Tuesday 30th June
2015
|
07:55
BST
You could probably describe yesterday as a classic
summers day. It was warm and dry with plenty of
sunshine. The top temperature was probably in the
region of 25° C. The only trouble was that it made
for a very warm and sticky night. It was around
15° C when I got up this morning, and while I
haven't checked the sky every ten seconds since
then (and hardly at all while walking to work -
you have to watch your feet on Earlsfield's wonky
pavements) the sky seems to have been gin clear
since daybreak. It is possible that the occasional
cloud will drift over from time to time, but there
is every chance that the forecast for today is
correct - loads and loads of sunshine, and a top
temperature of 28° C. Tomorrow could see the
temperature hit 33° C, but it could also see the
first thunderstorm boil up.
As predicted, work was a bit boring
yesterday. I have no ethical problems with doing
almost (but not completely) nothing at work, but
some interesting work may have made the day go
quicker, but interesting work only crops up now
and then, and yesterday I had trouble finding even
boring work. However, it did give the chance to do
some very light research about digital SLR cameras
- although not the in depth research I probably
should have done on such an expensive item. The
one driving specification was for a lens that
would let a lot of light into the camera so I
could use it at gigs without using flash.
Some research I did (while bored) earlier in
the year suggested that non-zoom f1.4 lenses were
fairly cheap (where fairly cheap still means
hundreds of pounds). My theory is that most people
want huge zoom lenses, and the sort of lens I
wanted were almost thrown away. I think I might
have been a bit wrong about that. I had in mind
that I wanted a Nikon camera. My little Nikon
camera seems quite good, although most of my
better pictures have been taken on Canon cameras.
I was doing most of my research on Amazon,
and it wasn't long before I found a nice Nikon
camera, and I also found a very nice lens to go
with it. The lens had an aperture of f1.2 - and
that would have let a huge amount of light in from
the dimmest of scenes ! There was only one little
catch. That lens was somewhere in the region of
£1200, and that was a long way outside my budget.
So I looked for a Canon DSLR camera, and a wide
aperture lens to go with it. I found both at a
price point that didn't make my teeth itch too
much. So yesterday I ordered a £250 camera and a
£200 lens. That is quite a big investment for me,
and I hope it all does what I want it to do....I
also hope I don't get carried away buying too many
accessories for it. A spare battery will probably
be a very useful, if not essential extra, but do I
really need a big zoom lens, and a ????????,
probably not, but I wouldn't be surprised if I
ended up buying one !
To recover from my buying frenzy I went for
a quick walk into the park behind work. Armed with
my trusty Nikon pocket camera I looked around for
something to take pictures of. There wasn't much,
but I took a few snaps anyway.
I took a very similar shot to this in spring.
The two trees on the right of the row of three
were just coming into leaf, but the one on the
left wasn't. A friend of mine remarked that it
looked dead, and it seems it was (and is).
The solitary apple tree by the River Wandle has
fruit on it now, and later on the local kids
will be climbing over the fence to strip the
tree bare....or at least they may do if they
have short memories. I don't know what variety
of apples they are, but the one I once tried was
hard and bitter despite looking ripe. Some
people like them like that, but I hate them.
This picture doesn't really capture the small
area of devastation caused by a fire on the
river bank. At first I thought it might have
been an accidental fire, or even vandalism, but
10ft further along the bank was a clue to what
really happened.
This was the most obvious sign that the tree
surgeons had been at work in the area. Other
tress had branches lopped off them. I suspect
that the nearby fire (plus another similar one
further along the bank) was the result of a fire
to burn off some of the scrap
clippings/twigs/small branches etc.
I hadn't been feeling
all that good in the morning, and I was still
feeling slightly off colour when I left work
to go home. Mostly I just felt sort of creaky,
and that was all the excuse the local buses
needed to hide when I passed the bus stop.
Walking to the station was probably not a bad
idea because I felt better for it, and when I
got to Waterloo I was obviously feeling good
enough to walk up the escalator. That is the
sort of thing I do when it's hot like it was
yesterday - although once upon a time, when I
was fitter (before I stopped smoking) I used
to run up the escalators. It may only have
been walking, but I did feel a bit fatigued
when I got to the top, but not enough to slow
me down as I walked across the link to the
platforms at Waterloo East station.
I felt fairly good walking from the
station to home, but I did arrive home feeling
a bit hungry. I did my best to not eat too
much, but it was still more than I should have
considering it was going to be a warm night,
and a hot day today. If I could keep my blood
glucose levels low I would sweat less, and
while I ate more than was needed, I did make a
point of eating stuff without any significant
amounts of sugar in it. Unfortunately there is
always a flaw in these plans, and last night's
flaw was pickled jalapeño chillis ! They are
not particularly hot, and I ate rather a lot
of them. What I didn't take into account was
that the cumulative effect of all that chilli
would make my head sweat like a fire hydrant.
I had a particularly awful night last
night. I was hot and sweaty all over, and I
had to put a towel over my pillow to soak up
the sweat. I put the fan on, and that gave too
much relief - it felt chilly - but if I
covered myself with just a single thin layer
of duvet cover I got hot and sweaty again. I
ended up thrashing around for half the night,
and this morning it feel like I got very
little sleep. Today is one of those days where
going back to bed instead of going to work
would have been absolutely ideal. It would be
one argument for retiring from work - but the
flipside is that I have a deliciously cool air
con unit at work!
Just writing that last paragraph has me
yawning fit to bust ! It's going to be nice in
the wash of the icy cold air from the air con
unit today, but it is going to be extra nice
to go home again. It will be a sweaty journey,
but in theory it will make me feel good and
energetic. Once I get home I ought to try and
eat the very least I can. Then I am going to
lay on my bed with the fan playing air over my
body, and try to sleep/snooze - even if it is
still before 6pm !
|
Monday 29th June
2015
|
08:20
BST
While most of yesterday may have been quite bright
(except for the rainy hour in the morning), it was
quite disappointing that the evening was quite
dull. It was like a month or two ago when it would
start to get dark after 7pm. Of course back then
it would just get darker and darker until it was
fully night, but last night it just stayed a very
dull grey for a few more hours before night fell.
It seemed to be a warm night, but the day dawned
all bright and shiny ! There could be a few times
when the sky gets a bit cloudy today, but the
forecast, which I think I can believe today, says
that it is going to be a warm dry day with plenty
of sunshine. Tomorrow is supposed to be even
better. It is forecast to be hot ! By hot they
mean 26 or 27° C. Some of the more optimistic
forecast in the newspapers talk of temperatures of
over 30° C later in the week. It seems like summer
has finally got started (which will include
thunderstorms once the sun has boiled all the
moisture out of the ground).
I felt quite good late yesterday afternoon,
and during the evening, but in the end I was not
inspired to do anything constructive. About the
most notable thing I did was to watch the last
ever Jeremy Clarkson + Richard Hammond + James May
version of Top Gear on BBC2. The next series of
Top Gear will be presented by Chris Evans plus
?????? and ??????. It might be good, or it might
be bad, but I doubt it will be as good. Meanwhile,
there are persistent rumours that the three
ex-presenters have been signed up by ITV to make a
rival programme that will be broadcast in the same
time slot as the BBC airs Top Gear. What they fail
to realise is that having one or more deadly
tedious ad breaks in the middle of the programme
will ruin it !
I didn't get to sleep as early as I should
have done last night. It was partly because my
body clock had shifted in the previous couple of
hedonistic days, and partly because I felt rather
warm last night. It was too warm to use a duvet,
and even sometimes slightly too warm just to cover
myself with a duvet cover, but on some occasions
it felt just ever so slightly too cool not cover
myself with anything. So I had some bizzare dreams
which I would imagine I thashed about to a lot,
and woke up this morning not feeling too
wonderful.
This morning was definitely one of those
mornings where it would have been great to have
had an extra hour or two (maybe 3) to make the
transition from sleep to the real world. Being
able to do that was probably a good part of the
reason why I felt so good yesterday. It is hard to
be conclusive about how I feel this morning
because it all keeps changing. I didn't feel like
rushing, and nor did I need to when I walked to
the station, and I felt very comfortable doing it.
Rushing over the link between Waterloo East and
Waterloo mainline stations felt like hard work,
and I couldn't keep up with the front of the pack
of commuters. That annoyed me a bit until I
realised I was leading the pack of the next
fastest commuters. It was strange to see a whole
bunch of people getting away from me in front, and
yet having another pack of commuters who were only
able to keep up, but not overtake me.
While I was on Waterloo station I took off
my rucksack to get my camera out, and when I swung
the rucksack back onto my shoulder I seemed to
pull a muscle in my right side. That made my walk
across the concourse a bit painful. Everything
seemed to fall back into place while I was sitting
on the train to Earlsfield, but as I started to
walk from the station to work I had a mild, but
annoying pain between my left breast and shoulder.
It was not made worse, but was aggravated by the
way I walked - if I walked to fast it seemed to
shake it up. So my progress towards work was a bit
sedate, but on a bright warm morning that might
have even made it more enjoyable (but still boring
because it took at least one minute longer !).
The reason I got my camera out at Waterloo
station was because it looked like the CIA were
giving a demonstration of their latest water
boarding set up.....
I'm not really sure what was going on. There was
a young lady strapped down on some sort of
turntable while fans blew air onto her goggled
face. Maybe the next picture gives some sort of
clue.....
Maybe this was a simulation of what happens when
you drink too much Stella Artois.
It could have been something to do with the
forthcoming Tennis championships at Wimbledon,
but it is hard to imagine the tie up between CIA
torture and tennis.
I think work is going to be a bit boring
today. I will be scratching around for work
today - if I can be bothered. Maybe, if I am
in the right sort of mood, I will go for a
long walk around the park at lunchtime. Other
than that, I look forward to going home. Once
again, if I am in the right mood, I might do
something constructive like washing some
shirts, but if not, I look forward to another
very lazy evening.
|
Sunday
28th June 2015
|
15:20
BST
It seems that the weather forecast is coming back
into synchronisation with reality for a while.
After most of yesterday being much nicer than the
forecast said it would be, forecast and reality
almost merged during the early evening. There was
still the matter of it being a few degrees warmer
than the forecast, but both agreed that it should
be cloudy. It was supposed to rain today, and it
did so, but much of today has been rather
pleasant, and I'm sure the forecast didn't mention
pleasant ! It's about 24° C right now - which is
four degrees higher than I expected - and that may
be the result of it being often bright and sunny.
Maybe just an hour of daylight was marred by rain,
but a lot of that rain was very light, and the
total time that it was so heavy that it would have
been unpleasant to stand in it was about 5 minutes
- not bad for a day that seemed to be forecast to
be disagreeable ! There is hardly any blue to be
seen in the sky now, but it remains bright, and
almost sunny. It will probably stay like until
sunset. Tomorrow is forecast to be mostly sunny,
and as warm as today actually is - 24° C.
I am a little annoyed that I didn't make
some sort of effort, even to the extent of
throwing out Aleemah a lot earlier, to go along to
the Bromley Beer Festival. I knew they had a
stage, and I knew there were some people I knew
playing on it. I didn't realise just how many
musicians I knew would be playing there - it was
basically all the Bromley contingent plus I now
believe that Chain did a session there too. Even
more annoying than that was that if what I believe
is correct then Geoff Paice was roped in as bass
player - and he and Chris together exceed the sum
of their parts !
Well maybe I didn't get the entertainment
that I later realised I wanted, but I still had a
pleasant, if rather lazy evening. I also
discovered the only kebab shop/takeaway that
doesn't automatically provide, or even offer
except as a seperate menu item, and salad with a
kebab. What I ended up eating for my dinner/supper
last night was still very tasty, and it would have
been an absolutely excellent choice if I were on
the Atkins
diet* ! Later on, with my belly still
feeling satisfied, but not over full, I went to
bed. It took a long time before I actually slept
though. I started off reading in bed, and then, at
about 11pm, when I was more than ready to fall
asleep, I was kept awake by the sound of distant
fireworks. Once that was over there was a short
lull before some very local fireworks went off
just before midnight.
* It was interesting having a quick skim read
through the wikipedia article on the Atkins diet
that my link points to. I thought I knew something
about the Atkins diet, but I had no idea it was so
close to the highly successful diet I devised for
myself by trial and error back in 1979. Until I
ruined it after moving into my own house and spent
far too long doing cooking experiments in my own
kitchen, I lost about 7 stone, and was the
thinnest I have ever been in my entire life. I
ought to try to do it again - by following my own
rules and hunches again in complete disregard to
medical and other opinion.
Maybe it was the fairly good sleep I had,
maybe it was the high protein/low carbohydrate
meal the previous evening, maybe it was the
thinning out of the my prescribed medication, or
maybe it was just because I wanted it to be so,
but this morning I must have been feeling quite
good. Until I had a snooze at about 2pm, I was
having a busy time - once I got up, washed and
dressed - which was a rather late 9am. The first
thing was to take a little walk.
To settle my, and some
others curiosity, I walked toward the station to
take some better photos of the electric car
charging point. Someone had asked me how the
electricity was paid for.
The answer is that you tap the sensor with a
contactless card. It is possible that a
credit/debit card may work, but a special card
can be bought, and topped up with credit from
the operators web site
http://www.pod-point.com
There are two outlets on the charging post.
Usually both display blue lights. The A side can
provide up to 7kW of power, and is possibly a
three phase connection.
The B side was showing green lights this
morning. I am unsure of the significance of the
colour of the lights - maybe green indicates
someone has left some credit on the charger. The
B side may be a single phase connection. It can
only provide 3kW. I am unsure if both ports can
be used at the same time - the reserved parking
space is probably big enough for 2 cars at once.
For some unknown reason, Catford seems to have
two charging points quite close together. My
photos are from the one on the left (or west) of
this map. The other charging point, which is
identical as far as I can recall, is on the
lower deck of the multi story car park next to
Tesco.
Once I had done my little photography
project I tackled another project that
required little physical strength, but loads
of emotional strength....well it does for me.
I hate doing financial stuff. Paying for beer
is usually OK, but even paying money into
my bank can reduce me to a shivering wreck -
or something like that. I have just felt the
first benefit of my old GPO/Post Office
Telecommunications/British
Telecommunications/BT pension maturing. I only
worked for then for half a work life. So my
pension benefits are a bit sparse, but still
useful. So this morning I paid off my credit
card (as I do every month anyway). I
transferred some money into my savings account
(as I try to do most months), and then there
was the big one ! I now officially own my
first Premium Bonds ! All I have to do now is
to wait to win that £1,000,000 prize - next
month would do very nicely, thanks.
All that financial stuff didn't seem to
knacker me, and I did other stuff. I washed
the outside of the kitchen and back room
windows. If I haven't mentioned it before,
there is building work going on next door, and
it has generated a lot of dust, and it was bad
enough that it brought forward my twice a
decade (or as needed) window washing regime. I
have also washed a semi-big bath towel, a tea
towel, and a flannel, and I have been shopping
in Aldi. - And that's why I had a snooze this
afternoon !
I feel I have done more than required
for Sunday - a day of rest, or so some say -
and maybe I won't do any more, but I keep
thinking I might wash a few shirts before the
evening takes it's grip on me. I guess I am
feeling really rather than better than usual
today. It's a shame I can feel like this every
day - and to work out the secret behind it !
Another secret I may never uncover is
what it takes to be a great photographer. Some
pictures that are technically all wrong can
come out looking rather good. The blue
lighting gives a strange tint, and the focal
point is all wrong, but I find this picture I
took last Thursday to be very pleasing.
|
Saturday 27th June
2015
|
16:52
BST
Despite what the weather forecasters decreed
should happen, it was a rather nice day yesterday.
The bit of the forecast that said it would get
cloudy late afternoon/early evening was reasonably
close, but it wasn't quite as dull as the forecast
seemed to imply. I think there may have even been
a few sunny spells before the sun set. This
morning started off far better than I thought it
was supposed to, but by 10am it was a bit cloudy,
and it did seem that rain might have been
possible. That cloud never went away completely,
but it was never thick enough to cover all the
sky, and there was plenty of sunshine. Perhaps
that wasn't so different to the forecast, although
once again it was a little warmer here in Catford
than predicted. It is supposed to be just 21° C
right now, but my thermometers agree to plus or
minus one degree that it is currently 25° C. The
current theory about tomorrow is that it will
either be grey or black, no more the 20° C, and
with a very high chance of some showers during the
day - a bit like today was supposed to be prior to
it actually being a lot better !
My theory (or was it desire, or was it just
prediction) that I would have a quiet night in by
myself last night turned out to be uncannily
correct ! The only conflict during the
evening was between myself and also myself. My
evil, or gluttonous, or hedonistic side would have
loved to have a takeaway, probably a kebab, last
night, but my sensible side managed to over rule
it, and I had a very slightly more healthy
meal......although it was followed later by a most
unhealthy snack ! Maybe a kebab might have been a
better option after all....maybe.......
I think I had a good enough nights sleep
last night. Since increasing my booze intake, and
cutting down (and since this morning running out
of one) on my prescribed drugs, I seem to be
starting to feel a bit better in some ways. It is
a bit of a paradox that feeling well enough to
make life worth living (on some days) is going to
kill me or shorten my life, but than again, life
is really not worth living if you are not enjoying
it. An idea that really pisses of some people. Am
I so important that I have to suffer ?
This morning I had my usual pint of beer for
Saturday morning breakfast with Aleemah. After
breakfast we watched The
Vengeance Of She - the 1968 sequel to the
Hammer Horror DVD that she brought along last
time. It was while meeting Aleemah at the station
that I was able to get the evidence that could go
some way to prove that South Eastern Trains are
lying scum bags - except of course I can't say
that for fear of litigation ! However, I can still
doubt the truth of their announcements.
On most Saturdays, according to the
published timetables, we have four trainss an hour
towards London from Catford Bridge. Two of those
trains go to Charing Cross station, and two go to
Cannon Street. All week, particularly while I have
been waiting for my train home from work at
Waterloo East station, they have been saying that
this weekend, because of engineering works near
London Bridge station, trains to Charing Cross
would be diverted to Cannon Street.
So, if my arithmetic
is correct, that means two trains still going
to Cannon Street as usual, and two trains that
would normally be going to Charing Cross would
be diverted to Cannon Street. Two plus two
equals four, and yet there are are only two
trains an hour towards London from Catford
Bridge today. What happened to the other two ?
They have been cancelled, haven't they South
Eastern Trains, and your too ashamed to say it
!
