Yesterday was probably drier than expected
- but only by a little bit ! Most of the rain fell
nearer to midday than home time, but it was
spitting as I left work. It had all but stopped by
the time I got to Earlsfield station, and from
then on, as far as I was aware, it stayed dry
until I woke up to rain at 5am this morning. I
don't think I can recall any time when it was
particularly bright yesterday, although I'm sure
it wasn't all doom and gloom. Of course the
temperature was a great disappointment. There were
one or two times when I felt a bit cool on my way
home. I think the temperature only reached 17° C
yesterday, although I wouldn't argue if someone
said it was 18° C.
Here's a screenshot taken just a few minutes
ago. This is the forecast for today. It is, of
course, wrong already. Earlier this morning it
showed the prediction for 6 and 7am - it said
bright, and reality said rain. 8am is still 20
minutes away as I write this, but instead of being
overcast it is actually sunny ! All I hope now is
that the afternoon rain really does finish before
4pm so I can go home in the dry. If that is the
case then it is a pity I didn't bring my shoulder
bag or rucksack to work so I could put my raincoat
in it. 19° C is not particularly warm. In fact it
is hardly warm at all, but it could still be nasty
and sweaty under my raincoat, and I would prefer
to not wear it if it is not raining.
The brief return of coughing I had the day
before yesterday didn't seem to inflict itself on
me yesterday, and I felt mostly OK at work. There
was only one short period when I felt very sleepy.
On the whole, everything was fine except for one
annoyance. That one annoyance was I did not select
a very comfortable pair of shoes. They were the
type that seem perfectly comfortable in the
morning, but by the end of the working day it
feels like some sadistic policeman has been
beating the soles of your feet with his desk ruler
to elicit a confession.
The discomfort from my feet meant that what
I did after coming home from work a bit stupid
sounding. Rather than going straight home so I
could get those shoes off, I decided to do a bit
of shopping - some actual, some just window
shopping. I went the long way around. First of all
to Poundland where I bought some delicious
"Genuine Lancashire" Eccles
Cakes, plus a few other odds and sods. Then
I walked along the high street taking in the non
existent sights until I came to Cash Generators -
the secondhand and pawn shop where I have bough a
few camera s and some accessories in the past. I
was curious what they had in their window, and in
one case I was curious as to why a 19" Alba TV was
so expensive. The answer, when I looked more
carefully, was that it came with a "free" Xbox
games console. They had a couple of cameras in the
window that I might have been interested in, but
nothing I could really justify spending any money
on.
It was nice to get home, and to take my
shoes off. It was also nice not to feel exhausted
as well. I wasn't exactly brimming with energy,
but I had enough to do two of the things I wanted
to do - but only after I had eaten some dinner.
The main part of dinner was salad with extra mini
plum tomatoes and haslet.
For sweet I had three small Eccles cakes and some
satsumas. It is not often I have anything like
that, although I have been eating some satsumas
after meals recently, but the addition of the
Eccles cakes made for a rather naughty, but
extremely nice finish to dinner.
After dinner I allowed at least 30 minutes
for my dinner to settle before doing two of the
things I wanted to do last night. They were to
trim my beard, and to wash my hair. Having
accomplished both I then had to wait a fair while
for my hair to dry. I needn't have worried about
it taking too long to dry because I found I just
didn't seem to feel sleepy last night. It was
getting on for 10pm before I went to bed, and I
read until well past 10pm before I turned out the
lights and tried to sleep.
Sleep didn't come easily or smoothly. I
think I initially managed to doze off once or
twice for short periods of time before midnight,
but it didn't seem to be until after midnight that
I got into proper sleep. Even then I am not sure I
slept that well. I have a vague recollection of
waking up a couple of times from variants on the
same dream. It all seems so hazy now, but it had
something to do with a strange shaped aircraft
circling the Thames Estuary. I cannot even begin
to imagine how it could work, but that aircraft
had something to do with selling duty free booze
and stuff from Europe.
This morning I feel like I may be starting
to regret not getting a proper night's sleep
already, but other than that I don't feel too bad.
It still seems that I cannot walk as fast, or as
easily as I feel I ought to be able to do, but
maybe there were hints that things were improving
again. The walk from home to the station seemed
particularly hard work, but the mad dash from
Waterloo East to Waterloo mainline station didn't
seem too bad this morning. I'm fairly sure that
the walk from Earlsfield station to work seemed
less arduous than yesterday - it was still
arduous, but less arduous !
I hope I am feeling fairly good when work
ends today. It's Thursday, and that means booze !
Tonight's venue is the very conveniently placed
Ravensbourne Tavern. It's little more than 5
minutes walk from Ladywell station (the station
before Catford Bridge station on the way home from
work), and afterwards I can take a very pleasant
stroll through a warm sunny park to get home...No,
that's where it all goes wrong. If it was really
summer I could take pleasure in that walk, but as
it is really still April, despite what the
calendar may say, it would likely be a horrible
dull soggy walk through the park, and I think
tonight I'll get a bus towards home.
Wednesday
29th June 2016
07:35
BST
It seemed like a case of "when will it
rain" rather than "will it rain" yesterday...and
no more so than when I was on my way home from
work. After the bright start in the morning it
became increasingly cloudy, and it warmed up a bit
- just a very small bit ! The best temperature I
saw was on my upstairs thermometer, and it said
20° C, but I now distrust that thermometer. It
seems to read high. The downstairs thermometers
were more in accordance with the forecast - just
17° C. It seemed pleasant enough to go home in
shirtsleeves, but as I stood on Waterloo East
station, waiting for my train back to Catford, it
became increasingly obvious it was about to pour
with rain. I was fortunate that the rain held off
until after I had been in Tesco, and was just 5
minutes walk from home. I didn't bother to put my
coat on, but I was only slightly damp when I got
home. This morning was nice and bright and sunny,
and rather cool ! 13° C seems wrong for an end of
June morning, and it definitely felt chilly as I
walked to the station in my (short) shirtsleeves.
It seems today is going to be a lot like
yesterday. The only unknown again is the time it
will start to pour with rain. I've got a raincoat
with me, but it would be nice if the rain could
hold off until I'm safely home - doubly so
considering it is probably going to be a degree
cooler than yesterday !
Once again I felt moderately good at work
yesterday, but maybe not as good as the day
before. On Monday I was suffering from a lack of
sleep the night before, but I had almost no
symptoms of my previous cold. Yesterday I had had
the luxury of a good nights sleep, but for some
reason my cough returned. It was mild compared to
the ravages of the previous week, but still
annoying, and perhaps worrying too. The other
annoying thing was that I seemed to have a great
lack of energy at the end of the working day.
Going home felt much to much like hard work. Maybe
I recovered a bit on the way home, and it didn't
seem too much like hard work to divert via Tesco,
but I just could not find the energy to quicken my
pace when I had to walk the last 5 minutes in the
rain.
I couldn't resist a few bargains from Tesco,
but a lot of what I bought was fairly healthy
stuff. I am unsure whether to describe the
Satsumas and "Easy Peeler" oranges I bought as
healthy or not. For most they would be, but they
can tip my sugar intake over the top - at least I
think they can. (I really ought to do some
experiments some time). As well as oranges, I also
bought three lots of ready made salad. I had one
last night with some prawns and muscles. Some say
seafood is high in cholesterol, but I have tablets
for that. Otherwise it would have been a good low
fat, low everything else dinner, if only I hadn't
drowned it in 1000 Island Dressing ! It was very
nice though !
It did seem that my appetite was back at
full strength last night, and it lured me into
some bad eating. The worst thing, in more than one
way, was the reduced price coleslaw I had with
chunks of cheese. There were several reasons why I
should not have eaten it, but the more important
one was that I seemed to be burping up the taste
of that coleslaw all evening ! It is both
fortunate and unfortunate that I still have half
the coleslaw left. It would have been nice to use
it all up yesterday so I don't have to have any
tonight (not that I actually have to...).
On the other hand I think it would have made me
feel sick to overdose on it last night.
I didn't feel inspired to do much last
night. Maybe it was finding tennis on both TV
channels at the same time that put a dampener on
things, or maybe it was just how depressing the TV
news was when the tennis graciously gave it a few
minutes break to be shown, or maybe I was still
tired. In fact all three are correct. After dinner
I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes
of the TV news. All those bloody politicians
gurning at each other made the food churn in my
stomach. So I turned off the TV, and went up to my
bedroom. I thought I would look at my PC, but I
decided to lay on my bed for a while. Within
minutes I was fast asleep, and I think it was as
much as an hour later when I woke up again.
That must have been close to 8pm. It was
tempting to go and brush my teeth then, and go to
bed properly, but I wanted to make a backup of the
pictures on my PC before I put it off any later.
So I started that, and checked a few web pages.
Once the back had finished I then went to bed, but
after my earlier sleep I didn't feel that tired.
So I read in bed for as much as an hour before
turning out the light. After that I fell asleep
very quickly. My sleep was not disturbed by a
single cough, but I did seem to have to wake up to
pee a couple of times.
I also had some unusual dreams. They seemed
to centre around a walk through my local park.
About half way through the park I found something
like a caravan park. It didn't seem to be like a
random invasion of "travellers" because the area
was marked out for parking the vans. Plus they
didn't seem to be like normal caravans. They
seemed to morph into something like mobile market
stalls - sort of half open and half closed. A bit
further into the park I came across an unattended
table covered with military electronics. I think
it was supposed to be some some of radar
equipment, but I could only see the back of it. I
noticed some dry joints on it, and found a
soldering iron so I could solder them up again. I
was about halfway through when a Squaddie appeared
in a strange black uniform, and warned me he was
turning it on, and that 2000V would be flowing
through it. I knew that would only be the display
unit, and stayed clear of it while I soldered up a
particularly bad joint on a processing unit. Then
I woke up.
I can't decide if I had a good night or not.
It seemed to be easy to sleep when I slept, but it
seemed like there were too many times when I was
awake. I guess I didn't feel too bad when I got
up. I had some low level soreness from my "twisted
rib", but most of me seemed in fair working order.
I didn't need to have a good cough to clear my
airways this morning, and I think that my airways
seem generally clearer this morning. They are
still not perfect, but maybe they are recovering
faster than I thought would be possible when I was
in the thick of it, and coughing my lungs up last
week.
It all sounds very positive, but once again
it seemed hard work to get up to speed when
walking to the station, rushing across the link
from Waterloo East to Waterloo mainline stations,
and, worst of all, walking from the station to
work. To make matters worse it seems the cold
morning air was triggering more coughing than I
would like, and even after being at work for some
time, my throat still feels tickly. This is a bit
like yesterday, and it is annoying !
I think that tonight there are two things I
ought to make some special effort to do. One is to
trim my beard, and the other is to wash my hair.
That will probably be quite enough for one night,
but if I don't feel tired, and I feel bored, I
could always wash a few shirts. Somehow I don't
think I'll be doing that laundry, but you never
know...who can tell what I'll feel like tonight ?
I could feel like miracle man, or I could be dead.
Oh well, in 12 hours time the truth will reveal
itself to me.
Tuesday
28th June 2016
07:35
BST
We are rapidly running out of June, and I
don't think we have had one "flaming June"
day...or have we ? Yesterday started with rain,
and so yesterday can be discounted. The afternoon
was a big improvement on the morning - I went home
in glorious sunshine. It felt nice and warm in the
sunshine, but the air temperature was still a bit
disappointing - no better than 20° C. The cloud
stayed thin overnight, but the temperature only
dipped to about 13 or 14° C - cool, but not bad.
Unfortunately the cloud is thickening up now. The
forecast warns that today will be mostly overcast,
and that there will be rain this afternoon. It
looks touch and go as to whether the rain will
start before or after I leave work to go home. It
seems likely that the highest temperature today
could be as low as 19° C. Tomorrow looks like it
could be truly awful. The forecast says it will be
very grey. The top temperature will be only a very
autumnal 16° C, and it will only be that high for
an hour or two. It will be just 15° C for most of
the day, and it's going to rain - quite frequently
!
I felt surprisingly good at work yesterday.
That is, of course, a relative measurement/opinion
compared to how I was feeling last week, or even
the week before. Nothing really hurt, my nose was
mostly clear, and I can only remember a couple of
occasions when I needed a good cough and prolonged
cough to clear my throat. I didn't even feel tired
after my poor nights sleep...Well not until about
2pm when I crashed ! I felt desperately tired for
the last 90 minutes that I was here.
I perked up a bit once I was out in the
fresh air, and I was OK, or possibly even mildly
good, for most of the journey home. The last bit,
the walk from the station to home, was rather a
slog though. It felt really good to get indoors,
get out of my work clothes, and relax. I would say
it was good to turn the TV on, but with bloody
football on BBC1, and blasted tennis on BBC2, it
was no fun at all - although I did find some Star
Trek on one of the channels. It was the episode
called "Spock's Brain" - a very silly, but
enjoyable episode.
It seemed like I had got my appetite back
last night, and I had to throttle back my desire
to eat too much, or atleast I tried to ! Maybe it
might be more accurate to say my appetite was
selectively back. Some things I fancied, and
others less so. I had a two part dinner. The first
was a steamed ready meal of smoked haddock,
spinach, and pasta. It was neither as healthy or
as nice as it might sound. The second part was
fish fingers - found lurking at the back of the
freezer, and getting a bit close to their "best
before" date. I love fish fingers, and can eat
them until the cows come home. At least I thought
I could, but halfway through making a glutton on
myself my appetite failed. I ate them all, but I
didn't really enjoy the last of them.
Maybe my appetite failed again because I was
really tired. It wasn't the same bone deep
weariness I had at the end of work, but it was
rapidly catching up with me. There were a few
things I might have liked to have done last night,
but instead I went to bed at 8pm, and it took very
little time to fall asleep ! The good thing about
last night was that I can't remember coughing at
all. I could sleep on my left, and I could sleep
on my right, and neither triggered any coughing.
Neither seemed to provoke any pain from my
"twisted rib" either. I woke up a few times in the
night, but only briefly, and it was almost like I
had slept from 8pm right through until my alarm
woke me at 5am this morning. I haven't slept that
well for ages and ages !
This morning I should feel good, and I am
trying my best to believe that I do. Probably my
main complaint is that I still get a little short
of breath when walking. I have previously
described it as wheeziness, and it was, but it
doesn't seem like such a good description lately.
This morning it was worse on the longest walk -
which is rather obvious. That walk is the bit of
my commute from Earlsfield station to work itself.
On a good day it can take as litlle as 9 minutes
to walk. This morning it was possibly closer to 10
minutes. This was partly because my legs didn't
seem to be working at full efficiency, and partly
because of this breathlessness problem. It's not
that I couldn't breath deeper of more frequently.
It's more that it felt too much like hard work to
do either, and I just couldn't be bothered...or
something like that. Now I have mostly stopped
coughing my lungs and windpipe should heal/recover
and eventually I'll be able to do that walk at top
speed again.
I think I have some plans for tonight, but
maybe only one of those plans will come to
fruition. I think I'll be going home via Tesco. I
could do with some more salad, and although they
carry some excess sugar (fructose) penalty, I
fancy some more satsumas or similar easy to peel
oranges. I've been eating some recently on the
theory that the vitamin C is probably quite useful
to me. So I'll get some more of those, and from
then on I will try and be careful not to come away
with too much reduced price crap !
Perhaps my other plans for tonight are
mutually exclusive. I was thinking of washing a
few shirts, and I was also thinking about another
early night. Maybe I can find time for both, but
neither should have any particular priority. To do
the washing would be nice, but not essential. An
early night would also be nice, but probably not
essential. I'll have to see how I feel. I also
have a couple of photo albums to upload to Flickr.
Maybe I might upload one or both of them tonight,
but from this end of the day I can't seem to feel
any great enthusiasm to do either for the moment.
Monday
27th June 2016
07:56
BST
Yesterday's weather was very variable.
Mostly it was grey, but there were some sunny
periods. As far as I can recall it stayed dry - or
it was dry any time it mattered or I noticed. The
temperature was disappointing for "Flaming June",
probably around 20° C at best, but at least that
wasn't cold. This morning it was raining - which
didn't seem to be part of the plan. I knew that
the old forecast described a fairly unpleasant
day, but I wasn't expecting that.The current
forecast says it will be a dry, but lightly
overcast day with an occasional sunny spell - and
indeed, we have had one of those already - it
lasted all of 37 seconds ! Once again it is only
going to be about 20° C today, but maybe we should
be thankful for that. Tomorrow is forecast to be a
degree cooler, and much greyer with some showers.
I had a rather splendid time on Saturday
night. The Life Of Brian were great performers,
and Miranda Bell, the lead singer really filled
the stage area with enthusiasm. The pleasure, and
the Guinness helped to sidetrack the ever lasting
remnants of my cold, and it wasn't until the end
when I was having a long conversation with the
rather wonderful Angela Bell, mum of Miranda Bell,
the lead singer, that my cough kicked off a few
times. It wasn't all bad though - it earned me a
few pats on the back plus some healing rubs. I
rather liked that. You can see both Angela and
Miranda in this short clip I took on my mobile
phone.
It was after midnight
when I left the pub, and I felt peckish. ( I
hadn't eating anything since mid afternoon -
maybe 8 or more hours earlier). I went the
long way home, and noticed the chip shop was
open. So I popped in and bought sausage and
chips. It was nice to get home to tuck into
that, but I probably rushed home a bit too
fast and I became quite wheezy towards the end
of the walk. Even though I was theoretically a
lot better I still found that the curse, or
blessing of my super cold kicked in, and I
only fancied eating half the chips. It is rare
that I throw away chips, specially a whole
half a portion, but I did in the very earliest
hours of Sunday morning.
