This morning did start at around 8° C, and there was some light rain, or maybe the ground was wet from earlier rain. Right now the sun is trying to push through the clouds. It got just bright enough to cast a feint shadow. This is a lot like yesterday, and maybe the sun might punch through the cloud earlier than the sunny spells forecast from between 1pm and sunset at 5.33pm. The afternoon temperature may reach 10° C, and in sunshine that should feel OK, particularly if the wind is as light as the forecast suggests (under 10mph). It is going to be another, but even colder night. Tomorrow may start as low as 4° C, and it may only rise to 8° C. To add to the misery it could be a very wet day.

  Despite all my beliefs to the contrary, right up to almost mid afternoon, yesterday turned out to be a good day. Prior to that change I didn't think I would do anything yesterday, and that would bring the negative aspects of wanting to eat badly. I was not in ideal control of my eating, but I seemed to do quite well at the end.

  Yesterday was another day when it seemed to take ages to complete my 2,097 words that I wrote here yesterday. There were some distractions that slowed things down, and were probably looking for links, usually on Wikipedia, and those can lead to other stuff to look at out of curiosity. Eventually I finished writing, and by then it was as good as lunch time. Normally I would have a rest once I had finished writing, but yesterday I made lunch instead.

  My lunch was two cheese topped crusty rolls with a filling of corned beef for one, and sliced beef for the other. Both included yummy horseradish sauce. It wasn't just making and eating lunch that came before having my usual rest, but other things too. I feel sure there is something I have forgotten, but one thing I know I did was to look through my bookshelves to select a new fiction book to read.

  I already had a factual book by my bed. It was a book about the first Mars Rovers. I was intending to read it a second time, but while fascinating, I was after something to really immerse myself in, to block out the outside world (to some extent - the more the better). The book I selected was "The Sky Is Falling" by Lester Del Rey. It is a curious book for me to read because it is not exactly SciFi, but it does treat magic as being equivalent to science and very rational and reproducible.
  I didn't get to read much of the book because there was another distraction, and one that would turn my day around later. I took the picture above at 12:19pm, and it shows the view out the spare bedroom window.  Nearly all of the sky was a glorious blue, and there was bright, and at least behind glass, very warm sunshine. The sun had been trying to shine for a lot of the morning (and I hope today may be similar), and finally the clouds cleared to give what looked like a summer day.

  The catch was that it was only just mild outside (although it probably would have felt quite warm, maybe even hot on black clothes), but it lookes so uplifting ! Sadly it was not long before some thicker cloud would pass in front of the sun, but there were more un-forecast sunny spells during the afternoon. It took some time before it felt like my enthusiasm was part recharged.

  I can't say when it was that I took a few small steps to cleaning up some of my bedroom. One of the first things was to put all my cameras, in their camera bags, back into the spare room. It is possible that Patricia will want to have another overnight stay in March, but it is easy enough to get those cameras back into my own bedroom again.
  I know I took this picture at 3:51pm, but I am not sure where I had got to in what turned out to be quite a signifcaant depth of clean up in my bedroom when I first opened the bottle. As the label says, it was a special Xmas beer - brewed in Belgium, and was 8.3%. It was one of the beers that seems to have been in the beer fridges for ages, and always ignored by Jodie. I feel fairly certain it is one she has not had before, and hasn't logged in her Untappd (dot com) account.  She has had plenty of opportunity, but no longer. I bought it, and I drunk it. The glass on the right of the picture gives an idea of the colour of the beer, but by the time I decided I should take the picture I had to pour the last bit of the bottle, and nearly all of the sediment into the glass to give something to photograph.

  I probably had a the beer during a breather because i was getting deeper and deeper into the cleaning. I had taken out, and just dumped in the hallway for now, a pile of big books. They are too big and heavy to read comfortably in bed, and I may well dump them on a charity shop one day. I also gathered up a pile of lightweight shoes - good enough for outdoor work when new, but still useful as something akin to indoor  slippers before worn right through. I tossed all those in a plastic box, and put that on top of an ancient 14 inch CRT colour TV that is mostly, but not 100% redundant (although maybe it should be).

  I wondered what I would find under that plastic box. There was a small gap underneath it - one that a mouse to easily get into, and use for a nest. All this work was to make my bedroom less attractive to the mouse I realised was in there at night some 4 or 5 days ago. I have now plugged all the holes I could find where it was getting into my bedroom from under the floorboards. Two (or is it 3 ?) nights have now passed since I last heard it in the night (I have never actually seen it).

  The final act of madness was to get the hoover out, and to not only hoover all the dust I could get to under the little table that stands in the bay window area, but also to hoover all the mats and carpet in my bedroom. I guess to a young housewife it would be of no consequence, but for me all that hoovering is like hard exercise.  I must admit it did feel good for having done it even the doing of it felt like hard work. Not only did I end up sucking up loads of dust, and lots of my own hair, but also any crumbs under or near my computer desk, and so reducing any mouses interest in hanging around in here.

  At 6pm I was watching the end of an original episode of Star Trek (with Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the well known crew), and I was eating my dinner. It was a sort of hybrid meal. It was the last cheese topped roll that I filled with cheese and Branston pickle. It was also some fruit - a small (4 inch or so) banana, a purple plum, a nectarine and an apple. The apple, of a variety I can't remember, was one that was sort of nice, and a bit not nice. I think it would have best been eaten with cheese.

  I watched the BBC news at 6pm, and it was either tedious, or depressing, and I don't think any of it was any reason to feel happy. After that I watched and/or recorded 3 or 4 episodes of the Simpsons. The last finished at 9pm, and it was bed time. I had a feeling I would not be disturbed by the mouse, and I wasn't, but just thinking about that was enough to put me semi on edge. Nevertheless I seemed to fall asleep easily enough after reading a short chapter from my current book.

  I had a curious night. I felt that maybe I had got up less than usual to go for a pee. I had one proper dream that I can no longer remember, and I might have had several dreams that may have actually been reality. It seemed to me that I had several dreams about being in bed, but awake trying to get to sleep. I suppose they were not dreams but reality, but they did seem to have a dreamlike quality about them somehow.

  I got up just after 7am this morning, and after a pee, but no poo, I weighed myself. To my medium, or maybe just small delight, I seemed to weigh 100gm less than yesterday morning. Of course such a small change is probably no more than the usual random ups and down that happen most days, and which get swallowed up in any more definite, positive (or negative) changes.

  One slight positive concerns my blood glucose readings. Yesterday they blipped upwards for reasons I was not really sure about (although I did out a lot of the blame on the very sweet Emperor Orange I ate the night before). This morning, when I didn't think I was all that careful, or even careful at all, my readings were back in the OK, but not great, area again. The Contour meter read 8.6mmol/l. The Sinocare meter agreed with that, but the GlucoRX meter gave a modestly nice reading of 8.2mmol/l.

  My blood pressure was almost exactly the same as yesterday, 104/45, but this morning my pulse rate was up from 54 to 56 bpm - which is of no consequence at all. I may have got lower readings on a second attempt, but like yesterday, I thought the first reading was easily good enough, and it wasn't worth it trying squeeze it down further.  Everything suggest I should feel good this morning. I am sure I don't feel good, but I also don't seem to feel bad either.

  I am not sure where that leaves me for the rest of the day. If today turned out to be like yesterday I could easily be tempted to go out somewhere. As it is, I think I may go shopping. There is one or two things I could get from Savers, and maybe a thing or two I could get from Poundland, but I think I am more likely to end up in Tesco. Once I have been to the shops I doubt I would want to go out again, but maybe I might do something energetic like more hoovering, and/or some laundry.