One other noticed on my way to the station -
the electric car charging point, a few
minutes walk from the station, was actually
being used to charge a car. It's not the
first time I've seen it happen, but it does
seem to be a slightly rare sight.
Aleemah went home
a little before 3.30pm. If she had left
somewhat earlier I might have been tempted
to go to the Bromley Beer festival that
was on in (I think) the Kingswood
Recreation Ground. It's not far from The
Chatterton Arms pub that I know quite well
- probably another 5 minutes walk on top
of the five minutes from the nearest bus
stop. A bit of beer might have been ice,
but I was more interested in seeing some
bands that would be performing there. In
truth there could still be some on even
now, but since Aleemah left I've gone into
a sort of relaxed (or lazy) mood. I don't
think I'll be doing anything of any
significance for the rest of today -
except eating ! I haven't eaten that much
today. Maybe I might dare to order a
takeaway, or maybe I might be sensible
again.
One thing more that I did today was
to check a couple of photos I took on two
of my mobile phones at the Chain gig on
Thursday night. I see some pretty bad
photos on "social media" taken at gigs on
mobile phones.Many are probably taken on
iPhones, or Samsung phones that cost
upwards of £500 (if bought outright). I
wondered how my cheapo phones would stack
up against these super expensive phones.
In truth - not that well. On the other
hand, would have it been worth it to pay
an extra £400 or more just to take some
pictures that I can take even better on my
camera ?
This lousy picture was taken on my
Motorola G (1st generation version)
mobile phone. It cost me just over £100
(£110 ?), and is unlocked for any
network. A stupidly long exposure time
meant the picture was only slightly
underexposed, but everything is just a
blur. Mega expensive Apple phones give a
better picture - but not by much judging
by what I see online.
The picture taken on my £70 Alcatel
Firefox phone used a far faster shutter
speed. So there is less blur and more
detail, but it was a much darker picture
that needed a lot of brightening. That
made it come out looking very noisy, and
I had to use some de-noising to smooth
it out a bit. It's an awful long way
from good, but it is usable with enough
post-processing. I've certainly seen far
worse posted on Facebook (for instance).
|
Friday 26th June
2015
|
17:13
BST
The weather forecast continues mistake south east
London with somewhere else with different weather
! Maybe yesterday was a little like the forecast -
it was certainly dry all day, and I think it was
probably sunnier than the forecast seemed to
suggest. One area of dispute was the temperature.
It felt much warmer than I thought it would be,
but it may have just been fairly humid. At
midnight it still felt very comfortable in shirt
sleeves. The forecast for today was still saying
it would be a dull day with a few showers when I
checked it at about 6am. The reality has been very
different. There has been loads of warm sunshine
today without even a hint of the possibility of a
shower. The forecast certainly didn't say the
temperature would soar to 27° C (and possibly even
28° C at the very peak. At this very minute the
forecast is saying that in the next 45 minutes the
temperature will drop 4° C, and it will be dull
and cloudy. I don't think the temperature will
drop that fast, but it is cloudy right now. Maybe
they have got a bit of it right. Tomorrow may, or
may not start bright and sunny until 4 or 5pm when
it may, or may not cloud over, and it may, or may
not be 23° C during the early/mid afternoon.
I didn't feel all that wonderful after work
yesterday, and by the time I had got home via
Tesco, eaten a very light dinner, washed my hair
and showered, I was feeling really crap ! The hot
shower (and shampoo) left me feeling really hot
and sweaty, and I also was feeling almost nauseous
(not in the sense that I felt I was going to throw
up, but something similar). I really wanted to
just lay down on my bed and relax or sleep with a
fan on to cool me off. Somehow I managed to
convince myself that I was going out...and I did.
Perhaps it was the inbuilt miser in me that wanted
to use my 60+ Oyster card for a free bus ride, or
I needed to justify booking a days holiday from
work today.
There was also the lure that Chain had
advertised their gig in The Slug And Lettuce,
Beckenham, to start at 8pm. Potentially that could
have meant that it would also finish a little
earlier - which would have suited me fine. In
reality the gig started at just gone 9pm, and
finished a little after 11pm. By the time I
arrived at the pub I was starting to feel a bit
better, and several pints of cold Stella Artois
lager made me feel a lot better. I think everyone
was surprised to see me - including Chris. Like
many gigs before hand that I could, and should
have got to, I said I would try and get to last
night's gig, and he probably thought I would back
out at the last minute. I think Jo was very amazed
to see me, and was amazed that I was still there
at the end - the first time I've been out so late
in what must be months and months ! The effort to
get and stay there was well worth it because it
was a very enjoyable gig (except when I was
embarrassed by having "Happy Birthday" sung for
me).
Chain in full song.
Kevin, Paul, Jodie and Mark were also there to
watch Chain. Mark, who is a guitarist himself,
was very complimentary about Chris Mayer's
playing.
I did my best to not use the flash on my camera
because the pictures can look better that way.
Over half the pictures I took without flash, but
that meant some fairly long exposures, and if
people didn't stay still.....well, look at
Chris' right hand ! (You can't - it's just a
blur).
I should blame it on Kevin, and indeed
it was his fault for being there even if I
instigated what was to happen next. I
suggested to Kevin that if we didn't hang
around at the end, as he is very prone to do,
we could just make it back to Catford for a
final pint in the Wetherspoons pub. He needed
very little persuasion to do just that, and we
arrived in the pub at 5 minutes before closing
time at midnight. We ordered a pint and a
short (Kevin actually bought doubles or even a
triple !) and we had to finish drinking
outside as the door was being locked.
It was nice finish to the day. The
temperature had cooled off a bit, but it was
still nice and warm, and all my aches and
pains were a mere bad memory as I walked home.
I even felt good enough to not stop to buy any
takeaways...although that was probably more to
do with the fact that I had already planned
what I was going to have as a post-pub/gig
snack, and it was in the fridge waiting for me
(not that feeling good or bad, or pre-planning
has ever had an effect on my buying of
takeaways in the past).
What I had in mind for my snack was
actually rather large for a snack, and I made
it bigger by topping it with grated cheese
because it looked a bit bland. It was a
container of ready prepared noodles with some
meat and veg - probably made in the Midlands,
but supposed to be "Oriental". I've never had
much difficulty shovelling down a whole
container full before, but last night I gave
up after only eating a half of it. Even so it
was getting on toward 2am before I went to bed
(I did waste a little time on the internet
before that).
I don't remember much about going to
sleep, and I assume that I probably fell
asleep very quickly. As far as I know, I slept
solidly until my highly trained brain stupidly
woke me up at 5am thinking I might want to go
to work today. I didn't, and so I went back to
sleep until 6.30am. I did partly get up then,
but in under an hour I was back in bed, and
fast asleep until 9am (or was it closer to
10am ?). Eventually I got up, washed and
dressed, but all I did, apart from eat a
couple of sandwiches, was to do some photo
editing until I received a pre-arranged call
from Kevin who was just leaving from an
appointment at the hospital. It was a call to
find out if I still fancied a lunchtime pint
as we had discussed last night. I did, and we
met up in the Wetherspoons for two and a half
pints. It could easily have been more, but
that seemed to be about the right amount to
take care of the hangover I had (although it
was already half dissipated by then).
After the booze I came home, had some
lunch, and then had a snooze. I don't know how
long I snoozed for but I woke up almost
feeling refreshed - which was a surprise
because I often feel terrible after an
afternoon nap with some beer inside me. A
couple of hours later and I think I am
possibly feeling fairly good. The chances are
there could be something going on tonight that
I could go to, but I think I fancy a quiet
night in. Tomorrow I'll be seeing Aleemah
until early in the afternoon. If I was still
feeling good, or maybe even semi-good, there
might be somewhere I could go tomorrow
night.....or maybe not. It is too far in the
future to speculate about in now.
|
Thursday 25th June
2015
|
07:55
BST
It certainly got warm yesterday. I think my
upstairs temperature sensor (outside the back
bedroom window) was saying it was 25° C. The
sensor outside the downstairs kitchen window
usually reads a degree or so lower than the
upstairs sensor, but it depends on the wind and
other factors, but even so, if it was only 23° C
4ft off the ground, then it was still a warm day.
It's a shame that there wasn't more sunshine
though. There was sunshine, but it kept getting
interrupted by passing clouds. This morning
started off at 13° C, and it was gloriously sunny.
It is still forecast to be a completely dry day,
and warm (20° C), but if the forecast is correct
the sky will cloud over, and stay cloudy for the
rest of the day. Tomorrow is still forecast to be
nasty and grey with some passing showers, but at
least it should still make it to 20° C.
A couple of my work colleagues kept me
talking past my home time yesterday. It was rather
annoying, but I managed to shut them up in time to
only leave here 5 minutes late (although I would
have preferred a little more time to visit the
toilet before I left). While all that was bad, it
was good that I was near the bus stop just in time
to have a free ride to the station. The bus got
caught in traffic a couple of times, and I'm not
sure if I could have walked there faster or not.
On a good day I can get the 15:47 trains.
Yesterday I barely had time to leap through the
doors of the 15:50 before they closed. The 15:50
train is the last one I can catch if I want a
relaxed change of trains at Waterloo East. The
next train would mean no time to look around, and
the train after that means a mad dash with no
guarantee that I would get to the platform in time
for my usual train home.
The rest of my journey home was completely
typical. Unless something exciting happens, like a
train crash, or the houses of parliament being
nuked, it always seems like a complete waste of an
hour of my life (or an hour and a quarter, or
more, on the journey to work). In theory it should
be relaxing. I can still sometimes get a seat on
my own, and only on the very rarest of occasions
do I have to stand, but even under ideal
conditions I can't relax on trains. It is why
travelling always tires me out. Staying on high
alert all the time really taxes my stamina.
I can't work out if lettuce has some amazing
filling properties, but eating a whole Little Gem
lettuce seems to leave me feeling rather full -
admittedly after eating other stuff too. Last
night was the second night when I went to bed
feeling rather full, and still hungry. There is
also a possibility that there is something wrong
with my gut. A few random pains putting in brief
appearances in my gut area hint that something is
not quite right.........but I'll wait until the
acid dripping alien bursts through my stomach wall
and goes on the rampage before doing anything
about it. A sticking plaster maybe ?
I did not feel comfortable in bed, but it
wasn't because I was feeling stuffed. It was the
continuing story of my floating ribs, and quite
alarming felt, rather than heard, noises like
twigs cracking when I lay on my side, and again
when I turn over to lay on the other side. Then
there are assorted aches or pains in my arms or
legs, elbows or knees. The problem there is that
shifting my posture to relieve one ache causes a
different one to appear. Finding the perfect spot
can be difficult, and more so when my bedroom is a
little warm, and I have to add finding a cool
position into the equation.
Eventually I got to sleep, but rather
stupidly woke up at 3am, and then had a great deal
of difficulty getting back to sleep, and staying
asleep until 5am. It didn't help that I had a
terrible nightmare. I dreamed I was in Croydon.
It's too complicated to explain why being in
Croydon is so terrible. It just is ! In amongst
all this terribly gloomy news about how broken and
twisted my body is these days, there is some
almost, sort of, in a way, good news - just. I
haven't mentioned my left hand, and the numbness
of the little and ring fingers for some time, but
I am happy to report there has been a change, and
for the better. From time to time it sometimes
seems that I have more, or improved feeling in
those fingers.
They have never been fully numb - which is
good and bad. The good is that if they were fully
numb it would be too easy to damage them without
realising. Fortunately I get a sort of tingling
feeling when they are touched, and that is
sufficient to warn me of most dangers, but it can
also feel very unpleasant. I guess it must have
been in the last few weeks that from time to time
I've noticed less tingling, and something closer
to normal touch. Maybe it is just familiarity, or
maybe those damaged nerves are finally starting to
regenerate. After all this time it is hard to
decide if it is real or just imagined - although
there is one other positive measurement. Last
year, for instance, it took a lot of will power to
ignore the very fierce tingling to trim the nails
on those two fingers. It does seem a lot easier
now, and even using an emery board on those nails
is not that traumatic now. Maybe sometime in the
next year or two I shall wake up and realise that
normal feeling has returned to those fingers - and
also to my left nipple - which was also very numb
for a long time - and may be a lot less so now
when I come to think of it. Some time ago ( 3,4,5,
or 6 months ago ?) it would sometimes feel
extremely odd when I put my mobile phone in my
shirt breast pocket, and it slid past my left
nipple.
Tonight I have to try and feel good.....to
pretend to myself that I am fit and healthy. I
have booked a days holiday from work tomorrow, and
that means I can go to Chain's gig at The Slug And
Lettuce in Beckenham, and stay out late, and
get drunk ! Maybe I won't stay to the very end,
and maybe I won't get drunk, but I do want to go.
It would have been nice to do something useful or
exciting tomorrow, but the weather forecast
doesn't inspire me to even get out of bed. So
maybe I can spend half the morning in bed. Maybe I
might not even get up until 9am !
|
Wednesday 24th June
2015
|
08:39
BST
There was less sunshine that I was hoping for
yesterday, but it was still a fairly pleasant day.
It was dry, and even if it wasn't that sunny, it
was still fairly bright. The lack of bright
sunshine meant that the temperature only went up
to something like 18° C instead of the forecast
20° C. The forecast for today was looking quite
good, but reality is a bit disappointing so
far, but maybe there is still some potential for
it to become good. My very first view of the sky
was very soon after sunrise, and the sky looked to
be mostly clear, but very soon afterwards the sky
filled with thin white cloud. Occasionally the sun
would poke through, but it has mostly been a bit
dull this morning. If the forecast is to be
fulfilled then the cloud will have to break up,
and let the sun through soon. The forecast implies
that by this afternoon there should be some long
spells of sunshine, and that is supposed to raise
the temperature from about 13° C when I got up to
20° C by the time I go home from work. Tomorrow is
forecast to be a couple of degrees warmer, but
with less sunshine, and on Friday it might rain !
In theory I should have been able to get a
bus the two stops to Earlsfield station when going
home from work yesterday. I felt reasonably OK. My
feet weren't hurting, and it was dry and
pleasantly warm. Normally that would satisfy all
the requirements for a bus to arrive at the bus
stop within a minute of me getting to it. Of
course there was the little matter of wanting to
get a free ride using my 60+ Oyster card. That was
obviously a good enough reason for all the buses
to hide, and to force me to walk the 0.666 miles
to the station.
I almost wrote that I had a pleasant journey
back to Catford, but I could never admit to that.
All I can allow myself to say was that it was not
an unpleasant journey. As planned, I diverted to
Tesco on my way home. I was going to buy a couple
of ready made up bowls of salad, but I decided
that I ought to buy the ingredients to make up my
own salads. So I did that, and I also found all
sorts of reduced price stuff that I bought too.
Among these items were a wild mushroom and pasta
snack, and a Caesar salad snack. I had those for
breakfast this morning - which may not have been
the most healthy choice, but they were both quite
tasty. I also bought a couple of packs of
sandwiches which I'll bring to work for breakfast
tomorrow.
Back at home I constructed a very big salad
as the main course of my dinner last night. I
guess my brain is incapable of imagining what a
plate of food is going to be like when I start
adding ingredients to it ~or ~ it is quite
surprising how high you can pile a plate when just
using simple ingredients like lettuce, tomatoes,
and cucumber. I hardly had room for the
half/reduced price potato salad ! My original plan
was to have that salad with smoked mackerel, but I
chanced upon a couple of pots of reduced price
prawn cocktail. So I had a prawn salad with pink
goop on it instead of mayonnaise. I also had a few
snacks last night, but let's not talk about them !
Just recently I have increased my dosage of
Metformin because over the weekend I did have some
stuff with too much sugar in it. I've been taking
3 tablets a day instead of the one a day I believe
is sufficient under normal circumstances, or
instead the four that the nurse prescribed. When I
was taking 4 a day it seemed to aggravate my
floating rib syndrome causing what may, or may not
be, costochondritus - an inflammation of the ribs
or connective tissue in my chest. It doesn't feel
like a coincidence that since taking a higher dose
of Metformin I have been suffering from worse
clicks and pops and stuff from my chest, and more
assorted pains in the chest
upper torso area.
I was in quite a bit of discomfort when I
got into bed last night. If I laid on one side
then various bits of me, legs, knees, hands,
elbows, or ears (in any combination) would hurt,
and each time I turned over to try the other side
my chest would pop, click, crackle, and other
felt, but unheard noises. After a lot of
experimentation I found the most comfortable
position, and managed to get to sleep. I thought I
probably slept quite well considering the
circumstance, but the amount I am yawning this
morning suggests otherwise. (Of course just
thinking/writing about yawning makes it 10 time
worse.......).
This morning I still think my lower back is
still a bit touchy. It is not giving any pain now,
and hasn't for some time now, but I am loathe to
test it by doing anything that might aggravate it.
Yesterday I did have an extra soreness in my lower
front too, but that would seem to have been the
result of eating a can of baked beans on Sunday
night ! Back to this morning, my most painful area
is my right hand side just above waist level. I am
unsure how it is connected to my ribs and sternum
(both biologically and figuratively), but it does
seem that every time my floating rib syndrome
plays up I get a pain there too. The only answer
would seem to be to keep my sugar intake as low as
possible so I can reduce (maybe even eliminate)
the dose of Metformin.
I think the only plan I have for tonight is
to attempt to reduce my food intake as low as I
can - which may not be any reduction at all, but
there's always wishful thinking..... I don't need
to wash my hair because that was one of the more
positive things I did last night. The only other
thing I ought to try for is to get as much sleep
as possible. I've booked a holiday off work on
Friday, and that means I can stay out late on
Thursday when Chain are playing in The Slug And
Lettuce in Beckenham. It's a slightly early start
(8pm), and hopefully it will be a slightly early
finish (11pm ?). If I wasn't so out of practice at
staying up late, it wouldn't matter what time it
finishes, but I reckon I'll be fading well before
11pm.
Would you believe anyone who sent you an
email worded like this -
Hello,
As per your request please look attached
the application form.
Please fill out all the details and
returnit back to us via emailat your earliest
convenience.With this information we will be
able to help you resolve this issue.