A little later, when I went to bed, I
was actually feeling hungry again. I guess it
probably wasn't such a bad idea. It would have
helped to keep my blood glucose level lower -
something I have neglected to control recently
- and it would have helped keep my belt
slightly (very slightly !) loose when I put my
work trousers on this morning. It is
theoretically possible that during the course
of my illness I have actually lost as much as
873 milligrammes ! (and not all of that was
because I trimmed my toenails !). It was
probably just exhaustion, helped along a bit
by the 4 pints of Guinness I drank, that
enabled me to sleep better on Saturday
night/Sunday morning than I have recently. It
would have been better still if I had managed
to stay asleep for another 4 hours !
In reality I couldn't stay in bed as
late as I would like, even if I could have
managed to sleep, because I had to get up
sufficiently early enough to get ready to see
Aleemah. I think I noticed a small
improvement, as in a small reduction in
wheeziness, when I walked to the station, from
the station to the pub, and from the pub back
to home. Apart from the first leg, home to
station, I had to slow down a bit to Aleemah's
usual pace, and that may have helped a bit.
Aleemah brough a really weird DVD to
watch. I think it was called "Listzomania".
It was written and produced by Ken Russel, who
must have been smoking something extra strong
when he did it, and it starred Roger Daltry
plus a few other famous actor musicians
including Ringo Starr. It was a very weird
movie, and I don't think I enjoyed it, but on
the other hand it is probably the sort of
thing you have to see once before you can't
enjoy it !
After Aleemah went home I had a small
dinner. I thought I was going to have more,
but once again my appetite seemed easily
satisfied - and yet I did want more, but only
some of some mysterious ambrosia with a taste
that would satisfy my taste buds - but I had
no idea what that could possibly be. So I ate
no more, and got on with the main business for
the day - editing all the pictures I took on
Saturday night. As usual I took a shed load of
pictures - mainly as a result of setting the
camera to continuous shooting - it's the most
reliable way of catching the lights displaying
a favourable range of colours for good
photography. I have actually become a bit
disallusioned with those lights. That can be
nice and bright, but I notice that my pictures
still have a lot of grain, or harshness that
isn't there when a stage is lit by tungsten
lights (or even better - by natural daylight).
I've heard form profession circles that LED
lighting is not favoured, and once again it
seems the professionals are right.
I made a silly mistake last night - I
left it rather late to wash my hair. That
delayed me going to bed, but it may not have
made a great deal of difference. I had a lousy
night last night. I just couldn't sleep on my
back, or not for any length of time. Everytime
I turned to sleep on my left or right sides I
would start to cough, and then often having to
sit up to cough up the tiny ball of mucus that
was irritating the top of my throat. It felt
like I hadly got any decent sleep at all last
night. I seem OK at the moment, but I am
expecting it to catch up on me later in the
day. As for the rest of me....it seems that I
feel rather better than I expected. I didn't
seem to have any particular aches and pains
this morning, and I coughed far less than
expected as I made my way to work. I still got
a bit wheezy, but I think I was pushing myself
a bit harder this morning. Now I've been at
work for some time I find I don't feel that
wonderful, but I can't put my finger on what's
wrong. Maybe it is just tiredness, and it is
fighting the desire to lay down that is the
problem.
I'll finish with a picture today.....
I took this picture of the slowly decaying
shell of the old Ralway Tavern by Catford
Bridge station yesterday morning. It looks to
be in a sorry state, and surely must be
decaying further after being left open to the
elements for 18 months (or is it more than
that ?). The idea that it will be running
again as a pub in December this year seems
laughable, but that is, or was the last claim
on the website for the pub. I have grave
suspicions that the owners are letting it ot
beyond hope of repair so they can pull it
down, and build a bland block of poky flats on
the land that would prove far more lucrative
for them than a pub. I believe it is a grade 2
listed building, and the exterior is supposed
to be protected, but once the core has gone
there is litle point in saving the shell - at
least that is what I would guess the idea is.
Saturday
25th June 2016
14:30
BST
The weather didn't seem to spring any
surprises yesterday. It was very much like the
forecast. For a few hours in the late morning it
was a bit overcast, but it was mostly a sunny day.
I suspect the humidity was a bit lower than
recently too - it seemed to feel a bit fresher,
although that could be because the temperature was
only a moderate 21° to 22° C. This morning started
off bright and sunny - and not too cool either -
maybe 15° to 16° C. Unfortunately the forecast
said that an hour or two after midday the sky
would cloud over, and rain would fall. Once again,
for an amazing two days running, the forecast has
turned out to be right - it is raining now ! I
think the forecast has changed since first thing
this morning. It is now saying that this rain
should give way to a bit of sunshine in half an
hour time. It also says there will be another
shower at 5pm and 7pm, but it should be dry at
other times. We have already hit the peak
temperature of 19° C (although I'm sure my
thermometers have indicated 21° or 22° C very
recently). The current forecast for tomorrow says
it will be a dry, but mostly cloudy day. There
might be a couple of sunny intervals, and the
temperature should rise from 14° C at 5am to a
peak of 20°C in the afternoon.
Sometimes I didn't feel that bad yesterday,
and that enabled me to get a few things done. For
instance, in several stages, I washed and dried an
entire set of bed linen yesterday. It was
wonderful drying weather, and I had the sheet and
pillowcases washed and dried in the morning, and
the duvet cover in the afternoon. Along with the
two towels I did in the morning, it made for quite
a productive day.
I think it was near midday when I pulled on
some outdoor clothes and went to Aldi. It was
certainly easier going than the previous time, but
I still felt a bit wheezy walking there, and once
again mysteriously a little less wheezy when I was
carrying all the shopping home. Maybe with the
added load I was only as wheezy as I expected to
be. Apart from the wheeziness it seemed easy
enough to do, and yet a little while later I felt
quite tired. I can't seem to remember exactly, but
I think I had a snooze, or maybe two snoozes in
the afternoon - possibly as a direct result of
that shopping trip. As I typed that I filled in a
few gaps in my memory with a few hazy
recollections. What actually happened was I lay on
my bed reading, and once or two, or even thrice, I
put the book down, closed my eyes, and time passed
unknown.
I thought it would be useful to have some
booze in one for or another before going to bed
last night, but it seems I either didn't fancy it
at the time, or I just didn't get around to it. I
didn't seem to need it to get to sleep, but being
drunk as a skunk might have made staying asleep a
bit easier. I am still waking up coughing, and
from around 3am it happened a few times. These
bouts of coughing are no longer triggered by deep
burbling noises as globs of mucus compete to be
expelled from my windpipe. So I have made some
sort of progress. Now it is almost dry coughing,
but not quite - at least most times. It starts off
like a dry cough, but won't stop until I have
cough a bit of mucus up from seemingly quite close
to the top of the windpipe.
At 4.30am I got fed up with the cough
starting everytime I tried to lay down on my most
comfortable side - my left hand side. So I pulled
a pair of lounge pants on, and started washing 4
work/short sleeved shirts. Just before 5am I was
hanging them out in the garden. The sun was still
too low in the sky to shine into my garden at that
hour, but it did seem to be a nice bright morning.
A few hours later and my shirts were hanging in
the sun, and almost dry.
The physical exertion of hand washing the
shirts, and going out into the early morning
didn't seem to make me feel any worse, and if
anything it made me feel a bit better. Perhaps
some detrimental effect emerged later. It does
seem that I feel marginally worse than yesterday,
but on the other hand it could be that I am just
getting fed up because my cold seems to have
reached another plateau. It seems I have got a lot
better in the last few days, but I just cannot
seem to jump to the next level - that of being
cured. Maybe I am impatient, or maybe I am annoyed
that all the propaganda about the benefits of not
smoking seem to be half lies. I had times when I
was far worse than this while smoking, and yet
because there was an obvious reason they didn't
feel so bad. Next monday, when I go back to work,
I should feel well enough to run up the sides of
mountains, and yet at the moment it is feeling
like I will still be wheezing just from the walk
to the station. That will really piss me off.
Tonight I will see how a walk over a similar
distance treats me. There is a gig on at The Black
Cat that I intend to go to. The band is called The
Life Of Brian, and it is fronted by Miranda - a
young lady (who is not so young) with a very big
stage presence. It should be fun, but only if I
can get in the mood to drink Guinness. My appetite
is still wonky. I am definitely eating more than
when I lost my appetite. Maybe that is another
sign that I am slowly recovering, but I seem to be
quite selective about what I want to eat. So
selective that most of the time I have no idea
what I want to eat, but I want to eat something.
I've just eaten a couple of fishcakes, but I
really wanted something sweet, or sour, or spicy,
or something....I really don't know what it was I
really wanted. Maybe a big thrill with tomato
sauce on it !
Friday
24th June 2016
09:19
BST
It was so wet yesterday that many train
lines came to a halt - which is a very rare thing
! There were no trains, or in SouthEastern Trains
parlance, the trains were delayed (for ever)
through Catford Bridge station. It seems probable
that we got off lightly here in Catford. Although
there was plenty of rain, it never seemed quite
bad enough to flood railway lines. I think at one
point we even saw a few seconds of sunshine, but
the only good thing about yesterday's weather was
that it wasn't cold. It seemed like most of the
day the temperature was around 20° C. Today it is
all change. It is a bit cooler this morning, maybe
around 14 or 15° C, but it has been a sunny
morning. The sun has gone in now, but it is still
bright, and the forecast says it should be out
again sooner or later. It is not going to be a
particularly warm day, but 21° C is acceptable.
Tomorrow is forecast to start off with non stop
sunshine, but after a few hours that will reduce
to just sunny intervals. They could last all day
long, but from about 2pm they could be accompanied
by rain showers - light at first, but heavier from
about 6pm.
Yesterday was a pleasant enough day. I think
going out for a drink on Wednesday night might not
have been wise. On the other hand I needed
something like that, and I did enjoy it. The
problem was that I woke up yesterday morning with
my chest feeling very congested, and my cough was
on a hair trigger. The coughing was a grand
annoyance when it happened, but there were long
bits of the day when I was not doing anything to
trigger coughing, and I did feel unusually good.
In the early part of the afternoon I had a
very long telephone conversation with an old
friend, and that was very pleasant - made more
pleasant by the fact that he seems to be far less
eccentric than he was a few years ago when a
conversation with him could occasionally be hard
work ! In the late afternoon I had a visit from my
friend Patricia. Originally we were going to go
for a drink in the local Wetherspoons pub, but I
didn't fancy going out in the wet.
We had a very nice chat for a couple of
hours. Inevitably, one of the topics of
conversation was about the EU referendum. Patricia
is of dual nationality - Italian + Argentinian -
and can legally work here, or could because she
can be classified as an Italian national. I'm not
sure if anyone knows the definitive answer yet
about what will happen to those who have moved
here to work from other places in the European
Union. Now we have voted to leave will they all be
deported ?
There are some I wouldn't mind saying
goodbye to, but it would be a shame if some people
have to go back to their country of origin.
Patricia is obviously one person, although in her
case she can be simultaneously on holiday and
working - as she is now. For work she is a citizen
of the internet, and can work anywhere in the
world she can get an internet connection. The
other person I would hate to see go in Ainhoa at
work. I've just got to know her, and I enjoy
working with her. She is from Spain so maybe we
can swap her for a British "expatriot" who wants
to live in Spain.
I coughed far too frequently yesterday. In
the latter half of the day it was mostly triggered
by talking. On the other hand I also seemed to
have hints of feeling good. Admittedly most of
these hints were while I was relaxing, but at best
they were more than hints. There were short
periods of time when I felt perfectly well. It
wasn't hard to do something that would completely
disprove that myth, but while it lasted it felt
deliciously good....and maybe it was less myth
than a taste of things to come.
I don't think I took a single snooze
yesterday (apart from a small second session in
bed first thing in the morning), and I did feel
pretty tired by the evening. While most of the
country were sitting glued to their TVs to find
out how the referendum was doing, I was in bed
before the polls closed. I had poured a whisky or
two that I sipped before going to bed, but this
morning I noted that tiredness must have overcome
me before I could finish the whisky. This morning
I saw that I left what could easily be as much as
a pub "double" measure still in the bottom of my
glass.
I think I woke up coughing in the night a
few times - or did I wake for a wee and start
coughing later ? At about 4.30am I woke up with my
chest feeling very thick and congested. I had to
cough up a lot of mucus (at least I think I did)
before I could attempt to get back to sleep. The
same thing was almost repeated when I woke up, and
decided to get up a couple of hours later. For 10
or 15 minutes after waking I felt most peculiar. I
can't quite describe it without using descriptions
like it felt like my head would explode. Something
similar is not that unusual for me most mornings
these days.
After a while it settled down and I began to
feel almost good. Maybe it was the sunshine, or
maybe I am finally getting better. I think it is
probably both. It certainly feels like I probably
would not be breathless just for walking to the
supermarket like I was the other day. This is
something I hope to test this morning. It feels
like the antibiotics I am taking are finally
winning, and I've seen with my own two eyes some
evidence to back this up.
This next bit is not pleasant, but it helps
explain a few things. I have already mentioned
that the hard lump adjacent to my operation scar
seems to have turned out to be more
zit/boil/abscess than a broken rib poking through,
or the surgeons wrist watch. Until this morning
there was still a tiny bit of doubt about it. I
had ejected a small amount of pus from it, but it
still seemed to have a hard core - just like a
broken rib attempting to poke through the skin. I
would have quite liked that for the novelty value,
although I can imagine it could get agonisingly
painful, and getting it mended by a doctor could
be infinitely tedious.
Now this is the really unpleasant
bit.....This morning I gritted my teeth, and gave
the lump an extra hard squeeze. It erupted in the
most violent manner, and sprayed pus across the
room (or seemed to, but all I could actually see
later was one blob on the carpet about a foot away
from me). It seems there were two or three
chambers that needed a good squeeze to burst and
be emptied of pus. I'm not sure I could speculate
how the antibiotics could have accelerated this
process, but I have a gut reaction they did.
I do speculate that that
abscess/boil/zit/carbuncle was a reservoir for the
bugs that have been doing my chest in. It is
stupid to think that getting that clean could have
a beneficial effect on the rest of my body so
quickly, but that is exactly what I am deluding
myself to believe. It is nothing but pure
coincidence obviously, but the timing is right.
With the muck gone from the surface layers of my
chest, my inner chest feels so much better -
probably.
Time will tell if these wild theories have
any relation to reality, but all the while I can
delude myself I feel better then I do ! This
morning I have already washed a couple of small
towel, and hung them in the sunshine to dry.
Washing towels, even smallish ones can be hard
work, but I don't seem to have suffered by doing
it, and while my muscles felt a bit weak, it
didn't seem to be a difficult job. The next thing
is to wash a sheet and a couple of pillow cases.
They are already soaking in the detergent. Very
soon now I will do the hard bit and get them out
on the washing line too. I do this laundry in big
buckets in the bath. So once I have got the sheet
and pillowcases done I will be able to use the
bath to wash myself under the shower. Then I can
see how well I fare going to the supermarket -
probably Aldi. Until proven otherwise, it's
looking good for a triumphant return to work on
Monday feeling fit and refreshed (that'll last
all of 5 minutes !).
Wednesday
22nd June 2016
09:49
BST
I think the highest temperature yesterday
was about 23° C - which was about what was
forecast. I think the higher reading I saw on one
of my thermometers must have been a fluke. There
was the potential for the warmth to boil up a
storm yesterday afternoon, but although it became
quite overcast after the sunny start to the day,
there was no rain at all that I was aware of. By
late evening the sky had cleared, and there was a
little weak sunshine in the last half hour or so
before sunset. This morning started off bright
again, but it didn't last nearly as long as
yesterday. I think we have even had a brief shower
in the last hour. It seems the chances of rain are
quite high this afternoon, and there is even an
official "weather warning" for the possibility of
some torrential rain, with thunder and lightning
thrown in, this afternoon. There is talk of a
months worth of rain falling in under an hour.
That's heavy !
As usual, when I check the weather forecast
to make sure I have my facts straight, I find it
has changed again. It is still going to be 23° C
this afternoon, and it is still going to feel
humid, but now it seems there is less likelihood
of rain, and if any thunderstorms do develop they
are more likely to be over Kent than here. The
forecast then goes on to say that it will start to
rain at midnight, and not stop until 11am. Then
there will be a few hours respite until it starts
again at 3pm. It will then rain non stop until the
end of time (or 5am the following morning -
whichever comes first). In between the rain drops
there could be some sunny periods !
Yesterday is a bit of a blur because I spent
so much time doing the same thing - laying on my
bed either staring at the ceiling, reading or
sleeping. I seemed to be able to do quite a lot of
the latter - and I still managed to get to sleep
at a sensible time last night. I don't know how
much credit to give to the Amoxicillin
(antibiotic) tablets I am taking, but they and
maybe time are starting to cure my
cold-gone-out-of-control. I was coughing and
blowing my nose far, far less yesterday. In fact
there were times when it seems I had to do neither
for quite long periods of time.
By late(ish) afternoon I almost got my
appetite back. I decided it was time to have
something like a proper dinner, and it turned out
a lot closer to the sort of dinner I have been
trying to eat for months now. It was a fairly
simple cheese salad with some healthy eating, low
somethings or another, French dressing. I probably
overdid the cheese a bit, but it was sort of
healthy, and quite small. It seemed to go down
quite well, and inspired me to have a bit more. I
didn't want anything too heavy, and I didn't want
anything too light (plus I didn't really have
anything in the latter category). I opted to have
some chocolate covered (on one side only, and
rather thinly) rice cakes. I ate a whole
sub-packet of 3 (or 4?), but I guess it was still
ill because I lost my enthusiasm while eating the
last one.
