Last night was most definitely a "tropical night" with temperature around 22° C all night (and it was 30° C in my bedroom all night too). This morning it does feel a bit fresher, but 20° C is not that fresh. This morning we have some sunny spells, but from about 11am it could turn a bit dull. That will keep the afternoon down to a still fairly hot 26° C. Tonight looks like it may be cooler, and maybe the lower temperature today will give my bedroom a chance to cool a bit as well. Tomorrow, at 6am, it could be just 17° C. That should feel a bit fresher, and by comparison it may even feel cold, but it won't be really. Most of tomorrow will be dull, and the afternoon temperature may only reach 25° C, but there could be some sunny spells in the afternoon (maybe from about 3pm).

  Yesterday was another day where very little happened. That suited me fine. It felt hot and sticky and I didn't feel like doing much.

  I seemed to spend a lot of time laying on my bed reading. I sometimes wonder if I should feel a bit guilty doing that, but I do enjoy reading. Anyway, it felt too hot to do much more than that. I have no idea what the humidity was yesterday, but I suspect it may have been high, and in turn that made it seem warmer than it really was. The one thing of note that I did do I only half did. I started to finish the laundry that I had left soaking in detergent the previous day. I got as far as the first two rinses, and gave up yesterday. My back was aching from too long spent laying down, but mostly I just felt too hot and sticky.  I made the fatal mistake of thinking I would take a short break, and come back to it. Of course it is still sitting in it's big bucket, blocking the bathtub, this morning. Oh well, one more rinse, and then fabric conditioner before I wring it all out, and hang it up to dry.

  I'll skip forward to dinner time because I can't think of anything to say about the hours before then. My dinner was unusual. I cooked a pack of smoky flavour hot dogs - large ones ! I had two of them for dinner - both in finger/mini sub rolls with ketchup and mustard. They were nice, but nothing wonderful, and nothing I would want again for a long time. I fail to see why Americans think hot dogs are so wonderful. I did make one discovery when making the hot dogs. I know that traditionally the rolls are not buttered, but I buttered mine. My discovery was that I think my butter is starting to turn. It has been kept in an air tight container, but not refrigerated, for months now.

  The way I keep/kept my butter was because at one time I was making a lot of sandwiches (or rolls) and not cooling the butter too much kept it nice and soft, and easily spreadable. I have a few rolls that are obviously past their best, and I think I will cover them with butter and leave them out for the fox. Meanwhile I have had fresh butter in the fridge for weeks now, and I can start using that instead.

  I just remembered, there was one other thing I did yesterday. It was investigating camera lens filters. I think I probably wrote yesterday that I had ordered a special filter for taking pictures of the sun. That made me wonder what other lens filters I had. It was years ago that I had a brief flirtation with some colour shaded filters. Some were to make grass look greener, and other to make the sky look bluer.They seemed to work OK, but I am not really a landscape photographer, and they get so little use that I have no practice at selecting one to enhance the very occasional photos. One problem is it is more junk to carry around, and it is fiddly to have to change filters.

  One filter I own came with one of the lenses I bought from Ebay. It is peculiar in that it has not special optical properties than can be seen with the eye. It consists of a ring of small holes near the centre of the filter. Fortunately I found a description of it on the internet. Those holes give a sort of halo effect around stuff on the peripheral of the image. I took some test shots, and none looked very good, but it did give me an idea of how it might work. In a studio setting, with strong light on the main subject (probably a person posing) It would surround the subject with haloes. That is not the best description, but I know what I am thinking even if I can't describe it. Once I achieved a similar effect using the effects in The Gimp image editor. It looked good, but only maybe one in a thousand photos should use it - and that would depend on me remembering how I did it. The last time I tried I just made a mess, and had to serve the photo straight.

  I passed a lot of the evening watching TV, but I gave up at 10pm. I went to bed feeling tired, but sleep was not easy. last night was a very hot and sticky night. I slept naked, apart from a pair of underpants, and with my duvet pushed out of the way. On top of that I had the fan on full blowing at me. I noted that it was 30° C inside my bedroom (with the window open, but the curtains were part closed), while outdoors it was about 22 to 23° C. I seemed to get a lot of sleep, but it was really only an odd half hour here and there. I did not wake up feeling like I had had anywhere near enough good sleep.

  This morning I have not yet passed a poo, but I do seem to have lost (maybe sweated off) 700gm. I'll still accept that as good. My blood glucose readings were also good. I got readings of 8.4mmol/l (good, but not quite good enough), 8.2mmol/l (closer to what I wanted) and 7.9mmol/l (the sort of figure I aim for). It was all particularly good considering I made zero effort to control what I was eating.

  My blood pressure is OK-ish this morning. Maybe 108/75 is a bit on the low side, but not that low. My pulse rate was higher than I think it should be at 76 bpm. The blood pressure meter also showed the little heart symbol that I think shows that some heart flutter was detected. As of today I have started recording that as well as the pressures.

  Today is another day where I have no plans, or at least no special plans. I can think of a few things I might do. I might go out to savers and top up a few on my vitamins, and at the same time buy some bleach and other cleaning stuff. It was on the BBC news last night that the work being done on the approached to Charing Cross station is almost finished. Today I see that London bound trains from Catford Bridge are going alternately to London Bridge and Blackfriars stations. Today could be one of my last chances to do something silly - getting a train from Catford Bridge to Blackfriars, and then come back to Catford station. I admit it is pointless apart from the fact you usually can't do it.