Thank you. "
- I'm sure that even Google translate is
doing a better job at translating Nigerian or
Russian than whichever scammer/phisher did this
translation. The spelling and grammar is even
worse than my blogs when I am rushing to finish
them because I ought to be working (or appearing
to be working !). |
Tuesday 23rd June
2015
|
08:01
BST
It started off wet and grey yesterday, but
it didn't last that long. The afternoon, although
rather poor for a summers day, was pleasant
enough. I went home from work in just my
shirtsleeves, and I was very comfortable like
that. There was even some sunshine on the way
home. In fact there were sunny spells from late
morning onwards. I guess it was something like 16
or 17° C when I arrived back in Catford. It was a
dry night, and it should be dry all day today, but
this morning will be rather cloudy. Eventually the
sun should break through, and there could be a
couple of extended spells of sunshine this
afternoon. That should take the temperature up to
a more comfortable 20° C. The next few days are
supposed to be warm and dry, but still a bit
cloudy.
I was forced to confess that it was my
birthday yesterday - mainly because that was the
only way to account for my new 60+ Oyster card
(which still doesn't work before 6.30am as the man
from Transport For London said it should). Mostly
it was a very insignificant day - just one day out
of 60x365.25 days, or one in 21915 days - and
that's pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of
things. One thing was rather less significant
though......
....This is what was on the front of the birthday
card given to me by the company, and of course I
don't like to disobey what the company orders me
to do ! So yesterday I almost did bugger all at
work. The "almost" was because I did actually do
about 10 minutes work in the whole day. The odd
thing is, is that I feel I will be doing little
more today, but I feel no shame !
It was absolutely typical that when I
desperately wanted to get a bus to the station
after work, no bus was in sight......actually that
is not quite true. I just missed one bus, and the
main road was too busy to get across it in time
for the next bus. (The two buses were different
services whose routes run parallel between here
and the station - they try to run very close
together because there is safety in numbers around
here - possibly). The reason why I was desperate
to get a bus was so I could try out my 60+ Oyster
card for the first time. I ended up walking to the
station, but to my great annoyance, if I had
waited for the next bus I would have got to the
station 3.638 seconds earlier ! Anyway, the
stations barriers accepted my card, and I had a
free ride home.
Except I didn't go straight home, and I
didn't go on some amazing free joyride like I
really ought to do to abuse my 60+ card. I went to
The Catford Constitutional Club to meet Jodie for
a quick birthday drink - and it was quick. I had
warned Jodie that I only wanted to stay for just
two pints. She was still happy with that, and that
is exactly what I had. There were two reasons for
not having more. The first was that I didn't want
to get drunk and end up eating more than I should
- which partly worked. The second reason was that
I had left a sheet soaking overnight (and through
the day) and I wanted to finish washing it.
This particular sheet was bright red, and it
was the same one that left red marks on me if I
sweated in bed. The dye in it was really intense,
but not very fast. When I do laundry by hand I
keep rinsing stuff until the water runs clear and
stops foaming. For the red sheet I had to keep
rinsing it until the water stopped running red !
The first water to come out was so intensely red
that it has dyed part of the shower hose pink, and
I now know there are parts of the bathtub which
obviously need cleaning because they are red too !
While I had stayed sober enough to just have
(heavily adulterated) salad for dinner, and I
didn't have any more booze, I did feel the urge to
have something extra before going to bed. I guess
I was feeling a bit bored with the TV I was
watching to try and amuse myself. I was also very
curious about something I had bought last Friday.
It was a bar of Guinness flavoured chocolate. I
guess it did have a hint of Guinness about it, but
mostly it was just a malty filling. It was nice,
but a not so nice that I would go out of my way to
get more of it - which is fortunate because it was
really bad for me.
It seemed to take a long time to get to
sleep last night (but probably wasn't), but once I
got to sleep I seemed to sleep rather well. I have
no idea what inspired it, but I had a dream that I
was on Mars. I'm not entirely sure what I was
doing on Mars, but in the fragment of dream that I
remember I seemed to be carrying out some sort of
experiment that involved lighting something that
looked a bit like a firework. I managed to get it
lit, but I don't remember any more after that.
This morning I feel passably OK. My lower
back pain has essentially gone now, but I can
still feel the area is a bit tender, and I am very
conscious that a wrong move could be very painful.
The rest of me is just the usual stiff and creaky
that seems to have become a way of life in the
last year or more. Coming to work was mostly
painless, but still a great bother, and I would
have preferred to be back in bed - except it is
only the exercise I get from commuting that stops
me seizing up completely - and that is why I can't
quit work like I really want to.
I have some plans for tonight. I want to get
some shopping from Tesco - particularly a couple
of bowls of ready mixed salad after I couldn't get
any from Aldi that weren't almost compost ready !
I shall have to try and be careful not to buy any
naughty stuff - but inevitably I will ! When I get
home I really must wash my hair. I should have
done it last night, but I couldn't be bothered,
and while it wasn't cold, it wasn't exactly warm
enough to come to work with wet hair if I washed
it this morning. Once my hair is dry enough I can
go to bed tonight, and try and have more dreams
about being on Mars doing incredibly important
scientific work, and ravishing beautiful, half
naked, native Martian beauties (probably dressed
in the style of 1950s sci fi book/magazine covers
!).
|
Monday 22nd June
2015
|
08:02
BST
Yesterday's weather did little to inspire me, and
yet it was mostly harmless. It was dry, and warm
even if it wasn't bright. The forecast for today
has been very volatile. Sometimes they said it
would be good, sometimes, bad, and sometimes
somewhere in between. On TV last night they
suggested that today would not be that bad. I
can't remember the exact details, but I wasn't
anticipating having to wear a rain coat today. The
reality is that there has been a lot of rain this
morning, and while it hasn't been cold, it hasn't
been warm either. So much for "flaming June" !
This morning the forecast was saying the
temperature would continue to drop until it
reached 12° C in about an hours time. Then it
would rise again to the heady heights of nearly
17° C during a day that will see a lot more
showers, and a few brighter (but maybe not
actually sunny) spells. The forecasters are trying
to cheer us up by saying that the weather will
improve during the week, but their guesses don't
look that appealing to me.
This is the sight that
greeted me as I walked to the station to come to
work.
The view in the other direction, looking along
the platform at Catford Bridge station, is
really gloomy.
I guess I got a
little bored with doing nothing yesterday
afternoon - although not until most of the
afternoon was over. It was probably foolish
considering how delicate my back was (and is)
still feeling after I pulled a muscle, or
slipped a disc, or whatever on Friday, but I
decided I would do some laundry. Leaning over
the side of the bath while pummelling t-shirts
in bowls of hot soapy water needs a certain
amount of finesse (or dare devilry) while you
have a sore back, but I managed to wash 4
t-shirts and two pillow cases without doing
myself any obvious further injury.
I didn't stop there. I also did a little
more work towards my long term aim of clearing
up the back room - and maybe even turning it
back into a dining room again. One piece of
clutter in there, festooned with cobwebs and
heaps of dust, was an old Epson A3 sized
printer. It was donated to me many years ago,
and I did occasionally use it, but it had a
fault that was difficult to rectify (and quite
hard to diagnose - although it was obvious
with hindsight). One of the rollers inside it
somewhere had a dent in it where it was left
unused for many years before I was given it.
It had the strange effect of slightly speeding
up the paper as it passed through the printer,
but only about the middle quarter of an inch
of a piece of A3 paper. That caused the
picture to have a thin band through it. It was
passable if it was just text, but it ruined a
photo. I hadn't used it in years, and
yesterday I decided to wrap it in a bin bag,
and throw it, along with a few other bits of
junk, into the wheelie bin.
At the current rate of progress it will
be a few or more years before I clear that
back room, but at least I am still slowly
making progress, and I don't seem to be
accumulating any new junk recently. So things
can only get better. One day I might even work
out where the horrible damp smell comes from
every time it rains ! After the torrential
downpour we had on Saturday evening, which was
so heavy that it even came under the back door
of the kitchen, the nasty smell in the back
room formed far faster than anything could
grow, and yet it smells a bit like mould. It
also dissipates very quickly when the rain
stops - which is also a mystery.
If I didn't have to come to work today I
might have got drunk last night. I was in a
bored and/or rebellious mood - I'm not sure
which - probably both - and fancied hitting
the bottle. I did have just one glass of
whisky, but refrained from any more. It seemed
to be enough to give me a reasonable night's
sleep - once I got to sleep. I seem to recall
having some exciting dreams before I woke up
at about 4.40am, but I cannot recall what
those dreams were now. what I do remember is
that I was feeling quite fragile as I got up.
I had to be very careful not to jar my lower
back. Provided I kept the right posture it was
mostly painless, but it wasn't slow in
reminding me if my posture slipped. I was also
unfortunate enough to have very volatile guts
this morning.
I took a couple of Ibuprofen pain
killers before coming to work this morning,
and they seem to be working very well. I don't
think I felt a single twinge from my back on
the way to work, and I feel quite comfortable
now. Not many people know it, but the cure for
many types of back ache is walking and not
laying down. If I am lucky I will have cured
my back ache before I lay down again (until
next time).
Today is my birthday. I don't know how I
came to be so old in defiance of all the
health warnings, but here I am alive and still
kicking....well, just about. It was a surprise
to make it through to 30, and astonishing when
I was still alive at 40. By 50 it was getting
a bit annoying because life was very
unexciting. Now at 60, as I slowly go gaga, I
am beginning to think along the lines of
revenge. Maybe it could be good to make it to
70 just to piss people off. Mind you it is
going to be a very long, and incredibly boring
wait !
The day has not started off very well.
The fact that it is raining this morning is
either proof that there is no God, or that
there is a God and the bastard doesn't like
me. Not only that, but obviously South Eastern
Trains don't like me either. The man from
Transport For London assured me that my 60+
Oystercard could be used before 6.30am when I
start my journey to work, but at 06:24 it was
rejected by the Oyster card reader at Catford
Bridge station. So I had to use my old
pay-as-you-go Oyster card to come to work.
Hopefully I will be able to use the 60+ card
on my way home for a free journey.
Although I was too early to make use of
it, and I doubt I will partake on my way home,
but there is free beer available on the
concourse of Waterloo station today courtesy
of the Wadsworth Brewery.
I don't think I actually like Wadsworth 6X,
but I could probably force myself to drink
some for free.....
....except I think I'll be having some
better beer with Jodie in The CCC after work
tonight.
|
Sunday 21st June
2015
|
13:19
BST
The thing that was amazing about yesterday's
weather is that we did not have a thunderstorm. It
was a mildly warm, but overcast morning. The
afternoon saw a few glimpses of sunshine, but also
a few light showers. By 5pm it was looking very
dull outside. An hour or two later (I forget the
exact time) we had the most torrential downpour.
The gutters over flowed, and while the heavens
opened like a toilet being flushed, there was
about half an inch of water on the path outside
the kitchen. Some water got under the back door
causing a small puddle by the door inside. 10 or
15 minutes later it was all over except for some
intermittent drizzle, and that seemed to go away
after an hour or so. As far as I am aware, it
stayed dry during the night, and it has been dry
so far today, but it is rather cloudy. There have
been a few sunny spells, and there should be more
later (fingers crossed). It has been mild to
slightly warm all day (~20° C), and that should
continue until nightfall (and maybe beyond). The
good news is that the forecast for tomorrow has
now changed to be more similar to today rather
than a diabolically wet day all day !
I felt a little weary, or something similar
to that, when I went to meet Aleemah at the
station yesterday morning. When I got to the
station I decided to see what would happen if I
presented my 60+ Oyster card to the reader. The
letter I got with the card did say I could use it
straight away - which was 4 days before I turned
60 - and I wondered if that was true, and what the
reader would say. It simply said "Enter" - which
was rather boring, but it did confirm that the
card was valid and usable.
They had some nice beer in the Wetherspoons
when Aleemah and I went in there for breakfast.
One beer in particular, Revisionist
Juniper pale ale, made by Marstons brewery,
was particularly nice.....although maybe only in
small quantities. The half pint I had tasted like
it had a hint of ginger about it. Maybe that was
from juniper berries, or maybe not, but it made
for a nice fresh sort of taste - which was unlike
the DVD Aleemah brought along for us to watch !
The DVD was of the film "She". A little
research shows that there have been many films
called She, and many of the have been based on the
same 19th century novel. The version we saw
yesterday was the 1965
Hammer studios version starring Ursula
Andress, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing,
and.....Bernard Cribbins - a man more associated
with comedy than horror. Although it was not
exactly a horror film. Some describe it as an
adventure film, and parts of it could be described
as a love story ! I'm not sure to describe it.
Perhaps "bland" comes somewhere near to a
description. It was neither boring or exciting. I
don't think it enriched my life by seeing it, but
neither was it a waste of 90 minutes.
After Aleemah went home I did give some
thought to the idea of going out in the evening,
but I either had subconscious premonitions of how
filthy the weather would be, or I was just feeling
too lazy to bother going out. Maybe the impending
weather, some sort of drop in pressure and change
in the humidity perhaps, made me feel lazy, or
maybe I had just eaten too much in the preceding
36 hours, and I just didn't feel up to going out.
The latter idea probably deserves more merit than
it might seem to.
When I went for my long walk on Thursday I
was careful what I ate the day before (up to a
point), and I didn't anything all day until I got
in. The reduced blood glucose level as a result of
that made me feel really good - although sadly it
could do nothing for my sore feet. Since that long
walk I have eaten all sorts of crap in large
quantities - large compared to the miniscule
amount I should be eating at this time of the
year.
After not feeling like doing much, and
succeeding in not doing much at expert levels all
afternoon, and into the evening, I then made
things worse by ordering another takeaway. This
time it was grilled meat and salad - aka a double
kebab. I also included a few "snacks" for today in
the order. I washed my takeaway down with some
bottles of beer that I have had hanging around
here too long. One has been in the fridge for
about a whole year (I think it was a birthday
present) and it was starting to go flat. So it is
probably just as well that I drunk that one.
With a belly full of food and beer I went to
bed at about 11pm. I think I slept OK for most of
the night, but I was having some very strange
dreams. One dream in particular is annoying
because I can't remember what the significance of
it was. It concerned some sort of code based upon
different shoelace colours, and those shoelaces
also had coloured ends. (There is a name for the
end of a shoelace that was on the tip of my
tongue, but it seems to elude me now that I want
to write it down). I am fairly sure that the
shoelaces were not used as laces in shoes, but I
just cannot remember how they were used, and what
the significance of the colours were. It all meant
something, but what seems to have evaporated from
the face of the Earth.
This morning I felt neither good nor bad -
although I would say I was further along the
spectrum toward bad than good. I didn't feel
particularly enthused to do anything today. So
much for all my dreams of abusing my new 60+
Oystercard by going on non stop pointless bus and
train rides ! After a while I did raise the energy
and enthusiasm to go and plunder Aldi for some
diet cola, some sandwiches to take to work
tomorrow, some fish fingers, and some other stuff.
I did have this idea that I fancied fish
finger salad for one of my meals today, but it
seems possible that Aldi have had had a failure in
one of their back room chillers. The bowls of
ready made salad which they sell, and which are
rather nicer than the similar ones that Tesco
sell, were completely disgusting. The lettuce had
brown edges, the cucumber looked sweaty, and the
whole lot looked very unappertising. At least one
bowl was awash with "juice" from where the salad
was well on the way to decay. I bought some fish
fingers, and they are in the freezer until I can
get some decent salad for them to go with - maybe
from Tesco during the week.
One of the very worst things I bought was
some frozen yoghurt. It was fortunate that it
comes in tiny little pots. It may be low fat, but
it is almost pure sugar ! I had one of the two
pots I bought, and you can still taste some of the
sourness of the yoghurt, and that is the best
part. It is a shame they want to ruin that by
making it also taste like syrup. In a different
reality it could almost be a healthy food, but not
the version from Aldi, and probably most other
places including the most extreme cud chewing
vegetarian health food shops - they probably use
sea sugar, or unrefined lumps of sugar cane, but
it is still probably a sweetness overload.
Since starting to write this, which with a
bit of research about DVDs and beer has taken
quite some time, the sun has come out. There are
still many clouds in the sky, but it almost make
me feel like I ought to pull some shoes on, and do
something, but to be honest, I can't be bothered.
I think I may even take a nap soon.......well, I
have to try and be fresh for work tomorrow. So I
shouldn't strain myself !
|
Saturday 20th June
2015
|
08:30
BST
The weather forecast, or at least my
interpretation of it, was wrong again yesterday.
Instead of a slightly cool overcast day, which is
indeed how it started, it turned into a slightly
warm, and bright sunny day. I am unsure of the
highest temperature, but a brisk 0.7 mile walk
through the park easily raised a sweat. This
morning it is rather cloudy, and the temperature
is edging towards 20° C (it's about 19° C at the
moment). It's not supposed to reach 20° C until
8pm tonight, and that will be after a lot of
showers - some of them heavy. The current
temperature should be only 14° C. So there is hope
that the forecast for showers could be
exaggerated...although I guess there will be some
at some point. Tomorrow is forecast to be dry, but
it is supposed to be cloudy all day, and only 18°
C. Monday, when I am back at work, is forecast to
be a very wet day. With luck that will turn out to
be wrong !
I expected to have some after effects from
my day out on Thursday, but on the whole I felt
pretty good yesterday. There were some exceptions
to that. My feet still felt a bit battered, and I
managed to hurt my lower back - although that was
probably completely unrelated to all that exercise
and sunshine. The main thing I did yesterday was
laundry. I washed 8 shirts plus some underwear -
not all at once. I did the first 4 shirts, and
then waited an hour or two before doing the second
four. They are all nice, fresh and dry this
morning.
Doing that laundry, and some photo editing
was all I did until mid to late afternoon. I'm,
not entirely sure where the rest of the hours went
to, but I didn't seem to feel bored or anything. A
little while after 4pm, maybe 4.30pm, I went out
to have a beer with Dave from the Thursday night
drinking club. He has just retired from work, and
was having a drink up in The Ravensbourne Arms pub
in Ladywell (or Lewisham depending on where you
place the boundary lines).
It was the perfect opportunity to test my
new 60+ Oyster photocard for a free bus ride, but
I didn't. I opted for a nice walk in the sunshine
through the park. It is a 0.7 mile walk, and maybe
I did feel some after effects from the day before
then. I think it was mainly my sore feet, but it
seemed harder work than it should have been. I was
quite sweaty when I arrived at the pub. That was
probably a sign that my blood glucose level was a
bit high - or it was a sign that it felt very hot
in the bright sunshine, and that I had used quite
a lot of very hot chilli sauce on my lunch !
I only had one pint in the pub. I could have
stayed for more, but I felt rather out of place
surrounded by Dave's previous work mates (and
matesses). I only knew one other person there, and
he was busy holding court with previous workmates
too. So I drank my pint, and slipped away again.
