Sometimes yesterday was a little too humid,
but it wasn't too bad a day. It stayed dry, it was
mild to warm, and occasionally it was sunny,
although it was brightly overcast for most of the
time. I'm unsure of the top temperature, but I
wouldn't dispute the forecast 22° C. Today will
see more sunny spells, but they will peter out
later in the afternoon. Once again a temperature
of 22° C is forecast. I hope the forecast is wrong
because the main features seem to be rain and just
18° C.
Yesterday was a good day - quite incredibly
good in one respect. I don't know what was wrong
with me last Friday, but I have to assume it was
something that could be burnt out with a good
fever. I have no recollection of that fever as
such, although I do recall feeling a bit chilly
from time to time. The real fever must have
happened while I was asleep. I think it was on
Friday morning when I woke up thinking I had
hardly slept, and yet my pillow was saturated with
sweat. Since then I have gone from strength to
strength - and yesterday I needed that strength
more than ever !
I'm unsure how long I spent at Chattfest
yesterday, but I do know that I drunk three pints
of Guinness ! It was a very enjoyable time even if
all the music wasn't quite to my taste. In fact,
on reflection, most of it wasn't quite to my taste
! Somehow it didn't matter. With an outdoor stage,
and it being a nice bright day, and even some
sunny spells, photography was easy - which
basically means I took a few great photos, and
still managed to take a load of crap photos !
There was also some great company there.
This is the band I wanted to see most. They
are M.T. Pockets, and feature Dan Murphy on lead
guitar and vocals, Dylan Tidman on drums, and
Steve Pitt on bass guitar. All three are excellent
musicians, and it was only a small disappointment
that when together in this band they are more
inclined to funk than rock, although I think Dan
manages to put a rock edge on most things he
plays.
M.T. Pockets were sandwiched in between two
solo acts. The first was a chap who seems to use
the stage name "Speedo". I only caught the end of
his set, and didn't hear enough to comment on it.
The act on after M.T. Pockets was a chap billed as
"Moss". He, and his electric guitar, seemed to
competently perform some classic reggae songs to a
taped backing track. The next band, and the last
one I saw, was Trigger's Broom. I saw them at a
previous Chattfest a year or two ago, and my
recollection was that they were quite good. This
year I was less impressed on account of one song
they did. I don't think Fleetwood Mac's "Don't
Stop" should be played in drunken party style -
unless at a drunken party !
I left a few songs into Trigger's Broom set.
I didn't have to wait long before a 208 bus turned
up to take me back to Catford, but I did have to
wait ages and ages for the bus to get into the
middle of Bromley. I saw a few ambulances pass,
and assumed there had been an accident up ahead,
but it seems it was just the traffic lights at the
bottom of the high street only letting through
about two cars at a time. Once we had crawled the
half mile to get to the lead position at those
traffic lights we had an almost open road ahead of
us.
When I finally got home I prepared, and ate
a very small dinner. It was an Aldi "Steam Meal"
of chicken tikka with potato, and I think the
label said it was only 371 calories ! After that I
rested, checked the photos taken at Chattfest, and
did more resting. Eventually it was time to go out
again to see The English Rogues playing in The
Black Cat. The English Rogues are a "Power Trio",
and one third of them is Dan Murphy !
It was a very long, and most splendid gig.
By the end of it I had taken another shed load of
pictures that I will have to spends ages selecting
some good ones and editing/uploading them, and I
had drunk what I think was my eighth pint of
Guinness for the day (it could have even been the
ninth !). It was really quite surprising not to
feel shattered at the end, and even when I got
home at midnight I still felt OK.
I wondered how I would ever sleep last
night, but once I was in bed it seems I probably
fell asleep quite quickly. It was a two part night
where I slept well for nearly four hours, and then
after a break, it seemed like I slept badly for
several more hours, but probably didn't sleep that
badly after all. It was one of those time where
you think you have been mostly awake, but there is
a huge load of time in the middle that seems to
have passed without you noticing.
When I finally got up I felt quite good, and
maybe it was amazingly good considering all I had
done and drunk yesterday. About the only negative
thing is that all that Guinness was probably
responsible for a slight amount of digestive
anomaly. I would like to apologise to anyone
downwind of Catford who detected a slight
agricultural ambience in the air this morning.
Now all I have to do is to keep myself busy,
which with the amount of photos I have to deal
with shouldn't be hard, plus there is plenty of
other stuff to do, such as laundry, or if nothing
else, keep myself awake so I can get a bus back to
day two of Chattfest soon after 4pm. As a tail
piece I'll finish with a bit of video. It was one
of the highlights of last nights English Rogues
gig. It features two "characters". The simplest to
describe is the drunken groupie dressed in black,
and wielding a mobile phone camera. The other is
the bloke dressed all in white who looks like a
shorter version of Douglas Adams (although
possibly not in this video clip), and seems to be
stoned out of his mind. He evidently was thinking
that he was at a rave, or some sort of psychedelic
freak out (as we used to know them). Enjoy !
Saturday
30th July 2016
10:55 BST
I can only recall yesterday being rather
cloudy and dull. I think I have the vaguest
recollection of a shower, but I can't remember
when it was. What I do know was that there was no
rain in the evening. The forecast for today says
that it is going to be almost a clone of yesterday
- dull, cloudy, medium warm, and dry. The highest
temperature will be about 22° C.
I felt rotten yesterday. So rotten that I
spent a considerable amount of the day just laying
on my bed trying to snooze. It seemed like I
didn't snooze, but on the other hand there were
periods of time that seemed to pass by without me
being aware of them. It is possible that I partly
lost my appetite yesterday, and if I did it was at
a most convenient time when I wanted to eat as
little as possible.
I actually succeeded in this plan quite
well. Through the whole day I just had three very
small, almost snack like meals. The last one,
which was after getting home from a gig with lots
of Guinness in me, was just a smallish chunk of
cheese. It is rare that I manage that after booze.
It is strange that there were only a couple of
times when I felt hungry yesterday, and even when
I did it was only a mild feeling.
Having done almost nothing all day it was
quite an effort to go out in the evening, and if
circumstances were different I wouldn't have gone
out. The circumstances that got me off my bed, and
on a 54 bus to Beckenham were all to do with a gig
in The Coach And Horses. The band was The Life Of
Brian, and they are rather good. They are fronted
by Miranda Bell, and she is a good singer and a
good performer - or at least she is in a venue big
enough to allow her some elbow room.
The sad thing about The Coach And Horses is
that the "stage" is actually a small, rather
cramped corner of the pub. That constrains the
band, and makes photography difficult - a
situation made worse by it being so dim in there
unless the band can squeeze in a lighting stand -
something Life Of Brian don't have. It is all a
little ironic that the band called for some good
photos to be taken that they could use to promote
themselves.
I managed to get some pictures like the one
above featuring Miranda and Brian. When shown at
this size they don't look too bad, but at full
resolution they are horribly grainy. It would have
been great to get a full screen band shot, but
from "centre stage" the bass player as hidden
behind one PA speaker, and Brian, the lead guitar
was hidden behind the other. It is a very narrow
crevice they play in !
There were several varied highlights of the
evening. They ranged from the very simple things
like only having to wait a few minutes for a bus
there and home again, and the delight of live
music performed well. Getting a present of 6
freshly laid eggs from Chris Wells own chickens
was an unexpected surprise (being able to stuff
them in my camera bag to take them home without
breakages was probably a bigger surprise !).
Maybe the best bit of the evening was that
Angela, Miranda's mum was there. I really like
her, and she seems to like me a lot. She has a
wonderful habit of rubbing my back, and after
feeling so rotten during the day it felt more than
wonderful. There were also other members of my
extended musical family there too. They are all
wonderful people (mostly), and added to my
enjoyment.
I guess I stayed there for a couple of
hours, and I drank two and a half pints of
Guinness, but after that I felt like I was
beginning to flag a bit. So I made my excuses and
left. I was lucky that I just had a 3 or 4 minute
wait for a bus, and once on the bus it made fast
progress to Catford. I think it was around 11pm
when I got home, and once home I had space to feel
both tired and excited. I grabbed a fairly small
chunk of cheese (about three bite-fulls) and
nibbled that while I reviewed the photos I had
taken. None were very wonderful, but about 11 were
reasonable.
Last night was one of those nights where it
seems you are never going to get to sleep, and
then you are ! For all that it wasn't a very good
nights sleep. I seemed to wake up quite
frequently, and judging by how wet my pillow was,
I must have been pouring with sweat during the
night. I guess it is another indication that there
is a fault with my body. It may be some sort of
viral infection, or it could be something physical
like blocked arteries and leaking seals in my
heart. The good thing is that I might be
recovering from it.
Although I didn't rate my sleep very highly,
I probably did manage to get a fair bit of sleep
in the end. That hasn't stopped me yawning this
morning (and I was yawning at full power as I
wrote those words !). On the plus side I think I
can convince myself that I feel a bit better this
morning. Many of the unwanted pains have gone, or
are far milder, and I think I have a bit more
energy. This couldn't come at a better time,
although a few less hot and cold flushes might be
nice.
Today I am going to need some stamina. As
soon as I finish writing this I must get washed
and dressed so I can go out to The Chatterton Arms
to see some of the bands playing at "Chattfest".
It starts at 1pm, and finishes at 9pm. I
definitely won't be staying that late though. The
band I most want to see is M.T. Pockets, and I
estimate they will be on at approx 2pm. At approx
4pm there is a band on called Triggers Broom, and
I seem to recall they were quite good when I saw
them a few years ago.
Maybe once I've seen a couple of bands at
Chattfest I will hurry home again so I can relax
for 5 minutes before going out again. The English
Rogues are playing in The Black Cat, and I hope
I'll find the energy to see them tonight. If that
wasn't enough, Chattfest continues tomorrow, and I
think I want to be there for at least the last
three hours until it finishes at 8pm.
Friday
29th July 2016
12:04 BST
The weather was not as bad as it seemed it
would be yesterday. I don't think I was expecting
the morning to be bright, warm and sunny. Later on
it got cloudy, and there was a splash or two of
rain in the afternoon. The forecast suggested that
most of the rain would be in the early evening,
but fortunately for my plans it stayed dry. I
think there was probably more rain after dark, but
I wasn't paying attention to the outside world
then. I think the temperature hit 22° C. It should
hit 22° C today as well, but not until later this
afternoon. There could even be some sunshine at
the start of the evening, but the day started
overcast, and it will stay that way until, or if
the sun makes an appearance at 6pm (which is the
earliest it is shown on the forecast). The day
started feeling rather cool at just 15°, or maybe
16° C, and there has been at least one, and
probably a couple of un-forecast showers. It is a
bit of a miserable day ! Tomorrow is forecast to
be possibly one whole degree warmer, but only for
a short period of time. It is supposed to start
with thick black clouds, but they will gradually
thin, and it is possible they might thin enough to
let in a brief flash of sunshine at 7pm. Another
miserable day !
I felt pretty dreadful yesterday morning.
Bits of me ached, and the pains in my chest seemed
to be just sufficiently different to make me
wonder if I was having some heart trouble. Maybe I
was, but that didn't stop me going for a walk just
to see what would happen. What did happen was a
lot better than I expected - I ended up feeling
rather good (if you don't count getting a piece of
hay stuck in my shoe, and chafing off a small
patch of skin).
As I set out I had an idea for a possible
route, but I wasn't sure how I would feel when I
tried it. It involved quite a climb up to the top
of Mountsfield Park - another local park that may
be about a mile to the east of here. For the first
5 minutes of walking I definitely felt very
creaky, but as I walked it became easier and
easier. I was most surprised that the first bit of
hill climbing felt ridiculously easy ! From then
on it was as easy to walk as any of my longer
walks I used to like doing prior to when I started
to suffer from angina in 2013. It is an
observation I have made many times since, but it
seems that my heart re-plumbing really worked, and
worked well. It was just a bit of a shame that I
broke the healing process, and now have what I
call "a twisted rib" (because that is what if
feels like sometimes even though it is supposed to
be an impossible medical condition).
This is the view from the top of Mountsfield
Park. I live deep down in the valley. You used to
be able to see the roof of the school near my
house, but either that was when the trees were not
so heavily in leaf, or before they grew so tall.
In the distance you can see, on the left, the ITA
television transmitting mast (although it doesn't
transmit TV any more, and is now owned by NTL or
some such upstart - I think it is still used for
radio transmission). On the right, and looking
bigger, is the BBC's TV transmitting mast at
Crystal Palace. It is still used for all the
digital TV channels, plus radio stations.
My walk took me a tiny bit higher than this
point, but only be a matter of feet, and
eventually I came out onto Hither Green Lane. I
walked down Hither Green lane and noted that while
it has changed a lot, there are still parts of it
that are very familiar from when I used to live up
there over 30 years ago. The sweet shop/newsagent
that briefly employed me as a paper boy is still
there, but it has a new front, and is now a
convenience store, but it still sells sweets and
papers.
I walked down Hither Green Lane until it was
time to turn left, and go down the hill to visit
Lewisham Park. It is a semi-small park that I have
rarely visited before. It seems quite nice, but I
was disappointed to not find a pond in there
that one map I looked at seemed to suggest should
be there. There is a big dry grassed hollow that
might have contained water once upon a time.
When I came out of the park onto Lewisham
High Road I stopped to take some pictures of the
war memorial. It's quite a solemn place, and no
more so when there is an almost eerie lull in the
traffic, and birdsong becomes predominant for a
few seconds. After stopping there for a short
while I carried on walking back towards Catford. I
don't know why I didn't use the tracker in my
phone to measure how far I walked, but it must
have been over two miles, and quite possibly
something like three miles.
When I got home I was just beginning to feel
slightly tired, but all that fresh air, blood
stirring up walking, and the sunshine, had left me
feeling rather wonderful. I didn't want to spoil
it by attempting any laundry, and instead sat down
to edit all the photos I had taken. I felt pretty
lousy again after that ! I have an album of about
43 pictures to upload to Flickr, but I haven't
done it yet because it is going to need a lot of
captions written. Maybe I might do it later this
afternoon.
Being as it was a Thursday it was drinking
night, and I had to get to The Shortlands Tavern.
That is easy in concept, but not so in reality.
For a start I had lost track of time, and left it
a little too late to get the train I wanted. The
next train was cancelled, and I ended up arriving
an hour late. Now the peculiar thing is that the
train I wanted was from Catford Station, and not
Catford Bridge station. It is a few extra hundred
yards to walk there, and the whole walk must be a
twentieth of the distance I walked in the morning,
and as usual it knackered me. I arrived on the
platform feeling like I had walked 20 miles. I
always said that it was the worst part of the walk
when I was doing walks of 7, 8, 9, and almost 10
miles back in 2011/2012.
I don't like The Shortlands Tavern all that
much. It's not terrible, but it is one of those
pubs where there are no open spaces, and we are
always squeezed between the wall and the bar, and
it is annoying when people have to squeeze by you.
The other thing is it smells ! It is generally
food smells (but not always), and last night, like
at least one earlier night, it smelled of boiled
fish ! Later on that dispersed, and was replaced
by a more pleasant garlic smell.
I had three and a half pints before I left
to come home, and all that beer swilling around in
me really slowed me down. It wasn't so bad when I
walked from Catford station to home, but I still
felt pretty horrible. When I got in I made the
silly mistake of eating some chicken wings that I
had bought the previous night. That left me
feeling bloated and just added to the discomfort
of trying to sleep.
Spotted while waiting for my train at
Shortlands station - quite mature looking conkers,
and brown autumnal looking leaves. Surely summer
is not over yet ?
I had a bad night, or at least it started
bad. I went to bed at around 10pm, and I felt both
uncomfortable and I felt chilly. I am not sure
what was going on with me, but it almost felt like
I had 'flu. I think it was probably more to do
with my blood glucose level, but I am not sure
why. Before I could get to sleep I had to pull the
duvet cover around me, and that warmed me up
enough to get to sleep. Maybe an hour later I woke
up and while I didn't feel hot internally, it felt
like my thigh (amongst other bits of me) felt
incredibly hot to my hand !
At 1am I had to rush to the toilet for, as
they say in outer space, explosive decompression !
I did feel a bit better after that, but I was
still waking up every hour or so, and feeling
lousy when I did. One good thing is that I managed
to stay in bed until nearly 9am this morning. My
sleep was so patchy that I wouldn't like to
speculate how much sleep I got in total. All I can
say is that it was more than recently, but still
doesn't feel like enough.
Once again I seemed to be hovering on the
verge of death, and I tried going for another
walk. This was was a very much shorter walk - just
to Aldi and back. There wasn't much I really
needed from Aldi, but it seemed to be a convenient
short walk. It felt rather cool outside, and
inside Aldi I was almost shivering. That seemed to
suggest that I had a fever, but when I checked my
temperature soon after getting home it was below
normal. One particular irritation about going to
Aldi was trying to resist the temptation to eat
anything I bought from there. I have decided I am
fasting until late this afternoon, and even then I
want to try and eat as little as possible. I feel
getting my blood sugar level lower may make me
feel better - although I have never noticed any
correlation between high blood glucose and 'flu
like aches in the past.
Some of how I feel must surely be
psychological. I suddenly noticed that I was no
longer feeling cold, but feeling quite hot, and
the only thing that has changed is that, to my
great surprise, the sun has come out ! I seem to
ache less too ! I also feel very hungry now. Gosh,
so many symptoms to evaluate, and I have little
idea what any of them mean !
Let's hope I am feeling OK tonight. I have
not only promised to go, but I want to go, to see
The Life Of Brian playing in The Coach And Horses,
Beckenham. I know I am being used, but two women,
one being Miranda the lead singer of The Life Of
Brian, are being very nice and friendly to me in
the hope I will be there with my camera. I think I
can stand that sort of treatment :-)
Thursday
28th July 2016
08:43 BST
Sometimes it feels like summer is over !
Yesterday was not a good example of a summers day,
although maybe it wasn't quite as bas as I was
expecting. After the dull wet start to the day it
probably brightened up more than the forecast
seemed to imply. There were even some sunny
periods when none were expected. My journey home
from work included some sunshine, but there were
always some very dark looking clouds lurking in
some part of the sky. I forgot to check the
temperature when I got home, but I don't think I
would dispute the 22° C that was forecast. The
forecast seems to be in a constant state of flux
recently. I don't think I was expecting this
morning to be quite pleasantly sunny. The current
forecast says it will only last a few more hours.
By midday it will have clouded over again, and a
few hours after that the clouds will get very
dark, and the temperature will drop from 21° C to
just 19° C. After that it gets confusing.
The clouds will stay black, the temperature will
go up a couple of degrees, and it will rain, and
the sun will come out ! At least that is how I
interpret the forecast. I am sure reality will be
very different. Tomorrow, my second day off work,
is forecast to be grey, but dry, and at 7pm the
sun will come out for a few minutes !
On reflection I think I felt a bit rough at
work yesterday. It was intermittent, and never
very strong, but I had a pain that was like a
mixture of chest pain and stomach pain. I think it
was actually a mix of both. I do recall that at
some time in the early hours of yesterday morning
I turned over in bed, and as I did so my chest
went "crack". I think that was the start of
another bout of chest pain that has also caused me
some discomfort this morning. Once again I find
that Ibuprofen takes the edge of it, or even
completely cures it for a while. The reason for
the stomach pain was probably revealed at midnight
last night. Although why it took so long to reveal
itself is a mystery.