I timed my dinner for 6pm so I could watch
the 6pm news on BBC1, but because of the bloody
football I ended up watching something else. After
eating I came back up here to my computer with the
idea of watching the news using my digital TV USB
receiver. I watched a bit of news but it was so
tedious. They kept going on about some sort of
referendum....Other things distracted me, and
while channel hopping I noticed there was an
interesting programme on BBC4 at 8pm. It was part
of a (presumed) series called "Timeshift", and
last nights programme was about comparing three
named trains from the past and their modern
equivalents. They were the Flying Scotsman (the
service, not the loco), The Cornish Riviera
Express, and The Brighton Belle. There was some
nice old footage, but nothing revolutionary. It
was quite a laid back programme, and sort of nice
for it.
After the programme finished I started to
prepare to go to bed. I splurged more Vick's
"Vaporub" on my chest, and got into bed. I didn't
think I would get to sleep very easily after
sleeping so much in the day, and also because I
was feeling rather hot. Maybe it was more fever or
something, but whatever the cause it was certainly
making my forehead damp. Rather than trying to
sleep I started reading, but I doubt I read for as
much as half an hour when I realised that my
eyelids were starting to droop.
I don't know how long I had been asleep when
I woke up to find I was laying in puddles of
sweat...although when I say puddles I probably
mean damp patches, or in the case of my top
pillow, fortuitously covered with a small towel,
an extremely, almost wring-outable damp patch ! I
think that was a good sign, although when I woke
up after what seemed like a good sleep at approx
4am I did seem have have started coughing more.
That coughing is different in as much as it
is easier than how I was coughing before, but
while on the grand scale of things it is more
intermittent, it is still happening more than it
was yesterday. I am also blowing my nose more
frequently than yesterday - at least I think I am,
it's hard to tell. One difference compared to,
say, the day before yesterday, is that today each
blow is producing far less mucus. So little that
one paper tissue is lasting an hour or so. A few
days ago the contents of one blow could hardly be
contained in one tissue - and I was doing that 3,
4, 5, and occasionally more times an hour !
So it seemed like I could be both better and
worse this morning. There was one way to to test
it, and that was to see if I could do any hard
physical labour without dying ! The task I set
myself was one I had been meaning to do for a
while, and could easily be abandoned again at any
time. It was to sweep the 10ft of path down the
side of the house from the kitchen door to what
should be, has been, and maybe will again be where
the lawn is. It didn't seem very taxing at all so
I added a few frills to it. I washed out the drain
grill and the gaps through the surround to it so
surface water can drain away easier, and as a
final flourish I made up half a bucket of weak
disinfectant to help wash away a bit of a pong
where some animal - probably a cat - had peed near
the back door recently.
That didn't seem to sap my energy. So while
I was in the vicinity of the kitchen I did nearly
a weeks worth of washing up. It wasn't as much as
it sounds because I have been eating so sparingly
recently (but it was starting to get a bit smelly
!). The last thing I did was to start soaking off
a couple of beer bottle labels for Jodi who
collects them. For that I used my tall, glass
Bacardi jug. It is just the right size to immerse
a standard beer bottle in. I soaked off two labels
that way, and something good happened !
Once upon a time I was plugging some holes
using a tube of ready made filler. It seemed very
convenient to rest the tube of filler in the
Bacardi jug while I wasn't using it, but
unfortunately it left a blob of filler in the
bottom of the jug that I couldn't shift. It seems
the one thing I didn't try was hot water and
patience. After soaking the second beer label off
I gave the blob of filler one more pull, and it
came off easily. Now all we have to do is wait for
summer, and I can make cocktails in the jug to
drink on the non existent lawn.
After doing all that work, possibly lasting
little more than half an hour, I came back
upstairs to my computer feeling good - until I sat
down and started to rest. That made me feel quite
peculiar, and has delayed my next little job -
shopping in Tesco. I'll do that soon, but first
some good news...at least I think it's good. Some
while ago I mentioned a hard lumpy type thing had
appeared on my chest. I joked (well it was 99.99%
joke) that it was where the surgeon had dropped
his wrist watch when operating on me back in 2013.
An alternate theory, and one that had a very small
chance of being possible is that it was the end of
a broken/detached rib, or maybe even a loose
staple pushing it's way to the surface. It may be
thanks to the action of the antibiotics, but I now
know what it is, or was. It was a huge zit in the
most unlikely place. I noticed it had developed a
small head this morning, and just now a rather eye
wateringly painful squeeze has just liberated
quite a quantity of pus. In theory the hard core I
can still feel should now shrink. If it doesn't
then it is back to theory one and two again !
Sooner or later I will be going to Tesco.
Then I am going to have a nice rest. Ultimately I
am going to met Mark and Jodi in the local
Wetherspoons for a drink around 5pm. They probably
think it is a birthday drink, but I think it will
just be a feeling better drink !
Tuesday
21st June 2016
09:54
BST
All I can be sure about is that it was grey
yesterday. It was difficult to get a feel of the
temperature because my own internal temperature
regulation was up the creek, but I think the
prediction of about 20° C at best was about right.
The rain that made the morning rather soggy was
over by midday, but it didn't really brighten up.
It did brighten up this morning, and it was very
welcome to see some sunshine. The latest forecast
says the sunshine will be ending soon, but the day
will stay dry and fairly bright. My thermometer
outside the upstairs back bedroom windows says it
is currently 23° C. I'm sure that must higher than
reality, although I've just opened the window and
it doesn't feel cold. The forecast says that it
will only be 21° C today ! Tomorrow is forecast to
be 22°, but it is going to be terribly grey until
early evening when some sun might peek through the
clouds, but at the same time it might rain too !
I most definitely felt rotten yesterday. As
I have already recounted, getting to work wasn't
too bad, but later on I found myself shivering
while all around me said the temperature was quite
comfortable. It was interesting to meet the
technical adviser/salesman who came to have a
meeting with us yesterday. It was a shame that his
product, which as a drop in replacement could have
been so useful, turned out to be worse than the
product we were hoping to replace. On the plus
side, he did seem to know what he was talking
about, and took away one of our units to compare
with his own to try and see what the difference
was, and to see if his product could be changed to
achieve the requirements we were hoping for.
As interesting as it was, it was some relief
when the meeting was over. It was just before
midday, and I told my boss I was going sick.
Getting home was hard work. I frequently ran out
of breath if I tried to go too fast, and it was
like wading through treacle. The only good thing
is that my nose wasn't pouring, and I wasn't
coughing my lungs up. I think I felt too miserable
at the time to wonder why I felt so miserable, but
later on I remembered to check my temperature.
I was most definitely running a fever, and I
have a strong suspicion it was a lot higher than
38.5° C earlier on. I recorded that temperature
after I had arrived home via the doctors surgery.
It seems there is no actual normal
temperature, and I suspect that in hospitals, for
instance, they are looking for changes rather than
a specific temperature. The latest guidelines I've
seen give 36° to 37° as normal. I think my
personal normal is closer to 36° C. So my
temperature was up 2.5° C when I got home, but at
that time, apart from feeling a bit muzzy, I
wasn't shivering or anything. I suspect that
earlier in the morning, while I was shivering, it
may have been a lot higher.
I wasn't expecting much when I called in at
the doctors, and I was almost right. They couldn't
give me an appointment for days - probably not
even this week. They did say that I could come
along at what would have been 8am this morning and
queue all morning for a walk-in visit, and they
offered another option that I had not heard of
before. They said to describe some of the worst
symptoms, and they would be passed on to a doctor
or nurse. If they thought them bad enough they
would phone me and invite me along for a quick
triage. I accepted that option, and played my
trump card. I quoted the advice of the Cardiac
Rehabilitation Nurse at the hospital - that for
someone, such as myself, who has had heart
surgery, it is always worth getting an opinion on
any strange chest pain.
My chest was definitely hurting from time to
time, but I didn't have any fears that it was
anything to do with my heart, and yet the mention
of chest pain when you have a history tends to
open doors. Maybe it did this time, and maybe not,
but a few hours later I was seeing a nurse
practitioner (a nurse who has had additional
training, and is able to prescribe certain drugs).
She prodded and poked me, and questioned me about
this and that. She definitely was concerned about
my chest pains, and it was tricky keeping a
balance between reality and fantasy.
Anyway, the outcome was that she could hear
some congestion in my chest (although of course my
chest was almost clear for those important few
minutes !), and considering my the periods of
fever I had back to last Saturday (and maybe
before) she decided that anti-biotics would help
in this case. So I was duly prescribed a weeks
course of Amoxicillin. I was a bit annoyed that
she would not prescribe another Salbutamol
inhaler. A few squirts from one of those is so
wonderful when trying to cough up a ball of mucus
as big as a football. By very careful use I have
managed to make my current one last three years,
and maybe It will still be working the next time I
get a bad cough.
While I was in the pharmacy getting my
Amoxicillin I noticed some Vick's Vaporub. It's
pretty foul stuff, but it used to work, and I
wondered if it might improve my breathing when I
went to bed. So I bought a pot of it, and went
home to contemplate dinner. I thought I wanted to
eat, and yet in a way I didn't. I decided to cook
some Turkish sausages, and some corned beef crispy
bakes. Both are usually very nice, and just what
is needed for a jaded pallet. I started off by
attacking the sausages. I had cooked one small
packet of 4 of them. I ate 2 of them, and decided
I had eaten enough. I can't remember the last time
I was so ill that I was off my food !
I can't remember what the time was, but I am
sure it was around 7pm that I was feeling so tired
that I went to bed. I didn't actually get into bed
because I had put the heater on, and it was very
warm in my bedroom, plus I had spread a big dollop
of vaporub on my chest. From then on there are
many unknown variables. Was the Amoxicillin
starting to work already, or was it just my body's
natural defences finally beginning to overpower
the bugs that were laying me low ? Likewise, was
it just pure exhaustion, or was it the vaporub
doing some good ? It was probably all of them is
some proportion or another that allowed me to get
some long periods of solid sleep for the first
time in 3 or 4 days.
It is hard to know exactly, but I think I
managed a full 8 hours sleep over a period of 11
hours. The only trouble was that it left me
feeling stiff as a board. I have no idea if it was
the case or not, but I suspect I might have
managed to do most of my sleeping laying on my
back. It is probable that if I wasn't feeling so
uncomfortable after that, I may have managed even
more sleep. Since then I have had a shower to get
rid of the big oilslick of vaporub off my chest,
and I have washed my hair. I now feel refreshed
and almost normal, but, and it is a big but, only
when I am doing stuff like writing this. Just
going downstairs and coming back up again is
enough proof that I still need time to recover.
Overall I do feel so much better, and it feels
like the worst thing I have to face now is
boredom. Maybe I could pass some of my spare time
sleeping.....hmmm, that sounds quite attractive
now I come to think of it.
Monday
20th June 2016
07:48
BST
Yesterday stayed dry, but that's about all
that was good with it. It was a miserable grey
most of the time, although I think I have a vague
recollection of it brightening for a short while
at some unremembered time. The temperature was in
the region of 17 ~ 18° C. So neither hot nor cold.
During the night the temperature dropped to about
13° C, and the cloud really thickened up. It
started to rain as I got myself ready for work.
The rain was fairly light as I made my way to
work, but now I am here it has started teeming
down. The forecast says it will now stay like this
until just before I go home - if I am lucky ! By
that time it will be close to 20° C, and I reckon
it will feel quite steamy out there. Tomorrow is
currently forecast to be brighter, and drier, and
warmer, but not actually sunny !
I felt fairly rotten in variable amounts
yesterday. One novelty is that I didn't seem to be
hungry, or at least I didn't fancy eating. I did
have a dinner of sorts. I was brave enough to eat
a second portion of the Indian takeaway that I had
bought on Friday night, enjoyed, and then threw up
! I was concerned that it may have been infected
with something, and that the reason I threw up was
food poisoning, but it didn't seem to affect the
far end of the digestive process, and so I assumed
that my first theory was correct. That theory is
that I was coughing so hard on Friday night that I
practically coughed my own spleen up, let alone my
dinner !
At any other time I think I would have
really enjoyed vegetable bhaji on naan bread with
added melted cheddar cheese, but while it was OK,
I didn't get much pleasure from it. Maybe I was
still worried about possible food poisoning, or
maybe I was only eating out of habit rather than
need. I think it probably was habit because there
were a couple of times when I was feeling bored,
and elected to get some excitement by "raiding the
larder", but instead of it being satisfying it
seemed like hard work to enjoy it. As far as I can
recall, I didn't eat all that much yesterday. If
the rice cakes I ate didn't have chocolate on them
I could probably claim that I had an unusually low
calorie day.
I really felt like a snooze yesterday, but I
just could not get comfortable. It was an effect
that became a lot worse when I went to bed last
night. If I lay on my back to read a book I soon
felt reasonably good in one respect, and not so
good in another. The not so good was just simply
some back ache. I have never been good at sleeping
on my back because it never feels that
comfortable, although with a lot of perseverance I
managed to do it OK when I came out of hospital in
September 2013, and with my chest held together
with staples I had no choice but to sleep on my
back. The feeling good part was more noticeable
later in the afternoon. I found that laying down
on my back stopped my nose feeling blocked, and
apparently made the mucus in my windpipe
mysteriously vanish. If only it were comfortable
to sleep like that I would be feeling much better
!
I found that when sitting up at my computer
I was coughing less and blowing my nose far less
frequently too. I almost believed I was getting
better ! I should have been able to go through the
photos I took on Saturday night, and edit them for
upload, but I could not motivate myself to do it.
Finally the time came around to go to bed. It
could have been up to an hour before I turned the
lights out that I was laying on my bed reading.
For most, if not all of that time I was able to
breathe freely through my nose, and I felt no
irritation from my throat or windpipe to induce me
to cough.
It was 9.30pm when I put my book down,
turned off the lights, and turned over to my side
to go to sleep. Within seconds it felt like
someone had poured half a gallon of mucus down my
windpipe. Each breath was accompanied by gurgling,
and bubbling sounds. At one point I must have
sounded like a cat purring. Very soon I was
coughing fit to bust, and my nose started to run.
So I lay on my back again, and these symptoms
started to subside a bit, but not quick enough to
be able to relax and try to get to sleep. All
through the night I tried different positions for
sleeping. A few must have been close to OK because
I think I managed to get at least an hour of
sleep. I might have got more, but I am not sure if
some vivid dreams weren't some sort of
hallucination !
I expected to feel pretty rotten this
morning, and I wasn't disappointed ! Strangely
enough, coming to work was not that bad. Obviously
it wasn't that good either, but the worst thing
was nearly falling asleep on the train. On the
whole I didn't feel all that uncomfortable. Now I
am at work I am not sure how I feel. As the
effects of the fresh air wear off I am having more
difficulty breathing without stirring up mucus in
my windpipe. I'm sitting here relatively calmly,
and yet it feels much worse than when I was
rushing over the link from Waterloo East to
Waterloo mainline station. I think today is going
to be a bit of a trial ! I have to be here to meet
and greet a potential new supplier of a part that
might solve a problem we have, but after I've seen
him I may go sick. I probably ought to try and get
an appointment to see a doctor tomorrow - though I
doubt I will get one that quick.
Meanwhile, I have worse problems. The mouse
mat for my PC at home finally disintegrated
yesterday. Luckily it didn't disintegrate too
completely because it was a novelty fluid filled
one. The sac with the fluid in it (probably just
tapwater) didn't burst, but the outer membrane
that had the printing on it completely broke up. I
had to dig out a replacement for it. The only one
I could find easily was one I didn't want to use
because it is almost a piece of art. I have no
idea how or where I originally obtained it, but I
am pretty sure I'll never be able to replace it. I
had better find a replaced for it soon before it
starts to wear, and maybe once it is replaced I
ought to frame it and hang it on the wall....or
maybe not.
Sunday
19th June 2016
08:15
BST
Yesterday stayed grim and grey all day. I
can't seem to recall a single moment when I could
see even a patch of blue in the sky. Oh well, at
least it didn't rain, and while it wasn't warm, it
was tepid - maybe no more than 17° C. Today sees
the first nice change to the weather for what
seems like ages. This morning it is 15 - 17° C,
and it is bright and sunny ! The current forecast
says we can expect sunshine until about 1pm when
it will lightly cloud over. Sadly the hoped for
20° C seems unlikely according to the forecast -
that says the temperature will peak at just 19°
early this afternoon. The forecast shows rain
starting at midnight, and tomorrow could be dark,
wet and gloomy - unless the forecast changes - and
there are plenty of precedents for that to happen.
I was so busy feeling terrible that I forgot
I had taken this picture of the sun set on Friday
night. To the eye it looked a bit more pink
compared to how the photograph turned out. It
looked like it should have heralded a nice day
yesterday, but for once, old fashioned weather
lore let us down !
It was nice to spend much of yesterday
afternoon doing all the things you are supposed to
do when sick - not actually in bed, but laying on
my bed with the heater on, and making sure I was
well hydrated by drinking water. It might have
done some good, or maybe not, but it didn't do any
harm. It is probable that my high fever in the
morning may have done more good, but that, plus
lack of sleep, did leave me feeling quite drained.
I am pretty certain I wouldn't have gone out last
night if I had any further to go than The Black
Cat (6 or 7 minutes walk away).
There are a couple of reasons why it might
have been better if I had not gone out. The first
being that I don't think going out in the cold
night air was good for me, and the second was that
the band were very off-form last night. For some
of the time 2 of the guitars were out of tune with
each other, and both singers couldn't hit some of
the higher notes. It all sounded a bit of a mess.