Once again I could have jumped on a bus for free,
and once again I opted to walk, but this time down
the hight street instead of through the park.
Although not intended, it gave me the opportunity
to take some photos of the war memorial opposite
Lewisham hospital. I've walked passed it, or been
on a bus going past it so many times, and never
taken any photos before, but now I have.
Three quarters view of the war
memorial.
I am unsure if this is "Lewisham" war memorial
or not. There may be one more central, or to the
north of the borough too - plus more in places
that were once outside the borough.
This is a few tens of yards away from the main
memorial. I think it was only erected earlier
this year to commemorate those who had won the
Victoria Cross for valour.
After taking these photographs I
continued down the high street, and did the
other thing I was going to do yesterday -
shopping. It was not a great shopping
expedition - I just had a quick wander around
Poundland. As usual, I bought a load of old
rubbish - included two DVDs. One was
"Battlefield Earth". I knew of it before I
bought it, and knew that it wasn't really
worth the £1 I paid for it. In some quarters
it has been described as the worst Sci Fi film
EVER ! Sometimes something that bad
just has to be watched ! I also bought the
2005, Hollywood re-imagined version of War Of
The Worlds. Some say it is actually a good
film, but they are probably Americans who see
no reason why the story can't be set in the
only country they know - America. It should of
course be set in England - Surrey if I recall
correctly.
After wasting my money in Poundland I
went home and had some dinner. I had already
had some lunch, but I felt ravenous. I ended
up eating far too much over after too long a
period of time. I should have just had the one
meal, and then no more, but I guess I was
starting to feel bored, and get snacking. I
don't think it felt like boredom at the time,
but it did feel like I had some pent up
energy, and that I should be doing something
useful or creative. Instead I just slobbed
around before going to bed - where I didn't
feel sleep for ages !
I probably had a reasonable nights sleep
in the end, but if not I will have
opportunities to have a snooze or two, or more
this afternoon. This morning I'll be seeing
Aleemah for a few hours, but after that the
world is my oyster - and maybe if the sun does
come out, I will use my Oystercard for some
pointless bus or train ride. But seeing as it
is supposed to be raining this afternoon, I
doubt I'll be going anywhere !
|
Friday 19th June
2015
|
09:56
BST
Yesterday was like a summers day. Maybe it was
because it was a summers day ! It was bright, dry,
and (at times) hot ! I can't put an exact figure
on the temperature, but it must have been in the
upper twenties. During the night it cooled down,
and this morning it is currently 18° C. It has
started off, and the forecast says it will
continue to be a cloudy, but hopefully dry day. So
the temperature is unlikely to rise, and if it
does it will probably only be a degree or
two.....and of course as I wrote that the sun came
out for all of 10 seconds ! Maybe there is hope
after all !
Yesterdays sunshine inspired me to to what I
was hoping to do, and that was to go out. I wanted
to visit the seaside, and as I remarked yesterday,
Sheerness, on the Isle Of Sheppy, is one of the
easier, or quicker places to get to. It is not one
of those most exciting places to go to, but it
satisfied a need. It was one of the first places I
visited when I was practising for longer walks
back in 2009. In fact it is, or can be, a longer
walk than I tend to think it is. Back in July
2009 I estimated had walked about 6 miles,
although when I started out I only intended to
walk 2 or 3 miles ! Yesterday I only intended to
walk about that, and indeed I thought that I was
so out of practice that was all I could manage,
but I still managed 5.73 miles.
I took quite a few pictures along the way,
and there are too many to show in the usual way
here. So on this occasion I'll show shrunken
thumbnails. Click on any picture to see a high
resolution version in a new tab/window.
Looking to the left along the
seawall....
|
...and looking right. I went this way.
|
A boat some miles away from the shore.
|
A boat stacked with shipping containers.
|
A gothic looking pub outhouse.
|
The pub is The Ship On Shore.
|
Another view of The Ship On Shore.
|
Safety instructions - and a lot of them
!
|
Arriving at Minster.
|
In 2009 this was a clean and well kept
public
toilet. Now it is very grubby with no
toilet
paper, and no toilet seats !
|
There were many of these instruments of
torture along the sea wall near Minster.
|
You have been warned !
|
During my walk I
called into The Ship On Shore pub twice. The
first time was because I needed a wee, but I
did have a delicious half pint of Wells
Bombadier ale while I was in there. The second
time was because I fancied another half pint,
but I also wanted to stop to get my breath
back ! I finally arrived back at the station
with my feet seriously aching, and to see the
back of the train just disappearing in the
distance. It would be another 30 minutes
before the next train, and there was nothing
to do but to limp to The Goat (a free house
that doesn't actually seem to serve any decent
ales) and have a half pint of Stella Artois to
cool me down.
Having to wait that half hour for the
train actually worked out well. I caught the
next train to Sittingbourne where I had a
short wait for the next train to Bromley
South. At Bromley South I had a short wait for
a train back to Catford. That last train was
rather good ! I never knew there was a service
that ran partly fast to Catford before. It may
be the only one of the day, but I managed to
get it. We raced right through Shortlands
station, whizzed through Ravensbourne station,
and zoomed through Beckenham Hill station. We
did stop at Bellingham. The next stop after
Bellingham is Catford, and we arrived there at
16:55 - and that meant that without trying, I
had arrived at the perfect time to walk down
to The Catford Constitutional Club for the
Thursday night drink at 5pm !
I had a nice time in the CCC. I had
three pints of nice ale, and I was given two
birthday cards. I would have liked to have
stayed longer, but I hadn't eaten any solid
food since the evening before, and I thought
it was high time I had some breakfast ! I am
not sure what I would have eaten if I hadn't
been quizzed about it. The first thing that
came to me was to say I fancied a Chinese
takeaway. It is possible that if I hadn't been
quizzed I may have had something slightly
healthier out of the fridge, but with Chinese
food stuck in my mind I ordered some...well
quite a lot if I am honest.
I have to confess that Chinese food for
breakfast at 7pm is rather nice ! I could have
eaten a lot more than I did, but I left the
Singapore fried rice to have cold for
breakfast this morning, and I have a main dish
and some egg fried rice for another meal later
today. I'm not sure where I got the energy
from, but I spent some time editing photos
before going to bed last night. When I finally
got into bed I couldn't get to sleep at first,
but it seems when I did get to sleep I went
out like a light. All that fresh air and
sunshine made for some very solid sleep. I
don't recall anything until I woke up at just
gone 5am.
I took my medication when I woke up, and
pottered around for half an hour before going
back to bed, and didn't get up again until
around 8am. This morning I have a few mild
aches and pains, but no worse, and possibly
less worse than I have most mornings. Maybe my
feet are a little sore still, but I haven't
really tested them yet. The top of my head is
a little sun burned, and I couldn't but help
notice that the hot water from my morning
shower stung my right arm a bit where that got
a little burnt too. Other than that I feel
pretty good considering the ordeal I put
myself through. I must do it again soon.
Today I have no grand plans for long or
short walks. I intend to get some laundry
done, and to do a little shopping at some
point. Late this afternoon, around 4.30pm
maybe, there is a retirement drink up that I
want to pop along to for a while. It is in The
Ravensbourne Arms pub, and the best way to get
there is to walk through the park - although
now there is a lazier way. When I got home
yesterday I found an envelope sitting on the
door mat. It contained my over 60s Oyster
photocard. It is stil a few days before I am
over 60, but the accompanying letter said I
can use it straight away. So I can now jump on
buses, tube trains, Croydon trams, and the
Docklands Light Railway to travel for free 24
hours a day, and jump on most inner London
trains services before and after the morning
peak (before 6.30am, and after 10am), and
travel for free on those too.
|
Thursday 18th June
2015
|
08:56
BST
It was 28° C on one of my thermometers when I got
home from work yesterday, but the one that seems
to be closer to the weather forecasts read a
couple of degrees lower than that. I was indoors
all day at work, and it didn't seem as if it was a
particularly sunny day, and it didn't feel
particularly warm as I made my way home from work,
but carrying a few bags of shopping did raise a
bit of sweat. Today is supposed to be similar, or
better, but either the forecast was wrong, or it
is a bit slow getting started. It was nearly 20° C
when I got up, and the temperature is rising, but
the sun is taking it's time to burn through the
clouds. The curious thing is that the forecast
says it should be blazing sunshine right now, and
yet it should only be 14° C. It reckons we will
only hit 20° C at 4pm. Tomorrow is looking like it
could be fairly dull and miserable - maybe even
wet !
It was a remarkably quiet day at work
yesterday. There was no management around, and
basically I did nothing at all, all day ! The only
thing of note that I did do was to sneak out 10 -
15 minutes early....except I didn't have to sneak.
Just leaving that little bit earlier allowed me to
get an earlier train when I got to Waterloo
East....and that earlier train is earlier by a
full half hour. It was a bit of a mad rush to get
it, but it was probably worth it even if it worth
it to add a footnote to my life's history....or
something. Anyway, it's the first time I have ever
managed to get that train. I also did something
else that I have been meaning to do for
ages.......
I always suspected that my route to and from
work followed two sides of a triangle, but I had
never plotted it on a map before. I used the
running app on my Firefox phone to plot the entire
journey home (although it actually finishes at
Tescos, but that's close enough). It's got
slightly wavy sides, but it is two sides of a
triangle as I suspected. If I could travel as the
crow flies I could almost half the journey. It is
possible get a train through Brixton and Peckham,
and if everything runs to time, it would save me a
whole 5 minutes, and possibly be slightly cheaper,
but it arrives at Catford station, and that adds a
little to the walk home. That wasn't desirable
when I last tried it because that was prior to my
quad heart bypass when I was suffering from
angina, and at it's worst I had to stop to let the
pain die down once or twice when walking from
Catford Bridge station. Maybe now I am free from
that pain I ought to try it again some day.
The only problem of coming home via Tesco is
that came home with too much tempting food. So my
simple camenbert and salad had some slices of
peppered beef to it, and I also ate a rather
delicious ready made cajun chicken salad as well.
The excess amount of almonds I ate actually came
from Lidl when I went there Tuesday afternoon. The
were very well roasted, and I am going to delude
myself that the roasting drove out some of the oil
that would account for much of their calorific
value.
One thing I didn't eat, and I am rather glad
I didn't having now read what's in it, was any
"Franks Diabetic Ice Cream". I've had my
suspicions about that stuff for some time. I
presume some of their claims must be correct or
they would not have been allowed to add a
strawberry flavour, let alone keep selling the
vanilla flavour with the claims they make for it.
Basically it is sweetened with fructose which they
claim has a low glycemic index, and so is suitable
for diabetics. To a very limited degree that may
be true, but it has an awful lot of it in it, and
that raises it's calorific value...and it is
consuming excess calories that causes type 2
diabetes in the first place. Now I know I will
treat that stuff with the respect it deserves.
I am on holiday today and tomorrow. So far I
have had a nice lay in, washed my hair, and
showered. What I should be doing next is going
out. I think I want to go to the seaside today,
but I can't decide where to go. I don't think I am
ready for an extra long walk, and maybe not even a
long walk. At least there should be trains
available to anywhere I fancy - unlike at the
weekends when engineering work often isolates
whole swathes of the country - unless you are
insane enough to want to use a rail replacement
bus ! Maybe I might go to Sheerness on the Isle Of
Sheppy. It's not terribly exciting, and there are
few opportunities to walk that far.
|
Wednesday 17th June
2015
|
08:00
BST
It might have taken until 10am, or maybe just a
little bit later, but yesterday turned into a fine
summers day. It was bright and sunny with lots of
blue skies, and the temperature rose to about 23°
C, although in direct sunlight it felt a lot
hotter than that. Today started off very nice. It
was about 13° C when I walked to the station to
come to work, and it was bright and sunny. There
seems to be a bit of passing cloud as I write
this, but the forecast says it should be a bright
sunny day with temperatures as good, or maybe even
better than yesterday. Tomorrow might be even
sunnier, and even warmer according to the most
recent forecast, but Friday is now looking as if
it will be very average - which is probably better
than some of the more pessimistic forecasts made
earlier on, and not as good as some of the more
optimistic forecasts also made earlier on.
On the whole, yesterday was a good day,
although there were bits of it I didn't like that
much. Yesterday was another confirmation that I am
a lousy traveller. I can feel knackered just from
sitting on a bus ! Of course the worst part of any
journey is the first part, and it felt like hard
work walking to the bus stop as I set off to visit
the Excel centre for the IFSEC exhibition. The
last time I went there was for the Star Trek
convention/exhibition/thing, and I went via London
Bridge station because of engineering works on the
Docklands Light Railway. It is probable that is
the fastest way, but yesterday I caught the bus to
Lewisham - which was tedious. Then I caught the
DLR to Canary Wharf station. I changed there to
travel two stops to Poplar station on a Stratford
bound train, and from Poplar station I caught the
Beckton train as far as Customs House station for
the Excel centre.
I am sure they had rebuilt Customs House
station since I was there last. I don't recall
having to walk a dogleg to get out of the station
before. This doesn't surprise me because Docklands
is in a constant state of flux. Buildings seem to
go up and then come down again in completely
random fashion....or at least that is what it
seems like to the occasional visitor. It may be
different to those who live there - something I
would not like to do ! Anyhow, I was there to see
the latest and greatest in CCTV equipment.....No I
wasn't ! I was there to be seen by my boss, and
others to prove that my day off work was for
company business or something. The reality is that
I was in and out of the place in under 30 minutes
! I did take a few pictures of stuff being
exhibited, but I spent more time in Greenwich on
the way home, and took some nice pictures there.
Another view of The Cutty Sark
sitting on it's glass carbuncle.
One of the Thames Clipper river bus boats going
up the Thames towards the city.
Down on the foreshore a photo shoot was taking
place. I kept an eye on it in case....well, just
in case, but she didn't !
Boats moored at Greenwich Pier.
Canary Wharf as seen from Greenwich. One of the
things about the river is that it twists and
turns more than seems obvious when standing
alongside it. So Canary Wharf looks to be inland
instead of on the river.
I used a lot of zoom to take this picture - a
picture the real photographer could not take
without wading in up to her neck in the river. I
reckon I got the better picture - although this
is but one example of several I took, and has
been cropped, and shrunk down to show here. I
think I have better ones when judged in some
ways, but this is probably my favourite.
After spending
little more that half an hour in the warm
sunshine at Greenwich I waited a mere few
minutes to jump on a 199 bus back to Catford.
All my travelling had gone fairly smoothly
until then, but that bus was so slow,
excruciatingly so as it threaded it's way
through the traffic and roadworks in Lewisham,
that it was the most tedious journey EVER
(possibly). When I got off that bus I
felt hot and exhausted. I cooled off a little
once I was out in the fresh air, but it felt
like hard work to walk towards home - and that
is very unusual. Walking to home is
usually the best bit of any day out.
Once I got home I rested for all of 15
minutes, and then I decided to force myself to
go out again. It was barely past 1pm when I
got home, and I thought I should make some use
of my freedom while I had it. I didn't fancy
going far, but I did think a walk to
Lidl would be OK. It is at least twice
the distance that Aldi is, and almost twice
the distance to Tesco. Once upon a time, while
it was new and mysterious (new to me that is),
it was a joy to visit, but I haven't found
anything really interesting in there for a
long time. Yesterday was no exception, but I
did manage to spend over £20 in there.
When I arrived home again I decided I
just had to have some breakfast, and that put
me on the slippery slope. "Breakfast" was an
insane amount of Pringles-like, Lidl own brand
potato snacks and a big tub of red pepper
flavoured humous. That was bad enough, but it
wasn't many hours later that I made a huge
great Spanish (inspired) omelette. It included
the last of the potatoes I had bought almost a
fortnight ago. I diced them up and pre-cooked
them before adding a diced up smoked pork
sausage, a sliced up rather large de-seeded
chilli pepper, and three eggs. It was pleasant
enough, but I was hoping it would have been
rather more magnificent !
Apart from eating and some photo
editing, I did nothing fro the rest of the
afternoon, and up until I went to bed. I had
some pretty strange dreams last night. I could
not work out if I was the victim, or the hero,
or the villain, or the cameraman, or the
director of a dream that was like a spy/action
hero/criminal drama. I certainly seemed to
interact with some of the characters, but I
always seemed to be isolated from whatever
evil deeds, or whatever they may have been
doing. Sometimes I seemed to be making it up
as I was going along, like a lucid dream, but
I can't seem to recall being aware that it was
a dream as you would in a real lucid dream.
This morning it looked like a summers
morning as I got up, and that made me feel
good. In many ways I did feel good. Nothing
much seemed to be causing any annoying
discomfort, but of course things could never
be perfect. I found my legs didn't want to
work very well once I got going. Walking from
the station to work was definitely a slog. It
doesn't bode well for tomorrow. I have booked
tomorrow and Friday off work, and I want to go
out on one or both of those days. Tomorrow is
most likely because I might end up with a
hangover on Friday morning is my plans come to
fruition. It is not going to be much good if I
can't enjoy walking tomorrow, but maybe not
having another Spanish-like omelette will
help. Maybe I will only have a Camembert salad
tonight like I thought I might have last night
until I remembered those pre-cooked potatoes
in the microwave.
|
Tuesday 16th June
2015
|
08:51
BST
The weather forecast for yesterday said the sun
would come out at midday, and to my great
surprise, it did ! It also said it would get
sunny at 8pm, and it did that too - in a way ! In
fact the cloud that had spoiled much of the day
began to break up as I made my way home from work,
and we had a pleasant evening. I am unsure of how
warm it got yesterday. With a strong breeze it
felt rather cool in the morning, but the afternoon
felt very comfortable. So maybe it was in the
region of 17 - 18° C. This morning it is rather
cloudy again, but the temperature is already
slowly creeping up. I am currently reading 19° C -
and that is rather higher than the forecast for
little more than 11° C. The forecast says that the
sun won't break through until this afternoon, but
there seem to be some gaps in the clouds already,
and it is getting brighter.....or was...I think
the sun has just ducked behind a thicker bit of
cloud ! The top temperature today is
forecast to be 21 - 22° C, but I reckon it might
go higher than that.
