The latest revision to the forecast hasn't changed anything to that shown above. It seems we are in for another 4 hour spell of heavy rain. Only the BBC forecast offers any hope, and that only that most of the rain will not be heavy, but it could start an hour earlier at 10am. Both forecasters agree on a maximum temperature of 12° C for a few hours. Tomorrow should be quite sunny, but the temperature may only reach 11° C.

   The big event yesterday was a double shopping trip. After that I wasted a lot of time achieving nothing. On the other hand there was the early morning excitement of a beer delivery, but that happened while I was still writing yesterday, and I have already written about it. It would have consequences later.

  My first port of call, while out shopping, was Tesco. I had given in to peer pressure, and was looking for a 15 inch high, fibre optic Xmas tree to put on the beer fridges. I am sure Michael said he saw them in Tesco, but it could have been Jodie saying she had seen them in one of the weird, non Catford, shops she rummages in. If Tesco's had them they must have hidden them well !

  I still bought stuff while in Tesco. I saw 1 litre bottles of Bell's Whisky for just £18 as a special Clubcard price. It is not a whisky I like, but is fine when drowned with Diet Coke. I found a couple of things on the reduced price shelf that I bought. One of which was probably very bad for me. I also bought a few odds and sods, but not too much because I wanted it all to fit into my rucksack so I could keep both hands free for part two of my shopping trip.

  My next visit was to Poundstretcher. They have a double aisle of Xmas stuff. It was there I found a small plastic Xmas tree ready fitted with battery powered lights. It was not exactly what I hoped to get, but it was good enough. I also bought a Xmas present for Michael, one more tub of the crispy fried onions (actually the last one on the shelf), plus some extra AA batteries. The latter were branded Toshiba, and somehow looked like they could be better than the Hyundai batteries that are, or were, the brand of most of Poundstretcher's batteries.

  The best thing about that shopping trip was that it actually started with five minutes of strong sunshine. With no rain expected, and the temperature around 13° C, I only wore a light coat, and didn't need to do up the front. The only thing that spoiled it was a bit of a breeze that made it feel, perhaps, a couple of degrees cooler. It was still a reminder of the days of freedom, and I couldn't help yearning for hot sunny days when walking, in just a t-shirt and shorts, is a pleasure.

  The rest of my afternoon was mostly a disaster - except for having a lie down, and maybe a snooze, but mostly quietly reading. The "disaster" was actually more like a waste of time - although it was sort of educational. I started out trying to upgrade the operating system on the iMac 8 computer so that it could run better software. Two of the downloads I had done that might have achieved this were "not recognised". One was, and I did upgrade from 10.6 to 10.6.8, but I thought I was upgrading to 10.7. That would have just sneaked under the minimum for a few of the things I wanted to install.

  The other way of getting more usable software on it was to delete everything and install the very latest MX Linux. I had been running a slightly earlier version of MX Linux when dual booting with Mac operating system. Having done a complete install of MacOS 10.6 I was happy to completely delete the Mac system, and install MX Linux instead. That didn't get off to a good start because the DVD-R disk I had been using was dusty, dirty, and I had let it get scratched.

  It took ages to boot from that DVD, and it didn't even complete the whole process. I downloaded the very latest MX Linux, and burnt that to a new DVD-R disk. It booted up perfectly. I changed a few preferences to the desktop, and then installed it - almost. It almost installed, but failed on one very important point - the boot loader. One thing I am not well practised with is modern PCs that don't use a conventional BIOS for booting.

  The Mac, like modern Windows PCs uses a process called UEFI (or sometime just EFI). In effect, and maybe just in my own words, it uses a very small partition near the start of the hard disk for a very simple operating system that then boots the main operating system. My installation failed because it couldn't write to that small partition, or the partition was labelled wrong, or.....I really don't know.

  The previous time I did this I used a bootable CD called Rescatux to repair the EFI partition. Unfortunately even Rescatux would not boot, and every time I tried it, it seemed to fail earlier and earlier. It gave all the symptoms of a deteriorating DVD-R disc. I then downloaded a fresh version, and copied it to a bootable USB memory stick using a handy utility called "USB Image writer" on my main PC.

  When that was done I didn't use it because it was feeling late. On a weekday it would have been an hour later than the first of the three Star Treks. I found a few other things to watch including some repeat, repeat, repeat showings of QI. I didn't actually need any dinner at that point because while playing with the Mac I had stuffed myself with assorted oriental hors d'oeuvre. They were quite greasy, probably contained a lot of sugar, and maybe thinking that spoiled my enjoyment of them. I had them around 4pm, maybe a bit earlier.

  I did have a dinner of just a plate of oven chips at around 7pm. I washed it down with beer. I had started on the new beer delivery much earlier. I had a couple of small, but strong Abbey style beers. They didn't seem quite a nice as I hoped. Maybe those greasy hors d'oeuvres spoiled the flavour. The next beer was a moderately strong wheat beer, and that seemed a bit better. My finally beer hit the spot nicely !
  This winter bock was dark and rich - maybe too rich ! It was 6.7% - which is strong, but not super strong. It had a very malty taste, and that malt, which is a sugar, did leave a sort of light stickiness on my lips. As wonderful as it was, it was probably not good for me......but I would, and probably will, do it all over again.

  I headed to be moderately late last night, and it seemed to take me a long time to get to sleep. It was another warm-ish night, and with the heater only on low, it was a little too warm under the duvet, and a little too cool without it. I guess it was gone midnight before I fell into a deep sleep. I had a few short periods of insomnia in the night - enough that I did my best to have a lie in this morning.

  I'm not sure how worthwhile the last couple of hours of sleep were because I sometimes seemed to be more awake than sleeping. It was gone 8am when I finally got up, and just for a change, it was light outside. I didn't feel that wonderful when I got up, and earlier on, while still in bed, I nearly succumbed to cramp in  my lower legs a few times. I am never quite sure, and the advice often seems contradictory, if it is too much salt, too little salt, or something else entirely that causes cramps.

  In one respect I was a rather unhealthy this morning. Thanks to the very big afternoon snack (the oriental hors
d'oeuvres), the chips for dinner, and the winter bock beer (and maybe one other of the beers) my blood glucose was annoyingly high this morning. The Contour meter read 9.3mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read just 9.0mmol/l, but the Sino Care meter read a very bad 10.1mmol/l. If I ignore that, and base my day on the Contour meter's 9.3mmol/l then I am clear enough of the danger zone, but I have to be very careful today.

  The main thing on the menu today is a horrendous double bus ride to Ye Olde Whyte Lyon pub in Locksbottom where Jo Corteen is doing a 2pm solo spot for an hour or two. I want to take advantage of a daylight outing to get a few snaps of Jo singing before I head for home....maybe. There is also a possibility I will meet Jodie in The Star And Garter pub in Bromley for a quick drink until we come back here to sample a few more of her Advent Calendar beer box. There is also a slim chance that Alan may be with Jodie.

  Just for the record, this morning I had the shortest head cold possible. I was halfway through a single bowl of Kimchi flavour instant noodles when a particularly hot and spicy particle bit the back of my throat. That started a fierce cough, with mucus, and that caused my nose to pour (three tissues worth !). It was just like a bad head cold, but it calmed down after 4 or 5 minutes. Maybe 10 0r 12 minutes later it was almost forgotten.