The forecast for today shows a dull start to the day, but as I type this the sun is shining. There is a fair bit of blue sky to be seen, and so this is not a solitary sunny spell. Maybe a few more sunny spells will make this afternoon a degree or two warmer than the forecast, and rather good for the time of year, 20° C.  A couple of sunny spells are shown for early evening, and clear skies after midnight. That should mean a very cold night, but the forecast still predicts 15° C for the small hours of tomorrow morning.....however. The latest update shows not just cloud, but rain from 4am tomorrow morning. The rain may finish after 9am, and the rest of tomorrow should see sunny spells, and even full sunshine for the last couple of hours of daylight. The afternoon may be just 15° C, and I guess that is more typical for this time of year.  

  I start today by going back to the day before yesterday when a mini calamity happened that left it's mark on the start of yesterday.

  I had a nice bright light in the kitchen. It was an LED bulb that was equivalent to a 100W filament lamp (but consumed far less than a filament lamp). Recently I had noticed an occasional flicker, and that strongly suggested it was on it's last legs. Now unfortunately it was a cheap Chinese lamp, and not built to strict European standards - possibly. All I can say for definite was when it's electronic failed it blew the entire downstairs lighting circuit. That was a great annoyance for reasons that will soon be apparent.

  What is described next happened after I got back from my appointment with the nurse yesterday morning. The appointment was specifically to discuss whether I wanted to continue getting Ozempic injections. We had long established that they did very little for my weight, and indeed in some instances I gained weight instead of losing it. It is very slow, and going in fits and starts, but my weight is very slowly decreasing. If I am in the right mood I can do better just by dieting, but the good thing about Ozempic, and also the other "wonder miracle weight loss drug" Mounjaro, is both help me control my blood glucose level - it is what they were originally formulated for, and the weight loss was a useful by product.

  I had intended to ask the nurse about giving me my winter 'flu jab, but she got in first and offered to me. She also offered the Shingles vaccination. The 'flu jab was a lower priority than the Shingles jab. The senior engineer at my job before last went down with Shingles, and was off work for a month. He told of it being a really horrible condition, and so a jab that would stop it happening to me sounded like an excellent idea. I had both. More about the 'flu jab later. Once I was home again I decided I just had to get the lights working again, and that meant repairing the fuse.

  To get to the Consumer Unit, aka fusebox, meant getting out tons of stuff from the cupboard under the stairs. The picture on the left shows what confronted my when I opened the cupboard door. Most of the boxes were not too heavy, but among them was an exceedingly heavy laser printer (which seemed like a good idea when it was offered to me working, but in need of maintenance).

  I slowly got the cupboard clear enough to reach the fusebox, although it still mean standing either side of a few items, and leaning to the side to get to the fuse box. In the 43 (I think) years that I have lived here I have never had to examine the fusebox. Fortunately it was nothing special, and the two 5 Amp fuses for the upstairs and downstairs lighting circuits were simple to identify - although it was pot luck which was upstairs and which was downstairs.

  I identified the correct fuse by pulling out one after the other. The one that didn't kill the upstairs light was the correct one. I thought I had some fuse wire somewhere, but a brief look showed that if I did it was too well hidden. I had to improvise. I found a bit of multi-stranded wire that was rated at 5 Amp. The wire was too fine to easily count, but I guessed it had about 16 strands. I reasoned that if all 16 could safely carry 5 Amps, then a couple of strands would act like a suitable weak link, and that is what I used to repair the fuse. I suspect it could be as low as a 3 Amp fuse with that wire in it, but that is good enough unless I decided to fit each lamp holder with 200W filament lamps, but that is highly unlikely (plus I am not sure you can actually buy 200W filament lamps these days).

  Before I had got everything back in the cupboard I was feeling knackered. Just picking up and carrying the really heavy laser printer had me on the point of chest pains. I left the laser printer out, and I will see if I can find someone who can take it to a dump for me (or wait until some neighbour has a skip let unattended at night !). I also left some boxes in the kitchen. I'll probably ram those back in the cupboard sooner or later (maybe today).

  I had a lie down after that, but I could not relax too long because I had some tidying to do for a beer drinking/tasting session with Jodie and Michael. (Jodie is busy today and so we brought the session forward a day). Later on we would be joined by Mark. It was a fairly good beer tasting, and instead of nasty beers we had some nice German beers, although even one of those was a smoked beer that tasted like it was brewed in a sooty chimney.

  That was the second smoked beer I have tasted in the last week or two. I am sure that I used to like smoked beers, but maybe because I no longer smoke I find I do not care for them. That is a bit odd because there is no comparison to the taste of wood smoke and tobacco smoke.

  I think it was around 7pm when Jodie and Mark, and Michael left. I was quite ready for my dinner. It was an Aldi cook at home Pizza, and I also had some ice cream. I seemed to be feeling quite tired last night, but I still watched TV until at least 10pm and maybe it was 11pm. I think I fell asleep very soon after turning out the light. I remember having a dream that I was working in The Midlands, and spent my lunch hour at a railway station taking pictures of all the trains there. I suspect it was possibly a "special" but it included a steam hauled train.

  I woke up around 7am this morning, and I felt dreadful. It was definitely no hangover. I am sure it was caused by the 'flu vaccine because I ached everywhere like I had 'flu. I have had this in varying degrees after a 'flu jab before. I can remember having to call work on one occasion to say I was going sick for the day.  A couple of Paracetamol, and a bit more sleep helped a lot, but even now I don't feel 100%.

  Not feeling too good is a shame today because my diary is blank, and I might have done something. I even had fantasies about going out with a camera for some railway photography. As I sit here typing I don't feel too bad now, but I am not sure I would be happy walking around and stuff. On top of everything else, I have not "open my bowels" this morning, and literally in the last 5 minutes my stomach is starting to growl - and it is not hunger because I have eaten my usual breakfast of instant noodles.



  I am not sure what I am going to do today. I assume I will be feeling a lot better after I have had another lie down, and probably a snooze. One thing I could do, but I very much doubt if I will, is to do some refurbishment of the original Bondi Blue iMac pictured on the left (and covered in dust). I thought I had thrown it away, but I found it under the stairs yesterday. I know it has a faulty hard disk in it, and I think there are some leaking capacitors in it that need changing. Without a decent work bench it will be a tricky repair, and that is why I am not so keen to do it, but one day, one day ! It is a collectors item, and if in good working condition, it may be worth a fair bit of money, but to be honest, all the faff of selling it, and getting it wrapped for a courier company (or something) is more bother than I can be bothered with