The band were Red Post Hill, and the last time
they performed in The Black Cat I made a comment
something to the effect of "what they lacked in
talent they made up for in enthusiasm". Last night
I was not so forgiving. What drove the point home
even hard was when I listened to some video I took
of the band. Once out of the live environment it
sounds appalling !
Here's the culprits - Red Post Hill
Apart from the
assault on my ears, while I was in the pub I
felt mostly OK. My nose remained mostly dry,
and I was hardly coughing at all, but towards
the end I was feeling quite fatigued, and the
Guinness didn't seem to be settling in my
stomach that well. I almost wondered if I was
going to throw up again. So at 10:18pm (I
think) I made my excuses, and made my way
home.
I think it was then that the cold night
air triggered off the return of some of my
cold symptoms - particularly my cough,
although it was only a nuisance when I was in
bed. After that short walk my gut was feeling
fine again, and I wanted something to eat -
but not much, and nothing too greasy, or
spicy, or rich. Well maybe the rich was OK if
it wasn't too rich. I don't think egg custard
tarts could be described as too rich, and they
were what I ate. They went down nicely, and
didn't cause so much as a murmur from my
stomach.
Soon after I went to bed, and of course
as soon as I laid my head on the pillow the
tickling in my throat and/or windpipe
increased ten-fold. Before going to bed I had
taken the precaution of taking a couple of
Paracetamol tablets. They sometimes help, but
they take some time before they kick in.
Eventually I got to sleep, and I expect it was
pure exhaustion that kept me asleep for a
solid 4 hours. After that my sleep became a
bit intermittent. Like yesterday, I eventually
gave up trying to get back to sleep, and got
up for a while before trying for sleep an hour
or so later. It partly worked.
This morning I feel both good and bad,
but maybe slightly more biassed towards bad.
Like yesterday, my nose is mostly dry, but I
think I am coughing more, although the reason
seems to have changed a bit. If I put on my
optimists hat I would speculate that the
change in my cough is a sign that it is
getting better - even though in some ways it
feels worse. This morning my windpipe has
almost stopped making burbling noises when I
breath in and out, and that was the biggest
reason why I was coughing yesterday. Now the
tickling sensation seems much closer to the
top - practically at the top of the throat.
The bad news is that I seem to be coughing in
a different way, and it seems to be making my
weak chest muscles ache a bit. I have
absolutely no idea how I am coughing in a
different way, and I'm probably not, but it
feels as if I am somehow.
I have recently taken a couple more
Paracetamol tablets. They could both help with
the coughing, and dull the ache from my chest.
Hopefully they will do both, and do it well
because I think I am going to do what I did
yesterday, but do it better. I did have ideas
about going out to do some photography in the
morning sunshine, but I feel I probably out to
go through the motions of being ill - not
going out, but staying in the warm, and
resting and sleeping as much as possible. I
have to remember this will be my last chance
to do it before it's back to work again
tomorrow. It would be nice to be not coughing
and spluttering everywhere on the trains to
work, and at work.
Saturday
18th June 2016
13:39
BST
There were no thunderstorms yesterday, but
it did seem quite humid in the afternoon. Maybe I
was too preoccupied to notice any other details
about the weather, or maybe the weather was so
blandly grey that there was nothing to notice.
Sadly that appears to be the case today. It might
get lighter soon, but it has been very grey until
now. It is possible there was some rain in the
night but it is supposed to be dry all day today.
At 18° C it is not cold, but it would be nicer if
it was a more June-like 20+° C. Tomorrow is
forecast to be over cast all day, but it is
supposed to be brighter than today, and it may
finally get to be 20° C or more.
On the whole I felt pretty rotten at work
yesterday, but every cloud has a silver
lining...sort of. The last couple of days at work
have been better than usual because I have struck
a rapport with one of my work mates. Pictured on
the left is Ainhoa from Spain. She normally works
in the Development Area, but has been working in
my room while we investigate a very infrequent,
but very annoying problem with some equipment we
have sold to one of our customers.
It's funny how just one little comment can
make or break a friendship. In this instance it
made one. I can't remember how it came up, but I
suggested Ainhoa was about 22 years old. This
rather pleased her because she is actually 31 ! It
certainly broke the ice, and instead of it just
being a bit nice to have some occasional company
in my usually solitary day, it actually made it
very pleasurable.
It would have been even more pleasurable if
I wasn't coughing and blowing my nose all through
the day, but I guess the ultimate pleasure was
that it looks like we finally cracked the problem
between us yesterday. All credit must go to Ainhoa
for putting the final link in the chain.
As usual, I didn't feel too bad when I was
out in the fresh air going home from work
yesterday, but it was only a temporary pleasure,
although it did last for a while after getting
home. As I suggested yesterday, I ordered a
steaming hot curry, and it seemed rather delicious
- at least it did on the way in ! Some 60 to 90
minutes after eating it I went to bed. As soon as
my head hit the pillow I started coughing and
spluttering. It seems my lungs must be full of
snot that has trickled down the back of my neck.
While lying down, every time I breathed I could
hear it gurgling in my wind pipe.
Not only is it impossible to go to sleep in
that condition (at least not until total
exhaustion sets in), but it is a potent trigger to
cough your lungs out. I haven't coughed like that
since I was smoking 50 cigarettes a day. There is
one obvious reason for what happened next, but I
have a feeling a less obvious reason was the
correct one. It is an established fact that the
layout of the digestive system can lead to acid
reflux when laying on the left. When you add in
convulsive coughing stirring all your innards up
then anything could happen - and it did.
I started to feel some twitchiness from my
belly. That was followed by salivating a lot. They
were all the symptoms I needed to send me rushing
to the toilet where I vomited up part of my curry.
It took two more similar episodes before I seemed
to be empty. It was all very unpleasant, but on
the plus side it got rid of a very potent source
of calories, and other stuff I shouldn't eat. It
may have been the richness of it that was a
contributory factor in inducing the vomiting.
There still remains the possibility that it was
food poisoning.
After my third visit to the toilet I was
able to get a little sleep, but not much. I think
it was around 3am that I woke up shivering -
absolute convulsive shivering. I wrapped myself up
tightly in the duvet until I felt I could walk a
couple of paces to turn the heater on. A little
later I tried to take my temperature. I have a
feeling I probably reset the thermometer wrong
because it seemed to suggest I was cold rather
than feverish. 30, 40, 50 minutes later (who knows
?) I had just about stopped shivering, but I did
feel very peculiar. This time I took my
temperature correctly, and it was 38.6° C (or
101.4° F). I have an unprovable theory that it was
even higher earlier.
I think I was able to get back to sleep for
a short while after that, but when I woke up I was
sweating quite profusely. I checked my temperature
again, and it had fallen to 38.1° C. I would have
liked to stay in a high fever because it helps to
kill all those naughty little cold causing bugs,
but I desperately wanted to try and get some more
sleep. So I took some paracetamol that should have
lowered my temperature, and helped in other ways
to get some sleep.
I think it was 5.20am when I woke up next,
and although I felt horrible, it didn't seem to be
as horrible as it had been earlier. I
decided I would get up for a while and answer an
email or two, and some some time "surfing the
net". After an hour I went back to bed, and then
after a period of coughing and spluttering I
finally fell asleep again, and this time I slept
for a couple of hours. I still felt pretty
terrible, but I thought it was time I rinsed all
the sweat from my hair, and rinsed the sweat off
my body. It felt nice to be clean again.
Over a period of an hour or so, I prepared
myself to go out into the big scary world to buy
some stuff from Aldi. There were several things I
needed, and some of them I needed desperately -
man sized tissues probably being the most
important. Now the good thing about this is that
now I have 4 brand new boxes of man sized tissues
my nose has almost dried up ! As I walked to Aldi
my chest was burbling fit to bust I must have
sounded like the subject of Jethro Tull's
"Aqualung".
I felt weak walking there,
and I wondered how I would fare carrying a few
bags of stuff home. I took it fairly easy, but
it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared it could
be. I felt tired when I got home, but in some
ways it was more a sort of sleepy tiredness,
although I could feel some muscle fatigue from
my chest. I had a few sandwiches for
breakfast, and like the couple of little bags
of Twiglets I had eaten earlier (being the
closest thing to dry toast and Marmite I had
available) they didn't seem to upset my
stomach in any way.
After breakfast I lay on my bed, and
while I usually find it to be uncomfortable, I
lay on my back. I didn't seem to feel the need
to cough like that - apart from an occasional
clearing of my throat. I think I ended up
asleep for well over an hour, and it could
have been two hours. The very next thing to do
was to write this. I'm sure I feel some better
today. As I've mentioned, I am not using many
tissues recently. Once I have emptied my
lungs, or windpipe of mucus I will probably
feel quite good once I have had a good sleep.
I will probably spend the rest of the
afternoon snoozing if I can. I hope I will
feel well enough to enjoy a few hours in The
Black Cat this evening. Red Post Hill are
playing a gig in there tonight. I've seen them
once before, and while they make the
occasional mistake, they more than make up for
it with enthusiasm. I think the last time I
saw them I went home early because I was
feeling rough, and I guess I will do the same
tonight, but a couple of hours of music is
better than no music at all !
Friday
17th June 2016
08:21
BST
The truth about yesterday's weather was
that it was a bit like the early forecast, and a
bit like the later corrected forecast, and exactly
like neither of them ! There was some rain around
midday, but I don't recall it lasting very long,
and nor did it seem very heavy. The next rain was
just before 5pm, and it was so light that I didn't
even bother to put a coat on when walking the 5
minute walk between the station and the pub. That
was the last rain I saw, but as I was walking home
from the station, on my way back from the pub,
there were some distant sounds of thunder from the
west. As far as I can recall the day came in
several shades of grey without a single glimpse of
the sun - although I did spot a small patch of
blue sky at one point. It was neither cold nor
warm. The forecast predicted it would be 17° C,
and I would say that was about right. When it
might, or might not rain is open to conjecture,
but today feels like, and indeed is forecast to be
very like yesterday. So we can expect a random
sprinkle of rain at any time, but always with the
threat of a severe, localised flooding strength,
thunderstorm as a possibility this afternoon.
Tomorrow is possibly going to be ever so slightly
warmer, with a little less chance of rain, but
still depressingly grey.
The pub was easy to get to last night, but
it wasn't a very enjoyable session. It seems there
was football happening yesterday, and the pub was
filled with very noisy people who like football.
The noise and the crowds around the bar were not
their only sin. For some reason these people like
pissing all over the seats, and all over the floor
of the cubicles in the gents. It was not very
pleasant in there. Then there was the problem of
the beer. When I went in there I couldn't spot any
hand pumps for cask conditioned real beer, and so
I opted for that good fallback - Guinness. The
Guinness was perfectly acceptable, but on Thursday
nights we usually have a choice of several "real
ales" to try. It seems that there was at least one
real ale hidden somewhere, but maybe it wasn't
very nice because I noted that Chris had Guinness
for his second pint.
For all the disadvantages it was still a
pleasant couple of hours. Going home was quite
pleasant too - well pleasant in so much as by pure
chance I had a zero minutes wait for a train back
to Catford Bridge. My timing wasn't actually
perfect though. I didn't have enough time to walk
down the platform for one more carriage length so
I would be in the correct carriage for the rear
door to open exactly by the exit at Catford
Bridge.
Three pints of Guinness helped to take the
edge off the negative aspects of this cold that I
still have this morning. Yesterday, as I think I
mentioned yesterday morning, it has gone to my
chest, and I am coughing up much mucus (plus bits
of lung, intestines, kidneys, and anything else
that gets in the way). The coughing, and the
blocked nose made for a less than great day at
work yesterday. The Guinness obviously didn't help
these symptoms, although fresh air did, but it did
make them seem less important. It also made it
seem less important to try and eat carefully. So I
treated myself to some chicken and chips on the
way home.
After eating my chicken and chips I almost
went to bed, but I checked my email, and a few
other things before I went to bed. I can't
actually remember what time I went to bed, but I
think it may have been slightly before 9pm. I'm
fairly sure I fell asleep almost instantly, and
although I do have some dreamy memory of waking up
once in the night, I essentially slept right
through until 4.40am this morning. When I woke up
I found my pillow, and a few patches on the duvet
and lower sheet damp from sweat. It wasn't a
particularly warm night last night, and I think
the sweat was possibly the result of fever - and
that is usually a good sign !
This morning my nose is still getting
blocked by mucus, but maybe it is happening less
frequently (said he with stupid optimism), and
maybe if I ignore the first 20 minutes after
waking up, I am coughing less - but maybe not that
much less. To be honest I have no idea how I feel.
It seems probable that this cold has also settled
on my brain ! It seems my sense of time is very
distorted this morning as a result of the germs
and microbes eating away at my brain cells. It
seemed to take ages to walk to the station this
morning. I was trying to walk faster but I was
feeling a bit asthmatic, and I just could not push
myself to walk and faster. It felt like I would
never get to the station, and yet when I got there
I found I had probably got there faster than usual
- maybe by a full minute ! Was I actually walking
much faster than I thought, or have I just
forgotten how to read a clock ?
I feel today is going to be a tedious day.
The symptoms of this cold, which has grossly
outstayed it's welcome, seem to have decreased,
but I feel worse in a way. I think it is partly,
maybe mostly, because I am getting very bored with
it, and that is making me feel tired, or at least
tired of fighting it, and tired of coming to work
with it. I think I have a plan forming that may
help, or if it doesn't help it should still be
enjoyable. Tonight I think I will treat myself to
a steaming great curry. I am not seeing Aleemah
this week so it doesn't matter that I will
probably end up spending half the morning on the
toilet, and any spare time left over from that I
will spend part sleeping, and part farting in bed.
With luck I will end up feeling good enough to
enjoy a gig in The Black Cat tomorrow night. I
think it's Red Post Hill playing, and they seemed
quite good last time I saw them.
Thursday
16th June 2016
07:38
BST
Some parts of the weather forecast for
yesterday were about right, and some bits were
wrong. There was some rain late in the morning,
and then it brightened up enough for some sunny
spells. The last forecast I saw for the day said
it wouldn't rain when I went home from work - but
it did ! There was some light drizzly rain when I
left work, and a slightly heavier splash while I
waited for my train at Waterloo East. By the time
I got back to Catford, little more than 15 minutes
later, it was dry, and the sun was out. It didn't
look as if there had been any rain at all in
Catford. The rest of the night was dry too. This
morning started off fairly bright, and it was
about 13 - 14° C. From then on it gets
complicated......
This was the forecast a little while before I was
due to leave home to come to work, and as such it
is what I use to make decisions about what to wear
for instance. The only trouble is that after I get
to work it has all changed !
Now it seems there will be far less rain,
and also far less sunshine, but the temperatures
will be roughly the same. If I am lucky that
little glimpse of sunshine seen at 3pm may be a
bit more sunny, and last a little longer so going
home won't be so gloomy. You'll not there is a
weather warning issued for today. Like most days
recently, it warns of the potential for
thunderstorms, torrential rain, and localised
flooding somewhere, some time today. Probably in
the afternoon, but no one knows. So it could all
go horribly wrong !
I didn't feel all that good at work
yesterday, and it was all due to my cold. I
stupidly thought that my nose had almost dried up
yesterday morning. It did for a while, probably
the result of fresh air as I walked from the
station to work, but it wasn't long before it
started dripping again. I also started coughing
more. Once I was out in the fresh air again, on my
way home from work, I was mostly OK, but it all
started again soon after getting home. It wasn't
quite so bad as earlier, and my snot was often
much thicker as if it were drying up.
Unfortunately it was another false alarm !
Considering I was not feeling all that good
I did a few remarkable things last night. For a
start I ate quite healthily (until I ruined
everything by eating some chocolate that has been
staring at me every time I opened the cupboard -
last night the temptation proved too much). I also
did too small batches of laundry. First of all I
just washed four work shirts, and then a bit later
I washed a couple of t-shirts and some underwear.
The grand finale was to finally upload the best
picture I took last Saturday of The Dirty Habits,
and International Rescue performing at The New
Addington Peoples Carnival. You can view the photo
album right here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157668880265930
I ended up going to bed a little after 9pm.
My nose was a bit stuffy, and I was coughing a bit
before I went to bed, but neither seemed to stop
me from falling asleep fairly quickly. Later in
the night they probably both woke me once or
twice. The worst thing is that my cough became
worse, and it was presumably because snot had been
pouring down my throat as I slept, and it was
starting to congeal. It made coughing quite hard,
and sort of painful. Luckily I still have a good
few doses left in my (almost) three year old blue
asthma inhaler, and a couple of shots of that
opened up the airways, and I was able to cough
freely.
I slept better for the rest of the night
after that. This morning I still felt rather
clogged up, but once again my nose was far better
behaved when I was out in the fresh air. Now I am
at work my nose seems moderately bad, but not
terrible, and I am coughing far less (but it is
still quite "throaty" when I do). This should be a
good excuse to go sick, but I think I might
possibly feel worse if I were at home. It would be
nice to be able to lay down if I wanted to, but
this cold doesn't seem to make me feel like laying
down much. The way I look at it, it is my duty as
a malcontent, to spread my germs far and wide to
my fellow workers, and to all the commuters I
cough and sneeze on as I travel to work.
Maybe I am not a real malcontent, and it's just
the years of uncaring, inhumane, government
rubbing off on me.
Tonight I am looking forward to a beer or
three - at least I hope I am. It's Thursday, and
that means another meeting of the Thursday night
drinking club. Tonight's venue is a nice easy to
get to venue. It's the pub that was previously
known as The William IV in Elmers End. It's just
as easy to get to now it's known as The Elm Tree.