I had some crazy idea that I might do
something, or go somewhere after work yesterday. I
might even have done it if it were not for a small
problem with my shoes - or more specifically my
left shoe. I was wearing a previously quite
comfortable pair of cheap Converse copies bought
from Peacocks. One difference between real
Converse trainers and copies selling for a quarter
of the price (or less) is that the cheap versions
don't appear to have any quality control. So it
should not have come as a great surprise when the
insole started to de-laminate. It wasn't terribly
painful to walk on it, but it certainly didn't
inspire me to walk any further than I had to. It
was, of course, one of those times where a bus to
the station would have been very handy, and one of
those times when a bus is nowhere in sight. So I
walked to the station as I do everyday that I
don't need, or don't want a bus, but one turns up
and I get it anyway - maybe once a fortnight,
maybe even less frequent than that.
When I got home I decided to try to avoid
eating too much, and to try and eat a better
selection of stuff. I had some potatoes that had
started to grow, and that influenced my decisions
a lot. I cubed a couple of small/medium sized
potatoes and quickly cooked them in the microwave
(using hardly any water). I then drizzled them
with some olive oil, and some balsamic vinegar. I
added a handful of baby plum tomatoes, and three
diced spring onions. I'm not sure what it was that
I made, but it was sort of nice, although it would
probably have gone better as an accompaniment to
some meat, or maybe cheese. I did have some meat
in my second course. It was a ready made chicken
and bacon pasta salad from Aldi. It needed some
chilli sauce to spice it up, but it was quite nice
- although I was scared to look at the
salt/sugar/fat etc levels. It had the word salad
in the description so it must have been healthy -
and if you believe that I have a bridge to sell
you !
I had a good sleep last night....well,
mostly good. I didn't turn the light out until
10pm, but I did fall asleep soon after that. I
remember waking up once or twice, but it is a very
dream like memory. At just before 5am I woke up as
usual, but today is a special day, and I cancelled
my alarm, and went back to sleep. I got nearly 2
hours extra sleep, and maybe if I wasn't having a
nightmare, I might have slept even longer. In this
nightmare it seemed as if I had been away from
home for a while, and my house was being taken
care of by my mum and my younger sister. Somehow
one or the other had broken all the plumbing in
the bathroom. Everything leaked water, and there
was a couple of inches of water on the floor. I
managed to cure most of the leaks somehow, and I
went back to my bedroom to get dressed for work
(or for something), and I found someone had tidied
up all my clothes, and I couldn't find anything.
As a final disaster, my sister who had been to
university, asked me to help pay off her credit
card. I was expecting that she would ask for maybe
a couple of hundred pounds, but she wanted £4000 !
That seemed like a great time to wake up !
I am not at work today. It is a sort of
grand scam.....well maybe not a scam, and it is
entirely "legal". In a little while I will be off
to The Excell center where the IFSEC exhibition is
taking place. It is a trade show for companies
selling security and fire prevention/detection
stuff - and that includes CCTV cameras. The
company I work for makes the insides of many pan,
tilt and zoom CCTV cameras, and we are exhibiting
stuff at the exhibition. So all the development
department, to which I am attached, and who have
worked really hard these last couple of weeks to
prepare stuff for this exhibition, have been
invited by the management to go along to see our
stand (and to spy on our competitors), but mostly
to try and collect as many free pens, notepads,
and anything free that is available - at least
that is my main reason for going. I just hope that
after these years of austerity there are still
freebies available. It's been an awful long time
since I went to one of these industry shindigs,
and I came home with pocketfuls of crap.
I've probably still got a few pens from the last
one - but after 20 years they are undoubtedly
dried out and just uselessly cluttering up the
back of some drawer somewhere !
|
Monday 15th June
2015
|
08:18
BST
Do you remember "the old days" when waking up on a
summer morning, all bright and shiny, would
inspire you to do all sorts of stuff ? Well we
don't seem to have many of those lately !
Yesterday started grey, and if you ignore the 5
minutes of sunshine late in the afternoon, it
stayed grey all day long. About the only saving
grace is that it was not chilly. Sometime during
the night it must have rained here in Earlsfield,
but there was no signs of any puddles in Catford -
puddles being the clue for overnight rain here in
Earlsfield. However, Earlsfield and Catford share
one thing this morning - miserable grey cloud !
The temperature when I walked to the station was
12.5° C, and if it hadn't have been for a strong
breeze it might have felt more comfortable than it
did. The latest theory is that it should brighten
up around midday, and also at 8pm, but at other
times the sky will look more like a bad winters
day ! The forecast for the coming week gets more
depressing every day. The end of the week was once
forecast to be hot and sunny, but now the forecast
has become far more pessimistic - some
intermittent sunshine, and temperatures not much
better than 20° C. I've known better days in
December !
 First some
good news. I have just received an email from
Transport For London to say that the photo I
uploaded to their web site has been accepted for
use on my new 60+ Oystercard. I have every hope
that I shall have that card in my own sweaty hands
next week, and that I can start to abuse it in
ways that I can't even think of yet. Actually I
probably jest - travelling to and from work is
likely to be it's most common use, but I may take
a few joyrides on it just for fun (or photo
opportunities).
I wonder how other people get on with
uploading photos for Oystercards given the
demanding specifications required of them. The
greatest stumbling block is probably that they
need to be a resolution of 300 dots per inch
(DPI). My two mobiles phones both take photos at a
resolution of 72 DPI - and I suspect that most
people would use a mobile phone to take a "selfie"
to upload. It was second nature to me to use The
Gimp to scale my selfie to 300DPI. Others
might use Adobe Photoshop, but I wonder what
everyone does ?
Yesterday was a very relaxing day - which
is a secret code meaning I did bugger all, all
day. Well maybe that is not entirely true if you
count things like changing the batteries in my
laser pointer - which was pointless because I have
never had a use for a laser pointer, and probably
never will have......although I suppose it does
provides tens of seconds of amusement every 3 or 4
months ! I bought it because I think owning a
real, albeit tiny and low powered, laser is a must
for any sci fi fan.
Yesterday morning I had what should have
been a very tasty breakfast, and as I have already
written, I didn't really enjoy it. One possible
reason for that was that I was feeling a little
bit bloated. For some reason I thought that the
pains that afflict various muscles and ligaments
in my chest were unusually low, and it was that
and the bloated feeling that made my stomach ache
- although it wasn't a painful ache. It was just a
sort of blah feeling that waxed and waned (where
"blah" is a sort of expression that means
discomfort without pain - if such a thing is
possible). Little did I know that it was just pure
bloat - until mid afternoon when the proof and
cure occurred at the same time. It was just an
ordinary, non urgent, single visit to the toilet
when, to turna well know phrase around, the world
fell out of my bottom !
I felt much better after that unprecedented
event, and although there was some lingering
discomfort as my body re-shaped itself, I was able
to enjoy everything else I ate. I had a nice salad
- nice despite the ham looking a little worse for
wear, but apparently tasting OK. I had a whole
punnet of wonderful tasting strawberries. Until
now, strawberries have been an unknown quantity.
Some have been sweet and ripe, and some have been
almost bitter, but the ones I had yesterday were
all beautifully ripe and sweet. I didn't have them
with cream, but I did treat myself to a rare half
pint of unskimmed milk. It was all rather
delicious.
This morning I feel remarkably good.....in
comparison to how I thought I might feel. My chest
feels a bit a bit clicky, and an occasional click
can be momentarily sore. Maybe my doctors,
whenever I get around to seeing him or her, will
be able to suggest a wonder cure for it, but after
over 18 months of it, sometimes good, and
sometimes bad, I suspect I will be living with it
for the rest of my life. The rest of me seemed to
be working quite well, but it did feel like a big
strain trying to keep up with the fastest
commuters on the mad dash between Waterloo East
and Waterloo stations. Some time ago I discovered
that the front of the train was a lot less crowded
than I imagined it would be, and so I now travel
near the front, and I get off the train very near
the exit ramp now - along with the most athletic
commuters - one man even runs all way across the
link. Keeping up with, or overtaking other
commuters was much easier when amongst the
stragglers further from the front of the train !
I feel I want to do something after work,
but I don't know what. If there was some sunshine
to accompany all the extra daylight we have now
(as we approach the longest day of the year), it
is possible. although maybe not likely, that I
would go off exploring somewhere. It's the sort of
thing I feel I would like to do when I have free
travel on my 60+ Oystercard. Whether I will
actually do it is anyone's guess. In some ways,
today could be a good day for it because it should
be a very quite, and probably boring day at
work. All the madness of getting stuff ready
for the exhibition tomorrow is now finished, and
my manager is at the exhibition location setting
stuff up for the start tomorrow. So I can put my
feet up ! I could probably find something to do if
I really tried, but basically I have nothing to do
today. Maybe I should sneak out early,
and.............
|
Sunday 14th June
2015
|
12:35
BST
From mid afternoon onwards, yesterday was a mildly
pleasant day. It was warm and dry, and after a
dull morning it seemed acceptably bright. There
was even some sunshine late in the afternoon. The
temperature probably peaked at 25° C - which
should have felt quite warm - but dropped to
something more like 15 or 16° C a few hours after
sunset. This morning it had not really dropped
much further because the sky clouded over again.
It's now only 17° C, and it's a very grey day so
far. Maybe it will brighten up later on, or maybe
it won't. Some say there is even a 50% chance of
rain this afternoon ! The forecast for tomorrow is
now almost 2 days old, and rather stale, but it
forecasts that tomorrow will be a bit brighter,
and a little bit warmer than today. Well that's
nothing to get excited about !
I was expecting my nose to start pouring at
any time yesterday. It did try and start on a few
occasions, but by late afternoon it became
apparent that I was just about over the cold that
never really was, and that any left over symptoms
were probably just hay fever, and some unnameable,
unknown, definitely lethal (maybe after 20 years)
malady. With that being the case, and after an
afternoon mostly doing nothing but resting, I
decided I really ought to make an effort to go out
- and I did.
The official line was that Jo Corteen and
Dave Griffiths side project, Night Owl, had been
disbanded months ago, but they were playing a gig
in The Chatterton Arms in Bromley last night.
Maybe it was a prior commitment that they wanted
to honour, or maybe a change of circumstances have
re-forming seem like a good idea. Who knows, but I
gritted my teeth, and endured the tedious bus
journey to, and through Bromley, and out to the
very, very slightly more civilised side.
Dave and Jo belting out a song at The Chatterton
Arms.
9pm and it's still broad daylight outside - a
reminder that it is almost mid-summers day !
Jo with guitar.
Close up on Jo.
This is one of those "artistic" shots that
occasionally come out right - possibly !
By the time I reached the bus stop 5 or 6
minutes later the pain was 95% gone. It continued
to fade into no more than a memory while I was on
the bus. That should have made the bus ride sort
of pleasant, but it didn't ! When I arrived at the
bus stop the Countdown display said the first bus
would be a 320, and that it would arrive in 5
minutes. That seemed rather good, but
unfortunately a 208 bus turned up even earlier
than that. You might think that was good, but it
wasn't, and if I had my wits about me I would have
waited for the 320 to arrive and got on that.
Predictably enough, the 320 overtook the 208
before we even arrived in Bromley High Street, and
then left the 208 choking in it's dust as it raced
it's way to Catford. Quite why the bus companies
time the 208 to take twice as long as the 320 is
beyond me. At Bromley Common their routes
converge, and they take the same route, stopping
at the same bus stops all the way to Catford, and
yet the 320 is always faster !
It was just as tedious on the bus going home
as it was on the bus going to the gig, but there
was one little bit of experience that made it ever
so slightly interesting. It was a good few weeks
ago that all the street lights down the local
roads were changed to new LED lights, and last
night was the first time I have been out well
after dark to see how well they work. They do seem
to work well. For some reason they retain a hint
of orangeness like sodium lighting, but only a
hint. I think, or at least I hope, they have less
"upwash" of light, and that may mean we get darker
skies when their use becomes more widespread.
One of the things I wanted to do last night,
and after 3 pints of Guinness I had drunk enough
to do it, was to buy some chicken and chips on the
way home. Last night I managed to resist doing so,
but maybe only because I had already 90% cooked
some Aldi "Southern fried chicken" earlier in the
day, and all it needed was a 5 minute blast of
microwaves to complete the process. They weren't
quite as nice as fried chicken shop pieces, but
were possibly very slightly more healthy -
probably as a result of being microwave cooked -
most of the breadcrumb coating that soaks up so
much of the oil/lard/fat/hydrogenated goo fell off
as I ate the chicken.
With some hot food inside me I should have
been sleepy, but I was overcome with curiosity
about the pictures I had taken. I've been to so
few gigs this year that I wondered if I had lost
my touch. It seems I haven't, well not completely.
There were probably a higher proportion of
unusable snaps than usual, but some of that was
because I was determined not to use any flash for
the vast majority of the pictures I took (I did
use flash for a couple just in case....). I ended
up selecting and editing 10 pictures before I went
to bed, and it was just about 1am when my head hit
the pillow. Even then sleep did not come quickly.
This morning I felt pretty rough, and I
don't think I can blame more than half of it on a
hangover. Maybe I can blame that chicken for some
of the bloat I felt, but it was more than the
chicken in reality. It is all the excess eating
I've done the last week or fortnight, or month, or
year, or..... What I should have done is skipped
breakfast, and gone for a walk, but I had
breakfast....and I didn't really enjoy it !
Today I shall probably continue what I have
been doing for most of the day up until now -
almost bugger all ! I could, and maybe even
should, wash a few shirts, but I can't be
bothered. I blame the miserable grey sky for
de-motivating me. In theory I will be taking a few
days off work in the coming week, and I can do
some laundry then. I might even feel like doing
some after work - stranger things have happened.
Back in the real world - I think I am about to lie
down and read a magazine.....
|
Saturday 13th June
2015
|
15:08
BST
Yesterday was most definitely very humid -
morning, noon and night ! That wasn't always very
pleasant, but the day was probably better than I
thought it would be. In particular, I didn't come
home from work in the middle of a thunderstorm ! I
don't think it rained until about 7pm, and even
then it was more persistent than heavy. Before
that there were occasional bright spells. The
temperature may not have gone about 23° C, but the
humidity made it feel warmer than that, although
for some reason the figure 26° C seems almost
familiar. This morning started off very overcast,
but quite mild - perhaps no lower than 15° C. The
temperature has slowly crept up since then, and it
is now 24 - 25° C, but it is only in the last half
hour that we have seen any sunshine. A lot of the
sky still looks very murky, but there are now some
large blue patches as well. The current theory
about tomorrow is that it will be a little cooler
and a little sunnier - but that is just a theory,
and could well be completely wrong.
I had this theory that I could relax a bit
at work yesterday, and in a very limited sense I
could - for about an hour ! Apart from that it was
all go again as we tried to get everything ready
for the exhibition starting next Tuesday. I almost
made myself late going home as I rushed to finish
the last little job, but I finished it just in
time to leave work a few minutes earlier than
usual - I thought I deserved that !
I had started work yesterday morning feeling
really dreadful. Some of it I could blame on a
hangover, and a lot of it I could blame on a cold
that had been simmering for much of the week, but
by the afternoon the hangover had gone, and so had
the sore throat that had intermittently annoyed me
for a lot of the week. By the time I headed for
home I was feeling much better, but the strain of
fighting the cold, and doing more work than I am
currently accustomed to, left me feeling really
tired, but I found the energy to detour on my way
home, and carry out one little, but important
task.
I have finally done
the deed - I've completed all the steps to
apply for my over 60s Oystercard. With luck it
will be delivered in nine days time, or
hopefully soon after, and from then on my
travel in London should be totally free -
apart for some time restrictions. I believe it
is free 24 hours a day on TFL run services -
buses, tube, overground, Docklands Light
Railway, and Croydon Tramlink, but only after
9.30am on National Rail services within the
London travelcard zones. What they don't say
is that it is free on National Rail before
6.30am. The main reason, beyond just getting
the working day over with as soon as possible,
that I travel to work on the 06:33 service is
that by tapping in with my pay-as-you-go
Oystercard before 6.30am I travel off-peak,
and save over £2 a day. The man from Transport
For London says that I will be able to travel
to work for free using my new old gits
Oystercard provided I continue to travel at
the same time. That is rather handy, and maybe
provides a weak, but definite reason to not
resign from work just yet - although I'd still
like the freedom to bash the new card on
frivolous journeys at random times !
I finally got home from work damp with
sweat, and ready to drop about half an hour
later than usual. I predicted I would have a
smaller than usual dinner, and be fast asleep
in bed extra early. I did eat less than usual,
but Aldi's "Hong Kong Noodles", while tasty
with added chilli sauce, are probably not
terribly good for me. However I didn't get to
bed early. Maybe if I had drunk some booze I
might have gone to bed early, but when it came
to it, I just didn't feel terribly tired.
Maybe with my cold waning, and with no more
pressure from work, I was just feeling a sort
of good.
I think it was probably quite close to
11pm when I got to sleep last night. I slept
fairly well, although I did find myself
getting up for a while at 5.30am. That was
obviously too early (why ?), and after a while
I went back to sleep. It didn't feel like I
slept that well. So it was a surprise when I
realised it was gone 10am ! I decided to get
up properly then - but only very slowly. I
felt pretty bad at first, but gradually I got
the creases out, and by 11am (or was it
11.30am) I headed out to do some shopping from
Aldi. The first few minutes of walking felt
like painful hard work, and then, as always
seems to happen now, everything clicked into
place, and it turned into a pleasant, even
slightly enjoyable stroll - including carrying
the heavy shopping home.
I felt OK when I got back from Aldi, and
it should have been a cue to do something
else, but I thought I would stick to my master
plan of doing some intensive resting - and
restoration. My sore throat may have gone
away, but from time to time I have felt quite
snotty, and I've even coughed hard enough to
hurt my chest once or twice. So I have decided
to let the cold do it's worst to get fully
over it as quickly as possible. Maybe that has
already happened because I don't feel that bad
right now. I haven't coughed for several
hours, and while my nose still feels a bit
stuffy, that could just be a bit of mild hay
fever or something. Maybe I am fully
recovered, and any residual stuff is just
decay as I slowly rot away from old age. When
I was a kid, living to 60 was probably a
privilege of a few, and those were doddery old
gits pushed around in bath chairs reeking of
piss, and totally incoherent - unless I
remember it incorrectly ! Insanity rules !
|
Friday 12th June
2015
|
07:55
BST
On the whole, yesterday was a satisfactory day.
