The night seemed moderately fresh, but it was still 19° C at 7am this morning. Another day of full, uninterrupted sunshine should see the afternoon temperature reach 35° C. It is looking like tonight may be quite a warm night. Tomorrow should see full sunshine until about 5pm. Despite that it may be a little cooler. The afternoon temperature may only reach 32° C thanks to a change of wind from a cooler direction (from the north west).

  Yesterday could be described as a good day, but not as far as an excellent day. There were two main things that made it good, and I am not sure which was the best.

  The first good thing was a shopping trip to Aldi, and for that I had a nice shower before going out. That was a third good thing. Of course it could be argued that shopping in Aldi was not so good because it did include a lot of temptation to buy stuff that would not be that good for me, but I may have survived that by the skin of my teeth (more about that towards the end of this piece).

  After shopping I had a nice lie down on my bed where I relaxed by reading more of the current book I am reading. Of course before laying down I had eaten a not terribly healthy lunch, although maybe it was not quite as unhealthy as I imagined it would be.
 

   My lie down also included a snooze, at least I think I am sure it did because I would not have fought it if I felt my eyes closing. It all helped pass the time before the headline event of the day - the partial solar eclipse.

  I had prepared for this day before I even knew the date, or even that it would happen (but I did assume there would be something "solar" sooner or later).

  During the last partial eclipse (whose date I have completely forgotten) I cut up a pair of "Eclipse glasses" and used the filter from one side. I taped it to a spare UV filter that I was not worried about ruining, and screwed that onto my biggest zoom lens for one of my Nikon cameras. I got a few reasonable pictures that way without damaging the camera sensor.

  After the success of that I decided I should be a very dense "Neutral Density Filter". As my very poor quality picture shows, it was a variable filter that could be set from blocking hardly any light, to 1/2000th the light. I used that yesterday.
  Even set at maximum density, the filter still showed the sun as a blinding ball of light. There is no detail to be seen on the sun's surface. I tried turning down the cameras sensitivity, but the few changes I made did not make any difference.
  This picture shows the first "bite" out of the sun by the moon. Even though the sun is still over exposed, the filter has allowed a nice clean picture of the start of the eclipse.
  In this picture around half the sun is covered by the moon.
  I don't think I took a picture at the exact time when the moon most covered the sun. It was only a partial eclipse so the sun would never be completely covered, but this picture must the close to the best coverage.
  The moon has now passed the sun, and the fact that it didn't pass over the central part of the sun is why it was only a partial eclipse. The very top of the sun was never covered.
  I am unsure if the fuzziness on the right hand edge of the moon is just an optical effect, or is it was caused by the rough, cratered surface of the moon. I had tried making slight alterations to the camera while taking all the pictures, and it looks like I might have been getting near a better setting.
  The eclipse is almost over. I could have taken a few more pictures, but I didn't think they would show anything interest, and besides which I was itching to search out the next possible filter I wanted for some future eclipse.

  What became apparent while taking these pictures is that I needed what is know as an H Line filter. It is a filter with a deep orange red colour the colour of fusing hydrogen. I did some internet searches, and such filters were available as filters to go on the end of many camera lenses. The first one shocked me. It was very expensive, but maybe it is a high precision filter.
  I can't remember the web site I saw this on, but I think it was aimed at professional astronomers. I was far too expensive for my tastes - particularly so when it may only get tens of minutes of use.
  What was interesting about this far cheaper filter was that it was on sale via Aliexpress, and although I did not take a screen shot of an accompanying picture, I would swear that both these filters, the very expensive, and the cheap, both used a picture of a gloved hand holding the filter to show it's red colour. It made me wonder if both these are for the same filter, and one company is blatantly profiteering. The next time I do an order with Aliexpress I will order one of these filters. I won't need to wait for an eclipse to try it. I can test it on any sunny day, and with luck I will see some detail in the disk of the sun. maybe some swirls of the fusing gases, or maybe some sun spots.

  Once I had finished with my camera I could have dinner. It was 4 "Southern fried style" chicken legs. I think they were better than the last ones I had bought and cooked in the mini oven. I had intended to have fruit for dessert, but I had rather a large portion of ice cream instead. It is a shame I did not have the fruit as intended because right now it feels like some fibre in my diet would have been beneficial.

  Yesterday must have been a tiring day. I watched some of the usual TV I watch in the evening, but I think I was in bed by 10pm. I did read for maybe half an hour, but then tried for sleep. It all gets rather vague after that. I think I suffered from a bit of insomnia, but maybe it was for a far shorter time than I thought, or maybe some of it may have been a dream. I only remember one fragment of dream from last night. I dreamed I needed the toilet, and I went into a toilet somewhere. The toilet bowl, and stuff was intact, the the wash basin was just a small layer of rubble where it used to be. That worried me because I wanted to wash my hands when I finished, but I remembered there was another wash basin outside. At that point I woke up needing to go for a pee (although in the dream I was having a poo).

  When I got up this morning I had a fair sized pee, but no poo. I still weighed myself, and found I had gained just 200gm - the sort of weight a good poo might offset. I have not ruled out having one before the morning is over, but I have eaten breakfast now, and weighing myself after eating, and also drinking a fair bit of water, is never going to show my lowest weight now.

  My blood glucose is good again, but not as good as the last two days. This morning I got readings of 8.0, 8.0, and 8.1mmol/l. All good readings, and they average to 8.03mmol/l. That is very satisfactory, and lower than quite a few days so far this month. My blood pressure may be a tiny bit low this morning, but I think it shows I am in fair health. It is 116/71 with a pulse rate of 72bpm.

  I think my only plans for today are to have a shower, and wash my hair in preparation for a Thursday late afternoon beer tasting session with Jodie and Michael (and possibly others). Unfortunately I have not heard from Left Field Beers who I ordered £121 worth of beers. Under normal circumstance they could have arrived here in time to sample a few today, but one of the two men who run the company is on holiday, and it seems the remaining one can't keep up, and get the orders out in the usual time. The knock on effect is that I will have to spend some future day waiting for the delivery - fortunately they tend to be morning deliveries is my wonky memory is correct on this occasion - whenever that is !