All I have to do is to forget to get off the train
at Catford Bridge, and stay on for a few more
stops to Elmers End station. From there it is a 5
or 6 minute walk to the pub. I just hope this cold
abates enough for me to enjoy a couple of pints.
Wednesday
15th June 2016
07:38
BST
The weather is getting very tedious lately.
Everyday sees the same pattern. A grey overcast
morning followed by rain around lunchtime, and
then more rain around the time I go home from
work. The temperature profile has also been
roughly the same for days now. Somewhere in the
region of 13° C in the morning, and maybe 18° C by
4pm. Today the mold has almost been broken. This
morning the temperature is still around 13° C, but
it has been sunny with nice big areas of blue sky.
It is starting to get a bit cloudy now, but the
forecast does say there could be sunny intervals
throughout the day. Unfortunately some of
those sunny intervals could be accompanied by
torrential rain, and the forecast predicts I
will be going home from work in the rain -
possibly very heavy rain - maybe even in the
middle of a thunderstorm ! No, sorry,
the forecast has just been changed in the last
half hour.The forecast now says it will only rain
at 11am, and it also says there will be far less
sunny intervals. The latest theory about the
temperature predicts a high of 19° C. There still
seems to be a weather warning for thundery
showers, but maybe more to the west of here. The
forecast for tomorrow is looking quite similar to
the earlier forecast for today, but with the rain
not stopping until midnight after starting at 3pm.
This was the glorious
sunny sight as I waited for the 06:33 train this
morning. Note the blue sky, and deep shadows.
Out of all the ways I could have suffered at
work yesterday, I chose to have very painful feet
! In one sense it is literally true that I chose
that pain. After all I was the one who chose my
shoes in the morning, although I did do it in a
stupidly innocent sort of way. I thought I could
get away with wearing the same maroon coloured
Dunlop basket ball style trainers that I last wore
when I did an almost 4 mile walk to Lower Sydenham
and back a month or two ago. On that occasion
something inside the right shoe did it's best to
rub all the skin off one of my toes. I don't know
why I didn't think the same thing wouldn't happen
again yesterday.
Maybe it was because I knew I wouldn't be
walking 4 miles yesterday - well not all at once.
By the time I got to work the same toe was a
bloody mess. It was fortunate that I keep some
sticking plasters here at work. One of those
provided some protection, but those shoes were
rubbing in other places too, albeit less savagely.
It was a great relief to get home and to take off
those shoes. I reckon it would be safe to wear
them to a local pub for a short drink after
putting on a precautionary sticking plaster, but I
don't think I dare wear them for any longer at any
other time.
The pain from my feet rather distracted me
from any of my more common aches and pains, but it
didn't distract me from the fact that my nose
continued to drip yesterday. It was no more than
the common cold, but it did leave me feeling
rather tired, and particularly so last night. The
good thing last night was that it did seem that my
nose was drying up, although maybe I only realise
that now with the aid of hind sight.
Going home from work was a painful
experience - not seriously painful, but painful
enough. Then again, not so painful that I couldn't
go home via the Turkish supermarket (although it
is only a detour of a hundred feet or so). I was
hoping to buy another pack of the rather delicious
goats cheese with herbs that I bought from there
some weeks ago. Sadly they didn't have any, but
the did have an even more insanely expensive
"artisanal" (probably) cheese with herbs. I can't
recall what it was called, but I do recall how
expensive it was, and I do recall that it wasn't
very nice. It wasn't exactly unpleasant, but it is
going to be no pleasure finishing it off.
I also bought these two beers from the
Turkish supermarket yesterday (they were in focus
when I originally bought them !). They were much,
much nice than that cheese ! The formed a part of
my balanced diet yesterday - I drank one using my
left hand, and the other using my right hand to
make sure it was balanced. My dinner included
salad with the strange herb flavoured cheese, and
some smoked fish (flash heated in the microwave).
I probably ate more fish than I should have,
although I have little idea what the optimum
amount should be - if indeed there is an optimum
amount, which seems unlikely. Some of the fish was
smoked mackerel, and the other was smoked salmon.
The latter was in the form of fillets rather than
the thinly sliced smoked salmon as used in salads
or bagels. Both packs of fish were very close to
their use by date.
After dinner I felt very tired, and I was
also feeling a bit cold...well maybe not cold, but
not quite warm enough to be comfortable laying on
my bed, and falling asleep. It was no later than
7pm when I decided to lay down and close my eyes
for just a few moments, and it could have been as
much as 20 minutes before that. The next thing I
knew it was 8pm ! At that point I decided I should
probably get ready to go to bed. I had a few
things to do first, but by 8.40pm I was in bed,
and falling asleep. I woke a couple of times in
the night, mostly to have a pee, but apart from a
short period of doubt around 4am, I slept until my
alarm woke me at 5am.
I probably feel quite refreshed this
morning, but I wouldn't go as far as saying that.
It has got to that time of the morning where I'd
like to go back to bed for another snooze - at
least I think I would, but even though I am
thinking about it, I am not yawning. That must be
some sort of good sign. Of course morning sunshine
is always good to wake up to, and to lift the day.
This morning I am aware that my feet are rather
tender, but I have chosen a pair of my most
comfortable shoes, and my feet feet OK. I haven't
had to blow my nose for a while now, and it seems
my cold is over bar a few lingering effects. Even
my chest seems to be mostly behaving itself this
morning. It is all sounding very positive, and yet
I'm not sure if I feel that good right now.
One thing I meant to do last night, but
there wasn't time (and I didn't seem to have the
inclination) was to upload all the best pictures I
took last Saturday to Flickr. Maybe I'll do that
tonight. If I am feeling moderately good I might
wash some shirts too. On the other hand I might
just feel bored and depressed, or I might just
feel tired and have another early night. Who can
tell ?
Tuesday
14th June 2016
07:50
BST
As often seems to be the case recently, the
weather forecast for yesterday was right in
essence, but the timings and strength of the
various features of it were wrong. The forecast
said there would only be some rain for a few hours
after midday. My recollection is that there was a
light splash of rain sometime before midday, and
more substantial rain starting around 5pm. The
temperatures given were probably about right. It
wasn't cold and it wasn't hot - it was just tepid
!
The weather is so unappealing lately that
it seems easier to let a screenshot of the
forecast tell it's own story. It looks like I will
get wet going home today, but I could also see
some sunshine if I am very lucky. On the other
hand, it was supposed to be dry when I went home
yesterday but I got wet ! Maybe today will be the
opposite - it will stay dry when it is supposed to
rain. A weather warning has been issued for
tomorrow. I didn't include it in my screenshot,
but basically it is to warm of torrential rain,
thunder and lightning, and the risk of localised
flooding tomorrow. I think that is all I have to
say about tomorrow apart from I hope the forecast
is wrong !
I didn't feel that good at work yesterday.
The most sinister thing was that from time to time
it felt like I was developing a cold. This is
impossible because only a couple of weeks have
passed since I got over the last one. The last one
was mostly mild but lasted over a fortnight. It
might be impossible to have another cold, although
that's mostly wishful thinking. Regardless of what
should and shouldn't happen, it remains a fact
that my nose got a bit drippy yesterday, and as
the day wore on my throat became a bit sore. It
became so bad that I had to "gargle" with some
whisky last night - well that was my excuse,
anyway !
I didn't feel too bad when I went home from
work, and I even had enough energy or enthusiasm,
to go the long way around when I walked from the
station. I wanted to check on something I had seen
in the Pound Shop - UMD disks. I had never heard
of UMD disks until recently, but The Pound Shop
has acquired a small stock of them. They are a
small, approx 2 inch diameter, optical data disk
in a caddy that Sony invented to use in their
Playstation Portable games machine. they can hold
the data for games or enough video for a full
(average) length movie - and the disks that the
Pound Shop have are movie disks. I have bought a
couple out of curiosity, and now I need to look
around for a battered, cheap and nasty, second
hand Playstation Portable to play them on. It is
of course a complete waste of money, but sometimes
curiosity has to be satisfied.
I also had a look in Cash Generators, the
secondhand goods and loan sharking shop where I
have bough a couple of cameras, and some lenses
for very reasonable prices. They had a couple of
cameras and another lens that could almost have
tempted me, but not this time. It was while I was
looking through the shop window that the first
drops of rain began to fall. At first it was very
light, but it slowly got heavier. 6 or 7 minutes
later, as I walked the last hundred yards toward
home it had reached close to torrential
proportions - although nothing like the downpour
on Sunday night ! I'm not sure how long it lasted.
Once I was safely indoors I lost interest in the
outside world.
I didn't feel very inspired to do much at
all last night, but I did finish doing all the
washing up, and I washed my hair, but I didn't get
around to uploading all the pictures from last
Saturday to Flickr. I'm not sure why I didn't do
that. The uploading can take a while, but it gets
on with it itself, and so is not trouble, although
thinking up descriptions or captions for pictures
is a really tedious process - particularly when
you are uploading 30 - 40 pictures ! It feel like
I didn't have time to deal with Flickr, and yet I
have no idea where the time went to, but it
certainly went fast enough that I went to bed late
instead of early.
It was about 10pm when I fell asleep, and I
slept like a log until I woke up feeling hot and
sweaty just after 3pm. It felt like the aftermath
of a fever, and maybe that is what it was. This
morning my nose is dripping less, and my sore
throat has almost gone. Is it possible that I did
have a cold, and this time it really is the common
cold ? The common cold is supposed to only last
about 24 hours, and that means I should be
completely over it about lunchtime today ! The
less optimistic version says the core of it will
be over in 24 hours, but it will take another day
or two for the body to return to normal, the nose
to stop running, and suchlike. Oh well, everything
will be fine once the rain goes away, and the hot
sun comes out - if it ever does again !
Tonight must be the night when I will
finally upload those photos to Flickr. Well I
can't think of anything else to do, and if it is
nasty grey and wet outside, as it is almost
certain to be, I doubt I will feel inspired to do
any more than eat too much. Hopefully I'll resist
the worst of that temptation, and should I weaken
I do have lots of salad that needs to be used up
soon - although salad can be a great attractor of
cheese and other unholy food ! Mmmmm, maybe I
ought to buy some of that stupidly expensive, but
oh so delicious, herb flavoured goats cheese from
the Turkish supermarket on the way home from
work....
Monday
13th June 2016
08:04
BST
The weather forecast warned of the
possibility of a torrential downpour somewhere,
sometime, and last night it was our turn. After a
fairly bland day of occasional drizzle things
changed just after 9pm - and changed a lot. The
rain started falling like stair rods, and it
wasn't long before the road was getting close to
being flooded, and the area outside my back door
was flooded to a depth of a couple of inches. The
rain didn't last that long, and perhaps by 10pm
the flood outside my back door had subsided to
just a bit of surface water. At it's worst there
were a few splashes that came under my back door
to leave a small puddle, but I've seen worse, and
it was all dry again this morning.
This is a screenshot of the BBC's weather
forecast for Catford today. I don't think there is
any way of describing this in anything but the
most negative terms. It looks awful, and I am sure
it will be, but in an effort to scrape the bottom
of the barrel for something positive to say, I
could say "at least it's not going to be too
cold". I did come to work in just shirtsleeves (a
short sleeve shirt), and while it was cool, it was
not uncomfortable. If the sky had been blue, and
it had been bright, it would probably have felt
almost warm despite being exactly the same
temperature. Another positive thing...assuming
this forecast turns out to be approximately
correct, then at least there won't be much rain,
and it should be dry when I go home after work.
I like a nice novelty soap. I thought the
soap on the right - shea butter and honey flavour
- was odd enough (and oddly very nice to use), but
over the weekend I found the ultimate in weird
soaps - Chocolate Orange flavour soap. It came
from the Pound Shop (obviously for just £1). It
smells very nice while you are washing your hands
- particularly so in hot water because it helps
the volatile odours to be released easier. The
only problem, if it is a problem and not a
blessing, is that it doesn't leave a strong
chocolate orange smell to the hands. Maybe that is
just as well - it could tempt me to eat my own
hands.
The excitement of the torrential downpour
last night delayed me going to bed, and that was a
pity because I didn't sleep that well in the later
part of the night. In the early hours of the
morning I felt a little uncomfortable because of
trapped wind. Not that it stayed trapped all that
long. Oh no, it most definitely didn't ! It was
sometime around 3am, or at least the first digit
on my clock was a 3, when I decided it might be
prudent to visit the toilet. Apart from a lot of
farting, nothing happened on those visits, but on
the last attempt I did notice that there was some
feint light in the sky, and the bottom of some
clouds was being lit up with a feint pink colour.
Sunrise was at 4.43am this morning, and I reckon
it was possibly an hour before that when I saw
this feint light in the sky. It seems quite
depressing that in just over a weeks time we hit
the summer solstice and the days will start
getting shorter again.
It was probably in my last hour or so of
sleep that I had some dreams that I can remember
some bits of. There was one dream that was set in
some sort of college or training school. With
hindsight it was probably lots of short dreams
that had a common setting - like different scenes
in a movie. One dream that seemed to be part of
the series was set not set in the college, but did
seem to be a logical progression of it. It was set
on a bus, and maybe I was going home. The
memorable bit was an overheard conversation
between two women who were sitting in the seat in
front of me, at least I assume they were, but I
can't seem to picture it now. What I do remember
very clearly is what they said. Considering the
whole dream was "written" by my own brain, it must
be a very naughty brain ! One woman was telling
the other that she was sending the kids away at
the weekend to stay with their grandma. The woman
said she didn't know what she was going to do
exactly, but she knew that Saturday night would
end with a man's knob inside her !
I woke up this morning feeling slightly
tender from the trapped wind, and ultimately
slightly tender after I deflated with some
violence ! Tender, but rather relieved. The rest
of me felt moderately OK. For some reason I was
sure my chest was going to play up this morning,
but either I was being careful without realising
it, or I misjudged some sublimal clue because it
has behaved itself quite well this morning. Even
the mystery lump by the scar down my sternum seems
like it is less tender this morning - although I
didn't dare poke it to see how tender it might or
might not have been. While left alone it is
usually painless even though this morning it looks
more prominent, although that is more to do with
it seeming redder than before. It still has a pale
core. I think I can only report two negative
things of any significance this morning. The first
is that I am definitely feeling the result of a
late night, and interupted sleep. The second is
like a mild hint of asthma. My breathing doesn't
become difficult, but it does feel a bit heavy
when, for instance, I have to put a bit of extra
effort into walking. It's probably just the cold
and damp.
I think I am looking forward to getting home
from work today a little more than usual, and of
course even on a good day I look forward to it a
lot. I think I only have two ambitions beyond
eating dinner. One is to upload to Flickr all the
carefully selected pictures I took while standing
in the rain watching The Dirty Habits and
International Rescue at Addington on Saturday. the
other ambition it to go to bed for some delicious
sleep. I can't stop yawning as I think about it !
Sunday
12th June 2016
17:06 BST
Yesterday was wet, but it was also warm and
sunny. The only problem is that there was only a
couple of hours of warm and sunny (and maybe even
less than that), and many, many more hours of
rain. There was also some thunder rumbling around,
but it didn't seem to be very local. The positive
thing, apart from the brief treat of hot sunshine,
was that it was still moderately warm (somewhere
in the region of 20 - 25° C), and the rain lowered
the humidity (or washed all the sweat away). Today
has been worse then yesterday in as much as I
don't recall much in the way of sunshine, and it
has been a good few degrees cooler. Thankfully it
is not actually cold, although it is getting close
to it, and, it's hard to judge, but I think there
has been less rain today - but not that much
less. Tomorrow is currently forecast to be worse
and better. At the moment it looks like it will be
mostly, but not totally, dry - which is better.
The worse bit is that it looks like it will be non
stop very grey all day, at the temperature may not
even reach 20° C (just 19° C is the best
forecasted). Hopefully this will have been revised
for the better by the time I write tomorrow
morning.
I refused to let the rain ruin my enjoyment
yesterday. I actually had a great time ! The
occasion was "The New Addington Peoples Carnival",
and the bit I wanted to see was the live music
stage. I set out half an hour later than I
intended. I first caught a train to Elmers End
station where I changed to the Croydon Tramlink
system. On a Saturday afternoon they run nice and
frequently - every 8 to 10 minutes - rather better
than the pathetic once every 30 minutes of the
train service yesterday. The tram does not go
directly to Addiscombe from Elmers End (or
Beckenham Junction where I might also have joined
the system), and I had to change trams at
Sandilands station (or stop).
Once my tram arrived at New Addington I had
what seemed like a long(ish) walk, but that was
mainly because I was unfamiliar with the place. Up
until about the halfway point between the tram
stop and the venue I had missed any rain, but at
that halfway point a huge clap of thunder rang
out. I expected a huge downpour at any moment, but
all that happened was some moderately heavy
drizzle. I soon found the venue and prepared to
enjoy myself...no that came later...I prepared to
take some pictures.
The first band, The Dirt Habits, who had
temporarily changed their name from The Bromley
Bastards in view of it being a "family" occasion,
had already started, but the soon noticed me and
greeted me. At that point there were maybe 20 - 30
people watching in an enclosure that could
probably take several hundred or more. As the rain
became heavier quite a few deserted the place, and
for a while it seemed like I had the whole band to
myself.
There were two bands on that I saw (and one
or two later on after I left). Both bands had a
strong leaning towards punk music. It seemed
unlikely entertainment for a family fun day out
(there were fairground rides, and
entertainments for all ages, but mostly for kids),
but I thought it was all rather wonderful. Apart
from the lead guitarist of The Dirty Habits, I
knew all the musicians by face if not by name, and
they all knew me. I got applauded for turning out
in the rain, and I was hugged and kissed, and had
my hand shaken. It was all rather wonderful, and
left a good feeling.