There was a decent amount of sunshine, and it was
20° C when I got home from work after diverting
via the pub for a couple of hours. This morning
started off at a pleasant 14 - 15° C, and there
has been some pleasant early morning sunshine, but
much of the sky is covered with clouds - and some
of them look very heavy. Rain is forecast for
a couple of hours this morning, and then again
later this afternoon. Some of that rain could be
very heavy, and involve a bit of thunder and
lightning. The latest forecast reckons the
temperature will only get to about 23° C instead
of the 26° C they were predicting a day or two
ago. It is also forecast to be very humid, and
that is already apparent even though it is still
cool. Tomorrow is currently looking like it might
be similar to yesterday - not exactly a summers
day, but pleasant enough.
I thought I was going to get away with
having a relaxing day at work yesterday, but it
didn't happen like that at all. I may not have
worked as hard as I did the day before yesterday,
but I still worked pretty hard, and it was a great
relief when home time came around. In one respect
I felt quite good when I left work. I wasn't
really aware of most of my usual aches and pains
because I was distracted by a big discomfort. My
throat felt very raw for most of the afternoon,
and possibly during the morning too. I didn't get
to feel any relief for it until I poured several
pints of beer past it when I got back to Catford.
I had a nice relaxing couple of pints of
"wife beater" (Kronenberg 1664) with some nice
company - so nice that it was actually four pints
! I have to confess that left me a bit drunk, and
I am a bit confused as to what I did when I got
home clutching the fish and chips I bought on the
way. I do remember eating the food while watching
a bit of TV, and I do remember watching most of an
episode of To The Manor Born, and an episode of
M*A*S*H, but what I can't remember is if I decided
to sterilise my sore throat with some neat whisky
while watching TV on my PC. The way I can't quite
remember going to bed, and the way I feel this
morning, both suggest I did !
It seemed like I had a good nights sleep
last night, but I do remember waking up several
times in the night, and I would have loved to turn
over and go back to sleep again when I cancelled
my alarm five minutes before it was due to go off.
Unfortunately I had to come to work this morning.
I have to admit I feel dreadful this morning. Much
of it is hangover, but my throat is still sore. It
is hard to describe exactly how the rest of me
feels. I feel light headed, and chest heavy, and
gut even heavier, but the light headedness is not
dizzyness. It is actually slightly like feeling
drunk - and maybe I am - but if I am then I dread
to think what my hangover will be like when I
finally sober up. In the meantime I also feel a
bit nauseous, and close to death. I don't think
I'll actually die though - that would be too
pleasant right now :-)
|
Thursday 11th June
2015
|
08:04
BST
It is always a problem to remember what
yesterday's weather was like when it was rather
average. It didn't snow, and it didn't rain. There
were no thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, ice
storms, or scorching temperatures. Yesterday was
warm enough to be comfortable, and there was
enough sunshine to make for an almost happy sort
of day. And it was dry. I think it was about 15 or
16° C when I got home from work. I think the sky
stayed fairly clear last night, and yet the
temperature only dropped to 12° C. It did feel a
bit cool as I walked to the station in just my
shirtsleeves, but there was some nice early
morning sunshine. It seems to may well be a very
sunny day, and that should raise the temperature
close to 20° C. The forecast for tomorrow keeps
changing. At least the fine details change, but
the idea that it could be around 26° C, and that
temperature could trigger off some huge
thunderstorms seems to be a constant. Other than
that, it might be a mostly sunny day, or it might
be a mostly rainy day. Oh well, in 24 hours we
will find out the hard way !
Lots of me felt pretty good when I left work
to go home yesterday, but a few bits didn't. Just
recently I seem to be suffering from a very stuffy
nose. It's most probably hay fever, although how
that should affect me in the middle of the night
when the windows are closed remains a mystery. So
it's probably something like nasal cancer, or a
sub-nasal haematoma, or a sprained nasal hair. To
add to the mystery, and add actual discomfort, I
also developed quite a sore throat yesterday. It
felt dry and shrivelled, or something like that.
It was only relieved by frequent sips of drink, or
strong booze once I got home. I think I'll blame
it on cancer of the elbow because I can't think of
a better diagnosis.
The other bit of my that was a bit
uncomfortable was my left foot, or maybe it was my
right foot. Actually it was probably both feet,
but maybe my left foot was more sore than the
right foot. Neither were terribly uncomfortable. I
think that maybe my feet had swollen up a bit, and
the shoes I was wearing weren't ideal for that
situation. It was one of those days where it would
have been nice to get a bus to the station, but as
I was explaining yesterday, it is one of the
immutable laws of the universe that there is never
a bus to Earlsfield station when you actually want
one ! Had I actually waited at the bus stop I
could have got a bus that would have delivered me
to the station approximately 30 seconds later than
walking there did.
Despite my shoes not being very comfortable
I still went home the long way round via Tesco. I
bought a selection of stuff in there - some good
stuff, and some bad stuff, and one interesting
stuff ! The interesting has only just appeared on
the market, and it is on special offer in Tesco
right now - so special that maybe it is only
available in Catford because it doesn't seem to be
available from their online shop. It is Jack
Daniels Fire - a hot cinnamon flavoured
version of Jack Daniels whiskey. It is very
similar to Fireball that seemed to be only
available from Wetherspoons outlets once. I
suspect many wouldn't care for it, but I think it
is wonderful - although the honey version of Jack
Daniels would probably have been better for my
sore throat (and I have no idea why I didn't
gargle with some because I do have a bottle of it
ready for such emergencies).
I sometimes wonder if I really only need 5
or 6 hours sleep. I usually aim to try and get 8
hours sleep if I can. I rarely get a full 8 hours,
but on good days I do get close to it - and I
still end up yawning at work, and sometimes almost
falling asleep in front of my work PC (and
sometimes I do nod off for a few seconds). The
reason I wonder if all I really need is 5 or 6
hours is because I have this really annoying habit
of waking up after 5 or 6 hours sleep, and then
finding it difficult to get back to sleep despite
thinking that I still feel very tired. This
morning was no exception, but with a possible
small variation. From about 3am I would alternate
between 20 minutes of sleep and 10 minutes of
being awake, or maybe vice versa, but it felt like
I had finally entered into deep sleep when my
alarm brutally woke me up at 5am after about 15
minutes of sleep. If my alarm hadn't gone off I
might have even been fast asleep right now...or
that is what I would have hoped for.
This morning I don't seem to feel too bad.
My throat is still a little dry and sore, but not
as bad as it was last night - at least not yet it
isn't. It is possible that my nose is not so
stuffy this morning, although it was awful in the
night. Maybe I've had a cold and didn't realise
it. This could be another disadvantage of not
smoking. Whenever I got a cold when I was smoking
a couple of packets of cigarettes a day, I really
knew all about it. Where this theory falls down is
that although my nose felt stuffy, it didn't
actually "fountain" like it would with any decent
sort of cold, and I don't think the ability of the
nose to gush like the Victoria Falls had/had
anything to do with smoking, but I could be wrong.
So I think I'll fall back on my original diagnosis
of strangulated cancer of the spondulicks.
It's Thursday, and tat means there is a good
chance of some boozing going on somewhere tonight.
I don't know where yet, but I hope it is somewhere
convenient. If it is warm and sunny it could be in
the Blythe Hill Tavern again, and that is fairly
convenient, although I would prefer either The
Catford Constitutional Club, or The Black Cat. I
could definitely do with a drink after work - or
at least I could have done so yesterday or the day
before. I have been working very hard recently -
doing in one day what I would try and stretch out
to 3, or 4 or 5 days ! This was all in aid of
preparing stuff for an exhibition/show that starts
next week. All that hard work means I have done
the vast majority of my contribution to it, and
now all I need to do is give the appearance of
working for much of today and tomorrow - while
others are still rushing around panicking ! So
tonight a drink will be most welcome.....but only
a couple of pints - there could still be last
minute panics to sort out tomorrow morning. Maybe
next week I'll take a couple of days off work, and
get blasted on next Thursday night !
|
Wednesday 10th June
2015
|
07:51
BST
It is always a surprise when the weather turns out
similar to the forecast, and yesterday was one of
those rare days when that happened......or did it
? Maybe there was a little extra sunshine, and
maybe the temperature was a degree or two higher,
but it was close enough. There was one factor I
had not noticed from the forecast, but it became
very apparent as I walked from the station to
home. It was a rather unpleasant cold wind that
seemed to spring up from nowhere. It made the last
leg of my journey home feel very chilly despite
the air temperature being over 15° C (I think it
was 18° C). It cooled down to 11° C during the
night, and a rather murky grey sky made for a
slightly unpleasant journey to work. If the
forecast for today is correct the clouds should
soon start to disperse to make way for a very
sunny afternoon. It is not forecast to be that
warm even if the sun is blazing down all
afternoon. It seems the best we can hope for is 17
or 18° C. Friday is currently looking interesting
- 26° C, but more black clouds and thunderstorms
than sunshine !
The picture/map above
shows part of my walk to the station
yesterday, but it could equally be any day
that I go to work. The significant thing is
just how annoying it can be to think about
where I am actually walking, and by that I
mean the big hairpin loop at the end of the
walk. It takes something like 3 - 5 minutes to
cross the railway lines by walking all the way
past where I wait for the train outside the
station on the road, and then, having crossed
over the footbridge, to walk to near the far
end of the platform, along the platform. Oh
for a pair of wings !
I started yesterday feeling really
rough. After an hour or so at work I felt a
fair bit better. By the end of the working day
I was feeling rather good, although I didn't
really realise that until I left work to head
for home. By the time I reach the main road I
often feel like I am really out of condition.
I am usually breathing heavily, and feeling
like I would like a pint of good beer while
slouching on the sofa. For reasons unknown,
that wasn't the case last night. It seemed
almost easy, maybe 12% towards pleasurable. Of
course such a change obviously portended a
change in reality.......
If I had broken both legs, had blisters
and lesions all over my feet, was having a
heart attack, and possibly a brain
haemorrhage, while at the same time dying for
a pee and/or a poo, you could guarantee that I
could wait at the bus stop on the main road
until hell froze over before a bus came. Last
night, because I was actually feeling
reasonably good, and walking didn't seem to be
the normal chore it is, a bus just sort of
appeared at the bus stop as if by magic. So
one the very day when I didn't need a bus I
took the bus the two stops to the station. One
any other day I would slowly drag my limp and
broken body, one agonising step after another,
crying with pain all the 0.666 miles to the
station. Probably.
I did my best to eat slightly more
selectively when I got home yesterday, and I
almost did - which implies I didn't really. I
did have a tuna salad, but with far too much
delicious mayonnaise, but I also had three
chocolate biscuits, and some cheese, and a can
of double malt Polish lager. It was a
different lager to the one I had the night
before. This one was called Varska (I think).
It was 6.5% alcohol, so a little lighter than
the other one, but it was probably nicer. Many
eastern European beers/lager seem to have a
rusty taste according to my taste buds, but
these two that I have recently tried have
definitely been rather pleasant, and didn't
have a hint of rustyness about them.
Maybe it was all the work I did
yesterday, or maybe it was the can of Polish
lager, or maybe it was just because I went to
bed perhaps an hour later than usual, but I
seemed to sleep very well last night. I think
I feel pretty good for it this morning - or
have I got cause and effect reversed...who
knows....but the important thing is that I
don't feel that bad this morning. It is luxury
compared to yesterday morning, but still far
short of how I feel I ought to feel. I'm sure
I can remember wanting to leap out the front
door laughing and singing on my way to work -
or was that just a drug induced dream, and
reality has always been grim and
uncomfortable.
|
Tuesday 9th June
2015
|
09:49
BST
The forecast for yesterday was pretty bad, but
reality wasn't nearly as bad. Much of the day came
in various shades of grey, but it didn't rain.
There were a few times when rain seemed very
likely, and that included the time it was forecast
for - just as I was going home. It is possible
that I felt as many as three microscopic drops of
rain hit me as I walked to the station, but no
more. The very largest, most threatening cloud
seemed to go away just after I left work, and it
seemed fairly bright for much of my journey home.
The sun even managed to find a few gaps in the
cloud, and I had a bit of sunshine on my way home
- that was definitely not forecast. I think it was
also a few degrees warmer than forecast. Today
seems to be quite close to the forecast, and that
is not surprising because it was forecast to be
very similar to how yesterday actually was - and
statistically, today will be like yesterday many
more times than it won't. So, with luck, we will
see some sporadic bursts of sunshine, and the
temperature above 15° C, but probably not higher
than 18° C.
I have often thought that the walk from work
to the station is evil, and last night I proved it
was !
Using the running app on my new Firefox OS
mobile phone I measured the distance from the exit
from work to the far end of the platform of
Earlsfield station. I go to the far end of the
platform so I can get in the front coach, and so
closest to the ticket barriers at Waterloo
station. (It's probably a hangover from the days
when I would want to get out of the station as
fast as possible to light up a cigarette). It
seems the distance from work to the far end of
Earlsfield station is an exact, evil sounding,
0.666 miles !
On my way home from work yesterday I called
in to the Turkish supermarket to pick up a couple
of bits. While I was in there I perused the
contents of their booze fridge, and I thought I
found the perfect can of lager. It was a Polish
brewed lager, and the can had no English on it at
all. Amongst all the writing that was in Polish,
and often too blurry for my eyes, I spied "WAG
14%". I wondered if that meant 14% alcohol, and so
I bought a can. Some research showed that WAG
percentages are similar to the "Original Gravity"
figure that used to appear on English beers. It
refers to the strength of the wort that is brewed
into the final product - or the ratio of sugars
that yeast converts to alcohol to water. The
actual strength of this Polish lager, whose name
translates to Oak Tree, is 7% - not quite as
strong as "tramp juice" (Special Brew), but quite
tasty.
I didn't do anything worth noting last night
- apart from going to bed. I didn't have a very
good sleep, and it may have been because I felt
quite bloated last night. I guess I ate a lot of
food in small quantities or something. I certainly
didn't eat any big meals last night. I slept OK
until 3am, and from then on my sleep became very
intermittent. At some time while I was in bed, and
I think it was soon after going to bed rather than
soon before I got up, I turned over, and my chest
went CRUNCH. Going crunch is not unusual, but
going CRUNCH is ! It didn't hurt, but I knew it
would have some later effect, and indeed it did.
My chest feels a bit more sore than usual this
morning, and it is a lot more "clicky" when I
perform certain actions.
On top of that, although the two may be
related in some non-obvious way, I felt pretty
lousy this morning. Bit of my were aching a lot
more than usual, or aches appeared in unusual
places. My gut still felt bloated, or perhaps it
would be more correct to say it felt like it had
been bloated earlier. So I didn't have a very
happy journey to work, and in fact if it hadn't
been for the need to get stuff done for next weeks
exhibition, I would happily have taken the day off
sick. In the hours that have passed since then I
have improved a lot, but I still don't feel
terribly wonderful. I expect I will continue to
improve during the day, but it is not easy to
relax with all the panic going on around me. I
couldn't even start to write this until my manager
stopped fussing around in my office. I'm looking
forward to next week when the IFSEC exhibition has
started, and I can put my feet up, or take days of
work, or even go sick if I have so much as a
broken fingernail !
|
Monday 8th June
2015
|
08:22
BST
From afternoon through to sunset it was a pretty
nice day yesterday. The best of the sunshine was
from mid afternoon onwards, and it seemed to stay
sunny right up to the point when the sun dropped
too low to be visible. 20° C wasn't that warm, but
it was most acceptable. It's a shame that today is
forecast to only reach 17° C, and that the
afternoon is going to be so grey after a rather
nice start. It is only 11 or 12° C now, but since
sunrise the sky has been bright blue with hardly a
cloud in sight. It doesn't seem like it will soon
cloud over, and probably rain sometimes around 4
or 5pm, just when I am going home from work, but
that is what the forecast predicts. Tomorrow could
be even worse ! It might not rain, but it is
forecast to be very grey, and the temperature
might only reach an early spring like 15° C. That
is just not good enough for a June day. I think I
should complain to my MP (shame I haven't got
one).
Here's some of the
results of my hard work yesterday afternoon -
washing drying on the line, and within 3 or so
hours it did get mostly dry as the breeze
gently wafted around it while the sun warmed
it. When I took it in just after 7pm there
were still a few lightly damp spots on it, but
even those spots were bone dry this morning. I
couldn't think of anything else satisfying
last night, or at least nothing that I fancied
doing there and then, and so I had a couple of
cans of extra strength lager, and went to bed.
I had some really weird dreams in the
night, but if you don't count waking up half
an hour early, I feel I sleep quite well. Two
of the dreams that I have some memory of
concerned nuclear power. In one dream I was
working in a place that had a nuclear reactor
that was guarded by armed guards, and with a
very strict access protocol - except for me. I
seemed to be able to wander around
unchallenged, and beyond the nuclear reactor
area I seemed to have access to a small warm
room which I could sneak into for a snooze.
The other dream incorporated the two
battery operated LED bulbs that I pictured
yesterday, except in the dream they seemed to
be powered by some sort of radio active
substance and/or process. If I recall
correctly, one of the bulbs was cracked. I'm
not sure if there was anyone else around, or
if I was the only one there, but there seemed
to be no worry about the cracked bulb apart
from the fact that it might fail to light up.
Like in the other dream, the radioactive part
was almost just a background fact to the
setting of the dreams. In the first it was
just a convenient way of getting some sort of
privacy, and in the second it was just a
convenient label for the technology, but
beyond that it had no purpose.
I expected to feel pretty crap this
morning. I thought that doing two lots of
laundry, with one lot incorporating a big
heavy wet towel, would lead to a few extra
aches and pains - and it did, but only to a
very specialised extent. Most of the time I
felt (and feel) not bad, possibly even better
than usual this morning, but......Twice I
swung my ruck sack over my right arm and
threaded my left arm through the second strap,
and twice I had some very interesting chest
pains for a few minutes as I walked down the
road. During those few minutes (maybe just
seconds) I could feel my bones and ligaments
re-arranging themselves into more comfortable
positions after various bits had been
dislodged as I put the ruck sack on. Of course
that is the poetic explanation for unknown
things happening in my chest, and it may not
represent reality (if anyone knows what that
is).
The only other thing about my condition
this morning is that I am out of condition. I
found it impossible to raise the enthusiasm to
rush around, and while I didn't move at what
you might call a sedate pace, I moved at far
from top speed. I think, or maybe I know, that
I've put on a bit of weight this weekend. I
tried hard during last week to moderate my
enthusiasm for eating, but it definitely all
went wrong yesterday and on Saturday. In
theory I should be eating most carefully
tonight, but I don't think it will happen. I
have several perishable foods in the fridge
that I can't put off eating for too long.