It felt good to leave work yesterday for
several reasons. One reason was that it marked the
start of a long weekend away from work. Another
reason was that I was both bored, and tired out
from trying to make it look like I wasn't bored !
One more good reason was that I wanted to get out
into the fresh air, and to stretch my legs. In the
morning I complained that I was wearing shoes that
seemed to hurt both feet, and indeed in the
morning my feet were very sore by the time I got
to work. Strangely enough they were far, far less
sore when I went home - except I didn't go
straight home.
I can't seem to recall if it was just before
or just after I left work that I got a phone call
from my friend Jodie. She was meeting her friend
Mark in the Catford Wetherspoons, and asked if I
would like to join them. I guess it was before I
left work, before I had tried my feet out, and I
was reluctant to say yes in case I decided I
needed to limp straight home. It turned out that
my feet were OK, and I went to the pub via Tesco.
One reason for going to Tesco was because I
had had a weird urge to buy a pack of their Sushi.
I also bought enough stuff to loosely fill one and
a half of their old style, pre-5p a bag style,
carrier bags. Having done that I walked to the pub
only to be disappointed with their selection of
beers. In desperation (or enjoyment) I had a pint
of Stella Artois. In total I had three pints of
Stella before I went home feeling quite good, and
quite hungry. So hungry that I decided I wanted to
order a nice chicken shish kebab.
I didn't want to risk keeping the sushi
overnight in case the fish went off, plus I wanted
a snack while I waited for my kebab to turn up. So
I ate the sushi and noted how it was almost
identical to the sushi that Aldi sells but with
the one difference that the wasabi, despite being
in an identical looking sachet, was a lot
hotter. Eventually the kebab turned up, and
it wasn't the healthy option - either I forgot to
order it, or they forgot to add any salad ! It was
still enjoyable, and nice and filling.
I stayed up a little later than usual to let
the kebab settle down, and I didn't go to bed
until 10pm - I usually go to bed at 9pm on a
weekday - or try to. I found it hard to settle
down, but eventually I fell asleep. At around
midnight I woke up again feeling uncomfortable.
First I passed some wind, and then I passed some
more. On the third occasion I decided I really
ought to do it again while sitting on the toilet.
That was a prudent idea considering what happened
next, and then again 10 minutes later. I think I
had the answer to why I had been uncomfortable at
work, although why it took so long to be apparent
is a mystery - as is what might have caused it.
After that I was able to get back to sleep,
but I didn't sleep well. I think I should probably
have shut my bedroom window. It would have made it
a bit quieter, although it wasn't exactly noisy,
but most of all it would have stopped my bedroom
getting a bit too cool. I remember waking up
feeling cold and scrambling around to pull the
duvet cover over me.
After a poor night I had a small lie in. I
got up nearly 20 minutes later than usual, and I
stayed up until about the time I would usually be
arriving at work. Then I went back to bed. This is
ideally how it should be everyday - or would be if
I had a bed at work ! I think I only managed to
get less than 20 minutes sleep. I felt
uncomfortable in all sorts of ways. My chest felt
painful, and I just could not find a comfortable
position. I think that eating two sandwiches for
breakfast was not a good idea when it is probably
that last nights kebab has not moved far through
my system (and was probably held back by gas
pressure !).
Since getting up for the second time I have
washed my hair, showered, and partly dressed. The
next thing is to decide what I am going to do with
myself. It is possible that my original plan of
going to Herne Bay might have been possible today.
The weather is not going to be great, but it
doesn't seem like it's going to be terrible either
(at least not until the afternoon gives way to
evening). What makes it impossible, or if not
impossible, not nice, is that I shouldn't have
stuffed myself with kebab last night, and then
compounded the problem with the sandwiches this
morning. Maybe if I am careful for the rest of the
day, I might go to the seaside tomorrow.
I think that I may take a quick walk this
morning before it gets too cloudy, and then I
might wash a shirt or two. This afternoon, or
maybe earlier, I can foresee myself reading and
snoozing, and then tonight its time for more
booze. This Thursday night we are boozing in The
Shortlands Tavern (next to Shortlands station). I
will then have a difficult decision to make. Do I
stay out late tonight, or do I just have my usual
three pints and go home ? There is an added
complication possible tonight. I could stay out
extra late and go on to the open mic session in
Beckenham. I would quite like to do that, but I
don't know if I'll have the energy or enthusiasm.
I seem to be lacking both right now, and that is
not very wonderful for what could be a very busy
weekend.
Yesterday I finally hooked up a device to
take screenshots of the images produced by the
thermal imaging cameras we make at work. This is a
still from the camera of myself. The image doesn't
use any visible light, and this picture was taken
purely from the heat produced by my body. The
black oblong shape, with a curved goose neck
camera support in front of it, visible over my
shoulder is actually a window with bright daylight
shining through it, but because ordinary glass
does not transmit thermal radiation it appears
black.
Wednesday
27th July 2016
08:00 BST
There was a fair amount of sunshine
yesterday - it just wasn't always at times that it
was forecast for. Overall, I think I would
describe it as a bit of a bland day. There was
nothing particularly good about the weather, and
nothing bad either. On second thoughts there was
just enough breeze in the afternoon to make 22° C
feel a little cooler than it might otherwise feel.
Today there are definite negative aspects to the
weather - and that doesn't include it being a
prototype for tomorrow when I have the first of
two days off work. This morning rain was forecast.
Then it wasn't, and now it is actually raining ! I
was lucky enough to only experience just a few
tiny raindrops blowing in the wind as I walked
from the station to work, but now it is just short
of pouring with rain - i.e almost more than a
shower ! The forecast now reckons it will only be
raining around 10am. After that it is supposed to
stay dry, but is going to range from grey skies to
disgustingly dirty grey skies. In a fit of extreme
optimism the forecast does suggest the sun may
come out by 5pm, maybe just a little too late for
my journey home, but it should still be 22° C by
mid to late afternoon.
On the whole I didn't feel too bad at work
yesterday, but there were moments when I felt
tired, and I shall ascribe some pains I had in the
stomach area to hunger. As usual, and I can't
really conceive of it being any other way, it was
a pleasure to leave work. The actual act of
travelling home is less of a pleasure, and usually
no pleasure at all, but at least it was a smooth
journey home with no train delays or stuff like
that. Before committing to walking to the station
I paused for 18 seconds to see if there was a bus
coming up the hill, but there was none in sight,
and I continued to walk to the station. It seems
less essential recently, but the lift to the
platform was working, and I had no hesitation
using it.
At Waterloo station it felt like I could run
up the escalator again, but I was blocked by a
gaggle of tourists half way up. I partly, or maybe
not much at all, made up for my lack of micro
exercise at Waterloo by walking a little faster
than usual from the station to home. It was nice
to finally get home and start thinking about the
two most important actions of the evening - eating
and sleeping !
Dinner was a three part affair last night,
and my calorie consumption must have been far
higher than many nights. I started off with a
salad, but it was no ordinary salad. It was
chicken and bacon pasta salad - with added chilli
sauce. Part two was an Iceland "Slimming World"
shepherds pie. The latter had sat in the fridge
(not freezer) for quite some time, and I had
doubts about it, but decided to see if it was OK
instead of throwing it away. It was past it's
"best before" date, but seemed fine. If I had left
it at that I would have been fine, but I could not
resist the calories and sugar in the last two
cookie sandwich ice creams I had left in the
freezer.
I did one important thing before I moved on
from eating to sleeping, and that was to click a
few buttons on my PC. I decided it would be
prudent to update my pictures backup disk with any
new photos - and there were a couple of albums
worth of them ! Once the backup program had kicked
off I could relax and do some reading while it did
it's stuff. I guess the whole procedure only took
20 -30 minutes, and once it was done, and my back
up disk disconnected and stored away, I could
relax again and do some more reading.
Eventually I turned out the lights, and went
to sleep. It was nice and fresh last night, but
that wasn't the only reason that I slept even
better last night (or so I try to convince
myself). I made a small change to my bed that
helped a lot. Until I changed them for plain
cotton I had silky, satiny, shiny and slippery
pillowcases. They looked nice, and felt nice, but
when they keep slipping off each other in the
night it doesn't help my sleep. It was even worse
than that. To protect my pillows from the worst of
a hot sweaty night I covered them with a small
hand towel, and that kept sliding off those shiny
pillows. It's all fixed now just by changing to
plain cotton pillow cases.
This morning I feel no worse, and no better
than recent mornings - except for one thing -
there's always a catch ! It seemed like a prudent
idea to put on some shoes more suited for wet
weather, and I chose a pair of Vans trainers.
Sometimes they are comfortable, and sometimes not.
This morning they feel anything but comfortable.
For the last week I complained about my right foot
hurting. Now both feet are uncomfortable !
As well as a change of shoes I have also
revered back to long trousers. It was a sort of
delight to go through my pairs of shorts to find
that they all fit me again. Sometimes it does seem
strange that I should have lost weight after all
the "accidents" I have had when it comes to eating
my dinner, but I guess if I manage to stick to the
grand plan once or twice a week, and don't go too
overboard on the other days then something will
slowly happen, and it seems it has. It should
inspire me to work harder at it, but it hasn't.
Maybe there will be other opportunities to show
off my naked knees this summer, but it looks like
summer will be on hold for an unknown amount of
days.
I am off work tomorrow and Friday, and that
means I could stay up late tonight. That means I
could go and grab a pint, and listen to some music
tonight. There is an open mic session on in
Bromley, and I feel tempted to try and raise the
energy to go to it. Tomorrow I can have a nice lie
in - if I can. It seems highly unlikely to be nice
enough to consider visiting the seaside, or even
to venture outside my front door, but there will
be drinking in the evening - and I could stay out
late for that too. So many possibilities - so much
rain and grey skies - yuck !
Tuesday
26th July 2016
07:43 BST
There was more sunshine than expected
yesterday. The forecast suggested that we would
lose the sun by mid morning, but there were sunny
spells right through the day - except when I was
walking from the station to home after work. It
was rather dull then ! The top temperature was
around 22° C, and that felt warm, but not hot. It
also felt fairly fresh.
This is the current forecast for today in
detail, and vague hints about what the rest of the
week will be like. The forecast for today looks
similar to the forecast for yesterday, and it is
already wrong - maybe ! It is about 16° C, but I
am not sure how to interpret the symbol showing
sunshine peeping around a white cloud. Maybe the
optimist in me thinks that should indicate more
sunshine than the few brief glimpses of the sun
I've seen so far this morning. As I look out my
office window it is bright, but the sky looks a
uniform milky white colour. Hopefully the sun will
break through more often than forecast like it did
yesterday.
The forecast for future days is looking both
good and bad. I am not keen on the black cloud
with a raindrop shown for Thursday. Thursday is
the first of two days I've booked off work. I was
hoping I might find the enthusiasm to go to the
seaside, but if it is deadly dull and raining I
might opt to just get blasted in a pub all
afternoon. If the forecast for Saturday turns out
to be correct it will be good. That's the first
day of Chattfest - two days of live music in aid
of charity in the garden of The Chatterton Arms
pub in Bromley. Some of it will be good, and some
bad, but I hope to spend several hours there on
both days - plus rushing back to Catford to see
The English Rogues in The Black Cat on Saturday
night.
I don't think I could actually bring myself
to say that I had a pleasant day at work
yesterday, but it wasn't a bad day. Maybe the
unexpected sunshine made it more cheerful. It was
still a relief when home time came around, and of
course it was nice to go out into the sunshine.
The only thing that worried me was that
Southwestern Trains web site reported that the
lift was out of order at Earlsfield station. So it
would have been nice to have travelled to the
station by bus before tackling that horrible
staircase up to the platform. Predictably enough,
the usual law applied - whenever I really want a
bus there is never one in sight ! So I walked all
the way to the station without seeing a single bus
going in my direction, and then I walked up those
bloody stairs....and it wasn't terrible. It was
far from easy, and if there had been another
flight to go up I would have had difficulties, but
I barely had to slow down as I walked to the far
end of the platform. By the time I reached the far
end of the platform it felt like I had almost
recovered from walking up those stairs. Recovering
while still walking at a decent pace must be some
sort of good thing, but I'm not sure what it
implies.
I suppose I must be getting sort of fit
again because I reprised my rushing up the
escalator at Waterloo again...although it was more
a fast walk than a run because there were tourists
getting in my way. Many tourists just don't know
the etiquette of London escalators - stand on the
right to leave the left hand side free for those
who want to walk or run up. Some, like yesterday,
stand in the middle !! My only other problem with
all this rushing around, apart from tourists
getting in my way, is still my right foot. The
ball of the foot is still sore, and seems to be
irritatingly slow in getting better. For instance
this morning it is probably only half as bad as it
was a week ago. The biggest annoyance is that it
reduces the distance I can comfortably walk, and I
would prefer to go for distance than speed.
Last night was not a very exciting night -
few nights are ! All I did was to carry out my
master plan for the evening. The first part of
that was to try and eat a small dinner - and I
did. The only trouble was that I finished dinner
with two little tubs of ice cream. I should never
have bought that ice cream in the first place
because it is too tempting to just leave in the
freezer for ever (obviously !). Those two little
tubs probably doubled the amount of calories I
ate, and quadrupled the amount of sugar I ate.
Fortunately my trousers still seemed loose this
morning, and for a few moments my belly felt
flatter when I got out of bed. (It sagged down
again a few minutes later, but I prefer to
remember those few moments of glory before that
happened).
After eating I had a small rest to let the
food settle, and then I washed my hair. While my
hair dried I got down to some photo editing. I
didn't take many pictures on my Canon camera of
the gig a fortnight ago. I mainly used it for
video, but I found a couple of reasonable pictures
on it. There were a couple of things I didn't do -
adding captions,a nd adding tags, but I finally
got around to uploading the pictures I took on the
16th of The Fifth Element, and the pictures I took
on the 23rd of Paper Fish, to Flickr. You can find
the two albums here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/
if you are interested.
It felt nice and fresh last night, and that
made sleeping easy again...well almost easy. At
about 3am I woke up actually feeling a bit too
cool, and had to pull the duvet cover over me ! I
would still have liked to get several hours more
sleep if it were possible, but I guess I got
enough. This morning I feel sort of bland. I don't
feel any particular negative things. Just the
normal aches and pains. It would be nice if I felt
some sort of sparkle, some sense of power, or
energy, or something like that, but I just feel
sort of bland. I can walk and talk, possibly even
at the same time, but only at a very average
level. Maybe I'll find a little dose of extra
energy when I am going home - like I seemed to
yesterday, and the day before.
Tonight promises to be extra boring because
I don't think I can think of anything to do.......
Monday
25th July 2016
07:57 BST
The weather was a lot fresher yesterday
than it has been of late. It was still pleasantly
warm and dry, but the humidity was lower, or so it
felt. The only bad thing was that it was often a
bit dull, but even that had it's good side - I
could open the curtains to let some daylight in
without filling the room with hot sunshine. I
think the temperature still hit 25° C in the
afternoon, but it dropped fairly quickly in the
evening, and this morning it was just 16° C. It
was also nice and sunny.
If this forecast is anything like reality we
will soon be saying goodbye to the sun for a day
or two, and even when we do say hello to it again
it is liable to be between showers. Here's hoping
the forecast changes a lot for Thursday and
Friday. I've booked those two days off work. The
original idea was that I would be frolicking in
the sun somewhere, but at the moment it looks like
I'll be doing it in the rain - if I can even be
bothered to go out in such horrible weather.
I wasn't entirely lazy yesterday - just
mostly ! One thing I did was to go through the
photos I took of Paper Fish's gig on Saturday
night, and prepare a small album to be uploaded to
Flickr at some point - maybe tonight. Other than
that I read for a while, and tried to snooze
without much success, and of course I ate stuff. I
must confess that some of what I ate had far too
much sugar in it.
I have to confess that while I was shopping
in Aldi, just after midday, I allowed myself to be
tempted to buy a packet of chocolate chip cookie
ice cream sandwiches. They are riddled with sugar
- at least I assume they are, but I was too scared
to actually check the packet. I ended up eating
two of them yesterday. The rest of what I ate was
almost OK, but with one glaring exception. One
meal was a prawn salad with a generous amount of Marie
Rose sauce on it. That sauce was from
Tesco's expensive "Finest" range, and I bought it
only because it was half price. Had I realised the
second ingredient listed on it was sugar I
wouldn't have bought it. The sad thing is that it
was not that good. I much prefer the sharper,
almost vinegary taste of Thousand Island Dressing.
The fresher feel to the air, particularly in
the evening made sleeping so much easier last
night, and last night I slept better than I had
done for days and days. It still wasn't perfect,
and I would have had to had slept for an extra 100
hours to make up my sleep deficit, but at least it
was a start. During the night I had a very weird
dream that I was determined to remember and
recount, but of course many details have already
evaporated now, and it make far less sense in the
cold light of day.
I have no idea what inspired this dream.
Well, not most of it, but maybe I can think of a
few influences that might have added a little
colour to it. It started off with the strange idea
that my armpits were too baggy, and a man who I
think was a barber, saying he had some "body
putty" and could fix it. Quite how adding material
could stop my armpits being baggy is still a
mystery, but it worked somehow. Something happened
next, but I can't remember what. The next bit I
only vaguely remember, and it was something to do
with trying to get more of the "body putty" added
after I had accidently ripped some off one armpit.
While dreaming the dream it seemed a very rich
dream, and full of details, but now it's mostly
forgotten. Trying to describe it in just a couple
sentences dilutes it even further. You'll just
have to believe me when I say it was very exciting
at the time.
After a good night's sleep (although not
perfect) I feel.....not too bad. I ache less than
I did at work on Friday, but bits of me still
ache. My chest seems to be aching more than it has
recently (and by chest I mean my ribs and other
superstructure rather than internal organs -
probably). It is not aching so bad that I feel the
need for any Ibuprofen, although I may take some
later if it doesn't ease up. My gut feels very
slightly tender this morning. It could be a bit of
trapped wind, or it could be multiple organ
failure as a result of all the sugar I ate
yesterday. My right foot is still slightly sore
this morning, and that is a shame because it seems
like my legs are in exceptionally good working
order. I doubt I could sleep even if I had the
opportunity, but it does feel like I would like to
try to have a good snooze now, and again on the
hour every hour !
I think I have a cunning plan for tonight
that will stop it being completely boring. I want
to wash my hair tonight, and assuming I do, I can
use the time while it is drying to do something
constructive, and I am thinking that uploading the
pictures from Saturday, and the
pictures from the previous Saturday, to
Flickr may be constructive. Then, with a bit of
luck, it will feel fresh enough to go to bed
early, and get a good night's sleep.
Sunday
24th July 2016
10:42 BST
Friday was a bit disappointingly dull after
all the sunny weather we have had recently. The
early morning rain, which was not in the forecast,
didn't last all that long, but the day never
really brightened up. At least it was very mild
going on warm. Yesterday was better. It was
generally a sunny day, although there were some
dull periods. The sunshine made it a bit warmer
than Friday, and it probably was around the 27° C
that was forecast. One good thing was that it felt
a bit fresher in the evening, and that made
sleeping easier.