I wasn't sure of the exact amount of time,
but I think it was after about three hours of
standing in the rain, some of it really torrential
(as you will be able to see when I upload the
pictures to Flickr), I declared that I had seen
enough. It was a convenient point to say my
goodbyes. The two bands had finished, and there
was going to be a delay before the next band came
on. So I packed my bags, and started walking back
to the tram stop. As I walked the sky got brighter
and brighter. Then the sun peeped through the
clouds, and by the time the tram dropped me off at
Elmers End I had not only just missed a train, but
I was steaming in the hot sunshine.
I had a difficult decision at Elmers End.
Waiting 20 - 25 minutes for the next train would
be extremely tedious, but I wasn't sure if a bus
could get me back to Catford any faster. I decided
I would try the bus. If nothing else at least I
would be moving. It turned out that I arrived back
in Catford about 10 minutes earlier than if I had
waited for the next train, and of course that
rather pleased me !
Maybe this picture does show how hard it was
raining ! On the left, on the drums, Gavin.
Centre, on lead vocals, Patsi Spike O'Shea, and
on the right of the picture, on lead guitar,
Laurence.
With the addition of Geoff Paice on bass guitar
- The Dirty Habits !
Had I energy left I could have gone to a
gig in the evening to see a third band - Chain
- but I had had enough of the big wide (wet)
world, and opted to stay in working quite hard
photo editing. One thing that added to
my decision not to go out last night was that
the gig was not supposed to start until 10pm.
That stupid late start was because of the
stupid football match of one side paying
another side (but I haven't got a clue who was
who, and I don't care). At 10pm I was just
going to bed !
I made the bold assumption that because
I woke up again at 5am that I had had enough
sleep for these theoretical bright summer
days, and I actually got up when I could
easily have tried for more sleep. It wasn't
that long after that that I started photo
editing again. I may only be a photographer
for fun, but it is often hard work. It's lucky
that it carries a bit of fame with it !
Yesterday I edited all the photos I had taken
on my Fuji HS35 bridge camera. I wasn't too
happy how well that had performed in the rain
and lighting conditions. Some pictures were
fairly crisp, but there were a couple that
would have been really good snaps, but were
poorly focussed (I think the camera was trying
to focus on the rain).
The pictures I edited this morning I
took using my Canon SX40 bridge camera, and
they were far crisper. I wish I had taken my
Canon DSLR camera because I am sure I could
have got some really good snaps from that, but
I was worried about it getting wet. Maybe that
wouldn't have mattered - both the camera I did
take came to no harm, and they were literally
dripping wet from time to time...even so....
I didn't see my friend Aleemah yesterday
because I wanted to get out relatively early
to Addington, but I did see her this morning
instead. I think I was still buzzing from my
day out yesterday, and maybe I was also
suffering from a lack of beer. (There was a
beer tent yesterday, but with what seemed to
be just one or two portaloos for the entire
crowd, I decided it might be better not to
drink). This morning, for breakfast, I had two
lovely pints of beer, and I was quite tempted
to go for a third. I just felt very relaxed
and that strange sensation some lucky people
know as happy. It's a shame that it's back to
work tomorrow, and that will kill any pleasant
sensations.
After breakfast we watched a DVD back
here. It was called "Harry Price - Ghost
Hunter" (or something like that). It had it's
moments, but it didn't really grip my
attention. After the movie Aleemah went home
and I got on with some things I had been
neglecting to do. I washed a couple of small
hand towels, and I did most of a weeks worth
of washing up - but not all of it - just
enough to stop it getting smelly. I'll do the
rest after dinner tonight (or tomorrow night
!) All that's left to do now is to practice
the art of being black belt grade lazy, and
try not to think of another week of work to
get through until I can do something enjoyable
again.
Saturday
11th June 2016
10:57 BST
The last version of the weather forecast
for yesterday, which appeared once the Met Office
could look out the window to see what was really
happening in the real world, tuned out to be about
right. It was generally overcast, although at time
it was still quite bright, and it was mildly warm
- probably about the 22° C that was forecast. This
morning started off overcast, and it seems likely
it will be like yesterday with some almost, but
not quite sunny periods as the sun tries to burn
through the haze (but fails). It also seems likely
that there could be the odd rogue shower popping
up later in the afternoon. There is a chance that
one of those rogue showers could be extra rogue
and turn into a thunderstorm ! It was slightly
better than mild a little while ago. My upstairs,
outside thermometer is currently saying 26° C, but
I think nearer ground level it is probably a
couple of degrees lower. It doesn't feel that warm
at the moment, but on the other hand it does feel
very humid, and it doesn't seem to take much
effort to break out in a sweat. If, as the
forecast makes vague allusions to, we get some
heavy rain around 6pm it will probably cool things
off a lot (and clear the air). Unfortunately it is
looking as if there will be a fair amount of rain
tomorrow, and it is supposed to be a lot cooler
too.
I don't really know enough words to describe
the different sorts of pain there are. I was often
uncomfortable at work yesterday, and I guess you
could say that I was suffering from ache and not
pain, but even ache doesn't seem to convey an
annoying, and easily provoked tenderness, but not
one that is so powerful that it can't be
relatively easily ignored given sufficient
distraction. I am talking about the assorted
aches, pains, and suchlike that appear in my chest
in different places, and in different strengths.
(It is so hard to describe a million variables !).
I had the usual pains from my "twisted rib"
popping up from time to time in a mild way, but
there was this new pain. This new pain, as I think
I tried to describe yesterday, is from a definite
tender spot that can actually be felt as a lump.
With the light at the right angle it can also be
seen. One development is that in the middle of the
ever so slightly, barely discernible, redness is a
pale, perhaps almost white area. It almost looks
like it could be a gigantic zit forming, and maybe
it is, although it would be a very strange place
for such a thing. A more fanciful explanation, and
one I think I shall choose to believe purely
because it sounds wonderfully dramatic, is that it
is the end of a broken rib trying to pierce it's
way to the surface. Two other fanciful ideas that
I find pleasing are that it is one of the staples
that held my chest together after the operation,
and it has come loose and is working it's way to
the surface. Although this does assume they used
the same staples internally as they used on the
surface. The other fanciful idea, and as a lover
of British comedy movies of the 1950s and early
1960s it absolutely has to be the explanation, and
it is actually the surgeons wristwatch that fell
off as he operated, and was overlooked !
All my assorted pains seemed very attenuated
as I made my way home from work, and eventually
seemed to go away completely after I had eaten
some dinner. I came home via Tesco where I bought
some odds and sods that I couldn't eat because I
had pre-planned my dinner, and left the
ingredients out to defrost while I was at work. I
thought it was going to be a big dinner, but
in the end it seemed quite small - although quite
unhealthy...maybe.
Both parts of dinner had been frozen at the
back of the freezer for ages and ages - possibly 3
or 4 years, and probably only had the old style
nutritional information panels on them. I didn't
really check the ingredients and stuff, but the
Tesco chicken curry seemed quite small, and seemed
to be quite low in fat. It probably had all sorts
of stuff in it that was no good to me, but I
declined to investigate further. What was a
surprise was that the Chicken Kievs I had were
much nicer than some I had more recently, and they
seemed to be herby and garlicy without being
stuffed with gallons of goo. Upon cutting them
open a little butter ran out, but they only had
just enough to stop them being dry. I did eat some
other junk too, but I reckon I may have just
managed to keep the quantities down enough not to
have a detrimental effect.
I was very unsure if I had slept well or not
yesterday morning. I doubted it because I couldn't
stop yawning when I got to work. Evidently I had
slept well, or at least I didn't seem to feel very
sleepy last night. I can't remember what time I
went to bed, but I think it may have been after
10pm, but it could have been just before. I do
seem to recall that it wasn't long before I was
fast asleep, and seemingly sleeping quite well.
Going to sleep late didn't seem to stop me
waking up just before 5am this morning. I didn't
seem to feel tired then, and I had no reason to
rush around getting up to go to work or anything,
but I half got up anyway. I spent over an hour
checking news and stuff on the internet before I
thought that maybe I would go back to bed and try
and get a bit more sleep. That sort of happened,
and I might have got an extra hours sleep.
Eventually I decided I had better get up and do
something.
That "something" was mostly going to Aldi to
do some proper shopping. Although having said
that, I didn't buy all that much. Included in "not
all that much" are several things I would dearly
like to tuck into, but I won't be doing that until
I am back from a photo expedition. Once I have
finished this, and uploaded it, I have to rush out
to go to Addington. There is some sort of summer
fete taking place in Mitre Park. I don't know much
about it, but I know there are two bands playing
there, and I know some of the musicians. It could
be the source of a few good photos...
Friday
10th June 2016
07:57 BST
It was nice to have a dry day with no rogue
thunderstorms yesterday. It took a bit longer than
expected for the morning cloud and mist to break
up, but then we had several hours of pleasant
sunshine. The sun became a bit hazy later in the
afternoon, and that meant it was a bit cooler than
the previous couple of days. It was still very
pleasant though. I'm not sure just how warm it
got, but I would guess it was only 22 - 23° C. By
9pm I noted it was about 17° C, but it didn't drop
too far after that. This morning it was a cool,
but not cold, 14° C, and quite cloudy. The
forecast seems to change so frequently that it is
hard to keep up with it lately. This morning was
forecast to be sunny, which it definitely isn't,
but is now forecast to be overcast - which it is.
It seems it is going to be overcast all day today.
The highest temperature is predicted to be just
22° C, but at least it should stay dry all day.
Tomorrow is currently forecast to be grey and
murky until it starts raining from around 6pm. It
is also going to be quite a bit cooler with the
maximum temperature possibly being as low as 18°
C.
It was lucky I was feeling quite good
yesterday because I had a bit of an adventure. Not
a dramatic adventure, but just some unusual
travelling. To get to yesterday evening's drink I
travelled on two buses and three trains ! The
first bus was just a matter of luck. As I got to
the main road after leaving work I spotted a bus
approaching the bus stop, and all it needed was a
suicidal dash across the main road to catch it.
This follows the usual rule that any time I don't
intend to get the bus there is always one there.
Of course if I had really needed a bus, perhaps if
one of my legs had accidently fallen off, there
would not be a bus anywhere in SW London !
The real journey started, as it does every
day, at Earlsfield station. After a wait of a
minute or two I caught a train to Clapham
Junction. I changed trains there for a (typically)
very late running Southern train to Victoria
station that arrived after a few minutes. At
Victoria we arrived at the highest numbered
platform (18 ?), and I had to walk almost the
entire width of that very wide station to platform
4 to catch the 16:10 to Orpington. After 3 or 4
minutes we departed for the longest part of the
journey. 25 minutes later I arrived at Shortlands
station where I had no more than a few minutes
wait for a 227 bus. 10 minutes later I was tasting
my first beer !
I expected it to be a bothersome journey,
but it was actually very smooth. After drinking
three pints with the lads I headed home again. I
thought that would be a bothersome journey too,
but it wasn't bad. There were several ways I could
have got home, but I opted to take the 227 bus
back to Shortlands station, and then get the train
direct to Catford from there. I knew what time the
train departed, and I thought it would be touch
and go whether I could get to the station in time.
Fortunately I only had to wait a minute or two for
the bus, and even though the rush hour traffic
slowed things down a bit, I got to the station in
plenty of time. In fact I had five minutes extra
time because my train had been delayed by five
minutes somewhere down the line.
I have to admit there was some temptation to
buy some takeaway food, but there beer I had drunk
was not very strong, and so resisting the impulse
was relatively easy. I stuck to my plan of eating
stuff out of the freezer. Last night it was a bowl
of steamed mixed vegetables which had too many
carrots in it, and so had lots of hidden sugar in
it. I made it even unhealthier by adding a rather
generous amount of Cheddar cheese to use the last
of the pack up. That was part 1. Part 2 was some
Tesco fishcakes found at the back of the freezer.
There were pleasant, but not as nice as the
fishcakes I buy from Aldi. I also ate some other
bits and pieces that are best left unmentioned -
apart from the fact that I doubt I would have lost
any weight yesterday !
For some reason I didn't feel very tired
last night, and there was the temptation to put
off going to bed until some time later, but I
forced myself to go to bed soon after 9pm, and I
think that was a good idea. Once I was in bed it
didn't seem to be very long before I was fast
asleep. Once again it seemed like I slept well,
and once again I couldn't stop yawning as soon as
I started thinking about it a few minutes ago.
Apart from yawning, I feel half good and half bad
this morning. Bits of me are working exceedingly
well, but I am getting some annoying chest pains
this morning. They seem to be centred around the
recently appeared lump just to the left of my
operation scar. It is far from a bad pain, but it
is a little mysterious, and that can be worrying.
I also feel hungry, and that's worrying too
because I won't be able to eat until I get home
after work - and that is many hours away !
One other bothersome thing, or things, are
my feet. This morning I am wearing an almost
identical pair of cheap Chinese plimsol like shoes
to those I wore yesterday. The only visible
difference is that yesterday's pair were white,
and this morning I am wearing a black pair.
Yesterday my feet were generally perfectly
comfortable, and even after a very long day, just
over 12 hours, I felt no burning desire to take my
shoes off when I got home. This morning my
identical in all but colour, shoes do not seem
half as comfy. Maybe not even a quarter as comfy.
They are not actually painful, just sort of
uncomfortable in the vaguest sense of it.
I have only one plan for tonight, and that
is to go home via Tesco to buy a few bits and
pieces. At least it should only be a few bits and
pieces because I intend to a more fuller shop in
Aldi tomorrow morning. Tonight I want a bottle or
two of diet coke, some tomato sauce, and some
salad. I know it will end up as more than that,
but I can live with that knowledge ! Apart from
shopping, I can't think of anything else to do
tonight. I don't think there are any interesting
gigs on, and I am not sure if I feel like going to
a gig tonight anyway. Maybe I will just luxuriate
in decrepitness or something. Maybe I will
digitise another old Hi8 camcorder tape. Speaking
of which...I made an error when I encoded the
little video I embedded yesterday, and it wouldn't
play. If you scroll down to yesterday, you should
find the video will now play OK (in most modern
web browsers).
Thursday
9th June 2016
08:29
BST
There was a warning that the heat and
humidity could brew up a thunderstorm yesterday.
The warning came in the weather forecast, and yet
the forecast didn't actually show and rain or
little lightning bolts - and I don't know why
because it was sort of obvious it would happen.
Apart from a bit of stickiness, everything was
fine up to about 2pm. It was hot and sunny, and I
decided to shock the world by wearing my shorts to
go and buy a few bits and pieces from Aldi.
Despite my fears to the contrary, I fitted in my
shorts perfectly (possibly even better than when I
last wore them some years ago). As I did up the
last button there was an ominous boom from from
somewhere distant, and the sun hid behind a cloud
- a big black cloud ! It wasn't long before the
first rain fell. I quickly brought in some washing
that was hanging on the line, and abandoned my
idea of going out shopping.
The rain was not very heavy in Catford, but
I could hear plenty of distant thunder. By 4 or
5pm the temperature had dropped from a peak in
excess of 25° C (I'm sure I saw 28° C on one
thermometer) to just 20° C, and the rain stopped.
Soon afterwards the sun came out again, and the
rest of the evening seemed quite pleasant (and
fresher feeling). This morning the temperature was
a slightly cool feeling 14° C, and it was rather
dull. The sky is a sort of blotchy milky white
colour even now, but the forecast says it should
clear to give a warm and sunny day. It is not
supposed to be quite as warm as yesterday, and we
should escape any thunder storms....should
! Tomorrow is currently forecast to be rather
dull, and cooler still, but that forecast could
change at any time - including after the
forecasters suddenly realise it looks very
different out the window to what their charts tell
them !
Yesterday was a sort of lazy day,
particularly after I abandoned my shopping trip,
but I guess that is how it is supposed to be when
you are officially off work sick, recovering from
the terrible affliction of loss of sleep because
of chest pains, and resting the
muscles/ribs/ligaments that were, and are the
source of those pains. What was probably amazing
was that somehow I managed to control my eating
rather better than I imagined, and there is a
microscopic possibility that I may have even eaten
less than on a work day. I expect things might
have turned out differently if I had made it to
Aldi, but maybe not.
I am currently on a mission to use up food
from my freezer. There is stuff in there that
hasn't seen the light of day for ages, and one
thing I ate yesterday was right on it's use by
date. There is stuff in the cupboard that probably
should be used up too. My dinner yesterday was two
Aldi "steam meals". One was old, and the other
fairly recent. It was interesting to see the
difference between the two.
This rather overshrunk, and hard to read,
picture shows the two "steam meals". Ignoring the
fact that I seem to have forgotten to increase the
contrast in the left hand picture, you'll note
that the picture of the meal in the plate looks
identical, but the left hand meal contains 304
calories, and the right hand meal only contains
255 calories (and has to be microwaved for two
minutes longer). The reason is easy to see when
you start eating them. The early version, on the
left, had more peas, and less green beans and
brocolli. It is my theory that it is the peas that
add to the calories rather than the more obvious
2gm less fat in the newer version.