Besides which, I am quite looking forward to
carefully warming up a couple of Ginsters
steak slices. If I can get them to just the
right temperature, I reckon they will be like
ambrosia - food of the gods !
Last Friday I showed a couple of pictures of
what looked like a delivery of new
politicians to Waterloo station. This
morning the container was opened, and lo and
behold - vicious, biting, self centred
politicians !
|
Sunday 7th June
2015
|
16:17
BST
I guess today's weather has been almost a clone of
yesterday's weather. The day started very cool,
but not actually cold, maybe just over 10° C. It
was usually quite bright, but not always sunny. As
morning passed into afternoon the periods of
sunshine became longer, and the temperature, just
like yesterday, seems as if it has stabilised
around 20° C. Tomorrow is likely to be a
disappointing day according to both the BBC and
Accuweather. It is going to be a lot greyer, a
good few degrees cooler, and it will probably be
raining when I leave work to go home. Deep joy !
My prediction that I would do nothing last
night turned out to be quite accurate. I treated
myself to a couple of glasses of whisky, and
basically just slobbed around until I went to bed.
The booze obviously helped me sleep, but I also
experimented with taking the duvet out of the
duvet cover so I was cooler in the night. That
turned out quite well until 4am when my bedroom
had cooled off a lot. I had to try and keep every
bit of me covered to stay warm after that.
I got up in two stages this morning. First
of all I got up at 5am as my body is trained to do
during the week. I took all my blood pressure and
stuff pills, checked my emails, checked some web
pages, and finally I went back to bed again. At
first I didn't think I would sleep, but the next
thing I knew was that it was heading for mid
morning !
I took my time getting up, and it was gone
11am when I went out for a little walk to the
shops. I didn't have to go out, but I thought I
would force myself to go out for at least a little
bit. As is so often the case, once I got moving I
began to almost enjoy it - in places. I visited
the 99p shop where I stocked up on a spare jar of
cocoa butter cream. That was the only stuff that
seemed to heal the bottom end of the scar when the
surgeons removed a yard of vein for my heart
bypass. Maybe it didn't actually help at all, and
it was just that I stopped the nurse fiddling with
it, and let it heal itself, but that cream did
help soften, and sort out the strange scarring
that was left from whatever accident the surgeons
had while I was anaesthetised (it was like a
chemical burn).
After the 99p shop I went into Poundland
where I bought some stuff I shouldn't eat, and I
bought some more useful stuff like nice smelly
Zoflora disinfectant, and another Jeremy Clarkson
DVD (good value for just £1, but no more !). On
the way home I felt sort of good, and I thought I
might take a walk around the park once I had
delivered my shopping home. When I got withing a
few hundred years of home that idea seemed to
dissipate, and I ended up staying home all
afternoon (and I won't be going out tonight
either).
All of a sudden some strange things have
appeared in the shops....
They are battery
powered LED lightbulbs. They look very similar
to mains powered LED lights that fit in a
normal domestic light bulb socket - at least
the one on the left does, although both
simulate the Edison screw fitting that is more
popular in America rather than the BC (bayonet
cap) fitting that is used in the UK. I bought
the one on the left from Aldi on Saturday
morning. It is rather superior to the one on
the right which I bought from Poundland this
morning.
The one from Aldi cost £3.99 if I recall
correctly. It came with the single AA battery
that powers it, and in operation it has three
settings - full brightness, half brightness,
and flashing. The single AA battery it was
supplied with lasted nearly 24 hours, although
the light had noticeably dimmed in the last
hour or two. It is principally designed for
outdoor activities, and it suggested to could
be hung in a tent. One battery would probably
last for many nights if used for a few hours
as darkness fell. I reckon it would be very
handy at home during a power cut.
The bulb on the right uses 3 AAA
batteries, and yet is no brighter. In fact it
may be slightly dimmer. I bought it from
Poundland this morning for (obviously) just
£1, but I had to provide my own batteries. I
have yet to do an endurance test on it, but I
suspect it may last less than the other one
despite using three batteries. I have no
immediate use for either of these bulbs, but
maybe they will come in handy one day, or
maybe I'll join the Boy Scouts and take up
camping or something !
When I started writing this I was all
hot and sweaty after doing some actual
physical work. I did two lots of laundry. The
first was just 4 work shirts and some
underwear, but the second lot involved a
medium sized bath towel. Towels get remarkably
heavy when saturated with water, and it was
manhandling that that put sweat on top of my
sweat ! The good thing is that the weather
should be good for drying outside. The sun has
now moved far enough around the sky to shine
straight on to that dripping towel, and the
breeze is keeping the air moving over it. It
may not be fully dry when I bring it in a bit
later this evening, but it may be no more than
slightly damp - with luck.
Oh well, it's back to work tomorrow. I
hope that manhandling that heavy wet towel,
and the other stuff, has not hurt my chest too
much, and that I am not in too much discomfort
tomorrow - although past experience suggests I
definitely won't come out of it completely
unscathed. Tomorrows work could be slightly
interesting, and possibly even very slightly
enjoyable, but I think I am looking forward to
a few days off work once all the panic about
the IFSEC exhibition is all in the past. I
think the exhibition is now about 9 days away,
and once it has started I can put my feet up
and concentrate on being the laziest bastard
of all at work.
|
Saturday 6th June
2015
|
16:12
BST
High humidity made yesterday morning a very sweaty
morning, but the afternoon was more pleasant. The
nasty greyness that followed the early morning
torrential downpours, dissipated during the
morning, and the afternoon was unexpectedly nice
and sunny. In the morning I had speculated on the
chances of it being dry when I left work, but
reality turned out far better than the forecast
predicted. I can't remember how warm it got, but
it was somewhere in the region of 20° C, and that
was better than expected. It was almost a warm
night, but the temperature had dropped to 10° C by
5am this morning. Much of the day has been fairly
sunny, although maybe not as sunny as had been
forecast. It seems to be getting a bit cloudy now,
but it is still bright, and the temperature is a
very pleasant 20° C. The forecast for tomorrow,
which is now almost 24 hours old, says the day
will start at 10° C, and after non stop sunshine
it will only reach 19° C by 5pm. After that it
will start to cool off, and it will get a bit
cloudy. Quite what will actually happen is
anyone's guess !
Apart from wearing some medium
uncomfortable shoes, I felt strangely OK
yesterday. Sometimes I would get a few very short
lived aches and pains here and there for some
unknown reason, but I felt reasonably robust.
Maybe walking in uncomfortable shoes distracted me
from worse things. Who knows ? I sort of expected
work to be unpleasant, but I felt very tolerant to
what I had to do. Maybe it was an effect from my
magic shoes or something !
On the way home from work I called into
Tesco and spent rather a lot considering I was
just going to buy a couple of items. I seemed to
need three carrier bags to bring it all home in,
although one carrier bag was dedicated to some
cleaning stuff and a bottle of lethal looking
weedkiller. I hope that weedkiller will kill off,
or at least seriously maim a budhlia bush that
started to grow in the most inaccessible place
outside my bedroom window. Just before writing
this I was leaning out the window as much as I
could, and spraying the bush as best I could. I
don't know how much weedkiller hit it, or how much
just blew away in the wind.
Other stuff that I bought from Tesco
included a ready cooked, hot bacon joint. Compared
to a few rashers for breakfast, there is probably
quite a lot of bacon on one of Tesco's hot bacon
joints, but even so, most of the size of it is
nothing but bone. I ate the whole lot together
with a grilled vegetable tart - at least I think
that was how it was described. It was a seriously
expensive item from Tesco's "Finest" range, and I
only bought it because it had a reduced (approx
half) price sticker on it. It was rather nice
though, but probably still not worth the full
asking price. I'm not even sure that the reduced
price matches the few pennies the ingredients
probably cost.
I went to bed feeling full, but not over
full, and not before watching a compilation of old
clips on BBC2 from the BBC's "Old Grey Whistle
Test" back in the 1970s. It probably says
something about modern music that there has been
no effort to revive such a well regarded
programme. It had it's heyday in the heyday of
great music. Watching Argent play "God Gave Rock
And Roll To You" back in 1973 brought out some
strong emotions - a lot of good ones, but
ultimately it left me feeling rather sad. You
could say that 1973 was a pivotal point in my life
where I choose a path that lead to some good
times, but it was ultimately a dead end. I hit
that dead end 27 years later, and I seem to have
been stuck there ever since.
The good thing about today is that it is not
a work day, and that means I could get up slowly
in my own time. I know I don't exactly rush to get
ready on a work day, but today I took two or three
times longer to make the transition from sleep to
conciousness, and I felt so much better for it.
Walking to the station to meet Aleemah was not
pleasurable, but walking to the station never was
- ever - but this morning it wasn't a chore like
it is on a weekday morning.
Here's a composite
picture of the two beers I had (as two
half pints) for breakfast in the Wetherspoons
pub with Aleemah this morning. The Portobello
Star was pleasant without being anything to
write home about. The Feral Hop Hog was rather
nice. The hops they used in it gave it a very
mildly citrus flavour. Some beers using the
same, or similar hops can taste a bit like
grapefruit to me. That can still be nice, but
this wasn't as strong as that, and nicer for
being so.
Aleemah brought along the movie about
Steven Hawking, but I didn't fancy watching
that. I think it's probably the first time
I've turned down one of Aleemah's DVDs. I
suggested that we watch Shaun
Of The Dead instead. It was one of the
DVDs I bought in Poundland last week (or the
week before). Aleemah had seen it before
closer to it's original release date, but was
happy to watch it again. It wasn't quite as
good as I had hoped for, but it was still
probably worth double what I paid for it (£1)
!!!
Aleemah went home some time ago, and I
was supposed to be doing some laundry, but for
some reason I can't be bothered to do any
right now. I could be bothered to do some
cooking though. I added the final ingredient,
some corned beef found on the reduced price
shelf in Tesco last night, to the potatoes I
had cooked in stock with added garlic and
chilli way back on Wednesday night. It was all
good except for one thing. When I originally
prepared those potatoes I added some chilli
paste to "zap them up a bit". I really ought
to throw that chilli paste away. It is all
heat and no taste. Chillies can have a very
nice taste as well as being hot, but not these
ones, and burning the lips and tongue for no
added flavour is a bit pointless.
Tonight I am doing nothing. There was a
gig last night that it would have been nice to
go to if I had any energy and enthusiasm left
after a day at work with it's soul crushing
travelling to and fro, but I don't think there
is anything that I would be interested in
going on tonight - although maybe I ought to
check just in case I feel a sudden burst of
energy and enthusiasm - like I used to have
years ago.
I didn't get a chance to show these photos
taken on Thursday.
Ocean Spray were giving away samples of
their wares on the concourse of Waterloo
station.
|
Friday 5th June
2015
|
08:01
BST
I think that yesterday had the nicest weather so
far this year. As the forecast predicted
(amazingly !) it was a dry bright day with plenty
of sunshine, and the temperature rose to at least
24° C by late afternoon. During the night it all
changed. The forecast did pre-warn us of the
change, but I don't think even that imagined there
would be thunderstorms at 5am this morning. I woke
up to torrential rain with many distant, and
receding peals of thunder. It had stopped raining
when I left to walk to the station, and has
remained dry since, but the sky retains an evil
greyness about it. More rain, and more
thunderstorms are forecast, but there will be dry
spells between them. Maybe I'll be lucky to go
home in the dry...or maybe not ! Tomorrow
should/could see a return to dry sunny weather,
but maybe not as warm as yesterday. Meanwhile it's
only about 15° C, but the humidity makes it feel
very sweaty !
 Sometimes,
like this morning, I don't care to walk too far,
or too fast. I guess I am just out of practice,
although this morning I was slightly handicapped
by my choice of shoes. I don't know if it just my
feet, or if it is some strange inconsistency in
the way they are manufactured, but there is no
telling if my feet will find seemingly identical
pairs of cheap Converse-like trainers sometimes
very comfortable, and sometimes uncomfortable. The
pair I am wearing this morning are uncomfortable.
They don't appear to be rubbing anywhere, and nor
do they seem to be pinching anywhere, but the
faster I try and walk, the more it feels like I am
walking on an uncomfortable surface. So this
morning I have not attempted to break any speed
records !
That wasn't the case last night. I still
wasn't trying to break any speed records, but it
seemed quite comfortable to walk a tad over half a
mile, and quite surprising to realise I was
averaging close to 3 mph. That was always my
average speed for the long walks I used to do, and
hope to do again some day. There were two reasons
for this performance. The most obvious one being
the lure of beer, and the second one being the hot
sunshine. It seems I remain weird in that when
others are complaining about the heat, my muscles
seems to finally start work properly.
I would only classify yesterday afternoon as
pleasantly warm rather than actually hot, but it
was good enough, and it was delightful to sit
under a hot sun drinking beer with some good
company. I decided that after last week's rather
long session, and excess beer with all the follow
on effects of that, I would take things a bit
easier last night. I just had three pints of a
rather pleasant tasting "Hophead
" by the Dark Star brewery before going home
again. 90% of the walk home, which was a bit
longer than the walk there, felt fine, but that
last bit started to seem a bit like hard work.
When I got in I had some very unhealthy
dinner, and then I just sort of collapsed - not
physically, nor mentally, but intellectually - a
sort of medium vegetative state. It wasn't that
long before I was in bed, but because I was far
from drunk, I didn't go to sleep as soon as my
head hit the pillow. Not only that but it felt
rather warm in my bedroom. Perhaps it felt humid
too - as if it were a foretaste of this morning.
So I didn't fall asleep very fast, and I didn't
sleep that well.
This morning I seemed to feel quite hot and
sweaty after walking even fairly short distances.
I wasn't sure if it was the weather, or if there
was something wrong with me, but I think I got the
answer when I went into Sainsbury's round the
corner from Earlsfield station. They have air
conditioning in there, and it felt perfectly
normal when I went in there. It wasn't turned up
high so it didn't feel chilly in there, but it was
enough to make the outside air feel like being hit
with a warm wet flannel when going outside the
shop again. The rest of me feels tolerably well. I
had a few small unexplained pains on the way here,
but mostly I just sort of feel end of the week
tired. It will feel nice to put my feet up after
work - which is a shame because that doesn't make
it sound like I'll be getting out to Chain's gig
in Greenwich tonight. I wonder if I'll ever get to
an evening gig again ?
It looks like a fresh crate of politicians was
delivered to Waterloo station this morning.
Not a very clear picture !
The label on the side says DANGER - PREDATORY
LIVESTOCK - TRAINED HANDLERS ONLY !
Some say it is just some sort of advertising
stunt for a TV channel, or a film, but I think
we know better !
|
Thursday 4th June
2015
|
08:11
BST
It's difficult to admit it, but I think that they
may have got the weather forecast for yesterday
about right - but only the one made about 12 hours
in advance. It was dry, it was warm, and it was
sunny. I'm not sure if it did hit 20° C, but it
must have been close to it. The forecast for today
says it will be bright and sunny most of the time,
and that the temperature should peak at 20° C or
more. The forecast for tomorrow is interesting.
after saying it would be wet, or it would be dry,
or it would be both, the forecasters now seem to
have settled on a hot sunny day with a good chance
of a rip roaring thunderstorm in the middle of it
! Well I guess that sounds like a typical summers
day, so it must be about right !
This was the glorious blue sky as I walked to
the station this morning.
Catford Bridge station at approx 06:30 this
morning. The sky was blue, but my camera phone
overexposed the picture, and bleached all the
blue out of the sky.
The pictures above were taken on my new
"toy" - An Alcatel 6015E mobile phone running
the Firefox operating system. It's a bit like
Android, but completely different ! I have to
confess that I bought the phone out of
curiosity, and it was just cheap enough to
sort of justify that. It was just £70 from
Amazon, and that price included a 16GB memory
card for it.
Was it worth it ? Possibly not. It
arrived in the post at lunchtime yesterday,
and so I've been playing with it for less than
24 hours. Some of that time was taken up with
charging it, and it seemed to take ages to
download a complete system update (about 300MB
if I recall correctly). It did a smaller one
this morning that took 5 minutes instead of 3
hours !
I think I am happy with it in all
respects except for a few critical ones that
will probably stop me using it as my everyday
phone. The big problem is a lack of specific
applications for it. There are loads of
potentially useful applications available for
it, and billions of useless things like games,
but there are no transport applications at
all. No bus times, and no train times - except
for some bus timetables for Delhi, and some
sort of bus or tram, or train timetables for a
London that isn't the UK London where I live
(maybe it's an American London, but I wonder
if there is an Indian London ?).
The screenshot on the left is of one of
the desktops - it's all very much standard
smartphone stuff, hardly different to a
million other smart phones.
Having a new toy to play with made
yesterday afternoon at work seem more pleasant
than usual, and I felt quite good as I left
work and headed for home. I didn't feel so
happy when I got to Waterloo and found my
train from Waterloo had been delayed. There
had been a derailment on a different branch,
and that was affecting train coming from Slade
Green depot. My train did eventually run. It
was over 20 minutes late when it arrived at
Waterloo East, and it was only going as far as
Elmers End (although that is 4 stops after
Catford Bridge, and not a problem for me).
Things got quite convoluted because it was due
to arrive at Waterloo East one minute later
than what would be the next train - and that
next train was going to make an additional
stop at Lewisham.
If the information we got as passengers
was completely honest and reliable it would
have made my next decision very easy, but I
had to make a decision without being able to
rely on the information I was given. I
reckoned that the first train to arrive going
to Hayes (Kent), via Catford Bridge, would be
jam packed because there hadn't been a service
in over an hour. I was right about that, and
waiting for the next train, originally shown
as being just one minute behind, would let me
travel on a half empty train - which it did.
If the first train (which if you are able to
follow these meandering thoughts correctly you
will remember should have been the following
service) was going to stop at Lewisham, the
second train, the one I was going to, and did
get, should have been able to "overtake" the
second train, and it would arrive at Catford
Bridge first. Sadly that didn't happen. The
train I got did not arrive at Waterloo east
one minute later, but nearly 10 minutes later.
Oh well, I got home in the end, and at least I
had a whole block of 4 seats all to myself for
a change !
My new phone spent a considerable amount
of yesterday evening downloading a huge system
update. So I had to do other things while it
did that. One thing was to eat dinner. It was
supposed to be some amazing concoction based
upon the potatoes I had 90% cooked the night
before, but I couldn't be bothered with that.
I had a ready made fish pie instead, and it
was very small, and it didn't seem very tasty.
