Today is the last of a string of sunny days. The day has started very cold again, but there is weak and hazy sunshine. The sly looks misty, and maybe this is why only sunny spells are forecast for most daylight hours. The misty looking clouds seem to be able to trap heat because today may reach 9° C. In some sunshine that might even feel warm. Tomorrow may often be damp with either drizzle or light rain, but it is going to be warmer even if thick clouds keep the sun from shining. Most of the day will be either 12 or 13° C.

  Yesterday was quite a successful day in many respects, but not in others. The day got off to a very late start because somehow I ended up writing over 3000 words in the electronic diary. That is enough for a short story, and possibly even a novella, although I can't remember the actual lengths used in the publishing world.

  After I finished all that typing I probably deserved a rest - to rest my eyes, fingers, and maybe brain too. I must admit I didn't rush at it because I was a little scared of doing my first use of glass fibre and resin on a real job. This was to repair my cracked bathtub. I had done some preparation the day before, and I had to finished that before I got the fibre glass out. I scraped away almost all the silicone sealant I had used in my first attempt at patching the crack, and then I roughened up the surface using fine emery paper.

  I also gave the area I would be covering with fibre glass a good scrub with alcohol to try and get it complete grease free. Then it was time to cut the fibre glass to the size I wanted. It cut very easily with a nice sharp pair of scissors. Finally it was time to mix the resin. I found the instructions to be both precise and vague - use a pea sized bit of hardener to ever 10cc of resin. The supplied mixing cup was calibrated in cc, but how big is a pea ? To make matters worse the hardener comes out like squeezing a thin tube of toothpaste. It would have been far better for the instructions to say measure our so many inches of hardener per quantity of resin.

  I guess my imagination for how much represented one pea was good enough. The resin seemed to set solid in the suggested 20 minutes, and I ended up using the whole can of resin, and the whole sachet of hardener - the two amounts matched each other. I have to admit that I did a very messy job with drips of resin in the wrong parts of the bath, and not cleaned off while still liquid. The next time I use fibre glass and resin I think I will have some better ideas about how to do it.
  The first layer seemed to be hard enough after the suggested 20 minutes that I added one more layer. That used up all the resin. If I had more I think I would have gone for three or four layers. The picture above shows the mess I made, and the actual patch in the middle of the bottom of the bathtub. It does not look pretty, and I may do additional work to make it look better, and have a smoother surface.

  As the resin sets it seems to shrink, and pull everything tight. That makes it seem like it should be very waterproof. One interesting thing is that the worst part of the crack looks even worse with the resin in place. It looks like there is a big gash where before I put the patch on it just seemed like a thin crack. One change for the better is that the centre of the bathtub now feel hard. It was once very soft feeling, and that would have helped the original crack to open. I am not sure two layers is strong enough to bare my whole weight, probably not, but at least it feel very firm now.

  In an idea world I would pay another visit to Halfords today to get more resin, and also some filler. The info leaflet suggests that car body filler would make an excellent top surface to the glass fibre - all smooth and polishable (and paintable). I doubt I will have the energy to do that extra walking today.

  After I had finished with the fibreglass and resin I got myself cleaned up a bit, and then went shopping in Aldi. As I walked there I could initially feel some legacy of my 3 mile walk the day before. In particular there was one thing I did not mention yesterday - I was getting some pain from my right hip joint - at least I assume it was the hip joint. Before I was halfway to Aldi I seemed to end up walking very freely. I could almost have enjoyed it.

  I seemed to get quite a big selection of stuff in my shopping trolley - too much to list. A few stand out things were 4 two litre bottles of Diet Coke, and two packs of bread rolls. One of those pack of rolls were described as Ciabatta, and I was not 100% sure what they would be like. I thought they looked like they had a nice crusty outside, but it was actually quite soft, but the bread inside was very bubbly, and that made it seem very light.

  On the bad side of the table was a chunk of plain Madeira sponge cake. I must admit it was a stupid thing to buy because it is loaded with sugar. I bought quite a bit of fruit too, and I seem to be veering too much towards soft fruits that are often rather sweet. I then eat those fruits too liberally. One other notable thing I bought was a 4 pack of Cruz Campo Spanish lager. It is not bad as lagers go, but it does have one plus point that I only noticed later at home. It gives all the nutritional info like found on many foodstuffs. The interesting bit is in the picture on the left: Sugar content 0.0gm.

