09:01 BST

  It is only starting to change from quite cool to mildly warm as I write this, but it is sunny now. Full sunshine, from now to sunset, means we should see an afternoon high of 24° C - almost like a summers day. Tomorrow may start with sunny spells, and it will be fairly nice until 2pm, and it should reach a fair 20° C. If the forecast for tomorrow contains any reality, then after 2pm the sky will go grey, sometimes even dark grey, and there could be light rain until mid evening.

    Yesterday was a quite pleasant day. I didn't achieve all that much, but some of what I did achieve was useful. One good thing about yesterday is there seemed no rush for anything - except maybe for one thing that should have been rushed, was actually ignored. More about this further down the page.

  Closing the bathroom windows the day before yesterday was a good thing, and I wonder why I didn't do it earlier, although one reason may be that without an open window there is no ventilation in the bathroom. There is an air vent on one wall, from the inside, but no vent is visible on the outside of the bathroom. I never did guess a valid reason for it - maybe the builders who renovated the house before I bought it in 1983 just forgot to do it.

  As well as (hopefully) new spiders moving in through the open window, it was not so cold in there yesterday morning. That is quite important when spending time in there naked, and also wet ! It made washing my hair, and having a shower much more pleasant. Once I was dry and dressed I went to the little supermarket on Catford Bridge, but I did go via the station to get a copy of The metro as I wrote I would do yesterday.

  My reason for not going via the station was because it was later than I thought, and I was expecting a packet delivery by Amazon. It is rare for Amazon to estimate when they might arrive, and all I knew was that the van left the depot in Dartford at a bit after 11am. Depending on the route taken, the courier could have been here by notb too long after midday, although that was a bit unlikely.

  Nevertheless, I still worried that I would not be able to do my shopping, and get home in time to get handed the parcel. It was only a single book, and I was in no great rush for it, but I still preferred not to miss the delivery. As it happened I needn't have worried too much - at least while it wasn't raining. I got my shopping, mostly instant noodles, but some cheese and cake too, and then, after paying for it, I left the shop. A minute later I could see enough to just make out what I suspected to be an Amazon van. I had fears I had missed my delivery, but it hadn't !

   I rushed as fast as I could, which was not fast at all (I had not been feeling terribly energetic when I first went out, and was even less energetic on the way home). I could not be sure it was even an Amazon van that I saw. All I know was that it seemed to be roughly the correct shade of blue.

  I had some sort of insane idea that if I got home fast enough I could flag down the driver and say "I'm home now". By the time I reached my house the van was nowhere to be seen - which would not have been surprising even if I had correctly identified it from half or more of a mile away.

  The other thing was that I had no idea my parcel was on that van (assuming it was an Amazon van). Once I reached home I thought I had better check the usual places the drivers will sometime leave a parcel. Sure enough, it was propped up by the wheelie bin


  I was happy that it was safe and sound. As I said, it was only a book, but it did cost £12.15p. I ordered it only based on the writers name - Harlan Ellison. He was a veteran SciFi writer from the days of the pulp magazines. Having now just read the Wikipedia page I linked to, I see that we have one thing in common. We both had quad heart bypass operations. I also note that he only wrote one noted Star Trek episode, although he did write a lot of TV and film scripts. Once I hae read the book I will be able to say if I think he is a good, medium, bad, or boring writer.

  The next thing I did after getting in, and opening my parcel, was to prepare some lunch.  Some of it was ice cream, but it also featured rice crackers and some cheese I had just bought (a hard Greek cheese), and eaten with some sliced and pickled red chilli peppers. After lunch I had a lie down. I really should have been doing some washing up, and other tidying up in the kitchen. I just about managed to do do just enough, just before Jodie arrived.

  Later on, despite saying he doubted he would come, Michael turned up to have some beers with us. The final visitor was the fluffy pussy cat. I thought he would avoid visiting because I dared to offer him the wrong food the day before ! He is an odd cat in that he like company, and unless there is any reason not to, he likes meeting strangers. He was in his element when he joined us yesterday. He had some food, and this time it was the right sort of food - poultry based.

  Then he curled up in his box and seemed to sleep. If we had all left the room he would become anxious, and want to jump out the window, which I had left open for him. Michael admitted he would like to adopt the cat, but I remain convinced he has an owner somewhere even he does blag food from several neighbours.

   (As I write this, I am on high alert for another delivery. I have been advised that the beers I ordered will be delivered in the the next two hours, with about half past midday being the middle of the estimated time period.  Once the beers are safely in my hands I will be free to go out - subject to a few things that I will mention later).

   We had a fairly good drinking session yesterday afternoon, although Jodie often deserted real life to get lost in her phone - and non stop scrolling ! Michael was in a middling mood. His latest "disaster" is more problems with his wife's medical needs. He recently got a message on his phone saying that his wife has an appointment with what may, or may not be a diabetic eye check. Apparently it is at Kings College Hospital.

  If, and it may not be, the same as my annual Retinopathy check then I can't see why she has to go to Kings College when they do it in Lewisham. I told him last time, and again yesterday, to phone the appointments number and see is she can have a new appointment in Lewisham. That triggered a rant about not getting through on the phone because they want us to use the "app". Being a doddery old man he says he doesn't know how to use the "app", but then went on to say he has managed to at least half use it in the past.

