Despite the forecast saying it should be raining, it is still dry - so far. The sky does look like rain may be possible, and with light rain forecast until 6pm, there is a good chance we will see at least some rain today. That won't stop the afternoon reaching 16° C. 7pm may see full sunshine for the last hour of daylight. The temperature should still be 11° C at midnight. Tomorrow may start at 10° C, and there could be a couple of hours of sunny spells before light rain is forecast until 4pm, but it may be dry after that. Tomorrow afternoon may see 16° C again.

  Yesterday featured some annoying waiting around, but it ended up as a good day. The waiting was for the delivery of my new mini oven/grill.

  There were several thing I might have done yesterday morning, and afternoon, but mostly they involved going out. I couldn't do that while waiting for the delivery of quite a large box. I didn't even dare to spend more than a minute or two in the toilet ! One thing I did do was to unplug my old mini grill and oven, and dump it on the kitchen floor. I then scrubbed the work surface clean of some grease spills, and what looked a lot like black rust, but was probably grease and other stuff that had been cooked to a cinder over the years. There were also a few dead flies under the thing.

  I didn't have time to prepare any lunch, but I did have a few snacks to stop me feeling too hungry as I waited, and waited. The advice I got said my delivery would take place between 12:19 and 14:19. I expected it would arrive at around 1.20pm, and this belief was bolstered by seeing the tracking page on DX Freight's web site. There was a map showing me, and the position of the delivery van. It was just the other side of Catford, or about 15 or less minutes walk away. It seemed like my delivery could take place at any minute....but it didn't.
  I did a lot of looking out the window in the afternoon, and I spotted this view. A Royal Mail van had pulled up a little way down the road, and the postie started rummaging around in the back - presumably looking for a specific parcel or letter. In doing so he managed to spill loads of mail onto the road. To give him his due, he was diligent about picking up every single bit once he had found what he was looking for. It was lucky that it was a dry day ! It is a pretty lousy photo because I took it on my mobile phone using the zoom feature (part optical, and part electronic). To make matter worse it was taken through my less than sparkling clean bedroom window.

  I am unsure of when my new oven/grill was delivered, but it was probably around 5pm - rather later than the couriers estimated delivery time. I slid it into place in the kitchen, and I was very glad that it was still small enough to fit in the amount of space I had allowed for it. It is higher, but that is no problem, and it is deeper. That does use up a bit of work top space, but there is still room to work. The most important measurement, which was probably on the Amazon web page if only I had looked for it, was the width. It is only slightly wider than the old unit.
  The old oven was smaller than the microwave oven, next to it on the right (in this photo). The new one is obviously bigger. Not only doesn't it matter that it is bigger, but I think that ultimately it will prove to be very useful. In fact it has already done so.

  Once it was in place I turned it on, and as the user manual warms, there was some smoke from it as possibly protective oil was burnt off the heating elements (they all do it). Once the smoke had cleared, after a couple of minutes, I started to use it. I started with grilling some bacon as a test. Once that was almost cooked I found I could put a couple of split deli rolls on the grill, above the bacon, to toast them. I could never do that in the old oven.

  Being able to grill and toast at the same time is one good thing about my error in ordering an oven a fair bit bigger than the old one. I can foresee I am going to make some good use of the extra capacity of the oven. I could roast a whole (small to medium) chicken in it, or even a small joint of meat. One thing In want to do soon, even if it is quite unhealthy, is to get a pack of ready to cook "Southern Fried Chicken". Previously I had to that in the microwave, and the results were no that good. I am hoping that I can get some good results in this new oven.

  Having toasted rolls with bacon in them made for a nice dinner, or at least part of dinner. I also had some cake and some ice cream to complete my dinner. I expected that dinner to have some negative results for me, but one other thing I did yesterday was to take the last Mounjaro injection from my current "pen". (In fact it looks like there may be half a dose left - I should be getting a new one, the next strength up, next Tuesday after seeing the nurse on Monday).

