08:51 BST

  Today may be very hot. The BBC forecast 33° C, but the Met Office say only 31° C, and they also predict the chance of a shower or two around midday. They have certainly got it almost right when they say only sunny spells this morning. As I type this it is actually a bit dull outside, and I am not sure we have even had a sunny spell yet. I have a feeling that in terms of actual sunshine, today could be disappointing. It seems certain that it will get hot today, but it may be an unpleasant muggy heat instead of blistering hot sunshine. Tomorrow could start off bright, but much of the day may only see sunny spells, and the temperature may only rise to 26° C.

   Yesterday was a not very good day, but neither was it a bad day. The early weather forecast promised so much, but with that thin covering of white cloud it was not very exciting. I managed to do a few useful things, and a few things that make me wonder if they were a good idea.

  I am sure my original intention for yesterday was to probably wash my hair, and definitely have a good shower after I had finished writing and had my rest. I did have thoughts about going out for a walk - possibly even a slightly longer walk than those recently.Those thoughts quickly evaporated when I came to the conclusion I didn't feel like a walk. I would still do a little bit of exercise though.

  What I decided I had to do, having put it off for too many months (!!!!!, was to change all my bedding. It had got to the point where not only was it probably very smelly (although I couldn't really smell it), but it was getting so rucked up from tossing and turning in these now sweaty nights, even the bottom sheet was trying to escape from being tucked under the mattress.

  I stripped my bed back to the mattress, and put on a fresh under sheet, fresh pillowcases, and a fresh duvet cover. I didn't bother putting the duvet in the fresh cover. It could be months before I might need the extra warmth of the duvet itself. I decided not to waste time, and start washing the bedding I had just taken off my bed. I could not do it all by hand in one go, and so I did the hardest item first - the duvet cover.

  It was lucky it was one of my thinner duvet covers, but even so it was hard work trying to wring it out. It was because I could not fully wring it out that I had to give it 5 or 6 rinses before I hung it on the washing line to dry. One of the reasons I wanted to get it done so quickly was because I knew it would still be dripping when I hung it up to dry, and so had to be on the washing line, and not on a clothes horse indoors.

  I made the mistake of leaving it too long the last time I washed a duvet cover, and I missed the warm sunny days. Once it was wet and gloomy I could not hang it outside to dry, and it is still sitting in the bottom of the washing bag. I could possibly do it today, but I think I will get the pillowcases and bottom sheet done today. I might even wash a couple of t-shirts today. I should have the time, but maybe lack the enthusiasm.

  The only other notable thing I did yesterday was to order some more stuff from Aliexpress - a sort of Chinese version of Amazon. I ordered a pack of nano SD cards. As far as I am aware, nano-SD memory card have only been used in Huawei mobile phones. I do have a Huawei phone, and I do have a nano-SD card to go in it, but I have never needed to fit it.  With a change of mobile phone coming soon, I may never need that nano-SD card.

  You may wonder why I need more when I haven't used the first ? It is sort of hard to give a rational answer to that ! I think I regard them as a sort of curiosity, and the pack of three I ordered from Aliexpress were cheaper than the single card I bought from Amazon. (almost half price if I recall correctly). By using the nano-sd to USB adapter, that comes with them (both with my Amazon and Aliexpress orders) I can use them for any general storage.

  I also ordered a new Contour blood glucose meter. It seems to be a newer version than the one I have. I have also ordered extra test strips to go with it. I am hoping it will turn out to be as reliable as my original Contour meter, and I can use it to replace the very variable Sinocare meter.  All these things seem to be quite cheap to buy, and there appears to be no delivery charge. There are two downsides - the first is the fairly lone delivery time, and the second is the annoying way Aliexpress is bombarding me with update emails. Although all ordered at the same time, it seems every item is regarded as a separate order, and so I am getting three lots of frequent updates !

  I ended up eating semi badly yesterday. Maybe it was salt loss from sweating that made me desire some crisps for a light lunch. I ended up eating half a medium sized bag (maybe nearly 100gm in total) of cheese flavour baked potato sticks. They are curious in that they seem to be both quite low in calories and sugar content. Somehow they were satisfying, and that is why I stopped eating halfway through the bag.

  My dinner had great possibilities to be super unhealthy. In fact, this morning it seems that it was not as bad as feared. It consisted of 10 (or was it 12 ?) beef kebabs on sticks. Maybe it is fortunate that my mini grill/oven is having another episode of the timer mechanism being sticky. I cooked those kebabs for maybe double the recommended cooking time. The original idea being that they would get their official 20 minutes of cooking followed  by 20 minutes to cool off a bit.

