This morning was the
forecast 2° C, but there was
no rain, and there are strong
hints that we may get sunny spells
before the forecast time of 1pm.
The cloud looks a bit grey, but
also quite thin. It is too bright
to look where the sun would be
shining if the cloud was even
thinner. It is looking like today
could be very similar to
yesterday, including a brief
period when the temperature
reaches 5° C for a couple of
hours. Most of the day will be
several degrees lower, and feeling
"bloody freezing" ! Tomorrow is
going to be even colder. The day
may start, and stay at 0° C until
10am when it will rise to a mere
2° C. There could be some
sunny spells in the morning, but
from 4pm sleet could fall. In fact
it may be cold enough for snow,
but maybe not cold enough for it
to stay as snow.
I guess
yesterday was a sort of productive
day, and sometime an agreeable
day. I was expecting to see no
one, or to go out in the cold
rain, and so I couldn't be
bothered to take a shower, or wash
my hair (although my hair didn't
really
need washing yesterday).
Apart from writing
yesterday's electronic diary (what
you are reading), and the
traditional rest afterwards, the
first real thing I did was to get
my big builders buckets in the
bathtub so I could wash three
t-shirts - special t-shirts in so
much as they were all white, and
needed to be washed separately. I
had been saving them up for weeks
until I had three to wash at the
same time. Initially I just left
them soaking in detergent.
There was one important
thing I did yesterday, and I
started it just after 9am. It was
to phone the pharmacy to order my
next repeat prescription. It must
have been around 11am before I got
answered, and could request the
repeat prescription. It should be
ready for collection on Wednesday,
on my way home from the pub. The
timing is quite good because on
Wednesday morning, after dishing
out the pills for the day, I would
only have 2 days left of the most
important drugs.
One good thing happened
yesterday. I got an email about
the new camera lens I ordered. I'm
guessing that Fivercam had an
extended Xmas holiday, and their
email said they only dispatched my
new lens yesterday. In fact, when
I checked the Royal Mail tracking
page it said that the order had
been made, but it had not actually
been collected from Fivercam. I
expect that will happen today, and
then it is on a 24 hour delivery
timetable. It is going to arrive
possibly while I am in the pub,
and I'll have to take a walk to
the sorting office on Thursday to
get it. It is lucky I don't have
any immediate uses for that lens
yet.......although
maybe I
might use it next Saturday night.
One annoyance yesterday
morning was that my garden CCTV
camera seemed to have failed. I
guessed that all the rain we had
had gotten into it somewhere, and
that was probably the right guess
because it did start to work again
as it dried out later in the day.
In the meantime I thought that it
was definitely time to try and get
it's potential replacement set up
and working in case it needed
replacing.
It's replacement would
actually be an upgrade, and I was
going to replace it for that
reason over a year ago. One reason
I didn't was that I now realise it
would be better mounted higher up
the wall, and maybe I was waiting
for a day that was both warm and
dry, and that I might have lost
considerably more kilograms than I
seemed to have achieved, so as to
make going up my ladder a bit
safer - I don't think it is rated
for someone my weight !
I thought I would set the
camera up on the dining table
first. The "Chinglish" instruction
manual (actually a folded sheet of
glossy paper) was a bit vague in
places, and was mostly about
setting it up using a Windows only
app. As far as I could see it was
just a way of finding the camera's
IP address, and after finding that
it should just have been a matter
of logging into the camera from a
web browser.
Unfortunately it seems like
the camera has a fault, and it is
far too late to return it now.
When powered up it offers an IP
address of 192.168.0.18, and I
briefly see that, but then it is
as if the software crashes, and it
loses all interest in the outside
world. Maybe it will work if I use
the installation CD on my virtual
Windows XP box, but I have very
strong doubts. That may be a job
for another day.
I packed the camera away in
it's box again, and because I
seemed to be in a bit of a
masochistic mood, I decided to
tackle another problem device that
I bought back in April 2013 ! It
was a Tenda wireless router. I
bought it at the time when my
usual Wireless Access Point was
starting to die. The thing is that
I didn't really need another
Wireless AP because I had an old
Orange ADSL modem router, and
Wireless access point. I had
bought it for something like £5 in
a Salvation Army charity shop, and
while the ADSL side of it was of
no use, it was easy to use the
Wireless access point part of it.
This is the Tenda wireless
router that has been gathering
dust since 2013 ! I suspect it was
partly because I didn't
desperately need it at the time
that I could not concentrate it
deciphering the tiny illustrations
and badly translated instructions
in the quick set up guide, and I
don't think I ever managed to to
get it to work. Yesterday I did !
On the back of the box is
an "inlet" ethernet port coloured
blue (marked WAN - wide access
network), and four yellow ports
marked as LAN - local access
network. My mistake was that I
assumed the setup would be done
from the blue, WAN port, but I
realised it had to be done from
one of the yellow LAN ports. Just
to make it all initially confusing
is that the Blue WAN port gets
assigned an IP Address, but it is
totally passive, and presents no
set up web menu as expected.
In one respect, not
allowing set up from the big bad
outside world is the safest
option, although using a strong
user name and password would make
it mostly safe. In fact from the
yellow LAN ports no password in
needed to set the whole thing up,
and that does not seem like good
safety practice for me, although
because it is a "consumer" device,
rather than a professional device,
it would be mostly safe unless
someone broke into your house.