So I also had a steamed fish, potato and green
beans ready meal (only 300 calories if I
recall correctly). I also wasted some time
watching a bit of TV.
Eventually the phone completed the
download, and I held my breath while it
rebooted. Fortunately the upgrade went OK, and
from then on I could start to configure
things. I set it up for a couple of my email
accounts. Added loads of contacts, and fiddled
with a bit of this, and a bit of that until I
realised it was getting absurdly late, and I
should have been asleep an hour ago ! It was
very difficult getting to sleep while I was
excited. Most nights are deadly boring, but
last night was one of the rare exceptions.
It think it was past 11pm before I was
asleep, and I didn't sleep that well. I had a
horrible dream about a water leak. I had
gallons of water pouring into my hallway from
no obvious, or even possible source ! I was
quite surprised that when I woke up from that
nightmare I hadn't peed the bed, nor did I
have any urgent need to have a pee. I guess it
was just one of those house falling down
nightmares that probably affect all property
owners from time to time.
This morning I don't feel all that bad.
Maybe it is the change of weather, but I don't
seem to have any annoying aches and pains this
morning. That's not to say that nothing creaks
and groans this morning - plenty of bits do
that, but the level of pain is minimal. My
legs definitely feel a bit creaky this
morning. It seemed impossible to walk as fast
as I prefer - particularly so when walking
from the station to work. That's one of those
walks that is so bloody boring that you want
it to be over in seconds, but without growing
wings it is impossible. So you slog it out -
sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and this
morning it was somewhere between.
It is quite possible I will be drinking
tonight, but I don't know where yet. I
hope that we are drinking somewhere local
tonight or I might drop out and be forced to
drink a can of 9% lager at home instead....or
not. I don't think I want to do anything like
travel into Bromley tonight, but I might be
prepared to walk half a mile from the station
in the wrong direction to The Blythe Hill
Tavern for a couple of pints - and no more
than a couple tonight ! There was a suggestion
that on the next warm and sunny Thursday we
would be drinking there, and it should be
delightfully warm and sunny at 5pm tonight.
|
Wednesday 3rd June
2015
|
07:55
BST
Once again the weather forecast was at odds with
reality yesterday. I was expecting a cold, wet,
grey, miserable day, and indeed it did start like
that, but by the afternoon it was fairly bright,
and it had stayed dry for most of the morning. By
the time I left work to go home it was quite a
decent sort of day. It was definitely rather
breezy - a very strong breeze ! - but that breeze
seemed to be bringing in warm air, and it almost
felt warmer outside than it did in my office where
I had had the heater on all day. If I recall
correctly, 20° C was showing on my thermometer
when I arrived home.
The forecast for the next few days has
changed yet again. Today should be warm and sunny.
It started off at 13° C, but it was rather dull.
The sky is clearing now, and it does look like it
could be a warm sunny day with a top temperature
of 20° C (or maybe even more) if the sun can stay
out. Tomorrow is currently forecast to be bright
and approaching hot. The forecasts for Friday, and
the weekend have been going up and down like a
yo-yo. Some days they think it will be cold and
wet, and on other days they think it will be hot
and dry. The current forecast is sort of half way
between the two. It's all a devious plan to claim
that the forecasts are completely accurate, and at
07:59 on Friday I am expecting them to make a
completely accurate forecast for 08:00....and it
might even hold good until 09:00, but I won't hold
my breath that it will still be right at midday !
Maybe it was the change of weather, maybe it
was something totally transcendental, but I felt
curiously OK, almost good, when I went home from
work yesterday. I had been feeling a bit rough in
the morning, and had taken a couple of Ibuprofen
tablets to calm things down, but they don't last
that long. I can't even attribute it to the beer I
had last night (unless my subconscious had already
decided on it without informing me first).
Whatever it was gave me a sort of lightness of
mind, and that gave me a lightness of step - or
was it the other way around ?
I went home via the Turkish supermarket
again yesterday. I'm not sure what was the most
important item I wanted when I went in, but I
decided I wanted more Tzatziki,
and a couple more pots of bean salad. Then I
thought it might be a good idea to see if they
still had any cans of genuine 9% Special Brew left
to replace the one I had drunk on Monday night.
They had, and so I bought a replacement and a
spare. I also noticed they had another 9% super
lager. It was Kestrel, a well know awful pissy
lager in it's usual form, but I took a chance that
the 9% version may have had some decent flavour
(it did).
When I got home I cooked a potato, spinach,
and salmon casserole*, and I kept the recipe of
this one quite simple with just a bit of stock,
garlic and chilli sauce to add to the other three
ingredients. It was pleasant, but not exciting. So
for tonight I have prepared, and pre-cooked the
potatoes with more garlic, chilli paste, and beef
stock. Obviously that won't go with fish, and I
don't have any beef to add to it. I guess it might
end up as potato and beans tonight. I feel quite
excited about the possibilities for it, but of
course on most days food is my one single pleasure
that makes life worth living.
*Casserole - well it was cooked in a Pyrex
casserole dish so I guess it must have been a
casserole even if it was completely different to
any casserole we have heard of before !
After I had finished dinner I shut down the
living room and went up to my bedroom and PC to
watch a bit more TV. While doing so I had to
satisfy my curiosity about that Kestrel super
lager. It was quite nice, but I didn't think it
was quite as good as the original Special Brew.
The only way to be sure was to also drink a can of
Special Brew to make sure, and yes, Special Brew
is nicer, but not by a great extent. In even the
merest of emergencies either would be completely
acceptable, but where there was a choice I think I
would stick with traditional Special Brew.
After drinking two cans of extra strength
lager I was obviously starting to feel the effects
of the booze, but with nothing more to do except
go to bed, that didn't matter, and it may have
been a good thing. I certainly got to sleep faster
last night than I did the night before, and to
some extent I may have slept better, but it did
give rise to a couple of strange dreams. I was
possibly fast asleep by 8.30pm last night. At 1am
this morning I woke up - twice, or was it three
times ? The first and/or second times I was still
asleep when I woke up ! I had a dream, at least I
think it was a dream, that I woke up feeling still
very sleepy, and I didn't want to get up and go to
work. I am pretty sure the next part of the dream
was that the first part was actually a dream, and
that now I really had woken up, and it was time to
check my clock. As I looked it I seemed to realise
that something was wrong, and that I ought to
really wake up - which is what I did - I think !
Having ascertained that it was only 1am I didn't
have to panic about getting up while feeling so
sleepy, and I turned over and went back to sleep
again.
The next dream, that probably happened as
5am approached, was about a new camera, possibly
in a new mobile phone. I was trying to copy the
pictures to my PC, but different pictures seemed
to come off the device. The dream seems very hazy
now, and I can't remember the details of the
dream, I do recall that it was a most perplexing
dream that left me feeling very frustrated. Maybe
it was a premonition of a potential problem coming
up in real life. In real life I have just wasted
some money on a new "toy". It is a rather cheap,
but possibly rather well specced mobile phone
running the Firefox
operating system. I have to confess that I
bought it for it's novelty value rather than
having any great need for it, but in theory it is
a better phone than I currently have - and that is
rather good for a sub-£100 phone - and one great
advantage is that it can take a micro-SD card, and
I can fill that up with pictures, music files, or
any other crap that I currently have to store on
the limited internal memory of my current phone.
It should even be possible to replace the Firefox
operating system with Android if needed.
I ordered this new phone from Amazon, and it
should be delivered here to work today. I opted
for free delivery, and that meant a wait of 3 - 5
working days - and it seems not a day before !
Let's see if I can reproduce the tracking details
for my parcel...
Shipment
details
|
|
Latest
update:
|
|
Sunday, 31
May 04:27
|
Parcel
arrived at a carrier facility
Croydon, GB
Carrier: Amazon Logistics
|
Saturday,
30 May 19:39
|
Parcel
left the carrier facility
KOBERN-GONDORF, RP, DE
|
Saturday,
30 May 19:15
|
Parcel
arrived at a carrier facility
KOBERN-GONDORF, RP, DE
|
Saturday,
30 May 09:24
|
Parcel
arrived at a carrier facility
Hemel Hempstead, UK, UK
|
| Saturday,
30 May 06:00 |
Parcel
arrived at a carrier facility
GRIMBERGEN
|
Friday, 29
May 11:54
|
Parcel has
been handed over to the carrier and is
in transit
Bad Hersfeld, DE
|
The sharp eyed may spot that my parcel
originated in Germany, and then it was shipped to
Hemel Hempstead in the UK. From there it was
shipped back to Germany, and from Germany it was
shipped to Croydon back in the UK. This is really
weird ! Is this some dodgy tax thing that Amazon
are well know for ? Is it something I should worry
about ? Will all this extra travelling reduce my
new phone and it's packaging to a mere pile of
pulp ? Well, some time today, and I am guessing
around midday, I will find out - after all a
semi-fit postman could walk from Croydon to here
in well under a day. When I was at my fittest it
would only have taken me about 4 hours !
|
Tuesday 2nd June
2015
|
07:50
BST
The weather forecasts seem to be more and more
erratic these days. A man with a piece of seaweed
can make a more accurate forecast than a super
computer the size of a small village - or so it
seems. Yesterday was a good example of getting it
all wrong. There were no showers in the afternoon,
and although it may not have actually been very
sunny, and it was barely warm, it was mostly
fairly bright. It was certainly nothing to get
excited about, but it was not offensive in any
way.
Yesterday, based on what the forecast seemed
to say about today, I suggested that today could
be better than yesterday. I was wrong because the
forecast was wrong. Today has started off rather
grim. It may be 12 or 13° C, but the sky is the
colour of slate, and it has been raining. It now
seems highly likely that it will be like this for
most of the day. The only hope is that the brief
(slightly) bright spell shown in the forecast for
around 4pm turns out to be right. The one thing
the forecast did get right was, but only a few
minutes in advance of it happening, is the wind.
it's going to be quite blowy for a few days or
more.
The forecast for the end of the week, and
into the weekend, has suddenly changed too. Maybe
it is because the train strike, which I was
counting on so I could have a day off work on
Friday, has been called off. A day or two ago a
heatwave was forecast with temperatures maybe
hitting 30° C on Friday or Saturday. Not any more
! The best we can hope for is now forecast to be
22° C, and there is as much chance of rain as
sunshine.
Life during the working week has been rather
unexciting for the last 5, 10, 15, ? years. Some
days some things happen, but not lately. I'm not
sure if it's like being on a treadmill, or being
in prison. I imagine the cycle of eat - sleep -
work - eat - sleep - work must be similar for
both. Of course this is the reason that I spend so
much time saying how I slept, what I ate, and how
many aches and pains I have. It is a complete
summary of my life on most days - and today may,
or may not be a typical day.....but was yesterday
?
I felt quite odd yesterday. I can't really
explain why, or even what those odd feelings were
in any clarity. My chest felt odd in a sort of
vague way. Some pains seemed to be missing, and a
strange sort of pain so high up that it was almost
in my neck was a novelty. The oddest thing of all
was that my appetite seemed to be all awry. I did,
and didn't feel hungry at the same time. I had
some bean salad that I bought on my way home from
the Turkish supermarket. That was supposed to be a
little snack to amuse my stomach while I cooked a
potato, spinach and fish ghoulash *.
* The use of the word ghoulash here has nothing to
do with cookery or reality. It is just a word
plucked out of the aether to make a simple dish
appear sophisticated......or something.
The only thing was, I suddenly found I
didn't fancy cooking that, or indeed anything. So
I had a bag of quite hot chilli flavoured crunchy
potato snacks (a bit like crinkle cut crisps) that
I dipped in a small tub of Tzatziki.
The yoghurt and cucumber really sucked the heat
out of those crisps. That really should have been
all I wanted, or needed to eat last night, but
after a while I fancied more, and the simplest
thing I could think of was to have a couple of
apples and a rather larger lump of mature Cheddar
cheese that I probably ought to have ate. The
apples were not sour, but also weren't very sweet.
So they shouldn't have raised my blood glucose too
much.
There was one other thing I did last night
that was out of the ordinary. Some months ago,
quite early in the year I think, but I can't
remember exactly when, I had a random desire for a
can of 9% Special Brew. Unfortunately there were
moves to either ban the stuff, or to water it
down, and Tesco had jumped the gun and had already
stopped stocking it. That pissed me off greatly.
After a week or two I found some cans in a small
shop, and bought four cans of it, and over the
next few days I added four cans of two other super
strength lager because all these extra strong
beers were facing a ban of some kind. Since then I
haven't had the urge to drink any until last
night. I only allowed myself one can of the (now)
precious substance, but it satisfied the craving
until next time - which could be tonight, or it
could be in 6 months time. who can tell.
Having filled myself up with junk food, and
drunk some 9% super lager, I went to bed. It may
sound like I should have fallen asleep easily
after that lot, and maybe I did in reality, but it
didn't feel like while I was trying to get to
sleep. Maybe it only lasted a couple of minutes,
or maybe it lasted for the full 20 minutes that it
felt like, but during whatever period of time it
was I cursed my pillow for being half an inch too
high and too low at the same time. Cursed the fact
that one arm outside the duvet felt too cold while
the one under it felt too hot. Cursed all the new
lumps in my mattress that weren't there the night
before, and wondered why my big left toe had
suddenly started to feel painful in a way that I
couldn't identify. Then I fell asleep, and
probably slept slightly better than many nights.
This morning I feel pretty crap (although my
left big toe feels perfectly OK again). It was a
morning where the more I did, the more my chest
would seem to click and pop, and ultimately start
to feel sore. It was a morning where I decided
that a couple of Ibuprofen tablets might cure the
inflammation that was starting to become annoying.
It was also a morning where I felt it imperative
to come into work no matter how rough I felt
because staying at home would just make me feel
even worse. So here I am at work, sitting down
with the heating on because it is still bloody
chilly this morning despite it being summer (or
very close to it depending on which date you
believe in).
I feel tolerably comfortable physically,
but I don't feel what you might call happy at the
moment. The fact that the little pot of puy
lentils and couscous that was going to be half my
breakfast had a faulty seal, smelled a bit funny,
and had to be thrown away is one tangible reason
for feeling depressed this morning. The horrible
grey sky, and the cold, is probably another good
reason. Maybe there are other reasons too, but I
don't know what they are. All I know is that I
would prefer to be walking along near the sea
under a very hot sun....and maybe swigging from a
can of ice cold Special Brew (although in reality
I drink nothing more than plain water while
walking, and not much of it until I've finished
walking).
|
Monday 1st June
2015
|
07:54
BST
In meteorological terms, today is the first day of
summer, although in astrological terms the first
day of summer is still three weeks away. So, how
are we doing. Yesterday was awful, awful, awful -
until it wasn't ! After a day of dull grey skies,
that felt cold even if it wasn't in reality,
the clouds slowly parted, and the last 3 hours of
daylight were bright and sunny. I was safely in my
warm and dry bedroom, isolated from the outside
world, but it still made me feel good ! This
morning has started off rather chilly feeling
(little more than 9° C), but it was bright and
sunny and cheerful. sadly it won't last, and even
now the blue sky seems to have been largely
replaced by a white mistiness. If the forecast is
correct it will be raining in a few hours time,
but it may brighten up by 4pm, and even if not
sunny, it should be dry by then. Unfortunately it
may only be a cool feeling 14° C. Tomorrow may be
a little better, but Wednesday is supposed to show
a major change for the better, and by Friday
temperature could be approaching a very
comfortable (except for sleeping) 30° C !
I can't give all the credit to yesterday
evening sunshine because it started to happen
before then, but I'm sure that sunshine helped me
to feel rather good in the evening. So good that I
forgot about being bored, and pissed off. I was
also free of any significant pain, aches, etc.
This was rather good, but it did have one
drawback. Instead of feeling tired I felt very
alert, and it's not easy getting to sleep on time
when feeling like that. At some point in the
proceedings I seemed to make matters worse by
deciding I had to wash my hair, and that meant I
had to delay trying to go to bed while my hair
dried.
On reflection, I think I fell asleep a lot
quicker than it seemed at the time. I don't recall
any particular reason why I shouldn't say I slept
well last night, but I do remember one event that
wasn't very good. I'm not sure when it was, but at
some time in the night I was half awake, and I
decided to turn over. As I turned from laying on
my left side to my right side there was quite a
crunch from inside my chest. It wasn't painful,
but it felt like either something had broken, or
something out of place had reseated itself. I
think it was probably neither of those, but I
can't think of any sensible suggestion as to what
it actually was.
Such events are commonplace now, although
last night's did seem a little more extreme than
usual. Fortunately it didn't cause any problems at
the time, although it might have left a legacy for
this morning. Apart from my guts being rather
volatile this morning, I felt rather good when I
first got up, but as soon as I started to brush my
hair, bringing one or the other hand above my head
to do it, my chest soon became quite sore. Some of
the soreness is probably also a legacy of doing
the hand powered laundry I did yesterday, but I
feel sure that crunch in the night didn't help. A
couple of Ibuprofen tablets have killed the
inflammation, but the superstructure of my chest
does seem to be very rattly this morning.
As I came to work this morning I felt a
mixture of feeling unusually good, and a bit
rough. I guess it was that I felt unusually good
from the waist down, and from the neck upwards,
but my chest felt a bit rough. My back and sides
felt perfectly normal. I guess I also felt a bit
hungry too. There was a sort of emptiness in my
gut that was not always that pleasant. In point of
fact it was probably less to do with hunger, and
more to do with the volatility of my guts that I
mentioned earlier. It was probably rather good
that I had managed to deal with that before I left
home to come to work - although there were a
couple of occasions when I had my doubts about
that. I've now had a couple of Sandwiches bought
from the Sainsbury's Local shop in Earlsfield, and
my gut now feels satisfied.
Like everyday at work I will be glad when
this one is over - although at this time there is
no special reason to enhance that feeling. Maybe
there will be later on.... I have no special, or
even vague plans for tonight. It could be a boring
evening, but if it is bright, and hopefully sunny
as I make my way home from work, I could be
inspired to find some things to do. I did make a
little bit of progress in adding some songs to my
substitute-for-a-radio-station-memory-stick over
the weekend, but there are loads more I can do,
and as yet I've made no moves to start to play
with a streaming server to stream a huge random
selection of songs to my work PC, and maybe
elsewhere. I have sort of imagined some of what I
might do, but sooner or later I am going to have
to get the hardware together to do it, and maybe
tonight will be the night when that will start to
happen....or maybe not !
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