One little amusement I got up to in the
early evening (or even late afternoon) was
experimenting with transferring analogue video
from my old Sony Hi8 camcorder to a digital
format. I was using a little "Mini-DVR" (miniature
digital video recorder) that I bought some months
ago, but had not actually used it until yesterday
(although I had done a few tests with it). I am
not convinced the little device is the best option
for digitising analogue video. It's primary
weakness is that it has no setting from European
video at 25 frames a second. It is fixed on the
American standard of 30 frames a second. That
makes the video a little jerky sometimes. There is
some light at the end of the tunnel though. I have
noticed that when the video is shrunk down to be
closer to the native resolution of a standard
definition analogue camcorder, it doesn't look too
bad. All I have to worry about now is my poor
camera work. Some of it is pretty bad in this
video, and one of the worst sins was filming
against a too bright sky. You can see it all in
this little video. It was taken in 2002, and shows
the preserved "little red tube train" in public
service one Sunday morning running between East
Finchley and High Barnet on the Northern Line.
Tonight it might be
nice to go on a magical mystery tour after
work....or it may not ! It's Thursday night,
and that means it is boozing night. Tonight's
venue is The Jolly Woodman in Beckenham. The
only trouble is that it is not in the centre
of Beckenham, and it could almost be described
as being in Shortlands. It is going to be a
bugger to get to, but after missing last
Thursdays drink I ought to make some sort of
effort to get there. I think my easiest option
is to get the train to Shortlands, which is a
pain, but at least it is well rehearsed, and
then get a bus the 4 or 5 stops to the pub. I
haven't quite worked out how I will get home
again. I might get the bus back to Shortlands
station, and then a train back to Catford, or
I might get the bus in the opposite direction
to Beckenham, and then a bus from Beckenham to
Catford. Either way will be an annoying
journey - probably !
Wednesday
8th June 2016
12:09
BST
The weather forecast for yesterday was
approximately correct, but all the times were
wrong, and things happened in the wrong order, plus
some of the weather effects were very localised.
The weather deteriorated much faster than
expected. By midday it was very dull, and by 1pm
the first peal of thunder was heard from afar. By
2pm it was raining quite freely, but it wasn't
extremely heavy. The rain continued until I was
about half way home from work, and even for the
half when it did rain it was very light rain. Very
soon after I got home, perhaps 5pm, the sun came
out. The rest of the evening seemed quite
pleasant, although it was quite warm, and rather
humid. That made for quite a muggy night - which
had consequences ! It was originally supposed to
rain at 6am this morning, but it has been dry so
far, and although it is fairly cloudy, we have
seen quite a lot of hot sunshine. It is supposed
to be about 21° C right now, but I reckon it is
closer to 25° C - which is as high as it is
forecast to get by about 5pm. Maybe we will see 27
or even 28° C later. No specific rain is forecast
for today, but there is a warning that the heat
could brew up a thunderstorm, and with the
temperature seemingly higher than forecast it is
feeling like quite a possibility. Tomorrow is
forecast to be dry, but with a lot less sunshine,
and maybe 3 or 4 degrees cooler.
The early afternoon rain in Earlsfield was
never particularly heavy yesterday, and the peals
of thunder always seemed fairly distant. When I
got home to Catford the depth of the puddles, and
other clues suggested that there had not been much
rain there either. Others were not so lucky. It
was only 3 or 4 miles away (very approximately) in
a sort of Croydon direction where all hell was
breaking loose. They had torrential rain, and some
severe localised flooding. The worst place would
seem to have been under a railway bridge in
Wallington (I think). At some time in the past the
road had been lowered to give more clearance under
the bridge for lorries and buses. At the lowest
point there was an estimated 4 - 5ft of standing
water with cars floating about in it !
My "twisted rib" remained a bit tender at
work yesterday, but I must have been reasonably
successful at avoiding provoking it because it was
hardly any bother at all. I probably forgot about
it for long periods of time. Even being jolted
around on the train home only generated some
occasional mild discomfort. So I got home feeling
rather tired, and with less energy than I thought
I would have, but generally feeling quite OK. I
even had some control over what I ate, but not
much, and it started to fade as the evening
progressed.
My major amusement for the evening was
watching TV. There were a few good programmes on
in the early evening - all repeats from years and
decades ago of course ! My minor amusement was
something I could mostly do while watching TV
(Plus it didn't really take that long). It was to
finally, after months and months and months of
putting it off because it had no real practical
purpose, get around to cleaning the head drum,
with the video recording/playback heads on it, of
my old analogue Hi8 camcorder. The job seemed to
work quite well - at least on a short test it did.
The tape that was still in the camcorder just gave
a blank noisy screen before I cleaned those heads,
but afterwards I was rewarded with nice crisp
playback.
One other nice thing was that I had been
"rejuvenating" a few of my old camcorder
batteries. I reckon on of them must be 20 years
old, and to my amazement, after a couple of
charge/discharge cycles it can now hold a usable
charge. I think it could probably power the
camcorder for at least 10 minutes ! I very much
doubt I will ever have to run that camcorder on
batteries again, but it's sort of nice to know I
can if I want to. It is possible that a second
battery may even be very slightly better. It's
rather amazing for such ancient nickel-cadmium
batteries !
It was hot and sticky last night, and as I
thrashed around in bed I seemed to jolt my
"twisted rib" one too many times. There was no bad
pain - just an annoying mild ache. By itself
it probably wouldn't have been too bad, but in the
sweaty heat, probably made worse because my blood
glucose level would have been near it's highest at
that time, I ended up sleeping very badly.
in the later part of the early hours I also
suffered from a mild stomach ache. I don't know
what the cause of the cause was, but it became
obvious what was going on inside me when I went to
the toilet this morning.
This morning was one of those mornings...The
most annoying thing was the loss of sleep. That
was followed in equal parts by some uncertainty
about the state of my guts, and my "twisted rib"
being so tender. It all seemed like a terribly
good excuse to go back to bed, and to (later) call
work to tell them I was taking the day off sick
citing my "twisted rib" as the major cause of it.
In theory I am taking it easy, but I have been
experimenting.
In the past I have noted that it is
sometimes possible to improve (as in reduce or
even eliminate) the pains from my "twisted rib" by
doing some hand laundry. I think it pulls and
pushes in the opposite direction to whatever makes
it worse. So I've washed a small bath towel and a
couple of shirts. I also have a couple of pairs of
jeans soaking away at the moment, and I'll go
through the tedium of trying to rinse them out
through umpteen changes of water soon. Luckily,
thunderstorms permitting, they should dry fairly
quickly out on the line in this weather. The only
downside is that all the effort is going to get me
sweating like a pig in this humid weather. Oh
well, at least I can have a lie down, and maybe
even a snooze afterwards.
Tuesday
7th June 2016
08:11
BST
It may fall outside of any other official
dates, but it seemed like yesterday was the first
day of summer. It didn't actually get hot, but
after a day of bright sunshine it was nice and
warm. Some reports said that it reached 26° C in
London, but I'm not so sure I experienced that. I
think that it didn't go much above 24° C in
Catford. The forecasts for today didn't look that
good yesterday morning, but since then they have
changed. Many showers were originally forecast,
and the earliest could have made for a wet journey
into work, but it was dry, sunny, and a fairly
pleasant 15° C. It now seems that today will be
similar to yesterday, but with a great big caveat.
It seems possible that the heat could brew up a
thunderstorm late this afternoon, and they reckon
it could be a big one - if it happens ! Correction
: The forecast has changed yet again
! It now looks like it will be rather dull
when I'm going home from work, and that it
will rain from about 6pm. The likelihood of
of a torrential thunderstorm is now a little
less. The current forecast for tomorrow says there
could be a splash of rain at 6am. That will be
followed by lots of sunny intervals until 6pm when
there will be showers with sunny periods. It will
probably be very warm again. I wouldn't mind
betting that by late tonight the forecast for
tomorrow will be completely different !
My "twisted rib*" gave me quite a lot of
aggravation yesterday. It made any other
complaints pale by comparison. One annoying aspect
was that it would sit there dormant for ages until
I pushed the door open to leave the room. That
action, particularly if I raised my arm too high,
could trigger a really unpleasant bolt of pain
that would leave a dull ache for some time
afterwards. I'm not sure if Ibuprofen helped much
yesterday, or if it did it took quite some time to
help. Perhaps the couple of tablets I took early
in the afternoon helped to give a mostly
comfortable journey home from work, but it might
also be that the worst of it was wearing off
anyway.
* "Twisted rib" is almost certainly anatomically,
and medically impossible, but I think it generates
a more evocative image than trying to stumble of a
list of possibly damaged body parts in my chest -
none of which have ever been proved to be damaged.
I hardly noticed any pain after I got home
from work, although I seem to recall I did get one
small jolt, but I can remember when, and what I
was doing to trigger it. It was actually quite a
boring evening punctuated only by eating more than
I should have. I think I almost managed to keep
the amount I ate just low enough to not actually
gain weight, but only just, and I am sure I
haven't lost any weight now for several weeks.
That is a bit of a shame because at one point I
was doing quite well.
One consequence of it being a boring even,
apart from the consequence of eating too much, was
that I went to bed while it was still light
outside. I can't really be more specific than
that, and at this time of year it could have been
as late as 9.30pm (maybe later), but I think it
was before 9pm. I could feel a certain amount of
tenderness from my twisted rib, but it didn't seem
to bother me during the night, and I slept quite
well until about 4.20am. I guess it was a
consequence of going to bed early after a bright
sunny day, but much to my annoyance I just
couldn't seem to sleep much later than 4.20am. I
got up 10 or 15 minutes later.
Once again I feel mostly OK. Most of me
seems to be working fairly well this morning, and
a couple of Paracetamol tablets seems to have kept
my twisted rib under better control than the
Ibuprofen tablets - although I will admit I took
them more as a precaution than out of any great
need. Now I am at work my rib is tender and
sensitive, but not actually painful. If I try to
avoid provoking it, I should be fine. All I have
to do now is to try and imagine, in advance, all
the things that might provoke it !
I have previously complained that the
Earlsfield Tesco charge £1.31 for a 500ml bottle
of Diet Coke while the Earlsfield Sainsbury's only
charge £1.25. This morning I went into a small
sweetshop/newsagents as I walked from the station
to work, and bought two bottles from there. Now
admittedly it is old stock, with a best before
date of June 2016, and I think I may have bought
the very last two bottles (there were no more in
the chiller, but there could have been more
elsewhere), but they were just £1.00 each ! Later
in the week I'll check and see if they have more
old stock, or new supplies, and what the price is
of those.
Tonight has the potential to be another
boring night. About the best I can say about it is
that it will involve fishcakes for dinner. I quite
like fishcakes ! Maybe I'll have another early
night, or maybe I will watch some more old
episodes of Yes Minister, or.....Maybe, and this
seems unlikely, but it could be possible, I could
clear a bit more crap out of what was once the
dining room until it became a repository of
assorted crap (the majority of which is probably
ancient computer bits). Yesterday evening I did
have a few daydreams about a badly neglected
project to transfer some analogue video recordings
to digital formats. Having a clear dining room
table could make that easier. It could also make
it easier to set up my flat bed scanner to
digitise some of my old (paper and chemicals)
photographs. Maybe I will, or maybe I won't
tonight.
Yesterday was pretty nice after it's slow
start. It was warm and sunny, and that is about
all that matters. This morning started bright and
clear, but a little cooler than yesterday morning
- about 12° C. The forecast is adamant that the
sun will shine all day today, but I find it a
little disappointing that the temperature will
only peak at about 23° C. Of course that is only a
minor disappointment. The big disappointment comes
tomorrow. The forecast says the temperature
profile will be almost identical to today, but if
the little pictograms are correct the sun will be
shining around the side of clouds that are
raining, and it will be like that from dawn to
dusk. So basically it is going to be hot and
sweaty inside my coat, and hot and rainy on the
outside. not nice !
I finally got all the pictures taken on
Friday night with Chain at The Swan in West
Wickham, and all the pictures of Voodoo Room on
Saturday night in The Black Cat, Catford, edited
and prepared for upload. All I have to do now is
to actually upload them to Flickr. Maybe I'll do
that tonight. The only other things of note that I
did yesterday was to take a quick wander to the
Pound Shop (that I have already mentioned
yesterday), and to trim my beard and wash my hair.
Oh, and I also ate far too much crap as well !
Despite seeming to have not much to do yesterday,
I ended up in bed a little later than I probably
should have, but at least I seemed to sleep well -
to the extent that I had the rare privilege (?) of
having to be woken up by my alarm this morning.
The morning I felt pretty good except one
thing. That one thing is some soreness from my
chest. I am unsure how I did it exactly, but I
think it was when I was showering that I managed
to pull a muscle, or twist a rib, or mangle a
ligament. I really don't know what the underlying
problem is. All I know is that if I adopted
certain poses, or twisted a bit if I made a sharp
right turn (more so if it was at the same time as
stepping down from a step or out of a train) I got
a really unpleasant pain. I've said that in the
past tense because it has got a bit better in the
last hour. (Some Ibuprofen helped). Now I am at
work I am aware of it feeling more tender than
actually hurting. I think I'm going to have to be
careful for a while longer.
Network rail must have taken advantage of
the trains being stopped, and the power to the
third rail being turned off to fix these new signs
at intervals along the supports of the platforms
at Catford Bridge station yesterday. So this
morning would have been the first opportunity for
the public to see these signs. The timing was
perfect ! This morning there was no electricity at
Catford Bridge station. It was only the domestic
supply for the lights, ticket issuing equipment,
information screens and Oyster card readers that
had failed. The third rail was still powered and
lethal, and the railway signals were still powered
- they both come from a separate supply.
The other system that lost power was for the
cctv monitors that the train driver uses to check
it is safe to close the doors prior to departure.
It seemed a little excessive, and maybe there was
some extra problem, but it appeared that the
driver got out of his cab, and walked the entire
length of the 10 car train manually closing and
locking each train door before we could set off
again. As a result of that we arrived about 10 -
12 minutes late at Waterloo East station. My time
is fairly flexible, but I bet some people were
quite annoyed about it.
Well it's another day at work, and it is
likely to be quite boring. I don't have much to
do, and my boss is out today so I probably won't
be looking very hard for things to do. I guess I
am going to have to steel myself for facing a day
that will appear to never end ! Tonight doesn't
get much better. As I have already said, I'll
probably upload a heap of pictures to Flickr
tonight. It is the one part of the photographic
process I don't like. There's the boring wait
while the pictures upload, and then I have to rack
my brains to try and think up captions and stuff.
Oh well, it's all worth it once it's done.
Sunday
5th June 2016
15:12
BST
Generally speaking, yesterday was pretty
grey, but it did have a trick up it's sleeve. I
may well be wrong, but I can't seem to recall a
single ray of sunshine yesterday, but that didn't
stop the temperature slowly creeping up. By 6 or
7pm it was 20° C. It was at 6pm that the weather
forecast said there would be some sunshine, but
there was no sunshine. It also reckoned there
would be some showers, but there were none of
those either. Once it got dark, which was after
9pm, and the greyness had merged into the night
sky, it was a fairly pleasant evening. This
morning started off rather grey, but at least it
was around 15° C. At precisely 9am (by the clock
on my microwave oven) the sun finally came out. It
was still rather cloudy, but slowly, slowly the
clouds dissipated, and the temperate rose. It is
now 23° C, and it is at last perfectly comfortable
to be mostly sedentary with the windows open. It
is probably still warming up even now, and that is
going to give tomorrow a good head start. Tomorrow
is supposed to be very similar to today, and maybe
a little bit better.
I should have gone out with a bit more enthusiasm
last night, but I kept having nagging ideas at the
back of my mind that I might fancy an early night
- early for a Saturday night. Maybe not that long
after 9pm. On the other hand, I did enjoy Voodoo
Room last time I saw them, and I had been given a
free ticket to go in return for the pub using some
of my photos to help publicise it as a music
venue.
Now I have to admit that while I mostly
enjoyed myself, I found myself slightly impatient
for the gig to finish. On the plus side I did
enjoy the music, and I did enjoy the multiple
pints of Guinness I drank (5 pints, or was it 6
?). I also enjoyed the photography. I managed to
take quite a few good snaps, but I never managed
that elusive "perfect" picture. One problem was
the lighting. The lightbar was set to change
colours far too quickly again, like it was some
sort of demented disco or rave. I guess it was
pretty psychedelic, and that sort of suited the
60s vibe of the songs, but it make the poor old
light meter in my camera go crazy ! So some
pictures were over exposed, and some very under
exposed. If I was to carry on making excuses I
could also note that I couldn't get the perfect
position where I might have been able to take a
picture of all three players at the same time
because there was a table full of people there !
This was the best picture I took that
features all the band (they are only a
threepiece), but because of the angle I had to
take it from the lead guitarist/singer is a bit
nearer the camera, and in very soft focus. I do
have some very sharp pictures of him - probably
too many ! With just three musicians to choose
from, and only one at the front of the stage area,
it was inevitable that most pictures would be of
him.
I think the gig ended at roughly 11.30pm. I
hung back just long enough to thank the band, and
then I went straight home. I was not tempted to
visit any food shops because I knew I had some
sandwiches I had bought from Aldi in the morning
waiting for me when I got home. I think I
had rather too much of them, and I should have
saved one for breakfast or something.
I didn't stay up editing photos last night,
and I was in bed not that long after midnight. My
sleep would have been perfect if only it had
lasted until about 9am this morning, but I think I
started slowly getting up before 7am this morning.
I wasn't paying too much attention to the time,
but I think by around 8am I was just coming to the
end of doing some laundry. I washed a couple of
shirts, some smaller stuff, and a bed sheet this
morning, and hung them on the line to dry outside.
Thanks to the more summer like weather, even
if it was a bit slow starting, it was almost
perfectly dry 3 or 4 hours later. If I had enough
stuff to make it worthwhile washing more I could
get that out on the line and perfectly dry long
before the sun sets today. Doing that washing was
the second most physical thing I've done today.