There was a dramatic pink sunset last night,
and the old saw says that foretells of a fine day
coming. Maybe today is not that good, but
so far it's not bad. The air seems much fresher
this morning, and it is currently about 22° C. The
forecast predicts it will get very dull for a few
hours soon, but after that there will be some
sunny periods, and the temperature will rise by a
couple more degrees to just 24° C - which is a
little disappointing. The forecast for tomorrow
will probably change completely in the morning,
but the current theory is that it will be a medium
dull day with no sunshine at all, and it will only
reach 24° C for about 5 minutes ! At least is is
predicted to be a dry day.
My bloody boss sent out an email yesterday
asking if anyone had any work they would like me
to do. This was all because I accidently confessed
that I was running low on work. It seems a couple
of suggestions were made, and I am not happy about
one of them, and even less happy about the other !
I feel some creative ideas coming into play
tomorrow ! It was all made worse because I felt
quite rough yesterday. I'm not really sure what it
was, and I can't really describe it.
It was a relief to finish work (or shirk, as
most of the afternoon was), and start heading for
home. Once I got moving I felt far better,
although I will confess that I did jump on a bus
that I saw coming up the hill, and used it to go
the two stops to the station. I arrived on the
platform at Earlsfield a little too late to walk
to the far end of the platform where I usually
board the train. I had two choices. I could get on
the rear 4 carriages of the train, and make my way
as far forward as possible so I could jump off at
Clapham Junction and then get back on the rear of
the front 4 carriages. The alternative was to run
!
I chose the alternative, and although it was
only a very short run I still felt it was a lot
easier than such a run used to be. I could almost
describe as effortless, and I find that a very
weird idea. It got me wondering just how far I
could run if I had to (or wanted to). I did get a
sort of answer a little later. At Waterloo I
decided to make the effort to actually run up the
escalator - and I did. Well, it wasn't exactly a
sprint, but it was most definitely faster than a
very fast walk. At the top I had to take a few
deep breaths, but I wasn't winded, and I was able
to walk across the link to Waterloo East station
at about my normal pace for that direction. (It
isn't a race in the afternoon like it is in the
morning, and I don't rush as much).
When I got back to Catford I went home via
Tesco. It was one occasion where I don't think I
had to fight the idea of buying anything bad for
me (high calorie, high sugar content etc). I
bought a load of salad stuff, and some assorted
sea food to go with it. I also bought some fruit
too, although that can be quite high in sugar, and
I have to be careful how I eat it. When I got home
I split my dinner into two parts. I can't remember
what I started with, but after the first part,
which was more like a snack in some respects, I
did some laundry.
It was no ordinary laundry. It was towel
that had started getting a bit smelly when I last
used it one morning near the beginning of last
week. On Wednesday evening it was smellier still,
and I started the laundry process. I left it
soaking in some detergent with the intention of
rinsing it out on Thursday morning, and hanging it
on the line before going to work. It was a fine
idea with just one major flaw. After a hot sticky
night I had slept so badly that I couldn't find
the energy or enthusiasm to do any laundry before
going to work. After work on Thursday I went for
my Thursday night drink, and felt too tired when I
finally got home to consider doing any laundry.
Like the morning before, I couldn't face doing it
before going to work.
By Friday even I had to act, and I had to
act fast. That towel was getting really, really
stinky ! First of all I added some Dettol to the
rinsing water, and maybe that helped, but I
thought I could do better. So after a couple of
rinses, poor ones, but I hoped enough to get most
of the Dettol out, I added some bleach to the
rinse water. That seemed to react with the
remnants of the Dettol to give a really powerful
smell that may, or may not have smelled like
formaldahyde. Many rinses later and it was still
very smelly. I hung the towel in the garden, and
it was out all Friday night, all through Saturday,
and it is still outside now. I think the smell has
almost died off, but if it is not perfectly fresh
smelling by late this afternoon I may decide to
recycle that towel in the recyling bin.
Friday night was another night that was hot
and sticky, and it was probably made worse by all
the physical effort I had put into rinsing out the
smelly towel. In an ideal world I would have got
to bed, and been fast asleep by about 8pm, but I
don't think I even started trying to sleep until
well past 9pm, and it could have been 10pm. That
would have been OK if I had been able to sleep
through to 11am Saturday morning, but after
another rough night, although maybe not as rough
as some previous nights, I was awake at the stupid
hour of 4am ! I felt too uncomfortable in many
ways, including needing a visit or two to the
toilet, to go back to sleep. So I got up for a
couple of hours before going back to bed again.
Unfortunately it seems I couldn't let myself
sleep properly, if indeed I was even capable of
it, because I needed to be up in time to tidy up
and stuff before a visit from Aleemah. I
eventually met her at the station when she got off
the 10:06 train. When we breakfasted in the local
Wetherspoons pub I had a good excuse for an extra
half pint of beer. I started off with two halves
of beer, but unfortunately the second half was not
to me taste. In fact it tasted sort of nasty. So I
had an extra half pint of the first beer to take
the taste away of the second.
After breakfast we came back home to watch a
few more episodes of The Outer Limits from
Aleemah's DVD box set. There was lots of things I
was contemplating doing after Aleemah went home,
but I was feeling too tired to bother doing any of
them. I spent some time on my bed reading and
occasionally snoozing, and somehow the time seemed
to race by. In the evening I went to another gig
in The Black Cat.
Saturday night's band were called Paper
Fish, and unfortunately they were a bit too "beard
and sandals" for my liking. What they did they did
well, but it just wasn't to my liking. So I took
some pictures, drank a pint of Guinness, and came
home again. That gave me the opportunity to have
an early night - early for a Saturday night that
is. I can't quite recall when it was, but I reckon
I was in bed, and possibly asleep by 11pm. It
seemed a far fresher night, and although I still
got up far too early, I slept far better than
recently.
This is Paper Fish - you may not be able to
see any beard and sandals, but they were there in
spirit - and note the lack of electric lead guitar
!
Today I have done nothing worthwhile yet,
and apart from a visit to Aldi a bit later, I may
not do anything notable all day. I did have an
idea that I might go for a walk along the Thames
between Waterloo and Vauxhall bridges today, but
there are no trains to Waterloo East today, and I
just can't raise the enthusiasm to consider
alternative routes. Plus I am still tired after
getting up far too early. In an ideal world I'll
snooze all afternoon. That seems unlikely, but
I'll try my best !
One more picture. I took this when I went to
Meet Aleemah at the station on Saturday morning.
It shows new scaffolding up around one face of The
Catford Bridge Tavern. It looks like they are
removing most of the fire damaged parts of the
interior of the building. Whether this is a
prelude to rebuilding the interior, or partial
demolition remains to be seen. Maybe there will be
another "accidental" fire that will complete the
task that the first tried to do - completely
demolish the building so they can build a block of
flats in it's place. Time will tell.
Friday
22nd July 2016
07:34 BST
The weather was pretty much as expected
yesterday. It was a fairly dull day, but still a
little warmer than "mild". Rain was forecast for
after 9pm, and maybe there was some evidence that
there was some rain at some time during the night.
What wasn't forecast was rain much earlier than
that. The first rain I felt was while sitting
outside the pub at approx 6pm. I counted 7 drops
then, and while on the bus home at approx 7pm I
counted 18 spots of rain on the front windows. The
forecast for today keeps changing. Yesterday
evening the forecast had changed to say it would
be a dry day with sunny intervals. Then it said it
there would be frequent showers with sunny
periods. Then it said it would be dry, but
overcast.
This is the current best guess for today. I
took this screenshot at approx 07:30. I would
concede that it starts off half correct. It was
about 18° C when I left home, and by 8am it
probably will be 19° C, but what it omits is the
rain that is falling now, and started as I walked
to the station at 6.20am.It was only light rain,
and it didn't seem worthwhile getting my raincoat
out of my bag, and putting it on. It feels so
humid that I was probably getting damper from
sweat than I was from rain.
I was looking forward to a beer after work
yesterday, but I had my doubts about the venue. On
the plus side, the pub we were meeting at, The Red
Lion, was closer to Bromley North station than it
seemed to be when looking at a map. There was also
the plus point that the beer was well kept, but
apart from those two points it was not a very
satisfactory experience.
I think we were all expecting it to be a
quiet back street pub, but it seems we chose the
night when the local golf club were having a small
presentation of some sort. So it was rather
crowded. That wasn't too bad though. There
was worse things to annoy me. I didn't think my
friend Jodie was going to try and get there, but
she did, and managed to get herself lost. There
was no reason why she shouldn't have used Google
maps on her phone to find her way there, but she
"had to save her mobile data allowance" for other
stuff - silly kids games like Moomins and Pokemon
Go !
I was only going to stay for two pints
because it was going to be an annoying journey
home from the pub, but I felt obliged to first of
all go and find Jodie, and guide her back to the
pub, and then have a pint with her. Further
annoyances happened later. As often happens,
Jodies friend Mark was going to meet up with us,
and either stop for a quick pint, or just to pick
up Jodie to give her a lift to another pub, or
home. Unfortunately Mark could not seem to find
his way to the pub by car. When walking there,
there is a convenient cut through from one road to
another, but it is barred to motor vehicles. The
easiest option was for Mark to park near Bromley
North station, and for me to guide Jodie there to
meet him. It had the advantage that I could get a
lift to the bus stop. I am sure that Jodie was
aware that Mark was parked in a place where he
could potentially have got a parking ticket, but
seemed to be in no rush to get to him. She even
stopped to take pictures of some flowers ! I'm not
sure why this annoyed me, but it did. It would
have annoyed Mark a lot more if he had got a
parking ticket !
Eventually I was dropped off at a bus stop,
and I waited for a bus back to Catford. After a
while two turned up. One was a 208, and the other
was a 320. I elected to get the 320 in the belief
that it would get to Catford faster despite it
taking exactly the same route as the 208 - and it
did ! I did have some hope that I might have got
back to Catford a lot earlier, and would have time
to pop into Tesco before going home. It is
possible that I still could have, but I am unsure
of which days it is that Tesco stays open later.
I also contemplated buying a takeaway for
dinner, but I managed to convince myself not to do
that. Although I have plenty of food at home, some
in tins, some in the freezer, and a few bits and
pieces in the fridge, there was nothing that
particularly inspired me, or maybe there was
nothing that was particularly low in stuff. That
was a nonsense because what I ended up eating was
worse than what I could have eaten. I decided not
to have any dinner in any formal sense, but to
just eat some assorted snacks. It was physically
quite a small dinner substitute, but I dread to
think of all the bad stuff in a chunk of cheddar
cheese, Marmite crisps, pork scratchings, and a
handful of mixed nuts !
I certainly went to bed feeling anything but
full, but that was probably just as well because
it was another hot sticky night. It was cooler
outside, but it was still over 28° C in my
bedroom, and it only felt to about 26° C by this
morning despite the window being open all night. I
think it was all worse because the humidity was
(and still seems to be) rather high. I managed to
survive with the fan on half power all night, but
I still had to sleep naked on top of my bed
instead of in it.
The consequence of yet another night of
sleeping badly, and with the fan playing over my
naked body, is that this morning I feel
exceptionally stiff and creaky - particularly my
shoulders and back. My chest aches too. I recall
it going crunch a couple of times when I turned
over during the night. It's probably the lack of
sunshine to distract me, but I think I feel pretty
lousy this morning, and I am not convinced I'll
feel much better later in the day. Maybe some of
those aches and pains will subside, but as they I
do I will probably be feeling sleepier and
sleepier. This is definitely one of ths e morning
where, if circumstances allowed it, I would have
got up, probably taken a couple of painkillers,
given them an hour or two to work, and then gone
back to bed for as long as possible. Unfortunately
circumstances dictate that I have to suffer at
work until I can go home again. It will be another
9 or 10 hours before I can lay on my bed and have
a snooze. That's a long wait !
Thursday
21st July 2016
07:33 BST
Yesterday's weather was almost as expected,
but with one useful difference. The last weather
forecast I saw said it would probably rain between
5 and 6pm, but it was dry and sunny. I guess it
wasn't a bad guess by the weather forecasters - it
did get cloudy around 4pm. I think the temperature
only hit 30° C for a short while, and I would
suggest that 28° C was closer to the average for
the afternoon through to early evening. Today is
going to be rather different. In all likelyhood it
will stay dry, but after some sunny spells this
morning, which seem to be over already, it will be
a lightly grey overcast day. It will be cooler
too. It was only 16 - 17° C, and feeling cool when
I walked to the station to come to work. This
afternoon the temperature is expected to peak at
just 24° C. Tomorrow will probably be similar to
today, but rain is forecast for after 9pm.
Saturday may, or may not, be sunnier and warmer.
As much as it was nice being in my air
conditioned office yesterday, it was also nice to
get out into the fresh air at home time. The
instantaneous change from about 23° C to 30° C was
a bit "in your face", but it still felt nice. My
only complaint would be that it had got a bit
cloudy by then, and the sunshine was a bit
intermittent. Maybe it was a little too humid too,
but only enough to cause some mild stickiness. It
still made me feel good, and this time I really
did run up the escalators at Waterloo....well,
sort of run. What's that thing horses do between
walking and running ? Maybe it is cantering, and
that seems a fair description of what I was doing
- faster than walking, but slower than sprinting.
Jogging maybe ?
I had set myself two goals when I got home
from work, and I achieved one, and failed the
other, but I did achieve something else that I
didn't even consider I would be doing - probably
because I thought it might be raining. The first
goal was to try and moderate my food intake a bit
better, and while it would have been better to
have eaten even less, I did manage to reduce it
quite a lot. I started with two cheese and tomato
puree finger rolls, and then later on I had salad
with a small tin of (drained) mackerel in
sunflower oil. I finally finished off with 4
little satsumas with a large handful (gorilla
sized - probably) of mixed nuts.
My second goal was to either select and edit
the pictures I had taken on my Canon camera at The
Fifth Element gig on Saturday in The Black Cat, or
to upload the pictures I had already prepared from
my Nikon camera to Flickr. Ideally I would have
done both, but I did neither. What I did do was
some laundry. After having a snack (the two cheese
finger rolls) soon after getting home I gathered
up three work shirts, a t-shirt, some underwear,
two tea towels, and a pair of shorts, and then
washed them. I must confess that the shorts only
got a double rinse to wash out a sweat stain that
didn't look very nice.
I estimate I got all that washing on the
line by around 6pm. Two hours later, shortly
before I tried to go to bed, everything except the
shorts was 99.5% dry. So I brought it all in
except for the shorts, and by this morning it was
all bone dry. I am actually wearing one the shirts
I washed last night this morning ! It was all very
satisfactory, and I even had time to mostly cool
off before I went to bed.
I have to admit it was partly boredom, but
also because I had felt a bit sleepy during the
day, that I attempted to go to bed soon after 8pm
last night. In one respect it was pointless
because my bedroom was at nearly 30° C, and I felt
far too hot and sticky to get to sleep, but from
another point of view it was a good idea. After
thrashing around for an hour I think I did fall
asleep at about my normal time of 9pm. Had I not
tried to go to bed until 9pm I would probably have
been thrashing around until 10pm !
It doesn't feel like I slept that well last
night, but I don't recall being awake much in the
night. I feel sort of headachey this morning.
Maybe it's just the change in the weather. Other
than that I feel mostly OK. I really ought to save
this so I can be really boring and copy and paste
it every day - all the bits that usually hurt, or
creak, or complain still do all those things, but
none are doing it badly enough to be bothersome.
My right foot didn't seem to be sore at all this
morning until I started walking to the station.
Even then it wasn't terrible - it has been far,
far worse - and yet it was still rather annoying.
Hopefully I'll survive another day at work
in good humour, and with my body in reasonable
working order because I face a bit of a challenge
after work. It's Thursday, and that means it's
drinking night ! The only problem is that tonights
venue is in Bromley, and generally speaking I am
not keen on drinking in Bromley. Getting there is
going to be a bit complex. I'll have to get a
train from Waterloo East to Grove Park station
where I'll change to the shuttle service to
Bromley North station. From there it looks to be
about a 10 minute walk. Getting home again is
going to be the biggest pain. I could potentially
get the train back to Grove Park, but those trains
only run every 30 minutes, and if I just miss one
it would be a very tedious wait. The alternative
is probably about a 15 minute walk to a bus stop
where I can get a slow, smelly, noisy, packed bus
back to Catford. I hope this pub has the most
excellent beer or I am going to feel very
disappointed after enduring all that travelling !
Wednesday
20th July 2016
07:39 BST
I was slightly disappointed with the
weather yesterday. The forecast said the
temperature would reach 33° C, but by my reckoning
it only reached 30° C. It was still a beautiful
bright sunny day though. Today see a small
change.
It's looking like it will be a little cloudy
for a while this morning, but the afternoon is
going to be bright, sunny, and hot again. 5pm is
looking interesting. Will it, or won't it rain,
and if it does will it be a light shower ? In
temperature like this afternoon it could all go
topsy turvey and we could end up with torrential
rain, thunder, and lightning - and it could happen
while I am travelling home from work. If it is a
light shower I will just let myself get damp, but
if it is a thunderstorm then I do have a raincoat
stuffed in my rucksack - although in that heat it
will probably get wetter inside from sweat than
outside from rain !
It was nice in my air conditioned office
yesterday - except when I set the thermostat to
too cool ! Even being too cool didn't stop me
almost falling asleep once or twice - that was the
legacy of poor sleep the night before. I fear the
same will happen again after another night of the
heat making sleep difficult. While it was nice
being cool while at work, I still looked forward
to going out in the baking heat, and I wasn't
disappointed when home time came around.
As I walked up the road I could feel the sun
frazzling my legs. I was probably lucky they, or
other bits of me didn't burn. In earlier years I
would slowly build up my resistance to the sun,
and tan, by frequent short exposures to the sun.
It was one of the health benefits of smoking -
popping outside for a cigarette, and a small dose
of sunshine every hour. Now I no longer do that it
is going to take some time to build up a bit of
colour to my legs, and it seems summer is almost
over now (well tomorrow is going to be cloudy and
a lot cooler).
One of my quirks is that I like walking in
the hot sun, and yesterday was no exception. My
right foot was moderately painful, but I still
decided to ignore the bus stop and walk to the
station - and it was almost nice ! When I arrived
at Waterloo I felt motivated to run up the
escalators - I didn't, but I did walk up them
fairly fast. That is something I very rarely do,
but it just seems like a good thing, maybe even a
funny thing to do when everyone else seems to be
wilting in the heat. If I could only lose a few
stone I reckon I could almost do some running on
days like yesterday !
Unlike the night before my journey home was
straightforward and trouble free. I was lucky ! An
hour or two later all the temporary signalling
around London Bridge went TITSUP (Total Inability
To Support Usual Processes).
I think it was about 7pm when for some unknown
reason I decided to check the trains through
Catford Bridge station (I have the web page saved
on the bookmarks toolbar). I was shocked to see
several cancellations, and most of the trains that
were possibly running were reported as being over
an hour late in some cases.
My thermeters all agreed that it was only
30° C when I got home. That was a bit lower than
the expected 33° C, but even 30° C felt briefly
cool when I got off the train at Catford Bridge.
There is no air conditioning, and very little
ventilation on class 376 trains. This is
particularly so at the carriage ends. In the
centre of the carriage the air can circulate a
little more. It was really sweltering where I was
sitting, but apart from the embarrasment of
dripping sweat everywhere I felt quite
comfortable. I just hope that my deodorant was
still working well. There were some cummuters
whose deodorant definitely wasn't working, but
oddly enough they mostly seemed to be on the train
from Earlsfield to Waterloo.