  The walk home was a bit slow because of all I had to carry, but it wasn't that slow. It was actually almost pleasant. That made a change. It takes me back to possibly 2019 when I started practising walking. At first a slightly less that 1.5 mile walk through the park to Ladywell, and then back again, seemed to be really hard work, but over the weeks I slowly extended my range. A year later, during Covid lockdown I was ready to build up to some very long walks (at least I think 6 miles is a very long walk), and the main limitation was my feet. They never did get hard, and I would come home from a 6+ plus mile walk with blisters, and my feet feeling like a tenderised steak.

  Once I was home from Aldi I put my shopping away, and made up two rolls, using the Ciabatta rolls, for my late lunch. I almost filled them with corned beef until I noticed a pack of ham that said use before a week ago ! It still looked and smelled fine, and it was nice and tasty with little more than some mustard. I think I like those Ciabatta rolls, but I don't think I will make a habit of buying more of them.

  After eating I went into pure lazy mode. That included having a snooze. A little more than an hour had passed after eating lunch that I felt peckish. It was a stupid thing to do, even more stupid than buying it, and with hindsight that was a very stupid thing to do, but I hacked off a bit chunk of Maderia cake and ate it. The worst thing was that I didn't find it very nice. It was a bit dry and slightly tasteless. It would probably go well with something like ice cream, but by itself it was just a stupid source of too much sugar.

  Just before 6pm, while watching some Star Treks, I put together my dinner and ate it. In one respect it was very healthy - a big plate of fruit. I now think it was less healthy because too much of it was soft and sweet fruits. It could have been worse because I may have had more cake after it, or something else unwise. I was saved from that by a phone call. It was from my sort of friend Sue,

   She had lots to say, and not much of it was all that interesting. Some was, but I think it could easily have been condensed down to about 20 minutes instead of around 4 hours. It was about 11pm when I had to force the end of the call. My brain was not relaxed enough for sleep, and i read in bed for over half an hour before I tried for sleep. I can't be sure, but I think I managed to get to sleep before the time ticked over past midnight.

  I probably slept exceptionally well last night - not counting the disturbances from getting up to pee in the night. One oddity there was that it was not at the seemingly 2 hour intervals, but something more random. At lest once it was after just and hour of sleep, and once it was possibly slightly more than 3 hours. I can't seem to remember any details of any dreams, although I am sure I can remember that I did have dreams.

  I was up soon after 6am this morning. First thing after getting up I was, as usual, straight to the toilet. I had a moderate pee and fairly small poo (but better than nothing). After the toilet I weighed myself, and this morning I am happy to say I have lost another 400gm. With one small hiccup (I think cause by constipation) that is 5 days running now, and I am now back to that unstable position of not knowing if I can/will continue, or if I'll reset back to where I was 2 weeks ago.

  While my weight was pleasing, my blood glucose wasn't. The cake and the soft fruits are probably what are to blame for my blood glucose being too high this morning. It is a tricky day to do much about it as will be hinted at a bit later. The Contour meter read 9.0mmol/l. That only just crosses the threshold between OK-ish and not good. The GlucoRX meter read 8.5mmol/l, and while I aspire to do better, that was actually my target while I could not seem to do better. The Sinocare meter read exactly the same as the Contour meter, 9.0mmol/l, and I guess that is the majority vote, and the true reading.

  Today is a Wednesday, and so I intend to get ton The Jolly Farmers for my lunch time Guinness and doing the crosswords in The Metro. Before that I need to wash my hair and to have a shower. Although I don't regard the patch in my bathtub to be finished, it will be a good test of what I have done so far. I will be very wary about putting any weight near the patch in the same way I didn't with the earlier, and sort of softer patches.

  In an ideal world I want to get a thick enough patch that it will stand my whole weight on it. Once I have built up the thickness I will want to add a finish to it that covers any sharp fibreglass that might stick in my foot. Building up the thickness should be a high priority because there is no way I will be able to strip this patch off and re-do it !