One reason for getting it
out now was to see if it could use
the 6GHz bands for wireless. I
naively thought that the N in
Wireless-N meant it did. In fact I
think that was one of the reasons
why I originally opted for this
model. In fact it doesn't offer
6GHz, but just the more common
(and congested) 2.4GHz band. I got
it mostly set up, although there
are a few minor changes I may
make, but essentially it is
working and usable. It is now back
in it's box until I can find a
good reason for using it !
While doing a lot of this
work/experimenting/play I was
distracted from food. It must have
been almost 2pm before I stopped
for lunch. That lunch was another
single bap with ham and tomatoes.
A bit later on I had a snack of 2
small packets of crisps (neither
of which was "Sizzling Bacon
flavour - there is one in the
bottom of the pack, and I think I
shall throw it away rather than
risk 8 hours of smoky bacon
flavour burps).
I can't quite remember what
time it was when I got back to my
laundry - the three white
t-shirts. I didn't finish the job
in one continuous bit of work. I
had to stop to have a pee when I
was just about the finish the
final rinse. It could have been
after I had my pee that I had the
crisps mentioned above. I got back
to it, and finished the final
rinse, then the fabric
conditioner, before hanging them
up to dry on the big clothes horse
in the dining room. I used a fan
heater on low to speed up the
drying process for a couple of
hours before reverting to just a
desk fan. I must say, those
t-shirts seem like they are a lot
white now. They seemed mildly
grubby when I got them out of the
back of a wardrobe.
It was maybe half an hour
before dinner time when I closed
the curtains, but before I did I
noticed how dynamic the sky
looked. Over in the west the clear
sky that was responsible for the
sunny spells and sunshine was
finally slipping away. This photo
doesn't quite capture how bright
that sliver of sky looked compared
to the dark clouds above. It is a
shame it was not a bit more
colourful.
Sooner or later, and in
fact it was very slightly later
than usual, I had my dinner. I had
two Scotch Eggs that had been in
the fridge for almost a week, and
needed using up. I had them with
two small tomatoes, two small
orange peppers, and some mixed
crispy salad. I also gave it all a
squirt of mayonnaise, and a blob
of Dijo mustard on the side. It
was not exactly a mid winder meal,
but was still fairly nice - and it
should have been relatively safe
with regards to sugar and
calories. I spoiled that by having
some alleged sugar free oat
biscuits, and a small but of 85%
dark chocolate as a dessert.
Last night I did more TV
viewing than is usual. I watched
some or all of 4 different Star
Trek episodes (even Star Trek:
Voyager had a fairly good plot
line), and when the last Star Trek
finished I found the E4 channel,
which I can't recall ever watching
before, was showing two back to
back episodes of The Simpsons.
Both were quite good, although at
one point I found myself
distracted by the internet.
The second Simpsons episode
finished at 9pm, and I went
straight to bed to read in bed for
maybe half an hour. It seemed to
take at least half an hour after
turning out the light before I
fell asleep. Initially I felt a
bit cold despite pulling the
divert over myself (I had done my
half hour of reading uncovered).
Once I was finally asleep, maybe
at around 10pm, I seemed to sleep
very well. I had no acid reflux
problems, or anything else -
except to usual getting up to pee
every 2 to 3 hours (but I think it
was closer to every 2 hours).
One odditity was that I
seem to recall a couple of dreams
that were in "radio" - that is to
say I remember sound, and I think
it was the sound of my own voice
(as an internal voice, not
actually spoken) but no pictures.
I seem to recall one was a
monologue about how woman looked
better, more sexy, wearing
t-shirt, jeans and some nice, but
basic trainers (none of the great
knobbly things with odd bits
sticking out here and there, and
looking as subtle as a pair of
working boots), compared to
dresses and high heel shoes as
depicted in fashion shoots or
whatever. It is actually a view I
believe in real life. I just
wonder who I was addressing it to
in the dream.
I got up at about 7.20am
this morning, and as usual my
first port of call was the toilet.
I peed, but didn't poo.
Nevertheless, when I weighed
myself, I found my weight had
dropped by 800gm, and I was nearly
as low as I was a couple of days
ago. That was good news, although
I am still over a kilogram heavier
than at the start of the month and
year. That rather spoils it.
If I had not had the
dessert after my dinner last night
I might have weighed a little
less, and I am sure my blood
glucose would be lower this
morning. Fortunately it was in
that "good enough" area still, and
also a bit interesting. The
Contour meter read 8.9mmol/l. That
is a bit too close to the first,
but mild waning area. The
interesting bit is that both the
GluocRX and Sinocare meters read
exactly the same as 8.8mmol/l. It
is rare for both those two to
agree, and it may have been the
very first time.
My blood pressure was a
little bit high this morning,
110/52, but that is still very
good. However, that was while I
was thinking I probably ought to
go to the toilet. I did, and that
produced the missing poo from
earlier this morning, plus a good
pee. After allowing five minutes
for things to settle down, I
checked my blood pressure again,
and this time it was down to
103/49. That is the lowest so far
this month, and possibly a minute
amount lower than many typical
days last year.
This morning I have one
extra freedom - I know my new
camera lens will not be delivered
for another day or two. That means
I can have a shower, possibly wash
my hair, and maybe even have a
shave, without having to worry
about the postman knocking on the
door. Tomorrow could be another
thing, and one thing is that I
doubt I could find time to go
shopping (except to pick up my
repeat prescription from the
pharmacy - although even that
won't be essential), and so maybe
it would be useful to do some
shopping today. I think if I go it
is likely to be to Aldi.
1