I had left a glass of water in the fridge to
drink when I got home, and that was rather nice. I
had also remembered to leave all the curtains
closed on the south side of the house (the front).
That helped to keep my bedroom very slightly
cooler, and the living room downstairs cooler
still. I'm not sure if I was inspired to eat less,
or if I just didn't feel quite so hungry because
of the heat and sunshine. Everything I ate was
partly healthy except for one thing that I shall
not name, and that one thing sort of ruined the
whole idea of eating less and more healthily for
yet another night. It wasn't a complete loss
though because I think the total quantity was
still less, and that probably helped towards
sleeping on another night where sleep is
traditionally difficult.
I didn't really do much last night, and I
don't know where all the time went, but on
reflection I can account for some of it. I did do
a little bit of very simple video editing - really
just topping and tailing, and recoding to a more
web friendly size. It was another song performed
by The Fifth Element at The Black Cat last
Saturday. This is a cover of the Spencer Davies
song - Gimme Some Lovin'. I've pushed the video
size, and bit rate even higher on this to see what
happens.....
The other bit of
missing time that I now remember is going to
bed extra early - about 8pm. It was pretty
pointless trying to sleep that early in that
heat, but the heat was not the only problem.
Noise was another problem because the window
was open. It's usually a fairly quiet
neigbourhood, but there is always one person
who spoils it. On this occasion I think it was
someone up the road wooing his girlfriend in
his car by playing her "Now That's What I
Call A Sound Check - a triple album
box set of the finest recordings of
drummers, and sometimes bass players, doing
a sound check so the sound man can get the
sound balance right before a gig starts".
At least that is what it sounded like to me,
and it went on until 9pm when he (or she)
drove off - I think - It's all guess work
because I never left my bed to even look out
the window to see what was really going on out
there.
I probably fell asleep not that long
after 9pm. I assume I slept badly because I
remember waking up quite a few times, but I
can't remember any times when I stayed awake
for more than a few minutes. Sometime I
probably just woke up to turn my pillow around
so I could find a dry spot that wasn't damp
with sweat. I would occasionally have a swig
of drink when I woke up, but I guess I was
fairly dehydrated when I got up. I had left
another pint of water in the fridge overnight,
and I drank about three quarters of a pint of
that. It went down a treat !
This morning I feel moderately good
again. Even my right foot seems to hurt less
this morning. I'm not sure if paradox is the
right word to describe an oddity about how I
feel. It is this....Walking seems to be harder
work than usual this morning, but it seems
that the only reason for this is that I seem
to be walking faster without realising it - at
least I think I am. I'm sure I left home at
the same time as usual this morning, but I
arrived at the station slightly earlier than
usual - I expected to arrive there later
because it seemed hard to keep up a decent
pace, but evidently it was hard to keep up an
enhanced pace - which is only natural. I
thought I made very good time when dashing
from Waterloo East station to Waterloo
mainline station this morning, but if I could
have just shaved another 15 seconds off the
time I might have been able to leap on
the 06:53 train through the rear doors
before they closed. I've never managed to get
that train before, but I came very close to it
this morning !
I don't think I have any plans for
tonight, or do I ? I still have some useable
pictures from Saturday night on my Canon
camera, and I could do something with those,
or I could upload the pictures I have already
prepared to Flickr. In fact I really ought to
do the latter, and maybe that should be my
goal for tonight because I won't be able to do
it tomorrow - tomorrow is booze night !
Tuesday
19th July 2016
07:33 BST
It was rather nice yesterday. I think the
only relevant details are hot and sunny, lots of
clear blue sky, and the temperature hitting 25 -
26° C. Today will be even better - providing the
air con does it's stuff at work !
This was the forecast at 5am this morning.
Since then it has been revised upwards with the
temperature predicted to hit 33° C between 4 and
5pm - just when I am going home....on non air
conditioned trains. It's a shame the journey home
will be spoiled hot train carriages filled with
stinky people ! I thought it was to be today, but
it's now looking like it will be tomorrow that
ends with a bang. After another pleasant day the
clouds will bubble up, and there will be an
excellent chance of a thunderstorm.
It was a mostly pleasant day at work
yesterday, but it was all spoiled by trouble on
the trains going home again. As soon as I arrived
on the platform at Earlsfield station I knew
something was wrong. The signal at the end of the
platform was at danger, and I could see a train
waiting at the next signal up the line. I couldn't
be sure because the view was not clear, but there
seemed to be a stationery train at the next
signal beyond the one I could see clearly.
This turned out to be correct. It seems a train
had broken down at Clapham Junction station, and
had blocked the line. I was on the 4th train in
the queue waiting to get to Clapham Junction
station.
It was probably one of the better places for
a train to break down. There is a depot at Clapham
Junction, and there was probably a fitter in the
depot who could wander over and fix the train.
Reading the Evening Standard newspaper helped the
time waiting pass by, and I was a little surprised
that we arrived at Waterloo a whole 25 minutes
late. That meant that I missed my usual 16:20
train from Waterloo East after arriving on the
platform at 16:27.
On any other day I would have faced a
reasonable 12 minute wait for the next train going
to Catford Bridge, but not yesterday. There had
been some sort of signalling problem in the
Lewisham area earlier, and that had delayed the
incoming train to Charing Cross that would form
the 16:39 train that I wanted. It eventually ran
16 minutes late, and to make matters worse there
was a change of platform involved. We had plenty
of notice so there was no rush, but it was still
annoying to have to rush down the subway from
platform A to platform C.
I eventually arrived back in Catford a lot
later than usual. I was feeling a little thirsty
and considered going for a quick pint in The Black
Cat pub, but decided against that. I didn't go
straight home though. I went into the Sam 99p
shop, Poundstetcher, and Poundland (which I think
is the correct name for the shop I usually call
The Pound Shop). I was looking for some nail
varnish remover. I'm sure I had seen some in one
of those three shops, but I couldn't find any last
night.
I eventually arrived home at 6.03pm - an
hour and a quarter later than usual. I felt
thirsty and hungry, but possibly more hungry than
thirsty. I am not sure why I felt so hungry, but
it was one of those nights where I ended up eating
far more than I should have even when some of it
was allegedly low in calories and/or fat and/or
sugar. A little later when I went to bed I felt
rather full, and that was probably not an ideal
situation on a hot sticky night. After dinner I
didn't really have time to do that much, but I did
do about the most basic bit of video editing
possible.
This video, assuming
it plays OK, is of The Fifth Element
performing at The Black Cat on Saturday night.
The song, Need Your Love So Bad, is amongst my
favourite songs, and had I known in advance
that they were going to play it I would have
recorded it from the start. Instead I had a
mad scramble to get my Canon camera out (I had
been using the Nikon for the stills
photography). I only managed to catch the last
90 seconds, but it gives a good feeling of the
performance. I've taken advantage of my
upgraded broadband speed so this is a slightly
bigger video with a higher bit rate. I hope it
plays OK.
I attempted to get to bed at my normal
time of 9pm last night, but sleep was
difficult in the hot sticky heat. I had made
the error of leaving the curtains open during
the day, and the blazing sun had really heated
the room up. After laying on my bed dripping
for 15 minutes I decided it was time to get up
again to retrieve the fan from the spare room.
Having air blown over my hot body helped a
lot, although I am not so sure the cumulative
effects were that good for me. I woke up
a few times in the night, but apart from a
late start getting to sleep, and waking up
half an hour early, it almost seemed like I
slept well last night.
The only trouble is the after effects of
sleeping in a cool draught. My back and
shoulders, and maybe a few other bits do seem
exceptionally stiff and creaky this morning.
On top of that, while it seemed I slept OK
when I did sleep, I do feel quite tired now I
am at work, and if I was still at home I
reckon I would have gone back to bed by now.
I'm still getting pain from the ball of my
right foot this morning. It comes and goes,
and this morning it is about half and half -
it's been better, and it's been worse. What is
of some concern is that the discomfort means I
am walking slightly differently, and I seem to
be putting more weight on my left foot. It's
only an occasional mild twinge, but it seems
my left ankle is starting to complain. It's
probably time I did something about my right
foot - maybe sandpaper off the callous that
might, or might not be the source of my
discomfort.
I don't think I have any plans for
tonight, but maybe I have some goals that it
would be useful to achieve. The first is to
try not to melt on the way home, and hopefully
not to gag on the stench of some builder who
has been sweating on already sweaty clothes
all day on a smelly building site - sometimes
they stink worse than sporty looking people
(or cyclists) in this weather. My other main
aspiration is to try harder not to eat too
much tonight. If I made a habit of eating like
I seemed to last night it would not take long
before I would no longer be able to wear the
shorts I am wearing today. It took some effort
to get back into them after stopping smoking,
and I don't want to ruin that effort that has
worked so well for now.
Monday
18th July 2016
07:50 BST
During the weekend the weather started to
change from spring like weather to proper summer
weather. Saturday was not particularly sunny, but
it was warm and dry. Yesterday started off with a
mixture of sunny intervals and overcast, but as
the day wore on the sunny intervals became longer
and longer, and by mid to late afternoon it was
all sunshine. It got quite warm too with the
temperature getting to 25° C, and probably a
little higher for a while. Today is going to top
that !
This was the forecast at 5am this morning. I
daren't check it in case it disappoints, but I
have a gut feeling that this forecast will turn
out to be close to reality. If the forecast holds
then tomorrow is looking really spectacular, and
indeed it could end spectacularly with a giant
thunderstorm and torrential rain !
It was useful doing some laundry yesterday
morning so it could hang in the sunshine to dry,
but it did have one knock on effect. After doing
it I suddenly realised it was almost 8am, and I
had no time to shower (and wash my hair) before I
had to go on high alert waiting for the courier
who was delivering my new Virgin Media broadband
modem. I can imagine I was probably a bit stinky
when it was finally delivered at 2.30pm.
Setting up the new modem was not that easy
because of a lack of documentation with it. There
were clear(ish) instruction for setting things up
via a WiFi connection from a PC running Windows,
but no information at all, apart fom a mention it
could be done, via a direct ethernet cable
connection from a PC running Linux, Windows or
MacOS. By reading the booklets that came with it
carefully I found there was one vague mention of
using the box in modem mode (instead of as a hub
with WiFi connections as well as ethernet ports).
I wanted to use it as a modem with all the other
connectivity turned off - the same as the box it
was replacing. Once I was in the control console
it was easy to see how it was done, and I did it,
but in doing so it changed all the indicator
lights on the front of the box, and there is no
documentation as to what they mean. All I know is
that the big light no longer glows white to
indicate all is well, but now glows purple !
It probably took the best part of an hour to
get everything set up, and once it was done I
measured the connection speed. It was the expected
50MB/s (and not the 70MB/s that I thought the
sales droid told me - I thought that sounded a
very unlikely figure). Of course, in practice, the
increased download speed is hardly noticeable in
average use. I checked a selection of web sites
and hardly noticed any change at all. It will
probably be quite quick to download new Linux
distros via bit torrent now, but I haven't checked
that yet. The one difference that will be useful
is the increased upload speed, and my upload speed
is your download speed when using this web site. I
think my upload speed in now about 4MB/s now, and
that should make the occasion movie I include run
a bit smoother. It will also mean it will be
faster for me to upload pictures to Flickr -
something I might try tonight.
I finally managed to wash my hair, and take
a shower, in time to almost cool off again before
going out to The Black Cat to see The Fifth
Element playing there. It was a warm night, and I
dared to wear my shorts for the gig. I didn't do a
lot of moving around while I was there - apart
from going to the bar to replenish my glass of
Guinness, seek no angles to take photos from, and
tapping my foot - I did quite a lot of the latter
! Fortunately it was little enough to keep my dry.
Unlike Billy Hyland, the lead guitaist and singer,
whose hard work left his face dripping. It was
just as well because I had some very nice company.
This is Angela, a fellow Catfordian, who
seems to have taken a liking to me. She's probably
worth two pictures.
I wanted to see both pictures side by side
because they were processed differently. The first
started life as a jpeg file, and the second was a
RAW file. They were taken in burst mode, and the
second would have been taken half a second after
the first. The first one is a bit grainy, and I
couldn't make it any brighter without the grain
getting far worse. The second one uses the noise
reduction option on the pre-processing application
for RAW files, and maybe I used too much because
it looks very soft, almost like it is out of
focus, but it has removed most of the grain, and
is brighter. It took the pictures without using
any flash in a part of the pub that isn't lit very
well (it was almost too dim to read a newspaper
unless you have very sharp eyes).
Here's a picture of The Fifth Element on
stage at The Black Cat. I'll soon have a album of
Hi Res pictures of the gig uploaded to Flickr -
maybe I might do it tonight. I took most of the
pictures of this gig on my Nikon D3200 camera
using the new lens I bought recently. That lens
almost matches the one I usually use on my Canon
Camera. Now my favourite camera for gigs is the
Nikon because it seems far less noisy/grainy than
the Canon. I think I'll mainly use the Canon for
daylight work in future - although it does take
some pretty impressive video. I hope to have a
video or two from Saturday night to show here
soon.
I had a marvellous time on Saturday night,
but eventually I had to go home. Quite why I gave
in to the idea of buying some chicken and chips on
the way home when I felt so euphoric is a mystery.
Maybe I didn't feel so euphoric because it was all
over by then. Who knows. All I know is that I
enjoyed the food, and then found enough energy to
copy all the photos from the cameras to my PC, and
take the first steps towards starting to select
and edit them. It was 1am on Sunday morning before
I was in bed, and asleep.
I slept really well, but for some stupid
reason I still got up at 5.30am after just four
and a half hours sleep. It seemed to be all I
needed for some reason, although later on Sunday I
did find myself flagging a bit. One reason for
getting up so early, apart from just being awake,
was to do a few things before I had a visit from
my friend Aleemah. One think I did was some more
experimenting with my new enhanced broadband speed
while everything was quiet. Once again it was hard
to notice any change in my web surfing experience,
but once again I did not (and still haven't) tried
any intensive downloading of large files.
Eventually it was time to go to the station
to meet Aleemah. It was obviously cooler in the
morning, but I still wore my shorts, and even
after 4 (or 5 ?) pints of Guinness the night
before (and fried chicken and chips) they still
fitted perfectly - as good as they did 3 or 4
years ago before I put on so much weight after
stopping smoking. Apart from flashing my kneecaaps
at Catford in the bright morning sunshine, it was
a normal visit from Aleemah. A pint for me, and
she had a veggie breakfast and coffee, in the
Wetherspoons pub followed by watching a DVD at
home. Yesterday it was a couple of episodes from a
DVD box set of The Outer Limits.
After Aleemah went home I found my lack of
sleep beginning to catch up with me. So I had some
dinner, and then lay on my bed for a snooze. I
don't think I slept for long, and it could have
been as little as ten minutes, but I wasn't really
watching the time. Maybe I was less than sleepy,
but sort of soporific in the afternoon heat, but
whatever it was I found it really hard to motivate
myself to get down to selecting and editing photos
seriously, but eventually I got myself in front of
the PC, and went through all the pictures from my
Nikon camera. I still have a few pictures to
consider on my Canon camera, and once I've done
them I will upload them to Flickr. Maybe that will
happen tonight.
I don't think it cooled down, and if
anything the temperature was still rising when I
had the sudden urge to do some housework. The
significant thing was to do some laundry. I had a
towel that was in desperate need of a good wash
because it was starting to get smelly, and there
were a few other things that needed washing. My
original idea was to leave them all soaking
overnight, and complete the wash early this
morning, but on later consideration I decided that
was a bad idea, and did it all last night.
The downside is that by the time I had
wrestled with a big towel, and the other stuff, I
was sweating quite freely as I hung it all on the
line. That was not a good idea when I only had a
half hour to cool off in before I had to go to
bed. That wasn't enough time, and I went to bed
feeling hot and sticky. I was far too hot for the
duvet, and I spent the whole night uncovered (and
with the window open for a bit of extra cooling).
By 3am I was feeling ever so slightly cool, but I
got back to sleep again still without pulling the
duvet over me.
That coolness did trigger an interesting
dream, and while it was unlikely, it was still
almost possible. In the dream I was walking home
in the early hours of the morning (I don't know
where from - presumably the pub, but maybe not).
It had been an exceedingly hot day, but the
crystal clear sky meant that a lot of the day time
heat was lost to the night sky. In this dream so
much heat was lost that a frost developed,
although oddly enough I didn't seem to feel cold.
A frost like that is highly unlikely in London,
but I believe in some desert areas it does happen.
This morning I am still feeling this new
type of OK. The type of OK where nothing new
hurts, and what does hurt doesn't hurt much. The
exception to this is still my right foot. It
didn't seem to feel too bad yesterday, and it
didn't seem too bad when I got up this morning,
but it did seem to slow me down a bit when I came
into work. I've now changed out of the Vans slip
on shoes I was wearing and put on some flip-flops
- which might be better, worse, or most likely,
indifferent.
Once I get home from work my first task will
be to bring in my sunbaked laundry. I hope it
isn't covered by too many little spiders. There
seem to be an awful lot of them out in the garden
at the moment - web everywhere ! After that will
be dinner - hopefully I'll be satisfied with a
fairly light dinner today - and after that I ought
to finish my photo editing and get them uploaded
to Flickr, but I think I also feel an urge to do a
bit of simple video editing. Tomorrow I will
either include a link to a new Flickr photo album,
or I will embed another video, or possibly neither
!
Saturday
16th July 2016
08:09 BST
The weather was pretty much as forecast
yesterday - and it wasn't very inspiring ! It
wasn't cold, and it wasn't wet, but it was dull
and very bland ! I'm not even convinced that the
temperature hit the forecast peak of 19° C, but at
worst it was probably quite close.
If this forecast turns out to be anything
like reality then things are looking up. Today
looks like it is going to get quite warm, but will
be a bit cloudy (there is 100% cloud cover as I
write this), but look at next Tuesday. If it
really happens I think I will have to describe
next Tuesday as hot !
Yesterday was not such a bad day, but there
were times when I "rested" from doing any work,
and found myself feeling very tired. I was
yawning, and my eyes kept closing as I read some
slightly less exciting stuff on the internet (I
had read all the good stuff earlier). Despite all
that I was able to get some good work done, and my
manager caught me doing it twice ! Finally it was
time to go home, and with my right foot still sore
I left a couple of minutes early in an attempt, a
successful one on this occasion, to get a bus to
the station.
One of the things I have been trying to do
is to keep my feet flat on the floor when sitting
down at work, on the train, and also at home. I
have a theory, although not with much conviction,
that it is bending my feet, with most of the
weight supported on my toes, that makes my foot
pain worse. It is a very precarious observation
that the pain actually subsides, or at least gets
no worse, when I am walking. I'll probably never
know if any of these ideas are true because the
pain in my foot goes away just as spontaneously as
it appears.
Going home from work was not straightforward
- but only because I arrived at Waterloo East 5 to
10 minutes earlier than usual. That meant I would
have had an extra long wait for my train back to
Catford Bridge, or I could chance my luck on an
alternative route home. Some frantic checking of
train times revealed that the next train from
platform A would get me to Lewisham station at
16:19. On most days that would be useless, but on
a day when the service to Hayes (and hence Catford
Bridge) from Cannon Street station was delayed by
signalling problems, and would arrive 10 minutes
late, it was quite useful. It still meant a bit of
a mad dash from platform 4 through the subway to
platform 2 at Lewisham, but it was worth it. I
arrived at Catford Bridge station 15 minutes
earlier than usual.