   That is more than I have done. I could use "the app" but do not want to, and so I just don't. So far there has never been an occasion when it has been essential. One of Michael's problems would seem to be that he does not know how to be assertive without flying into a rage - which is never a good idea with the dragons they have at the end of NHS phone lines !

  Jodie left to get a train, She was heading up to Camden Town to meet up for a gig up there. Michael left a bit later, and then I could concentrate on dinner. Dinner was to be a meatball pasta ready meal. Like most pasta dishes it was smaller than it seemed, and although sort of nice enough, it was not satisfying. I had intended on eating nothing else, but ended up topping it off by three slices of sponge cake - which was also "sort of nice" but nothing special.

  I spent the rest of the evening watch TV. It was the usual fare of some Star Treks, followed by QI. Star Trek: The Next Generation featured a story with Counsellor Deanna Troy as the star of the show. It was OK, but not one of the better episodes. Star Trek:Deep Space Nine was possibly a slight better story than most on that dreary series. QI was a fairly good edition. The latter finished at 10pm, and I headed to bed. I read a few pages, and tried for sleep.

  I thought I would almost ready to fall asleep while reading, but as soon as I put the book down, and got comfortable, I realised I was actually more uncomfortable. A part of it was realising that I needed a pee, but that was easily dealt with, but it was while doing so that I realised I had two more things wrong with me. One was some heartburn....or was it ? It did partly respond to a few antacid tablets, but I also had a pain in my right arm.

  That pain in my right arm has been coming and going for a few years now. The pain is centred on almost the exact place I had two of my Covid vaccine shots. I thought it was something to do with those shots, and maybe it is in an indirect way.  I think it was the last time I had that pain, a week or two ago, that I wondered if it was related to angina, or had a similar cause. I wondered if the vaccination had left some sort of damage to an artery, maybe even a blood clot of something.

  A simple test was to have a squirt of my Glycerol Tri Nitrate, angina relief spray. That did cure the pain last time, and also last night. It also seemed to help cure the heartburn. Heartburn and Angina feel very similar, and so I wonder if I did not have heartburn, but a mild angina attack last night. After the spray it all calmed down completely, and it didn't take long to fall asleep.

  I fell into quite a deep sleep, and it seemed disorientating when I woke up at about 2am because I didn't realsie I had fallen asleep, and although I have no idea what it was about, but I am sure I must have been having a very realistic dream about being awake....or something. While my brain became acclimatised to the real time I went for a pee - quite a big pee (and that could have been why I woke up).

  I finished in the toilet and went back to bed. I laid in bed thinking that after all the (brief) excitement I would never be able to relax enough to fall asleep again. The next thing I knew was that it was 5am. It seemed too early to get up, and it was still dark outside (sunrise was at 6:41 this morning). I am a bit confused at this point. I feel sure I fell asleep again and it was starting to get light outside, but I had no feeling that I had fallen asleep.

  I am unsure what time it was that I actually got up. I feel sure it was still early, but I needed a pee, and I also had a large and splattery poo. I weighed myself after that and found my "official" weight this morning was exactly the same as yesterday - which was quite satisfactory considering I hadn't put any actual effort into being careful about what I ate.

  My blood glucose was not satisfactory, although it could described as typical or average. The Contour meter read 8.6mmol/l. That is a tiny bit higher than I might hope for, but (hopefully) of no great consequence. The GlucoRX meter read 8.4mmol/l, and that is a bit better. The GlucoFix meter read in the middle, or 8.5mmol/l. Considering I had three slices of cake for dessert last night, I think these readings could be considered a bit good....well, maybe "better than expected" is more apt.

  I am happy to say that my beer has been delivered, and it was close enough to the estimate made my APC, the courier company. I have examined every can and both bottles, and found room for may be just under half of them in the beer fridges in the dining room.

  It seems I made two mistakes when ordering because I did not pay enough attention to the descriptions. One beer is a low alcohol (0.5%) beer. It may be drinkable, but it's main usefulness is that the next time Jodie turns up moaning she has a hangover, she can drink that beer from one of her favourite breweries (who can probably do no wrong !).

  The other beer is a Pastry stout from a brewery in Finland - a fairly rare country to get beers from. Some pastry stouts can be quite nice, but this one seems to have coffee in it, and I do not like coffee. If the taste is well diluted it may be drinkable, possibly even nice, but if not it may well end up going down the sink.

  Now the beer is here I am free to do anything I want to. One of the first things I need to do is to finish washing a small hand towel, and a pair of shorts I left soaking in detergent overnight. Wringing out the shorts is going to be a bit of a bugger !

  Once I have cleared thw two big laundry buckets from the bath I can have a shower. Once I have had that I can go out. At the moment hot sun is coming through my front windows, and it feels like summer is back.

  I should take advantage of that hot sunshine to do some exercise, but I have to admit I don't feel keen to do that right now. I feel more like having some cheese on toast for lunch, and then laying down to read, and probably snooze, for an hour or two. I may even do that before I have any lunch. As I sit here typing the hot sun is shining through the window, and my bedroom is now almost 27° C. I am actually feeling a bit sweaty, but I can probably blame that on the hot chilli sauce I had on my breakfast instant noodles ! I think I feel too hot to get back to the laundry. I think that whatever I predict for today will turn out different !