger ones. I just need to find a good use for them !

  I think it was after finishing in the kitche when I part messed it up again. I made some lunch. It was the last two white rolls I had bought in Aldi a few days ago. I filled them with onion, cheese, sliced tomato, and some lettuce leaves. They were quite tasty, and seemed to fill a spot better than I had imagined. Later on, maybe around 3pm, I scoffed an Aldi cheese and bacon quiche. It was not all that good, but probably on par with Tesco's own offerings, but probably (I didn't actually check) a little cheaper.

  Eating the quiche was a sign that I probably needed to find more to do, and I settled on some video editing. For the next few hours I top and tailed, plus removed the adverts from 4 episodes of The New Avengers, and one episode of Secrets Of The London Underground. I've never timed how long it takes do a typical hour long episode (or about 42 minutes after getting rid of the advert breaks), but I expect it could take as long as half an hour. That would include do a quick spot check on the final saved file, and making a copy of it on a backup disk. It could easily have been two and a half hours to do those 5 episodes.

   Actually it could have been even longer still because I had my dinner while doing the editing. I had a sort of idea that I ought to have a very light dinner after scoffing the quiche earlier. I considered anything from a very small salad to a can of Tesco own brand cream of chicken soup. A hot meal on such a cool and dull day might have been a good idea, and that chicken soup has about the smallest amount of sugar of anything except a bowl of hot water.

  What I actually decided upon was the exact opposite. It was a tub of Iceland's "My Protein" low calorie and low sugar ice cream. It is strange stuff. It is actually very nice in an odd sort of way. It is obviously almost fat free because it is not creamy, at least not in the same way as most ice creams, and other milk based stuff. It is still enjoyable, and somehow seems to be as satisfying as far less healthy meal.

  Having ate my dinner, and edited the videos, I didn't have any more to do. There was nothing on TV that attracted my attention, and so I had a rummage around the internet for stuff to read, but ultimately I returned to my book. Two things happened that delayed my bedtime. The first, and also the final thing, was playing with my old Wileyfox "Spark" mobile phone. It currently has a SIM card in it from Smarty, and it has very slow internet access.

  It was in the last few days that I got an email from Smarty warning me that 3G was going to be switched off soon, and that they didn't think my phone had 4G on it - despite it always having been set to it. The other odd thing is that I had let my last paid month of Smarty Access was 3 to 6 months ago. Earlier yesterday I had decided to splash out another £6 for 6GB of data from Smarty.

  Last night I decided to re-test the speed of access to see if it had improved inn the last 6 months. I know that the problem is not the phone because when I took the phone to The Jolly Farmers pub I got fairly fast access. Here at home it was, and still is not not a lot faster than dial up internet. When I switched the phone to 3G operation the speed shot up, but only to about 1.25 mb/s. That is still pretty slow, but good enough for most simple tasks on a phone. The long term prognosis is that after the 3G switch off the space/equipment on the masts will be converted to 4G operation, and hopefully my appalling speeds my increase.

  My other delay was a call from my "friend" Lee  that was late than my cut off time of 9pm. All he had to say was a load of complete bollocks that did not interest me in the least. I somehow allowed him about 15 minutes of yattering away before I had to rather curtly said goodbye. I then got back to my experiments on that old phone. That didn't take long, and after putting the phone down I read a few more pages from my book before turning out the light. I guess it might have taken as long as 15 minutes before I fell into a deep sleep.

  I'm not sure why last night's sleep should have been any better than most normal sleeps I get, but somehow it seemed more satisfying. I still woke a few times to go for a pee, and I had some dreams that I can no loner remember. Maybe having a pee at just before 6am, and then going back to sleep for almost an hour was the cream on top ! On the down side, it has meant a late start to this writing, and it feel like the morning will almost be over by the time I have finished writing.

  One of the good things this morning is that my eating choices worked as hoped for yesterday. This morning I have yet to have a poo, but my weight has still dropped a fair amount, and I am almost back on track towards some of my lower readings before I messed it all up again. If I could do today what I did yesterday, I would be back to what I achieved a couple of weeks ago. There is a good reason why it is unlikely to happen today.

  The most satisfying change is in my blood glucose readings. I still haven't got them down to magnificent, but I will claim very good. The Contour meter read 7.30mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read 7.4mmol/l. The Sinocare meter gave the highest reading, but that was only 7.8mmol/l. It means that all this morning's readings earned the light green background in my spreadsheet recording all my readings. Maybe sometime I will extra hard at my eating, and get some more readings worthy of the very rare dark green background for readings starting with a six. One day I might even get a reading starting 5, and which deserves a gold background. Maybe that won't happen until I have to start using insulin.

  My other important health indicator is my blood pressure. This morning it was a fraction higher than average, but still in the "Optimum" (better than "normal") region. It was 110/55. It is curious that it now seems easy to get reading this low, and probably 75% of my recorded readings are of the first, and only reading I have taken. Maybe it was before I was put on the nitrate drug, which helps relax the blood vessels for easier blood flow, when I almost always had to take a second reading after a lot of relaxing to get the best/lowest reading.

  The bright sunshine is always a good boost to how I feel, but I have had one negative thing this morning. I was eating the second part of my breakfast, the noodles in the pot pictured on the left. I didn't seem to choke, but something in the last dregs of the pot seemed to "bite" my throat, and I started to cough. I continued to cough for the next hour or more, and that cough was getting quite throaty until suddenly, or almost suddenly it stopped.

  One other bit of information about these noodle is that I found them on sale for half price in the little Sainsbury's "Local" store by Catford station.  I can imagine them being sold of cheap because no one liked them. I must admit they are pretty crappy. The noodles taste like they are made from cardboard. I bought two pots, and the first I ate soon after buying them, and I was not impressed. It was only all these weeks later than I decied I might as well hold my nose, and eat the second pot to get rid of it. Maybe I should have just thrown it away.

  Today there is a normal, albeit only every half hour service to Catford Bridge station. That should mean that Jodie will be over this afternoon for a beer tasting session. That is why my diet control will probably go to pieces today. There is another possible reason, and that is I might have time to go out shopping before Jodie arrives. That always brings certain temptations, but maybe not too many if I am "good". I was thinking of going to Aldi, but maybe Iceland, and their "My Protein" range of low calorie, and sometimes low sugar, ready meals, plus their ice creams from the same range, might be safer.

  One thing occurred to me while sitting on the toilet a little while ago. If I was writing these 2139 words while at work, and they were work related, it would be classified as a productive morning. I guess I should remember that when it seems much of the morning is over, and it feels like I have not done anything - I have ! I have slaved over a keyboard, and wracked my brains for some old rubbish to scribble down here. In my wildest dreams I could consider it heroic !