Maybe that 15 minutes was useful, but it is
something I'll never know for sure. Of course it
was definitely nice, but it might, or might not be
the case that those 15 minutes allowed me to get
to some reduced price in Tesco that might have
been picked up by someone else if I had got there
later. On the other hand it might have been a
curse because not all those bargains were
particularly low in calories and sugar and stuff !
My dinner was a strange mix of stuff that
included some reduced price curry (without any
rice), some home made sandwiches made from reduced
price finger rolls and reduced price haslet, plus
some very tasty reduced price strawberries. The
latter were about 30 minutes from starting to
spoil, and were at the peak of their tastiest !
Last night was another of those nights where
nothing much happened, and yet despite not going
to bed until nearly 10pm, didn't seem to drag or
seem boring. What I can't work out is where all
the time went. It almost seems like one minute I
was eating, and the next minute I was in bed.
Actually that is almost true. I did my best to
watch the 6pm TV news last night, but I find
modern TV journalism terrible, and had to turn the
TV off after 30 minutes. There was a terrible
tragedy in France yesterday involving a terrorist
(or madman, or insane terrorist) driving a lorry
through crowds of people, and killing about 84
people. Rather than just report the facts, which
would have taken 5 minutes, it seems the reporters
just had to fill the next 25 minutes with loads of
witnesses all basically saying it was terrible.
Yes we know it was terrible. That fact was
established in the first 5 minutes. By drawing it
out to a whole 30 minutes it just made it boring,
and I think that does a great disservice to those
involved in the tragedy.
I was hoping for a wonderful night's sleep
last night, and I was expecting to have a nice lie
in. Maybe I didn't actually need a wonderful
night's sleep, and maybe I didn't need a lie in.
Perhaps all I needed was to be able to come to
slowly, and ease myself into the waking world with
no rush, because I still got up very early, and I
didn't feel too bad for it. I did waste some time
reading stuff on the internet, and that meant I
didn't get time to shower and wash my hair before
writing this, but I did have time to wash 5 work
shirts, and some underwear, and get it hanging on
the washing line to dry.
Now I've grown up a bit, and I'm now some
sort of passable imitation of an adult, I don't
really get freaked out by spiders. I am still not
keen on them, but I tolerate them, and rarely
resort to squashing them. However I am still not
keen when they hang out on my washing line -
particularly the small ones that can hide in a
clothes peg. I have a particular horror of a small
one getting in my underpants when they are hanging
on the line, and then going unnoticed while it
grows to huge proportions, only to be noticed as I
am putting them on. Spiders and genitals don't mix
!
The big thing today is waiting for the
courier to deliver my new cable modem for my
broadband upgrade. Unfortunately the courier
service is Yodel, and there are many urban legends
about Yodel - some of which seem very likely to be
true. It seems the chance of the modem surviving
it's delivery intact is infinitesimally small, and
the smashed remains of it will either be delivered
to a wheelie bin, or tossed onto the roof of the
house if I don't answer my doorbell within 2
seconds. So I am now on high alert, and can do
little more than watch out the window non stop
until the modem arrives. Hopefully it will not be
too late in the day because it would be nice to
get out for a breath of fresh air (and probably
buy some junk from the 99p shop) sometime before
the evening.
When the modem arrives I will have to shut
down my internet connection, and for a while my
web server will be off the air. There will be a
little bit of setting up to do here, but hopefully
that shouldn't take long. The big unknown is how
long it will take Virgin Media to do their stuff
when I phone up to get the new modem
authenticated. In theory it should only take
minutes, but with Virgin one can never be sure
(the same is probably true of most ISPs).
Tonight I'll be seeing The Fifth Element
playing a gig in The Black Cat. I am expecting it
to be quite good if my memories of their last gig
are anything to go by. You can see some pictures
of them here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157666919087366
Friday
15th July 2016
07:37 BST
Yesterday wasn't bad, but it still wasn't
good enough to be award a medal for being like a
summers day. It was dry and mostly bright, and it
was on the borders between tepid and warm, but it
wasn't very sunny. I think it was only 18° C or so
when I got home at about 8pm last night. Today
might, or might not be better.
This is the latest forecast for today. I am
positive that it was showing a lot more sunshine
than this when I checked it before leaving home to
come to work. The worrying thing is that on the
strength of the earlier forecast I didn't bring a
coat to work. The way the forecast is heading
might mean I regret that decision ! 5pm worries
me. I can't be sure, but at 5am I seem to recall
it was shown as a big bright sun. It is now shown
as black cloud. What will it show in another hours
time ? Falling rain, hail, sleet, snow ?
It was another boring day at work, although
perhaps not as boring as some, but it was a relief
to finally head towards home - via the pub ! For
some reason I didn't feel particularly keen to go
for a drink yesterday. It was probably because of
the location of the pub - Beckenham. It wasn't a
hard place to get to, and nor was it a hard place
to get home from, but the travelling did add a bit
of tedium. There was also the fact that it is not
a pub I particularly like. It is one of those pubs
where most of the bar room is taken up by the bar
itself, and there is just a narrow space around
the bar to either sit or stand. It makes moving
about tedious as you try not to bump into people,
or spill your drink on them.
The pub, The Bricklayers Arms, is a "real
ale pub", and indeed they did have four real ales
available, but I didn't like any of them. I had
one pint of "Proper Job" - a recently introduced
very hoppy ale from the Youngs brewery. It could
have been nice, but I don't like the hops that
Youngs use. I then had a pint of Harveys Sussex
ale. Several people I know rate it very highly,
but I just can't bring myself to like it even
though I keep trying. For my third and final pint
I resorted to Guinness. I am not sure that was in
tip top condition, but it was nicer than the other
two.
It seemed to take a long time to get through
those three pints, and it was something like
7.15pm when I left the pub. The easiest way of
getting home from there is to get a 54 bus. It
sometimes seems a slow way of getting home, but
the bus stop is just on the opposite side of the
road to the pub, and the bus drops me off at the
end of my road. I didn't have to wait much more
than 5 minutes for the bus, but when you add on
the travelling time on the bus, plus the 6 minute
walk from the bus stop to home, it meant that I
didn't get home until roughly 8pm That made for a
very brief evening.
The first, and virtually the only thing I
did when I got home was to eat dinner. While I
waited for my "Slimming World" chicken chow mein
to cook I had a starter. It was a very not
slimming world little tub of "Italian style"
pasta. Maybe it wasn't as terrible as I thought,
but I couldn't be bothered to check it's
nutritional values. My attempt to curb my appetite
failed once again last night, but for a completely
different reason. It wasn't booze - that is all
too common an excuse - on this occasion it was
extra hot chilli sauce. I was a bit generous when
I put some on the chicken chow mein, and for some
reason I seemed extra sensitive to it. To help
moderate the burning chilli pain I munched through
a fair amount of cheddar cheese. I'm not sure it
helped as much as I had hoped, but I think it did
something. I finished dinner with a little punnet
of cherries.
There wasn't much time to do anything after
dinner, and 20 or 30 minutes later I was in bed.
I'm sure it was only a few minutes later that I
was fast asleep. I woke up a couple of times in
the night, but I still might have thought I had
slept well if it hadn't been the case that I had
to be woken up by my alarm this morning. That
makes me think that I probably could have done
with more sleep, and without the alarm I would
have got it.
Well maybe I have a small sleep deficit, but
I seem to have gone back to feeling sort of OK
again. Apart from my right foot, which slowly,
slowly continues to improve, I have no particular
pains this morning, and maybe I have 2% more
energy than yesterday. I think it is all due to
the Guinness I had last night. Of course as I
wrote that I started yawning, and I have also
realised that I have some discomfort from my
chest. I am pretty sure it is because I need a
good stretch, but it is a little strange. It is
the same pain I usually get just under my right
breast, but it is under my left breast. It seems
what ever used to cause the "twisted rib" pain on
my right has now moved to my left. Weird, very
weird indeed !
I don't need to do it for tonight, but
tonight I think I will go home via Tesco to get
some shopping. This is because I may not be able
to do it tomorrow. Tomorrow I will have to stay at
home and alert for a courier who will be dropping
off a new cable modem for my broadband connection.
Virgin Media, in all their generosity, are
upgrading my connection for free ! Sometime
tomorrow, unless it all goes tragically wrong, I
will go from a 20MB/S connection to 70MB/S (I know
70MB/S sounds an odd number, but I am sure that's
what they said). It will mean I will be without an
internet connection for an unknown period of time,
and this website will be inaccessible, but on the
plus side it should mean that there is a bit more
bandwidth for videos I post here from time to
time. It should also make uploading picture to
Flickr a bit faster, but never actually fast. The
reason is that the connection is really lopsided.
I may get 70MB/S down, but the upload speed will
probably still be abysmally low (3 MB/S ?).
This upgrade will be totally free........except in
about 3 months Virgin Media will announce an
increase in prices. It happens every time !
Thursday
14th July 2016
07:34 BST
I guess I was lucky yesterday. There were
opportunities to get wet, and I missed them all
except for one. It was generally a fairly gloomy
day, but occasionally it was bright, and I have a
vague recollection of seeing a little sunshine. In
fact I think there was a few seconds of sunshine
when I left work to go home. That was rather
better than I expected, but from the time I
arrived at Waterloo East station to wait for my
train back to Catford, it became increasingly
gloomy. When I came out out of Catford Bridge
station there were a few spits and spots of rain,
but they were of no significance. The forecast
said there would be rain at 5pm, and it was
incredibly accurate - except perhaps in not
forecasting torrential rain ! I got home in the
dry, but 10 minutes later I decided to take some
rubbish out to the wheelie bin, and it was like
the heavens had opened ! The wheelie bin is 3 ft
from the shelter of the front porch, and in the 5
seconds it took to rush out, open the lid of the
wheelie bin, throw the rubbish bag in, and get
back under shelter, I got quite damp !
Today is forecast to be quite different. At
10am and 9pm we are going to have strong sunshine
(a bit like we shouldn't be having right now). The
rest of the day will only see sunny periods, but
it is supposed to stay completely dry, and it will
be several degrees warmer than yesterday. It was
only about 18° C yesterday, but today it should be
21° C. I think that is still rather poor for mid
July, but it seems that is the best we can hope
for. Tomorrow is forecast to be the same
temperature, but apart from some early morning
sunshine it will be generally overcast.
I often felt quite tired at work yesterday.
This was mostly from the effort of trying to
appear busy while doing very little. There was at
least one occasion when I felt myself drifting off
to sleep while reading stuff on my PC. There was a
great temptation to just let myself go to sleep,
but I never did. There was one little job I had to
do in the afternoon, and that woke me up enough so
that I didn't feel sleepy going home.
I was quite lucky going home. Earlier in the
day I had thought I would be going home in the
rain, but it was one of those vanishingly rare
occasions when the weather forecast was correct -
although the few rain drops I felt when I came out
of the station were not part of the master plan. I
probably felt the last drop when I was about
halfway between the station and the Iceland
supermarket - or after little more than a couple
of minutes walking.
I arrived home with my shopping in the dry,
and the first thing I did was to get my Iceland
"Slimming World" cottage pie in the microwave so
it could cook, and then have plenty of time to
cool down before I ate it. Once it was in the
microwave I threw the empty wrapper in the bin.
This reminded me of two things. Firstly that the
bin needed emptying, and secondly that it was
really stinky from (I think) rotten fruit
peelings. So I pulled the bin liner out, and went
to the front door to go out to put it in the
wheelie bin. Until I opened the front door I had
no idea it had started raining - and by raining I
mean there was a torrential downpour ! There was
nothing for it but to grit my teeth and dash out
to the wheelie bin. It was all of three feet from
shelter, but in the 3 seconds it took me to
dispose of the smelly bag I got half soaked !
Yesterday evening passed very quickly, and
that is surprising considering I got really peeved
when I turned on the TV when I sat down to eat my
dinner. On BBC1 there was a special news
programme. They were covering our soon to be new
dictator, and now current prime minister, Theresa
May' s visit to the Queen to be invited to be
prime minister (or whatever). As far as I could
see, as I channel hoped back and forth between
BBC1 and Dave, which was showing a repeat of an
old Top Gear, the BBC's coverage was mostly aerial
views of Buckingham Palace, and views of bored,
fidgeting journalists outside 10 Downing Street.
It all seemed very pointless, and doubly so
considering it was inevitable that it would all be
shown over again on the following programme - the
6pm news ! I was so pissed off that I turned off
the TV before the news even started - so I will
admit that I am guessing that the exciting views
of the roof of Buckingham Palace were shown all
over again, but experience suggests that it was
very likely.
I tried to amuse myself reading stuff on the
internet, but that didn't seem to satisfy. So I
plugged in my digital TV dongle to my PC and tried
to watch a bit of TV to staunch the boredom. The
best I seemed to find was an ancient episode of
M*A*S*H, but I could only stand about half an
episode of that before shut down the TV
application, and pulled out the dongle again. The
next thing I did was a very valuable thing to do,
but it only amused me for a few minutes. I plugged
in my back up drive, and started a full back up of
my home partition. That took about 90 minutes, and
during that time I lay on my bed reading. I don't
know why I didn't do that in the first place
instead of getting pissed off with politics
saturated TV.
Finally the back up was finished, and it
finished at about the right time to turn off the
lights, and go to sleep. It doesn't feel like I
slept well last night, and yet as nights go it
seemed little different to others that have seemed
to have been good. One unsatisfactory thing,
although unrelated to any possible negative
physical things, is that I can't remember anything
about a dream I had - and it was a good one - I
think. All I remember was it was another dream
that referenced another dream, but equally it
could have been a dream about dreaming a dream
that referenced an earlier dream. The trouble is I
just don't know, and that's annoying.
I do remember one dream, or some of
the collection of fragments that made up what
seems like a longer dream. It concerned yet
another variation on a common theme for my dreams
- being at a railway station. In this dream the
station could only have been Elmers End station
because I was waiting for my friend Jodie to
arrive from Hayes (Kent) station, and that was
just a couple of stops up the line. If it was
Elmers End station then it was very different to
the one we know and love. For a start it had 6
platforms, and platform 3 had a gents toilet on
it. I know this because I had secured my bicycle
to a bench seat in it (? !). While I waited, one
of the station staff at the ticket barriers
demonstrated that if I kept presenting my 60+
Oyster card to the card reader fast enough it
would generate an interesting error message. It
did, but I have no idea what that error message
was.
That may have been the point when I woke up
at 4.50am - 10 minutes before my alarm was due to
go off. I didn't seem to feel too bad when I woke
up, but it wasn't long before I began to feel
rough. I have a vague recollection of turning over
in bed, and my chest going crack. So it seems my
short run of feeling passably good has ended. My
chest feels a bit sore and crunchy, and other bits
of me don't feel too good either. I haven't really
noticed it since I started to walk to the station,
but my left side shoulder blade seemed very stiff
and cranky, and to a lesser extent the same was
true for lots of bits of my back. In some ways my
whole torso seemed to ache, or perhaps was a
mosaic of little aches and pains - mostly very
mild, but cumulatively annoying.
Maybe the most painful thing this morning
was my left nipple ! I know exactly when it
started - it was 10ft after the railway bridge
adjacent to Earlsfield railway station. I have no
idea when the pain stopped. I think I was
distracted from the pain when crossing the road 50
yards further on, and it sort of disappeared then,
but for 30 (?) seconds it was really quite
unpleasant. The second most painful thing was less
painful by at least a factor of five, and it was
my right foot. The pain has slowly been getting
less and less over the last couple of days, but it
is still strong enough to be very annoying.
It seems I am not in a good way this
morning, although while I am sitting here writing
this I don't feel too bad. Maybe some beer would
help, and seeing as it is Thursday I can give it a
go tonight. The Thursday Club is drinking in
Beckenham tonight. It's not the most convenient
pub to get to, but it's not that bad. The first
time we met there I was able to walk from the
station at the height of my angina, and it didn't
kill me (although maybe it got close). Getting
home again is easiest by bus, but if the traffic
is not too bad it is not a terrible journey.
Wednesday
13th July 2016
07:40 BST
There's no doubt about it. Yesterday was
wet. Wetter than the forecast suggested it would
be. It rained in the afternoon. Stopped for 5
minutes to get it's breath back, and then rained
while I went home from work, and it rained a
little while after that too. After a longer pause
to recover it's strength it rain in the night too.
In fact it might have only just stopped when I
woke up at 5am this morning. The only other thing
to say about yesterday is that it wasn't cold, but
I could also add that it wasn't warm either. It is
possible that the temperature slightly exceeded
the miserable forecast for just 18° C, but if it
did it wasn't by much. This morning it is cloudy
but bright. There is no rain, but there is a bit
of a breeze that makes it feel a bit chillier than
13° C could feel. The forecast says that it should
stay bright with sunny periods until midday. The
afternoon will be more overcast, and it will rain
at 5pm. I will be home by then, but I would not be
surprised if I ended up going home in the rain.
The good news is that the sun will be out again at
9pm - just 12 minutes before sunset at 9:12pm
tonight ! Once again it will not be a very warm
day, but it may be whole degree warmer than
yesterday !
Not a lot happened at work yesterday
(literally !). I felt generally OK, but I felt
better still when home time came around. One thing
that did happen was my bi-monthly 1 to 1 meeting
with my manager. I try to distract him from
talking about work when I can, and one of the
diversions, although work related, was about
holidays. I asked him what his views were about
giving advance notice of days off. He stood by the
company rules of 4 weeks notice for formal
holidays of over a week, but he said he was quite
relaxed about short notice requests for odd days
here and there - subject to the immediate demands
of the business. It looks like I will have an
easier time in future trying to grab those odd
days off when the sun decides to shine, and the
temperature creeps up towards 30° C - if that
actually happens this year, or ever again !
It seems an odd paradox that it can still be
very pleasurable going home in the pouring rain,
but it was a pleasure. In fact when I consider it,
it is probably more pleasurable when it is
raining. Generally speaking it seems like a waste
of an hour of my life coming to work, and another
hour going home again, but I guess travelling in
adversity, as travelling in the rain is, is a a
bit of an adventure, and adds a little spice to
life.....but I wouldn't hope to do it too often !
One of the odd things about yesterday, and
maybe the day before, is that it seemed like I had
lost a tiny bit of weight - as judged by my
trouser belt seeming to be a little looser - maybe
a whole eighth of an inch looser !! When I got
home I had an insane desire to check this feeling
using what may seem like an odd metric - the fit
of my red jeans. My memory of those red jeans is
that the last time I wore them I was worried about
sitting down because they were still rather
tighter than I am used to. Some months ago,
possibly quite a few months ago, when I felt I had
lost a little bit of weight, I tried those red
jeans on. I found it was still a mild struggle,
but I was able to do them up OK. I think on that
occasion I wasn't trying to do them up over a
shirt, and I might not even have any underpants on
! Last night I just took my work trousers off, but
left everything else on, and I found I could get
into and do up those red jeans with comparative
ease. They still felt very tight, and I would be
reluctant to sit down in them (although I guess I
could).