  There is nothing much to write about me evening that I haven't written hundreds of times before - I watched the BBC News, and I watched a few acceptable TV programmes before going to bed. I did go to bed a bit earlier than some nights, and may continue to do so now Dave has added an intermediate programme I have no desire to watch, between Have I Got News For You and QI.

  I felt tired, and a bit sleepy when I went to bed, but I felt the need to wind down and relax a bit before I tried to sleep. Reading more pages from my current book may not have been the ideal prescription for that. My current book is "Speaker For The Dead" by Orson Scott Card, and it is a funny old book that make me doubt my desire to order the complete 5 book box set. The way it is written is annoying. Some bits could almost be described as bland or filler, and yet I guess they do contain some important information about the plot - if only I could remember what it is.

  The book seems slow moving in places, and I could almost give up on it, but it contains a mystery that I want to have explained, and that drives me on to continue to read it. I guess some people like that sort of writing style, but I much prefer the writing styles of Isaac Asimov, or Robert Heinlein, where there is some sort of action on every page, and I feel compelled to keep reading and keep turning the pages. In fact some describe these, and other writers books as "page turners" as if that is a bad thing. Maybe I am just simple by wanting a great story instead of a great piece of classic literature - the sort that English teachers extract all the joy out of reading by wanted to examine each sentence in minute detail.

  A memory comes to me from my school days. I was once asked why I had not done my English homework, and my reply was that I was too busy reading, and enjoying the book to want to stop and write down stupid stuff about it. Apparently you are not supposed to actually enjoy reading books according to English teachers.

  I don't think it took long to fall asleep once I had put the book down and turned out the light. I guess it was a typical night for me. I woke a few times to have a pee. I think I might have enjoyed a dream, and maybe two (perhaps even more), but I can't remember a single thing about those dreams now. I apparently slept well enough to have got up earlier than I actually did. When I first woke it was light outside, but I decided I would enjoy sleeping more, although I think I may have been half asleep and half awake (if that is possible).

  Once I did get up I went to the toilet and had a good pee, but no poo. I still weighed myself, and I was pleased to see I had lost 600gm. I think the chances of losing enough by Monday to show the nurse that I ave actually lost weight since seeing her a month ago are slim in the extreme.

  I hope I will be able to show that my blood glucose is well controlled still, thanks to Mounjaro, although this morning contains an enigma - three very different blood glucose readings. The average of all three is 8.0mmol/l, and that is a lot higher than nearly every average this month. The three readings I got were 8.0mmol/l from the Bayer Contour meter - still just in the OK-ish sort of area. The Nexus GlucoRX meter read 7.6mmol/l, and that is good. The third reading, using the GlucoFix meter was the fly in the ointment. The first reading I got was an unacceptable 9.0mmol/l - very different to the other two. It was the last test strip from the carton, and I opened a brand new carton and tried again. This time the reading was a more acceptable 8.4mmol/l, but still higher than I would like.

  My main plan for today is to have my usual post-writing rest, and maybe snooze. Then I want to have a shower, and wash my hair. Once I am clean and fragrant I can walk through the park to get to The Jolly Farmers for my Wednesday infusion of Guinness and some banter with the regulars and Ayse (my favourite barmaid). I think I am OK to do this, but it is possible I may be getting a beer delivery today. The tracking advice says it should arrive by tomorrow, and that could be read as it could arrive today. The web site says it arrived at the delivery depot at 3:18am, and so it could easily be out for delivery today, and I might need to be in to receive it.

  A second fly in the ointment is that I would like to go to either Aldi of Tesco today. I won't starve if I don't, far from it, but I have a desire to buy some stuff to cook in my new, and bigger, mini oven/grill. There is also other stuff that it would be good to get because I am starting to run out - stuff like butter, and bottles of Diet Coke. I won't want to go out shopping after getting back from the pub this afternoon, but my shopping can wait until tomorrow morning if I exercise patience !