  When I rescued them they had shrunk to about half size, although they had not started to go crunchy. I had cooked them in a foil container, and I poured off about a quarter a pint, maybe more, of hot fat. They were certainly now lower fat than the packet probably indicated. I ate them with the whole of a small tub of potato salad. I thought the kebabs were a bit disappointing, although in reality they were pretty much what I expected. With the potato salad it made for a satisfying dinner.

  Television was awful last night. The BBC 6 O'clock news was not awful, but not that entertaining, and in one respect it was really annoying. They kept on about it being hot as if we have never seen a hot day before. I would have been a lot more satisfied if they said more about the cloud ruining a perfectly good sunny day.  Although I was not expecting to relaly enjoy it, I was intending to watch Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at the usual times.

  Instead of Star Trek, Sky Mix decided to show bits of The Isle Of Wight festival. I didn't dare watch watch because I was sure it would be 10 minutes of some crappy band on stage. Some sort of interviews with the band or fans, all interrupted every 10 minutes by long advert breaks. The really weird thing was that Sky Arts, who occasionally have a feature or two about some good bands, seemed to be showing exactly the same as Sky Mix, but with a minute or two delay.

  I did start watching a couple of very familiar repeats of some Simpsons episodes, but turned off halfway through the second episode. I retired to my bed, but only to lay on top reading. I did get up now and then for a couple of short breaks (and to read a few more emails from Aliexpress). Sunset last night was at 9:20pm, and I believe last night was the shortest night of the year. It was still fairly light when I went to sleep last night.

  Once again I had the desk fan blowing softly over the top of my half naked body, and I felt just cool enough to sleep well - although in the early hours of this morning I did fully close the curtains because the air outside was feeling a bit cool ny comparison. All I can remember of any dreams was that I seemed to have a quite long dream where nothing really happened ! I guess it seemed good at the time, but there was nothing "solid" enough to latch onto a memory.

  I think I got up around 6:20am this morning. I went for a pee, and I was sure I was going to poo, but all I managed was some wind. Until halfway through the last paragraph I had been getting that constipated feeling developing, but with only a bit of effort I seemed to clear that feeling with a disappointingly small poo. After that first of the morning pee I weighed myself, and I was very pleased to see I had lost 200gm. Another 150gm loss would have been enough to use a different background colour to my weight on my spreadsheet. It does provide some impetus to try and lose that little bit today, and see a figure I have not seen since one day when I was very dehydrated after a 7 mile walk back in 2020.

  There was even some improvement in my blood glucose despite not eating very well yesterday. The Contour meter gave the best, and rather good reading of 7.5mmol/l. That is spot on my current target. It is a shame the other two meter readings were not nearly as good. The GlucoRX meter read 8.4mmol/l. That is almost good. Maybe it was not a surprise that the Sinocare meter gave a fair reading of 8.3mmol/l.  My current blood glucose level seems to be back in the range where it broadly agrees with the other meters.

  Today is the day of the Manor House Gardens festival. It is either a long walk away, or a hot and sweaty bus ride away. I have seen two now, and both had moments of being OK-ish. The trouble with this festival is that the live stage is almost an afterthought. It is more importantly needed for things like announcing the results of raffles, and similar sort of stuff, and having some live music is almost a side effect. I get the impression there is no thought to any form of continuity the live stage entertainment. It is almost as if they don't want people spending more than 5 minutes watching when they could be spending money at the various food and amusement stalls.

  I know of one "band" who will be playing today, but they are only playing as a duo, and I am not sure I can raise the enthusiasm to go all that way just to take a few pictures of a duo. The stage list definitely does show a few acts I would go out of my way to miss. It doesn't feel like I will be going today. I thought I would use the excuse that I was feeling constipated, but now I feel I will fall back on the actual fairly strong possibility that I will be staying in because of a parcel delivery today....plus I just don't fancy going !

  Stuff I will do today......I think I most definitely do need a long overdue shower today. While I am at it I will wash my hair too. I have doubts that I will see anyone today, but it would still be nice to feel clean - even if I do pop out for some shopping. Once I have finished with the bath and shower I can start to hand wash the sheet and pillowcases I took off my bed yesterday. It might also be possible, even if a bit unlikely, that I may wash a couple of t-shirts and some underwear.