The conclusion I must draw from trying on my
red jeans is that although I fail miserably most
of the time, my intention to be careful about what
I eat must be working. You might think that
conclusion might lead me on to be a bit more
conscientious about what I ate yesterday evening,
but it seems not. I ate all sorts of crap, and
maybe I can feel it this morning. Maybe tonight I
might do better, or maybe I will do worse. I
intend to buy some more "Slimming World" ready
meals from Iceland on my way home. By themselves
they are harmless, and probably beneficial to the
cause, but I'll probably buy some other crap while
I'm in Iceland.
In between eating and sleeping I finally
knuckled down and finished editing the last of
Saturday nights photos of The English Rogues
performing in The Black Cat, and I have uploaded
them to Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/sets/72157670887753496/
Some of them look very sharp, and mostly grain
free, but I am still not happy with them. I think
it is the harsh LED lighting in The Black Cat that
is to blame. I would prefer tradition tungsten
lighting, but I guess I should rejoice that at
least it is nice and bright, and that makes taking
these pictures much easier than in some gloomy
venues.
I am at a loss to explain what has happened
to me, but it seems that I have slept quite well
again, and once again I feel good enough to
believe there is a fair chance I'll live through
another day. I wonder if those antibiotics I had
for my chest infection cured something else too.
The most significant improvement seems to be that
my chest, or more particularly my "twisted rib"
seems to be behaving itself rather well recently.
I still get the odd click, pop, or other
unpleasant sounds from my chest, but rather less
so than was the case a month or two ago, and
likewise, I still get the odd ache here and there,
but a lot less than before. How the antibiotics
could help my mangled rib cage is a mystery to me,
and I suspect it is just a coincidence.
Unsurprisingly, they haven't done much for the
other creaky bits, and I doubt anything can cure
the results of 60 years of abuse to the human
body. I'll just have to live with the slow decay
as bits rust and fall off at the roadside.
Tuesday
12th July 2016
07:36 BST
Yesterday had it's moments, but I think it
has to be recorded as a rather dull and sometimes
wet day. There were some sunny periods, but they
were mainly in the morning and late evening. Most
of the longer showers were early in the afternoon.
By the time I was going home they had become very
short lived. For instance there were two distinct
showers while I waited for my train to Catford
Bridge on Waterloo East station. Perhaps the one
redeeming factor about yesterday was that it
wasn't too cold, and it wasn't too warm. I don't
think I bothered to check, but I guess it was
around 20° C when I was going home. Had it been
any warmer it would have got unpleasantly sweaty
under my plastic raincoat.
I'm not sure what to make of the forecast
for today. At least it is sunny this morning. In
fact it is very sunny. You could mistake it for a
summers morning, and if it was like it all day it
would probably end up lovely and warm, but this
screenshot of today's weather forecast kills that
illusion ! If it holds true than I will stay dry
when I go home from work, but it is not looking
like a very inspiring day. I note that the
forecast for Friday has changed a lot in the last
24 hours. It was shown as a great big bright sun
instead of a grey cloud, and I feel sure that it
was forecast to be a lot warmer than 19° C. I'm
glad I've left it too late to book a days holiday
on Friday like I had originally intended to do.
Things don't always turn out like you expect
- sometimes they turn out better. I think I
mentioned that I was going to go to my favourite
second hand shop after work to look at a camera
lens. That place is nearly opposite the local
Wetherspoons pub. Normally that would be of no
particular interest, but on my way home I got a
phone call from my friend Kevin, and he enquired
if I would like to stop off for a quick drink.
That was handy because I could kill two birds with
one stone.
First of all I went to the shop to test the
lens on my camera, and it worked perfectly. So I
bought it. It cost £60, and I think that was a
very good price for a genuine Nikon lens. The only
small issue is that the spec on the lens is not
very different to a Tamron lens I bought for my
Nikon camera. I took some test shots last night,
and I can't decide which is the better lens, but I
think I lean slightly towards the Nikon lens.
I took those test shots late in the evening.
Before that I did other stuff. Despite not eating
for almost 24 hours, and even then only eating
fairly lightly, I joined Kevin for a couple of
pints in the Wetherspoon's pub. The strange thing
was that I didn't particularly feel hungry, but I
decided not to push my luck and have more than two
pints. I still didn't feel very hungry after I got
home, and maybe I might have ended up eating less
if I had more control over habit. In the strange
topsy turvy world of my digestive system it wasn't
until I had eaten that I felt hungry.
I ended up having two Iceland "Slimming
World" ready meals, and that wasn't so bad, but I
also had some nibbles while I was waiting for the
ready meal to cook in the microwave. The "nibbles"
were some olives with feta cheese, and some sun
dried tomatoes with mozzarella cheese. Neither of
which are noted for their low calorie content ! Oh
well, my trouser belt still feels loose this
morning...
I had originally intended to finish editing
the pictures I took on Saturday night, and to
upload them to Flickr last night, but there wasn't
time for that. In fact I am not sure where all the
time went. Buying the camera lens, and spending
some time in the pub meant that I got home a
couple of hours late, and that used up half the
evening. I guess I spent a fair time taking test
shots to compare lenses. By 8.30pm it was too late
to do any more, and I went to bed to read for a
while. I think I turned out the light a little
after 9pm, and I think I fell asleep really
quickly.
As far as I can recall, I slept quite well
last night, although in the short pause I took to
thank about that I yawned twice ! I guess there is
always a desire for more sleep ! This morning is
like the last few mornings - I feel perfectly
normal (with the caveat that this is the new
normal and not the old normal). In other words the
bits that normally ache are aching, and the bits
that creak are creaking, but that seems to be life
as we know it now. I should probably concede
the point that these aches and creaks are very
mild recently, but they are still there. My main
discomfort at the moment continues to be the
lump/callus/scar/hernia/cancer/bump/.......painful
area on the sole of my right foot. It comes and
goes, and if I am lucky it is not my
imagination that it seems to be going this
morning.
You see some strange things dumped on the
road to the station. This water cooler appeared
yesterday morning, and I took this picture on my
way home yesterday. I can only speculate that the
chiller went faulty because otherwise it looks to
be in good condition. If it was the chiller than
failed I would have thought it could be repaired
easily enough, but maybe not. There were nicer
sights to see this morning on the same road....
The only significance of this picture is
that blue sky. Doesn't it look wonderful ! It's a
shame it is now clouding over, but it made coming
to work a much more pleasant experience.
Tonight I had better try and finish my photo
editing, and get the results uploaded to Flickr.
Other than that, my only predictions about tonight
is that I will eat and sleep !
Monday
11th July 2016
07:44 BST
After a dull morning, and a dull afternoon,
yesterday ended with pleasant sunshine. I'm not
sure what the highest temperature was yesterday,
but I think it was probably around 24° C. The sky
stayed fairly clear during the night, and this
morning has started bright and rather cool,
although much of the coolness can be attributed to
quite the wind. That wind is moderately strong,
and fairly gusty. Later on today anything might
happen. The forecast is changing so fast that it
is hard to keep up with it. It's mainly the timing
that keeps changing. So when these things will
happen is a mystery, but we should see quite a lot
of sunny periods, and there will be some showers
too. About the best I can glean from the forecasts
is that the showers will be at any random times
from the afternoon until the evening. I might go
home from work today in a downpour or bright
sunshine. I haven't even dared to look at the
forecast for tomorrow, but the one pictogram for
this coming Friday shows a huge great bright sun.
I must see if I can wangle a day off work on
Friday !
I couldn't put it off any longer, and late
yesterday afternoon I finally got down to editing
the photos I took on Saturday night. I managed to
get through about two thirds of the huge amount I
took. Maybe tonight I will finish the job and
upload them to Flickr where they can be viewed in
all their glory. In the meantime, I did shrink one
down so it can be shown here.
I don't think I managed to take a picture
that included good views of all three musicians.
Dan, on guitar, and Gerry on bass guitar were easy
enough, but the drummer was always partly obscured
by his own kit, and in this picture by Dan's
guitar headstock as well ! Oh well, I did manage
to get a few passable shots of the drummer to
include in the full photo album.
One thing still bothers me about all those
photos I took, and that is the high levels of
noise, or grain. It is not so apparent when the
photo is shrunk down like the one above, but it
spoils the full resolution images. I feel sure
that it is caused by the harsh LED lighting that
is becoming the norm now. There were some pictures
I took some weeks ago of Chain performing in The
Swan at West Wickham, and despite the lighting
being dimmer, they are less noisy. The only reason
can be that the lighting was traditional PARs
(Polished Aluminium Reflectors), and they use
tungsten filament lamps.
I have a feeling that my Nikon camera is
less noisy with LED lighting, and I think I am
going to have to do one of two things to prove it.
One thing is to get the faulty lens I bought
repaired. If I can get it repaired by Sigma at
their quoted rates I will have a very good lens to
work with. I probably ought to get that sorted out
soon. The second thing I could do is to invest in
another lens. The only problem with that is that
large aperture lenses, like the one I use on my
Canon camera, are rather expensive for a Nikon -
rather expensive indeed ! On the other hand there
are still bargains to be found - maybe. I noticed
my favourite second hand shop has a Nikon zoom
lens in the window for just £60. If it works, and
I will be more careful about testing it in the
shop this time, it might be a useful addition to
my photography arsenal. Maybe I might go and check
it out after work today - if it's not pouring with
rain.
It was getting quite late - 9pm - when I
decided I had had enough of photo editing last
night, and I was in bed soon after that. I didn't
think I felt that sleepy at first, and I read for
half an hour after getting into bed. Maybe I was
mistaken about not feeling sleepy because I was
fast asleep minutes after putting down my book,
and turning out the lights. I guess I slept quite
well. Sometimes I had doubts I was sleeping OK
when I woke up a couple of times in the night, but
each time I awoke I was only awake for a minute or
two. Perhaps the weirdest time was when I woke up
at around 4am. I was feeling cool, and wrapped the
duvet around me a bit tighter. As I did that I
laid there thinking that after a few minutes I
would be too warm. I am not sure I finished that
thought before I was asleep again. the next thing
I knew was that my alarm was sounding.
This morning I feel quite normal. I have no
particular noteworthy aches and pains - just the
usual ones. One odd feeling is that my stomach
feels flatter. A quick glance in the mirror would
prove it was anything but....but the mind plays
tricks sometimes. Maybe on this occasion it is
less than a 100% mind trick. My trouser belt does
seem a fraction slacker than usual. This is, of
course, completely impossible because I ate all
sorts of crap yesterday. I didn't have one single
proper meal, and the closest I came to one was
when I sat down with a punnet of over ripe, and
starting to deteriorate strawberries, and a large
chunk of cheese. The rest of the time I was just
snacking - and those snacks included a couple of
small tubs of sugar filled ice cream. My eating
did include more fruit than just the strawberries
- maybe I ate some sort of balanced diet and
didn't realise it. It seems very unlikely though !
I haven't shown any pictures of stuff
happening on the concourse of Waterloo station for
some time now. To be honest, most stuff that has
appeared there in the last few months has been
rather boring. Today was different. This very 3D
thing appeared on the concourse this morning. I
never saw it up close at ground level, but I am
very sure that no matter how it looks, not a
single tile has been lifted from the floor to give
this effect. It is just an amazing opitical
illusion that makes that thing appear to be
crashing through the floor.
Sunday
10th July 2016
14:29 BST
It was a pleasant day yesterday, and I seem
to recall that Friday wasn't that bad. Friday,
after the gloomy start, brightened up, and there
were some sunny periods, but I don't recall there
being enough sunshine for it to be notable for it.
What it was notable for was that it was mild
enough to have my office window open all day.
There was more sunshine yesterday, but once again
it was more a selection of sunny periods than
prolonged sunshine. It was another mild, going on
slightly warm, day, and it seemed particularly
mild, and sort of nice when I walked home from a
gig at midnight. I could see many stars between
large gaps in the clouds, and the air had a sort
of pleasant soft quality about it.
Sometime this morning there must have been a
shower, although the only evidence of it was the
path looking rather damp. Most of today has been
overcast, but it hasn't been cold. On a rare few
occasions the sun has managed to peep around the
clouds, but only for a minute or so. It is
forecast to start brightening up around now, and
it is possible the last few hours before sunset
could see some non stop sunshine. Tomorrow could
be a nice day if only it doesn't rain. The
forecast says there will be a fair bit of
sunshine, but that it will also rain. It will only
rain for a short time, but that time seems like it
could be just as I am going home from work !
I went into Iceland on my way home from work
on Friday. I bought a similar selection of stuff
to that which I think I described in the middle of
last week. One difference is that I did not buy a
big tub of ice cream, but I did buy several ice
creams in smaller portion, and so far I have
managed to eat them sparingly instead of a
gluttonous overdose from a big tub !
I didn't do anything notable on Friday
night, or at least nothing significant enough to
remember. I can't even remember how well I slept.
That probably indicates it was a reasonable nights
sleep with no dramas, or anything negative that
might be worth remembering. I do remember waking
up feeling just moderately bad - or in other
words, completely normal as judged by the new
standards !
I saw my friend Aleemah yesterday morning,
and that meant I had the pleasure of a single pint
of beer (as two halves) for breakfast. After that
we watched a DVD together. Just for an incredibly
rare change it was one of my DVD's (although it
was actually chosen by Aleemah). The movie was
called Evolution,
and it was a comedy sci fi movie. I had bought the
DVD the previous Saturday from the Pound Shop, and
it was enjoyable enough that I would have paid
double that for it ! One peculiar fact was that I
had seen the ending a couple of times when TV
channel surfing, but had no idea it was the same
film until the last 10 minutes - the bit I had
seen before.
After Aleem went home I did some laundry,
and then I did some intensive resting to prepare
myself for what turned out to be a rather good gig
last night. It definitely helped that I didn't
feel awful before going to the gig (like I did the
previous Saturday), and it definitely helped that
the singer didn't sing out of tune all the time !
The band were The English Rogues, and
although I had never seen them before, I had seen
Dan Murphy the lead guitarist play in a couple of
other bands before. He is a very talented
guitarist, and he is also a showman. It's not
always easy to capture the best bits, but he is a
great subject for photography. I took a stupid
amount of snaps last night, and I have just about
whittled down my selection to about 50 good
pictures, and I might try and reduce that down to
something like the very best 20 - the less people
see my complete and utter failures the more they
believe I am a good photographer !
One thing I tested last night was the video
function on my Canon DSLR. Until last night I was
not even sure how to use it, and I think I used it
just on the default settings. Videoing a 5 minute
sequence used up a whole 2 Gigabytes on my memory
card, but the results were very impressive. The
video resolution was super high - higher than I
can easily display ! The most impressive thing was
they way it recorded the sound. It was really
hi-fi, and sounded just like it did at the gig.
Unfortunately there is no way I can show it here
in high resolution, and with perfect sound, but
after wasting lots of time trying different
encoding settings, I think I can give a small
taste of The English Rogues covering Purple Rain.
Other nice things about last night were that
there were several people there that I know. They
included my old friend Kevin, Rod Tidman - a good
source of photography tips, Dylan Tidman, Rod's
son, and very good drummer, and also Chris (as in
Christine rather than Christopher). Maybe some
rumours were started when we left the pub together
at the end of the gig, but it was innocent. I gave
her an escort to her car through the wild (but
actually calm and quiet) streets of Catford. The
other good thing was that Richard, the pubs second
in command (I think) bought me a drink for all the
good work I do in promoting the pub and gigs -
they use a selection of my pictures.
It was probably gone 1am when I went to bed
this morning, and for several hours I slept really
well, but my internal alarm clock still woke me
just before 6am. I would probably have been a bit
late going to work if I had to relay on it, but
not that late. I had little choice but to get up
and do the usual morning things - go to the
toilet, check my email, go to the toilet again,
check a web page or three, etc, etc. After a
couple of hours I went back to bed again. I'm sure
I didn't sleep much, but I suddenly noticed it had
gone 11am !
Since getting up then I seemed to have been
glued to my PC. I've edited the English Rogues
video, and tried saving it using lots of different
settings, and I've reviewed all the pictures I
took last night. Now I have written this, and it
feels like my eyes need a rest. Maybe in an hour
or two I will start editing all those photos. Most
will end up on Flickr, but I might have a few to
shrink down to show here tomorrow....although I
don't feel that enthusiastic about photo editing
at the moment - hopefully I will later on.
Friday
8th July 2016
07:36 BST
Yesterday was the one day of the year when
I wouldn't have minded if it had been heavily
overcast with thick black clouds covering the sky.
Instead, like a lot of the day, it was bright and
sunny. Occasionally a few clouds would block the
sun, but they didn't stop it being bright, and
they were not rain bearing clouds. Maybe it was
just a very local thing, but all my thermometers
seemed to agree the temperature reached a very
nice 24° C. That was 3 or 4 degrees higher
than forecast. Today is not forecast to be
similar, but it feels like it could be. Yesterday
they said there would be rain this morning.
Yesterday evening they said there would be less
rain this morning, and this morning they say no
rain, but it will be very cloudy. It's not exactly
sunny this morning, but I can see several large
areas of blue sky as I write this. The thick black
clouds are forecast for a little later this
morning, and maybe they will appear. The amount of
sunshine in the afternoon has decreased with every
revision of the forecast in the last 24 hours, but
at least some sunny periods are still forecast,
and once again it should be fairly warm - perhaps
23 or 24° C by the time I leave work to go home.
The big thing yesterday was my annual diabetic eye
check up. It's done in the hospital, and the first
step in the procedure is to be given eye drops.
These are squirted in each eye, and they dilate
the pupils to the size of dinner plates. It takes
15 to 20 minutes before the pupils are fully
dilated. Once they are nice and big the technician
can used a specialised digital camera to take
pictures of the back of the eye. To get good clean
pictures flash photography is used - straight into
the eye !
After this is done you are free to go home
with purple and green after images floating about
in your vision, and your pupils so dilated that it
is difficult to focus on anything small, and the
eyes so sensitive that white cloud looks like an
arc lamp !
As I walked through the park it was nice
when under the shade of some of the big trees, but
there are not many of them. As I popped out into
the harsh daylight again I tried to take a selfie
to show what my eyes looked like with the pupils
very dilated, but the light was so painful that I
could not force my eyelids open enough to reveal
my eyes. You can just see a glint in my eyes from
how much they were watering when I took the
picture on the left.
It probably sounds pretty terrible, but
really it's more an inconvenience than a
pain...although having said that, I did develop a
bit of a headache by the time I got home. The good
news, although it's only preliminary good news, is
that the technician said he could see no obvious
problems when he took the briefest of looks at the
photos he had taken. In the past some technicians
(they are not nurses or doctors) have zoomed in on
the images, added false colours, and other tricks
to give a more informed, but still informal,
diagnosis. The real diagnosis is done by an
expert, and I'll get the results in a week or two.
The usual result is "we can see something, but it
is very minor, and we will recheck it next year".
Once they thought they saw something a little
bigger, and I was rechecked 6 months later as a
precaution, but as always they can never find the
same thing twice. I think there is a fair chance I
will be OK again this time too.
Apart from recovering from the eyedrops, the
entire procedure probably used up less than an
hour of yesterday. That left me free to enjoy my
day off work. In the morning I took a wander
around the Sam 99p shop. As usual I bought some
good and bad crap. I can't think of anything of
particular note that I bought in there - it was
mostly household cleaning stuff. I did buy a spare
pot of Aloe Vera moisturising creme for a use that
I'll explain soon. The other joy of yesterday was
a brief visit from my friend Patricia. I hope I
was able to cheer her up a bit because she is not
happy about BREXIT. This could be the last time
she is in the UK on, what is in effect, a working
holiday if we do end up leaving the EU.
Yesterday I made a discovery. Well, perhaps
not a discovery, but I added 2 and 2 together and
came up with 5 ! I have mentioned that I have been
suffering from a sore lump/callus on the ball of
my right foot, but what I don't think I've
explained in detail is what I have been doing
about it. In the past I have discovered that
moisturising my foot helps, or appears to speed up
the process of flattening out that lump/callus.
Yesterday I did what I have done in the past, and
very liberally smeared moisturising creme all over
my foot, and doubly liberally on the ball of my
foot. I put on enough to squelch when I walked
(for a couple of paces). This is in accordance of
the theory that if a thing is worth doing it is
worth over doing !
It did indeed help to make walking less sore
yesterday, and the effect continues today. The
only problem might be that I used some Chinese
made strawberry flavour moisturising "gunk" that I
bought in one or other of the £1 shops. It smells
delightful, but is a little too greasy to use on
many parts of the body. However it is fine on
feet, and makes them smell delightful (probably).
It all sounds too good to be true, and maybe it
is. I have moisturised my feet many times in the
past, but only twice using this strawberry stuff
in heavy quantities. I can't be 100% sure, but I
think on both occasions I developed stomach ache -
or an ache in the stomach area. I am not sure it
was anything to do with my my stomach or digestive
system. If I really strect6ed my imagination I
could almost believe that it was my liver
complaining that it was working hard breaking down
some toxic substance absorbed into the body via my
feet from the strawberry flavour moisturising
creme. I'm going to use Aloe Vera moisturising
creme, made by a completely different
manufacturer, the next time, and see if that has
any negative effects. In fact I splodged some on
this morning, and so far I feel OK.
It felt quite warm when I went to bed last
night, and initially I left my bedroom window
open. Usually that would be fine. It is generally
fairly quiet where I live, but sods law dictated
that last night was the one night when a
(presumed) police helicopter decided to hover over
the neighbourhood. So I got up and closed the
window again. I fell asleep quite quickly after
that, and apart from waking up feeling rather
cool, and having to pull the duvet over me at
about 2am, I slept quite well last night.
This morning I have come to the conclusion
that I feel rather good. This is of course the new
version of good and not the old version. The
version of 10, 20, 30 years ago felt much better,
but how I feel this morning seems like the new
average. Basically, nothing hurts too much, and
most bits of my body seem in fair working order.
It even seems I can get a few more years of life
out of this battered crock of a body. It would be
nice to feel like I did many years ago, but I
guess that is never going to happen again until I
am so senile that I don't even realise that I am
painfully creaky.
What am I doing tonight ? I have no idea
apart from a feeling that I might go home via
Iceland to buy a few more of their "Slimming
World" ready meals. It seems unlikely that the few
I have eaten recently have made any difference
considering the crap I have eaten with them, but
on the other hand it does feel like my stomach is
bulging less. My belt is no looser, but maybe my
gut is microscopically flatter above it, but that
is real "clutching at straws" type of stuff. I
expect I'' buy and eat a fair selection of crap
tonight, but I am determined not to fall into the
trap of buying any ice cream again !
Thursday
7th July 2016
12:17 BST
I'm desperately trying to remember if it
was sunny yesterday afternoon. I recall it getting
very warm in my office, and I recall my newspaper
seemed dazzingly bright when I was trying to read
it while waiting for my train at Waterloo East. I
guess it was sunny, and I seem to recall that I
noticed 24° C on two of my outside thermometers
when I got home from work ! It seems we had
another summers day ! This morning has been bright
with some nice sunny spells, and the temperature
is now creeping up to 22° C or more. This is not
what the forecast lead me to believe yesterday !
The most recent forecast, made just 10 minutes
ago, says we are about to lose any sunshine except
for a random brief sunny spell, and the
temperature will top out at 22° C in an hour or
two. It all goes wrong tomorrow morning. Most of
the morning is forecast to be rather cool and
rather wet ! It will warm up to about 21° C late
in the afternoon with the help of some sunny
periods.
Work passed without incident yesterday. I
felt mostly OK most of the time. I accomplished a
few useful things while I was there, but it was
still a relief to be going home at the end of the
my working day. My only problem at that point was
that my right foot was feeling rather sore. It was
the old war wound, or whatever it is. I have a
funny feeling that sometimes this particular
ailment affects the other foot, but yesterday it
was my right foot. There is a lump that's not
actually a "lump" on the ball of my foot, and it
was feeling very sore as I walked to the station
(there is never a bus when you actually need one).
That lump is part callus, and may be part scar
tissue from a 50 year injury to my foot (I stepped
on a very long rusty nail !).
Once I started walking the pain reduced, but
never went away, and was always worst after
resuming walking after a rest. It made me a bit
keen to get home without any delays, but there was
one delay. I had to stop to take a picture.....
This picture shows the burnt out shell of
the old Catford Bridge Tavern. As I came out of
Catford Bridge station, on my way home from work,
I noticed that new boarding had been erected
around part of it (and maybe more has been erected
since). The place has been sitting there with very
little change since it "accidently" caught fire
nearly 2 years ago. It now looks like something is
happening, but what ? One person commented that
they would have expected scaffolding to go up if
refurbishment was taking place, and this boarding
looks more like demolition will be taking place.
Promises were made that it would be restored to a
working pub, by Xmas this year, but that seems
very unlikely.
I did my best to eat less last night, and I
did eat less - but not much less ! The main course
of my dinner was a chicken and spinach curry from
Iceland's "Slimming World" range, and so should
have theoretically been OK. For sweet I had a
punnet of strawberries that I had bought from
Iceland. They were a fair bit smaller than the
strawberries that Aldi have been selling, and they
were very much nicer.
After dinner I tried to amuse myself with
some TV, but before long I was on my bed reading.
It seemed too warm to get into bed when I finally
turned out the light, but a few hours later I woke
up feeling cold, and had to pull the duvet over
me. I think I slept reasonably well last night,
but the cream on the cake was being able to ignore
the alarm, and get an extra 90 minutes in bed. I
guess I must have need it.
That extra sleep may have made me feel a bit
more creaky this morning, but I don't feel too bad
- except for my right foot. That is not as bad
this morning, but it is still sore. It didn't
impede me going out to the 99p shop, although
maybe it slowed me down. I am currently waiting
for a visit from my friend Patricia who will be
popping in any minute now. Later on I'll be at the
hospital for my annual eye check. I don't know
what I'll be doing after that. It depends on how
quickly my eyes recover from the eye drops. All I
do know is that I am back at work tomorrow.
Wednesday
6th July 2016
07:56 BST
Yesterday afternoon actually felt like
summer ! After a very dull morning it was very
nice to see the sun breaking through the clouds.
By the time I left work to go home it was not only
nice and sunny, but it actually felt warm. I am
unsure of the exact temperature, but I wouldn't be
surprised if it wasn't slightly higher than the
20° C forecast. It was a relatively clear night,
and this morning the temperature had dropped to
around 12° C. That felt a bit cool without a coat
on, but it was, and will continue to be for the
next couple of hours, a bright sunny morning. What
happens after that is in the lap of the Gods. The
forecast can't seem to make up it's mind about how
much sunshine there will be this afternoon.
Unfortunately the most recent forecast says no
sunshine at all ! It seems that the best we can
hope for is it just being lightly overcast, and
maybe as a special treat there could be a short
sunny spell. At least it should stay dry, and it
will probably be as warm as yesterday - although
without the sunshine it may not seem to be as
warm. At the moment tomorrow is forecast to be
overcast, but dry with a warmish afternoon.
I guess I didn't feel so bad at work
yesterday - and that is even taking into account
trying to cut the end off my finger with a scalpel
accident ! Well, at least I know that there is a
good blood flow to my right ring finger ! I think
I feared feeling tired during the day, but apart
from some yawning while I was writing about it (as
is happening right now) I didn't seem to feel
sleepy at any particular time.
No matter how good the day was, it is still
a pleasure to go home again. With bright sunshine,
and a warm feeling breeze, it was a very
pleasurable pleasure to go home last night.
(Pleasurable pleasure - what language is that ?).
The walk to the station was not a pleasure. It
never is, but it didn't seem particularly taxing
in any way. The same was true of the other bits of
my journey that involve some physical exertion.
It was no ordinary journey home yesterday. I
took the unusual step of calling in at The Black
Cat on my way to Iceland (the supermarket). I had
a pint of Guinness in the pub, and I was hoping to
talk to the landlord Dave, or his sidekick
Richard, but neither was around while I was in
there. So it was on to Iceland where I bought a
few of their "Slimming World" ready meals, and a
few other bits and pieces - including some plain
vanilla ice cream. The latter was a bad mistake.
When I got home I shoved a "slimming world"
meal of beef stew with vegetable mash in the
microwave to heat while I got changed, checked my
email, and a few other things. While I did that I
dug into the ice cream, and I ate rather a lot ! I
must have really shocked my pancreas with a mega
dose of sugar. I didn't bother to check my blood
glucose level, but I assume it has been quite high
since, and yet I don't seem to have noticed any
symptoms from it. I haven't been peeing more, and
nor have I been sweaty - both classic symptoms of
high blood glucose.
One potential symptom that may be related to
what I ate yesterday evening, although I have no
idea what or how, is that my sleep was spoiled
last night by several episodes of painful cramp. I
think there were three episodes in the night when
I woke up and felt the muscles in one or the other
calf muscles begin to painfully contract. The only
relief I know of is to jump out of bed as fast as
possible, and put some weight on my legs, plus a
little pacing up and down by my bed for a few tens
of seconds.
I don't know how much sleep I lost because
of those cramps, but I guess it was a lot less
than it might have seemed in the middle of the
night. I know that a little bit, possibly only a
minute in reality, was taken up by a very
complicated dream involving bicycles. These were
no ordinary bikes though. They were motorised in a
way that I can't explain because I can't remember
enough of the dream. There were two versions, and
the smaller was capable of getting to Hong Kong
(at least I think it was Hong Kong), but there
seemed to be no indication of a starting point.
Starting from Catford would mean cycling across a
lot of ocean - something bikes are not generally
noted as being able to do that well !
This morning I feel - predictably - both
good and bad. Most of me seems to work quite well,
and my commute to work was very averagely
horrible, and averagely not terribly taxing. My
right thumb is only moderately tender after the
accident I had popping a low dose aspirin out of
it's carrier sheet the night before, and there
doesn't seem any bruising under the nail. The
finger I cut with the scalpel yesterday is healing
OK, but is a bit sore if I do anything stupid to
it. My chest doesn't feel particularly crunchy
this morning. Perhaps the most significant thing
to moan about (and there always has to be
something to moan about) is some stiffness from
the muscles that suffered cramps in the night, but
that stiffness doesn't seem to have slowed me up.
It all sounds like I should be feeling quite good,
but I cannot seem to throw off the old and creaky
feeling.
Tonight I have no plans at all. As far as I
know I'll be going straight home where I'll be
bored all evening - maybe ! Something is happening
tomorrow. It's my annual diabetic eye check, and I
have taken the day off work for it. Unfortunately
the appointment is for mid afternoon. Had it been
in the morning, like most past ones have been, I
would have come back from the hospital, allowed a
few hours for my eyes to recover from the drops
that dilate the pupils, and then I could have done
something useful maybe. Tomorrow I will have to
invent something to do that won't hinder me
getting to the hospital on time - in other words I
can't do anything nice like go to the seaside. The
good news is that it is likely to be overcast in
the afternoon, and so I won't be too dazzled when
I leave the hospital with the pupils in my eyes
dilated, and the whole world looking like a
painfully over-exposed photograph !
For some time now I have been trying to take
a good representative picture of myself taken
through a thermal imaging camera. Unfortunately
most efforts fail because it means taking a
picture of a flickering 14 inch CRT monitor. In
the rather pointless picture above you cans see a
blurry image of me on the monitor. In fact the
whole picture is blurred because I suspect my
mobile phone camera recognised a CRT monitor, and
went for a long exposure to cancel the frame rate
flicker. The long exposure has almost certainly
caused blurring because of camera shake. I really
must give up trying to get a thermal picture this
way, and explore better ways of capturing the
image.
Tuesday
5th July 2016
07:54 BST
I enjoyed the morning sunshine as much as I
could while being indoors yesterday. The afternoon
wasn't so good, but maybe it wasn't quite as bad
as I thought it would be. I have a vague
recollection of seeing 27.338 seconds of sunshine
on my way home from work, but it might have just
been my imagination. At least it wasn't cold !
Then again it wasn't exactly warm either. I think
the forecast of 20° C was probably about right. It
is going to be 20° C again today. An earlier
weather forecast said today would start off sunny
again, and that was true for maybe half an hour
soon after sunrise, but while I was looking
forward to coming to work in sunshine, reality
stepped in. The forecast changed to overcast, and
heavily overcast for a couple of hours later this
morning, although I would say it was heavily
overcast as I came to work. The sky looked really
dark and threatening, but it stayed dry. The
revised forecast says it should be a dry day, and
this afternoon should see some sunny spells.
Tomorrow is currently shown as starting sunny, but
the afternoon will be overcast. It might be a
whole degree warmer tomorrow. I wonder what
reality will bring ?
I reported that I didn't feel that good
yesterday morning, but fortunately that didn't
last, although some of the symptoms never went
away completely. Most of the aches dissipated
during the morning, but my chest still felt a bit
crunchy. By the time I left work to go home I was
feeling rather good in many respects. It was one
of those occasions when my legs seemed to be
working rather well, and my chest didn't feel
congested...well not much. I'm not sure when it
started so I can't be sure it was what I think it
was, but I seemed to develop a sort of sore
throat, and my nose was itching like crazy. I
became more acutely aware of it while waiting for
my train at Earlsfield station. There was a very
powerful smell of privet hedge wafting over from
the other platform. It seems I might have an
allergy to privet pollen !
A bit of a sore throat, and an itchy nose
didn't seem to stop me feeling almost energetic
when travelling home. The walk from work to
Earlsfield station was just as tedious as usual,
but mostly effortless. The walk from Waterloo to
Waterloo East station seemed just as effortless,
and while walking from the station to home I was
able to push myself to walk a little faster than
of late. It did seem that bits of me were better
than they have for some time now.
Once I was home I did my best to reduce how
much I ate. Of course I mostly failed, but not
entirely. I certainly didn't feel I had eaten
enough when I went to bed. Instead of feeling full
I felt mildly hungry. One way of pacing myself was
to do a pile of washing up during the time I might
have been nibbling. Another thing was to get away
from the TV as fast as possible. I am not sure
whether to say the downside of that, or the
upside, was that I missed most of the news, and I
have little idea what is going on in the world.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
I think I must have blacked out, or fallen
into a coma last night. It is the only way to
explain how I managed to do so little in so much
time ! One little thing I did was to take my
evening drugs as usual. Last night it was not
quite as straightforward as usual ! I don't know quite how
it happened because it happened so quickly, but as
I tried to pop out a low dose Aspirin tablet from
the sheet they come on I slipped somehow, and
ended up bending the thumbnail in the most painful
way possible. It even drew blood ! I have often
wondered if all the drugs my doctor prescribes do
harm or good, and now I think I have an answer -
they do bad !
To avoid further damage (and to stop the
small seepage of blood from making a mess) I
wrapped up the end of my thumb in some sticking
plaster. It's only when your thumb is less than
100% perfect that you realise just how marvellous
an opposable thumb is. Cats half rule the world
with their psychic powers. If they had opposable
thumbs they would be unstoppable ! With sticking
plaster around your thumb you find that "easy
peelers" oranges aren't, and doing up shirt
buttons requires a little extra patience.
One other thing I did last night was to
finally get around to uploading the pictures I
took at The Life Of Brian and Stardust gigs at The
Black Cat pub in Catford. The two gigs were so
different. Miranda Bell who sang for Life Of Brian
sang well, and filled the stage with infectious
enthusiasm. I'm unsure of the name of the singer
from Stardust, but I am sure he won't be reading
this. So I can say he was bloody awful ! It wasn't
just a case of trying to sing a few songs that
were out of his range (as happened with Red Post
Hill a few weeks back). It was a case of he just
couldn't sing. I'm not saying I could do better.
He got one note in ten right, and I reckon on a
good day I could get one note in twenty right, but
at least I have the grace not to impose my
caterwauling on an audience ! You'll find
the two photo albums (and many more) right here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/
When it came time to go to bed I didn't seem
to feel tired, and I found that a little strange.
I had had a pretty good night's sleep the night
before, but I still yawned a few times at work,
and assumed I needed more quality sleep. This
morning I feel convinced that I need another good
night's sleep because it doesn't feel like I slept
that well last night. It must have been well past
10pm when I fell asleep last night, and I seemed
to wake up quite a lot in the night for no
apparent reason (apart from the couple of times I
needed a wee). I suppose that some of those times
I might have been dreaming I was awake - they do
have that fading dream like quality. I was
definitely dreaming when I woke up 15 minutes
before my alarm was set for this morning (5am).
It seemed to be a quite long, and rather
vivid dream. In this dream I didn't seem to live
alone, although I'm unsure how many other people
lived with me, and who they were. I can't even
remember if one of them was a sister or my mum.
What I do remember quite vividly is that there
were several animals in the household. Most
prominent was a small tabby kitten, but there were
also glimpses of a lizard or gecko, and most weird
of all, a very large, kitten sized, and apparently
house trained rat !
Upon waking up I had a strong feeling that I
wanted to go back to sleep again. I think it was I
felt sleepy, but maybe I just hoped to cuddle that
kitten again. With only 15 minutes to go before my
alarm would sound it wasn't worth trying to o to
sleep again, and so I got up. That gave me a
little extra time to get ready for work, and I
used it to wash my hair. It was another morning
where I felt good and bad. During the night my
chest was very crunchy if I tried to sleep on my
right side, and it had left a legacy of some
soreness, but not enough to worry about
painkillers. If I had taken any it would have been
for the stiff neck I had. The rest of me seemed in
fair working order, and like yesterday, I found
walking to be easy still.
I have no grand plans for tonight, but I
think I have a yearning to go home via Iceland and
buy a couple of their low calorie ready meals that
I used to like. I thought I was giving them up for
the summer, bus as the weather is no better than
spring I might as well start eating them again.
Maybe I'll also get some naughty things too -
perhaps a 10 gallon tub of ice cream - or maybe
not ! To get to Iceland I have to walk past The
Black Cat pub. I might wander in for a quick
Guinness to have a gossip about the gigs there
with Dave the landlord or Richard his assistant if
either are around.
Monday
4th July 2016
07:32 BST
I'm sure the weather was more variable than
the forecast suggested. I was expecting longer
sunny periods, but the sunshine was cut up with
periods when it became quite overcast. At least
the temperature was as expected - that's to say
similar to the forecast, and not what I believe
should be expected for July ! I think it was only
in the late afternoon that the temperature hit 20°
C. I think I could only describe as "moderate"
rather than warm.
As you can see from yet another shamelessly
stolen screenshot from the BBC's website, it is,
and will be, nice and sunny for a few hours this
morning. After that it will be lightly overcast
until 5pm when it will be heavily overcast. It
doesn't look like any rain is expected, and once
again it will be a moderate 20° C.
I felt rotten yesterday ! I don't think it
was one particular malady, but a combination of
several. I definitely had some sort of stomach
upset that left me feeling bloated, although I
think the worst of that was purged in the morning.
Then there was probably the legacy of some
strenuous hand laundry that upset my "twisted
rib", and other bits of my cronky chest. I'm not
so sure that I wasn't getting some discomfort from
a stomach ulcer to add to the mix too. On top of
that, or maybe because of it, I felt really tired.
Everytime I laid on my bed to read, or just rest,
I dozed off. I was never sure just how long each
nap lasted for. I think some may have only been
for 5 or 10 minutes, and at other times it could
have been for more than an hour.
On the whole it was a bad day, but maybe
some of it may have been due to getting too much
rest. The time when I felt best was when I did a
fast walk to and from the corner shop. It felt
good to be in the fresh air, and it felt good to
be moving. It didn't cure any of my symptoms,
although it might have temporarily reduced them.
The more important thing is that it didn't make
them worse. I think that tends to suggest that
none of the assorted pains in and around my chest,
including down into the belly area, were heart
related...well not entirely. All I can really rule
out is angina. It is still possible that my heart
is being eviscerated by Venusian bore worms.
I did my best not to eat much yesterday, and
on the whole I did quite well in terms of keeping
quantities low, but that doesn't mean I ate
healthily. Most definitely not ! I packed all the
evil into quite a small little snack. While I was
in the corner shop I couldn't resist the idea of
some ice cream. I bought not one, but two Magnum
ice cream bars. Why two ? Well I think it is
because they only seem to be about half the size
(and three times the price) than how I remember
them to be a decade or two ago. So I packed in a
shedload of sugar in a few mouthfuls, but the ice
cream did feel good sliding down my throat, and
past the site of what may or may not be an ulcer.
It was surprising that after all the sleep I
had during the day, including the extra sleep I
had in the morning, that by 9pm I was feeling very
ready for bed. I can't be sure, but I think I was
fast asleep by 9.30pm, and on the whole I slept
well until about 4.45am this morning. I did wake
up a couple of times in the night to go for a pee,
but I had no problem getting to sleep straight
afterwards. I reckon I must have been fighting
some sort of bug, but not one that gave me any
fever this time. I wonder what it could be that is
making me so susceptible to assorted diseases
recently ?
This morning I feel both good and bad. The
sunshine makes me feel good, and the ease that I
walked to the station felt very good. The walk
from Waterloo East to Waterloo mainline station,
which is always a bit of a mad dash, seemed the
easiest it has been for a good few weeks now. Even
the longest walk of my commute, from Earlsfield
station to work, seemed nice and brisk. I arrived
at work about 40 minutes ago, and I've been
sitting down since then. In that time various
aches have started up again. I guess some of the
aches from my ribs is due to posture, but I am at
a loss to guess the reason for a thick feeling
head. It's like a cross between a headache, and a
feeling of sleepyness. There is no doubt about it,
I am a complete wreck. The only cure can be a long
walk in blazing hot sunshine !
I think I might feel a bit hungry today
after eating sparingly yesterday. In fact I feel a
bit peckish right now. Hopefully any feeling of
hunger will dissipate before I get home. I am very
much looking forward to going home again, but once
there I want to try and eat as sparingly as
possible. I think that I might feel better if I
could lose a bit more weight. It seems that I have
been able to keep it off since I managed to get
back into some of my old trousers, but I have
achieved nothing for months now. My only fear is
that I will be so hungry by 5pm that I will cook
and eat a whole horse by 6pm !
Sunday
3rd July 2016
12:40
BST
Yesterday was the best day of the month so
far, but with only two days to choose from it
wasn't a hard choice to make. It was a bit like
summer, but I still needed to put the heating on
from time to time. Strangely enough, the most
important part of the forecast turned out to be
correct. The morning was mostly nice, bright and
sunny, and then, just as it was forecast, it
started to rain at 1pm. The rain didn't last long,
but after that it did seem noticeably less sunny -
although there was some sunshine. I think the
temperature probably hit 20° C. Today was supposed
to be a very sunny day, and indeed it did start
out that way, but it has been overcast for a while
now, and it even looks like it might rain -
although it does depend on which way you are
looking. Looking out of the front of the house to
the south looks very miserable as I type these
words, but the view from the back windows, to the
north, doesn't seem quite so terrible. The
forecast is still saying the afternoon, and even
up to sunset should be mostly sunny. Maybe this
gloomy period will be over soon, and the
temperature can rise to the forecast 20° C.
Tomorrow might be yet another degree warmer, 21°
C, but after a sunny morning it is forecast to be
a rather dull afternoon.
The DVD that Aleemah brought over yesterday
morning was "Sergeant
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band". It was a
movie written using the songs from the Beatles
album Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band,
plus some songs from other Beatles albums. Some of
the scenes were highly contrived to be relevant to
the lyrics of the songs, and really stretched the
imagination ! On the whole it was a bad
film. Oh it did have a few good bits, but out of
the running time of 113 minutes only 5 of them
were good ! The biggest problem was that it took a
very English theme and re-imagined it to be
American - as Hollywood likes to do far too much
(Hollywood still thinks they won WW2 single
handed). The movie, as an idea, had potential, but
it should have been set in England with an English
cast. The very worst thing about it was that I
fear that the next time I hear a track from the
real Beatles album I won't be able to not remember
how the movie mutilated it.
After Aleemah went home I decided to relax a
lot. Apart from enjoying a well deserved rest, I
was hoping a strange sensation would go away. It
is hard to describe just what this sensation was.
I think it was a combination of a few abused
muscles from doing rather a lot of hand laundry,
some trapped wind, and something else. It is
possible that washing the towel and pair of jeans
first thing in the morning, after doing two lots
of hand laundry the night before, really did push
me over the edge. That doesn't explain the trapped
wind though, and that was very real - particularly
as evening approached. Those two explain the
discomfort at the top of my chest, and around my
belly, but I'm unsure what the discomfort was in
the middle - some sort of heartburn maybe. I think
discomfort is probably a better description than
pain for all these things.
By the evening the trapped wind was becoming
less trapped (!!), and in theory I should have
felt a lot better, but it didn't set me up for a
good evening in the pub. It was a little after
8.30pm when I walked to The Black Cat to watch
Stardust performing a gig there - and despite
numerous visits to the toilet I kept farting all
the way there. I wasn't exactly comfortable in the
pub, and my discomfort was made worse the singing
!
The band in question were called Stardust,
and as musicians go they were pretty good, but
were let down by the singer. This time it was far
worse than when Red Post Hill played there a
couple of weeks ago. They made the mistake of
tackling some songs that neither of the two
singers could sing without their voices cracking
on the high notes. They performed other songs
moderately well. Stardust's singer was just plain
out of tune on most songs.
After about 90 minutes of discomfort I
decided to go home again. Once again I let rip
several loud farts once I was well clear of the
pub, and they echoed around the multi story
carpark ! I had planned on eating some sort of
dinner when I got home, but under the circumstance
I decided that would not be a good idea. It was
still relatively early when I got home so I
decided to edit the photos I had taken. There
weren't that many of them, and I was in bed before
midnight (I think).
I seemed to have a good sleep until it all
went wrong at about 4am. I woke up feeling not
very good. I felt tired and slightly headachey,
and my guts still felt tender. After a while I got
back to sleep again, but it was a very
intermittent sort of sleep. There were several
occasions when I was awake for quite long periods
of time. The strange thing was that I must have
been sleeping better than I thought I was because
I suddenly became aware that it was nearly 11am !
Since then I have washed, dressed, been to
the corner shop, and put some strips of marinated
pork belly in the oven to cook for Sunday lunch. I
am really looking forward to them, but I am not
sure if I should be eating them. I still have a
sort of strange discomfort from my stomach. It's a
bit like heartburn, but it seems unlikely it could
be that. I reckon it's some heart problem,
although I have no idea what. All I know is that a
fast walk to and from the cornet shop actually
made me feel slightly better for a short while. So
it's not angina this time.
One possibility occurs to me, and that is
that it is some sort of late reaction to finishing
my antibiotics. It's a very far fetched theory,
but the idea is that those antibiotics could have
killed some friendly bacteria in the gut, and now
there is a battle for supremacy among the
surviving bacteria. In some ways it does feel a
bit like how I might expect a stomach ulcer to
feel, and they are now known to be caused by
bacteria. Maybe after I've eaten I will take a
shot of ant-acid and see what that does for me.
I now have nothing to do, apart from eat,
for the rest of the day. So I think I ought to do
lots of preparation to be ready for work tomorrow,
and that mainly means relaxing. I think I'll do
lots of it. It may mean doing lots of reading, but
that is a pleasure and not a chore !
Saturday
2nd July 2016
08:13
BST
July hasn't got off to a good start. There
was more rain than expected yesterday, and it was
quite close to feeling cool. The forecast said it
would be dry for the start of the afternoon - but
it wasn't. The forecast also said that it would
almost certainly be very dull and grey when I left
work to go home. It also seemed to suggest that it
could be a bit of a gamble that it would stay dry
while I was travelling home - I came home in
sunshine ! I must confess that the next bit of the
forecast was correct. It wasn't all that long
after I got home that it clouded over rather
rapidly, and rain started to fall. I'm unsure of
the temperature yesterday because it was in that
sort of bland area where it is neither hot nor
cold. The forecast said it would be 18° C and I
wouldn't dispute that. Today has both started a
lot better than yesterday, but it concurs with the
forecast. If the forecast continues to reflect
reality it will be a mostly sunny day marred only
by some showers around 1pm. It should be a very
slightly warmer day too - 19° C. Tomorrow is
forecast to be completely dry, and 20° C. So the
day should be as good as a mid to late May day !
Bits of work were almost enjoyable
yesterday. It was helped by having a little
triumph as the result of some creative thinking. I
have devised a little modification that is a bit
tricky to do, but could be done to a small select
amount of one of our products, and it will save
the company ! Well maybe not save the company, but
if further testing proves it is viable it should
keep a quite lucrative customer happy. The
other thing that added to my enjoyment was I was
doing more work alongside Ainhoa, the Spanish
electronics engineer. We seem to get on well
together, and of course she is far prettier than
anyone else working for the company !
It may have been an almost enjoyable day (in
parts), but it was more enjoyable still to leave
work to come home. The fact that the sun was
shining was the icing on the cake ! I decided to
go home via Tesco. There was something I wanted,
but I couldn't think what it was, and I'm not sure
I remembered it at all, but as I approached the
store I found I had a sudden desire for liver and
bacon. I have no idea where these urges come from,
but I assume it is my body calling for something
it needs, and I usually give in to it.
I bought a liver and bacon ready meal, plus
other stuff - quite a lot of other stuff judging
from the size of the bill, but not much when
judged from how heavy my shopping bags were. One
semi expensive set of items were the ingredients
for another seafood salad. I also bought some
(alleged) healthy eating Thousand Island dressing
to drown it all ! One "naughty" item was a packet
of stem ginger oat cakes. Fortunately they come in
little packets of about 5 biscuits, and there are
possibly 6 of these packets in the box. If I eat
them sparingly they should be almost innocent.
The main part of my dinner was the
liver and bacon ready meal, and I had that on it's
own with no vegetables, or potatoes. I also had
some sandwiches, and one packet from the box of
stem ginger oat cakes. Along with a snack or two
it was all too much, and I'll be lucky if I can
get into one of my old pairs of trousers this
morning !
I didn't rush to bed last night because I
could theoretically have a lie in this morning. I
guess I was asleep sometime after 10pm, and I
initially slept through to 1am, or thereabouts,
when I woke up from one of those mixed up dreams.
In this dream I was with someone who I won't name
even though her name was her only identifying
feature. The only trouble, although maybe it was
an advantage, is that she didn't look like her
name, and she didn't act like her name. I have no
idea who she actually was in real life. I suspect
she was a composite of many people. The
significant thing is that the dream was rapidly
becoming less than innocent when for some really
annoying reason I woke up ! I guess that is
typical of life. It just starts to get
interesting, and actually worth living....and then
you wake up to reality !
I could have stayed in bed far longer than I
did this morning, but at 5.30am I decided to
slowly get up to do some hard work. It's funny how
that extra 30 minutes in bed makes it feel like I
am not getting up too early. The hard work was to
wash a towel and a pair of jeans. Washing either
by hand is hard work, and washing both is
obviously harder still, but because it is near
impossible to wring either out to any great degree
it seemed important to get them hanging on the
washing line as early as possible for maximum
exposure to the morning sunshine.
With the laundry done I had a shower and
washed my hair. Once I have finished writing this
I need to get dressed properly so can go out
and meet Aleemah at the station. Then it's the
usual - breakfast in the Wetherspoons pub, and
then back here to watch a DVD together. This
afternoon I will probably indulge in some high
quality laziness in preparation for another gig in
The Black Cat tonight. And that is half the
weekend described and disposed of in little more
than a paragraph. Isn't life tedious ?
Friday
1st July 2016
07:42
BST
Once again the weather forecasts are
getting out of sync with reality. Yesterday's
forecast suggested I might catch the tail end of
some rain when I left work to go home, but it was
dry - and the sun was doing it's best to shine. It
could have been as early as 5pm when the sun did
manage to shine. There were only a few sunny
spells, but that was a lot more than the forecast
even hinted at ! I think it may have even been a
bit warmer, perhaps by only a degree or so, than
the 19° C that was forecast. I wish I had taken a
screenshot of the weather forecast for today at
6am this morning. It said that it would be
overcast, but perfectly dry until midday today.
Then a couple of hours of rain would fall, but it
would all be over a good hour or two before I go
home from work today. Since 6am it has changed an
awful lot in an attempt to match reality.
I happily ignored the few tiny spots of rain
I felt as I waited for my 06:33 train at Catford
Bridge, but it was hard to ignore the torrential
rain that fell as my train travelled between
Vauxhall and Clapham Junction station. The rain
had eased off a bit when I arrived at Earlsfield,
but was falling quite freely again before I had
arrived here at work. Maybe it has eased off
again, but by my reckoning the little pictogram on
the forecast for 08:00 should contain two evil
little rain drops. It's now looking like lunchtime
is going to be very dull, but dry, and it there
could be rain or shine (maybe both) when I go
home. Then it gets all soggy again - but with
sunshine ! - in the evening. All the dirty dull
cloud filled skies, the rain, and the low
temperature is a pretty poor show for the 1st day
of July. July ! We should have blazing sunshine,
and temperatures at least in the mid twenties by
now. The very last day of last year, right in the
middle of winter was a better day than today ! I
don't seem to have recorded the temperature, but I
was walking around Herne Bay in just shirtsleeves.
The proof of just how blue the sky was can be
found in my photo album here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157660781769314
Yesterday was one of those days at work
where I had just finished an important project the
day before, and I couldn't seem to find the
enthusiasm to start the next one. The one I had
just finished was on a bit of tight deadline, but
fortunately worked first time, and was rather
better built than had originally been asked for.
So everyone was happy. The next project also has a
deadline, but it's not so immediate, and so I
decided to be very lazy yesterday. Sometimes it is
difficult to find the right balance between being
lazy and being bored. I must confess there were
some periods of time when I did feel a bit bored.
It was nice to leave work yesterday, and it
was nice to leave when it wasn't raining, and not
too cool, although it was still very dull outside.
It was even nicer still to leave in the direction
of a pub where I could have a beer in good
company. Unfortunately the pleasure was spoiled by
a bunch of kids whose parent(s) seemed happy to
let them run riot all over the pub. I think some
of my friends were more stressed about it than me
- which is sort of surprising. After two pints the
general consensus was that we should go to another
pub.
I wasn't too happy about the choice of pub.
It was The Ladywell Tavern, and it's one virtue is
that it's just a 5 - 10 minutes walk from The
Ravensbourne Arms. That was it's only virtue. On
the downside is that it is a rather shoddy looking
pub, and sometimes rather smelly. Even worse was
that last night they only had one ale available,
and it was one I wasn't keen on. Fortunately a
pint of that ale, brewed by the Lighthouse
brewery, was not actually awful. It was just not
very enjoyable. It was also my third pint, and
that was all I really intended to drink. So after
finishing it I made my excuses and headed towards
home.
My original plan to get home was to get a
bus a couple of stops from near the original pub
we were in, but it would have been a long walk
back to a bus stop from the second pub. I left at
the same time as Jodie, and so we went to Ladywell
station, which is 5 minutes walk from the pub, and
got a train. I alighted at Catford Bridge, and
Jodie continued to Elmers End. The only trouble
with that route is that it is always annoying to
go past my house on the train, and then have to
walk back. On the other hand, it is only half the
distance to walk compared with walking through the
park from Ladywell. That I what I would have done
if I had been on my own, and yet I really didn't
feel like walking that far. I didn't feel like
walking from Catford Bridge station to home
either, and I wasn't feeling keen to walk roughly
the same distance from the bus stop either. In
short, I just didn't fancy walking anywhere
yesterday.
Once I got home I prepared dinner as fast as
possible. Salad with fish sticks followed by a
couple of cod fishcakes didn't seem so bad, but I
also had a couple of ham sandwiches in the fridge
that I bought two days before, and had to be eaten
before they went off. Add in a few other bits, and
once again I ate more than I should if I am ever
going to get into smaller sized trousers (or get
my blood glucose level under better control).
I practically lost track of time yesterday
evening, and I am not wholly sure what time it was
when I went to bed. I know that it was still
light, and that suggests it was probably around
9pm. What I do know is that it was one of those
rare nights when I slept non stop until almost
4am. I managed to get back to sleep after that,
but it took 5 or 10 minutes, and it wasn't a very
good sleep. It seems like I should have got enough
sleep last night, and at the moment it even feels
like it. It is also yet another day when I feel
mostly OK. It is even possible that the damage to
my lungs, or whatever the legacy of my chest
infection was, is beginning to lift. I was
reluctant to walk yesterday for two reasons. The
first was that my feet felt sore, but the second
is the ongoing apparent shortness of breath I've
been getting. This morning I think I felt just a
little less shortness of breath than yesterday,
but it might be that the wet air was easier to
breathe. Actually, shortness of breath doesn't
seem like an accurate description of how I feel.
It's not that I can't breathe deeper, or more
frequently, it's just that it seems too much like
hard work to bother doing it....or something like
that.
Tonight will be wonderful, but only in as
much as I will not be at work, and I will be at
home in the dry and the warm..or will I ? I'll
probably feel too tired, or too lazy, but there is
a gig going on in the H.G. Wells Centre in Bromley
that I am curious about. Specifically it is the
support band that I am curious about - The Zorbs.
It's relatively easy to get to, the beer is cheap,
and it's only £3 to get in (£3 more than most gigs
I go to, but still a reasonable amount). It would
also be a nice early night because I don't want to
see the main band - Bouncer. Maybe I'll go, or
maybe I won't.
I don't know quite how
it happened because it happened so quickly, but as
I tried to pop out a low dose Aspirin tablet from
the sheet they come on I slipped somehow, and
ended up bending the thumbnail in the most painful
way possible. It even drew blood ! I have often
wondered if all the drugs my doctor prescribes do
harm or good, and now I think I have an answer -
they do bad !