The other thing was to take a quick wander to the
Pound Shop to buy some bleach, some fly spray
(which I totally forgot to buy), and some rather
nice mouthwash that they had there a week or two
ago, but don't seem to have any more of (boo !). A
considerable chunk of the rest of the time I have
spent editing photos - and not just gig photos !
When I came back from the Pound Shop I noticed
why Catford is cut off from the rest of the
world today. Network Rail, or their contractors,
are doing some maintenance of the track just to
the north of Catford Bridge station.
This road/rail vehicle can probably do all sorts
of fancy stuff, but it seems to be just used to
carry stores today. Maybe it will lift some
heavy rail later.
I've noticed there has been a defect here for
some time. Water had got under the track and was
converting the subsoil to mud, and every time a
train went over it, it would pump/squeeze some
of the mud to the top, making the void below
even deeper.
More track workers a few tens of feet closer to
the station.
My plans for the rest
of the day involve more photo editing stuff,
and also uploading the Voodoo Room photos to
Flickr. I might even finish preparing an album
of photos of Friday night's Chain gig to
upload to Flickr, but maybe not. I feel my
eyes need a rest from the PC for a while. I
might even try closing them for a bit !
Saturday
4th June 2016
18:50
BST
Yesterday wasn't all horrible, although
much of it was. It was mostly cool and grey. I
think the temperature was somewhere in the region
of 14 or maybe 15° C when I left work to come
home. The positive thing is that it didn't seem to
get any cooler during the late evening. It may
have just been the two pints of Guinness I had
drunk, but it sometimes felt like it may have
actually been a little less cool as midnight
approached ! It was certainly a less cool morning,
and by 9am it was probably in the region of 15° C.
It is now a more summer like 21° C. Amazingly
enough, this is what the weather forecast
predicted. It also predicted it would be a rather
dull day up until about now when there could be
some sunshine and showers for a few hours - there
is none of either ! The forecast for tomorrow has
now swung back to warm and sunny after a few more
negative ideas. With luck there will be a lot of
sunshine, and the temperature could hit 25° C.
Monday could be similar.
Yesterday wasn't a bad day at work. I
managed to keep myself fairly occupied doing
almost nothing ! We had yet another meeting
regarding what some think could be a manufacturing
weakness in one of our products. I don't think it
is, and the problem is more likely mis-use by the
end user. That is by the by (bye the bye ?). The
significant thing is that it was scheduled to
start earlier in the afternoon, and the scheduled
end time was my going home time. Of course it
overran, but only by 15 minutes, and that was just
on the outer limits of acceptable. It was a bit of
a mad dash, but I managed to get my usual train
home, and it didn't involve actual running this
time !
It was the end of the week. I had had to
dash around to get home, and I had to stand on the
train all the way from Waterloo East to Catford
Bridge, but somehow I managed to find the energy
to go out again in the evening. I have no idea, no
idea at all, where I could have found that energy
from. Probably from down the back of the sofa or
somewhere, but I managed to haul myself to the
station, and get myself to one of my least
favourite pubs, The Swan in West Wickham, to see
the first set of Chain's gig there.
One oddity of the night was that there was
some lighting on the stage area. Normally it is
usually quite dim in there, but they had Geoff
Paice deputising on the bass last night, and he
had brought his stage lights along. It wasn't
bright, but it made all the difference for my
photography. The picture of Jo (above) is still
more noisy that I would like,but she is well lit,
and sharply focussed. I'm quite happy with this
snap.
The band had already started playing when I
arrived at the pub a little later than intended,
and so I decided to hang around for a bit once
they had finished their first set. I got involved
in a little conversation, and that delayed me
leaving the pub by a few minutes. I hadn't
actually planned any specific leaving time, but it
turned out that when I did leave I managed to miss
a train back to Catford Bridge by 10 minutes.
Until the timetable changed a fortnight ago that
wouldn't have mattered, but they seem to have
reverted back to a half hourly service for the
last couple of trains of the day.
I was faced with a very boring 20 minute
wait for the next train, or I could see what the
buses were doing. So I wandered to the bus stop,
and a bus turned up in no more than a few minutes.
That took me to Elmers End, and I was lucky enough
to be able to change buses for a Catford bound bus
after a wait of little more than one solitary
minute ! It turned out that even after stopping to
buy some fried chicken on the way, I was nearer to
home than the station is when I heard the train go
past. One reason I didn't want to stay later at
the gig was that I didn't want to have to mess
around with buses, but it seems the bus was
champion last night !
I thought I would tumble straight into bed
after getting home last night, but for some reason
I stayed up for a while to make a start on
reviewing and editing some of the pictures I had
taken. It was getting on for 1am when I finally
got into bed, and I slept soundly until I woke up
at 5am - habit can be a bastard sometimes ! I did
get a bit more sleep after that, but I started
getting up at 7am. By not long after 9am I had
been shopping in Aldi, and the place was
moderately tidied in preparation for a visit from
Aleemah.
This morning it was a two pint breakfast
with Aleemah in the local 'spoons. Afterwards we
watched quite a good movie. It was an Americanised
version of HG Wells story about the Time Machine.
The DVD was labelled in Spanish, and I am unsure
what the English title of the movie was. Since
Aleemah went home I have done nothing of note, but
now I have to pull my finger out and get ready to
go and see Voodoo Room playing in The Black Cat.
Once again it is an unlikely £10 admission, but I
have been give another free ticket because the pub
like my photography, and they use it in their
publicity (mostly on "social media"). One day they
will offer me free beer.....maybe.
Friday
3rd June 2016
08:00
BST
Today is forecast to be very similar to
yesterday - mostly horrible, and feeling very
unseasonal. Yesterday started off rather cool, but
this morning I think it was about a whole degree
cooler still - not much better than 9° C.
Yesterday was relentlessly grey, but this morning
might be a lighter shade of grey. The late
afternoon temperature will be in the same range
too, but today, after starting one degree cooler,
it may end up a whole degree warmer (although one
degree less cool may be a more appropriate way of
describing it). The forecast reckons we might see
15 or 15° C by late afternoon - lucky us !
Tomorrow is forecast to start off cool and grey,
but there could be some sunshine in the late
afternoon that might be able to push the
temperature up to 20° C or more, but then we might
get a mix of sun and showers until sunset. This is
June !!!
I was not happy at work yesterday, not happy
at all. All complaints of tiredness or subtle
aches and pains were completely overridden by the
lecture at 11am. This was about the new
stores/parts requisition process. Once upon a time
it was a bothersome complex process that I
couldn't care to master, and if anybody wanted me
to do stuff for them, which is my most important
role here, I would ask them to order the parts.
Then the process was simplified for small orders.
All I had to do was to email a list of parts, with
their part numbers/order codes to the procurement
assistant, and all the details were taken care of.
At this point it is worth mentioning that we
are a manufacturing company, and can order
thousands of parts for thousands of pounds. We
also do research and development, and sometimes
have to order a handful of screws - as an example
of a small order. I fall under the latter
category, and would occasionally order a few
electronic parts here and there, and most orders
would be well under £100. The small orders were
handled by the simple email process in an
efficient and speedy process. The new system is
like the old system, but made three times more
complicated. It is now exactly the same process to
order one single fuse as it is to order £10,000
worth of parts from the other side of the world !
I refuse to use it, and if people want me to do
stuff for them they will have to start ordering
the parts themselves again.
Having been thoroughly pissed off by that
lecture, I was pissed off more by a meeting we had
in the afternoon. It was an extra twist of the
dagger, or more salt in the wound. The subject of
the meeting was not bad, and in some respects it
was even occasionally interesting, but it didn't
end until 90 minutes past my usual going home time
! At any time that would be terrible, but on a
Thursday night, my drinking night with the
Thursday club, it was cataclysmic ! I didn't even
attempt to get to the pub (although I wasn't
overly enthusiastic the location of the chosen pub
before all this happened).
At 5pm, the time we notionally meet up for
drinking, I was only just leaving work, and
stomping up the road with murder on my mind. Maybe
all the adrenaline generated by feeling really
wound up had some sort of beneficial effect. A few
things happened on my way home that seemed a bit
unusual - one of them very unusual. I really
wanted to get a bus to the station because I
didn't feel like walking there. It was pure
laziness rather than any genuine need, and only
facilitated by being able to use my 60+ Oyster
card for free travel. The unwritten rule is that
if I ever want to get a bus there are no buses in
sight, and that was the case last night.
I could have waited for a bus to appear, but
I opted to walk, and somehow the walk seemed to
take a little less effort than usual. Now I get
this far in the story I remember there was one
semi-valid reason for wanting to get the bus, and
it was because the lift is out of order at the
station, and I didn't want to walk up those three
flights of stairs after walking all the way to the
station. On this occasion I had no choice but to
walk up the stairs (as I did the day before as
well). I can't say it was easy. Even fit looking
people are observed to slow down as the near the
top. There is something about those stairs, and I
think it is the tread height, that makes them hard
work to walk up. While it wasn't easy for me, it
did seem to be less of a killer than usual, and I
didn't have to grit my teeth so hard to force
myself not to break my pace when I reached the
top.
So far so awful, but it gets weirder. While
I was on the train I used the National Rail app on
my phone to see what my options were when I
reached Waterloo. It looked like I would just miss
a train home from Waterloo East by a minute or
two. My next option was to wait a few minutes more
for a train to Lewisham, and then wait there for 7
minutes, fortunately on the same platform, for a
train that had originated from Cannon Street
station to go to Catford Bridge. I would have got
home about 90 minutes late by that method - the
same amount of time that I had left work late -
except it didn't happen like that.
There seemed no particular need to rush when
I alighted from the train at Waterloo mainline
station, but I did by force of habit. If someone
had not blocked my way I would have walked up the
escalator, and walked fairly fast (but not quite
fast enough to call it jogging). As I crossed the
link I frequently accelerated to pass anyone in
front of me until I got to the very highest bit
where the platform indicators were. They showed
that I hadn't missed the direct train home, but I
could see it just entering the platform. I then
did something very strange - I ran for the train.
It wasn't just a quick 20ft mild sprint as I might
occasionally do to catch a bus, but a fast jog
down the entire (100ft ?) length of the slope down
to the platform. It may have been downhill, but I
haven't run that far in decades ! It felt very
strange, but curiously it didn't feel bad. More
astonishingly was that I didn't feel out of breath
when I leapt on the train mere seconds before the
doors started to bleep (indicating they were about
to close).
In theory I should have been elated about
being able to run like that, but I was still
seething about being so late. If I hadn't been so
distracted amusing myself with planning the
ultimate bloody revenge (definitely involving
nuclear weapons) against work, I might have found
some comfort in getting home 15 minutes earlier
than I thought I would, but I didn't ! I still
felt fairly stormy when I got home, but that
quickly dissipated once I was home with the
heating on, and dinner started. Perhaps it is more
true to say that the stormy feeling dissipated on
the surface, but deep inside it was still roiling.
The consequence was that I had far too lavish a
dinner again. At this rate I will be lucky if I
can hold my weight steady. I am certainly not
loosing any lately.
Thanks to my late arrival home I had just
three hours to pass before I was asleep in bed.
During those three hours I did nothing of any
significance apart from eating too much. I did try
one glass of whisky because I thought I needed it,
but it turned out I didn't. Once again, it seemed
like I had a decent night's sleep, and once again
I woke up at 3am - not near 3am, but at exactly
3am - and I still have no idea what happens then
to wake me up. It may be a train going past, but I
can hardly hear them, and I am sure any noise I
could hear wouldn't wake me up, but it could be
some sort of subliminal trigger to wake me. Maybe
I'll never know.
This morning I feel moderately OK, and
moderately comfortable. I noted that going over
the footbridge at Catford Bridge station had me
breathing more deeply than running down a long
slope - maybe my theory about adrenaline is not so
stupid after all. I knew that there was to be
another meeting at work today, and I didn't want
to reject my invitation to it, but I would have
done if it had been for too late in the day. I
think rejecting it would have caused a bit of a
row, but I could live with that if it meant going
home at my correct time (which is doubly important
on a Friday !). Fortunately it seems someone got
word of my cursing and cussing as I went home
yesterday, and the meeting has been set to start
earlier and finish at my usual going home time -
although it could easily over run again.....
Tonight, assuming I get home on time, and I
am feeling nearer happy than miserable, I want to
make an attempt to go and see a Chain gig, or a
bit of one. They are playing at my least favourite
pub, The Swan in West Wickham, but travel to and
from it is relatively easy providing I leave early
enough to get the last train. I don't find it easy
going out after work these days, and it is touch
and go whether I will feel OK physically and
mentally, but I''ll give it a go because I will
definitely not be seeing them tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night I have another free ticket to see
Voodoo Room at The Black Cat.
Thursday
2nd June 2016
07:37
BST
The good thing about yesterday was that it
didn't rain, but beyond that....It was too cool
and too grey ! I don't think that the temperature
even reached 14° C (I think I saw 13.3° C when I
got home from work), and a consequence of that was
that it was just under 10° C this morning, and
feeling damn chilly ! This is not good for June !
This morning it is as grey as the forecast guessed
it would be. If that forecast carries any credence
it should get a bit brighter, but still grey,
around midday, and a few hours later we could have
some sunny spells. The forecast for tomorrow
suggests it will be like yesterday. The next day
that comes close to a cheap shoddy imitation of a
summer today is still forecast to be Sunday, but
the latest forecast seems to have reduced the
amount of sunshine expected. It has been
transferred to next Monday. If that forecast
doesn't change we will see plenty of sunshine, and
at 22° C it will feel nice and warm - and I'll be
in work so it will all be wasted !
I was hoping that my time at work would pass
quickly yesterday, and in a way it did. There was
less reason to hope that it would pass quickly
because I was feeling mostly comfortable
yesterday, but I was still very glad when it was
time to put on my coat and go home. I can foresee
I am going to have some "issues" with work coming
up again. We are about to start, if it hasn't
started already, some new procedures here that are
actually old procedures. It's all to do with
ordering stores. Now there are two types of stores
that need ordering. There is stuff needed in large
quantities, and usually custom made for the stuff
that we manufacture, and there is stuff that is
ordered "off the shelf" in small quantities. The
latter is stuff like spares for repairing stuff,
or parts to make prototypes or other one off
projects. In the past all orders, and all the
paperwork that went with them, was done by the
person needing the parts, and a senior manager
would sign it off.
A few years later it was realised that it
might make good sense to employ someone
specifically to deal with ordering stuff, and this
produced some good results. He was able to spend
more time researching, and even visiting suppliers
of our custom made parts. Money and time were
saved, and he also provided the first step for
quality control. Later on he acquired an assistant
to deal with the small one off orders. If I needed
ordinary off the shelf spare parts from one of
several well know suppliers I would look up the
part numbers, and then email a list of the stuff
to the assistant, and she would deal with the
actual ordering, and do all the paperwork. It was
nice and simple for me, and for anyone else with
similar requests (including stuff like stationery
orders and even for more toilet paper). Now we are
going back to the old system of filling out forms
in triplicate, getting the order blessed by the
Pope, and enough bureaucracy to really piss me off
! So the new order of the day is that if anyone
wants me to make something, or to repair
something, then they will have to order the parts.
I will not be ordering anything ever
again...hopefully !
On my way home from work I did my shopping
in Tesco, and as was inevitable, I bought all
sorts of inappropriate things. One item I bought
because it intrigued me, was a butternut squash
and parsnip bake. I dread to think how much sugar
and calories were in it, but I ate it regardless.
Of course the ironic thing was that I didn't
really like it. It was not horrible in any way,
and I wouldn't be averse to eating another, but it
just failed to excite me. I'm trying not to think
how much other stuff I ate last night. It was much
too much, and I went to bed feeling very satiated
! I also had to have a lie down to let it all
settle before I did the one other thing I intended
to do last night, and that was to wash my hair.
Waiting for my hair to dry meant that I went
to bed a little later than intended, but maybe
that wasn't so bad because I didn't seem to feel
that sleepy. I'm not sure, but I think I snoozed
for more than the blink of an eye lid when I laid
on my bed to let my dinner settle. I can't
actually remember sleeping, but there does seem to
be a chunk of time I can't seem to account for. It
was about 9.30pm when I got in bed, or about an
hour later than when I intended to go to bed, but
it didn't seem to take long to get to sleep -
probably mere minutes !
All the indications are that I got a rather
good night's sleep last night. There was a moment
of doubt when I woke up at 3am again (why ?), but
on this occasion I fell asleep again five or ten
minutes later. Another good thing is that I didn't
wake up again until just ten minutes before my
alarm was due to wake me at 5am - which is rather
better than the all too common 30 or more minutes
early ! So everything looks good - except why can
I not stop yawning as I write this paragraph ?
This morning is yet another morning when all
my usual aches and pains are there, but are very
mild to the point of being almost ignorable. Of
course this means there is an excellent
opportunity for something else to crop up, and it
has. I would imagine it is the result of the
recent damp weather, but this morning my right
knee seems a little stiff, and almost hinting at
some soreness. The same is true for my ankles,
although rather curiously it seems to be only one
at a time. It is generally rather mild so I can
ignore it most of the time. So I would be
walking down the road and realise that one ankle
seemed to be a bit stiff. After I bit I would
forget about it for some minutes until I would be
aware that the other ankle, or maybe the same
ankle was feeling a bit stiff. I can't seem to
recall that there was any time when I thought both
felt stiff at the same time !
I don't seem to have any particular reason to hope
that this day at work passes as quickly as
possible, but I will out of pure habit. Once the
(work) day is over it should be booze time ! This
Thursday we are supposed to be meeting at The
Prince Frederick near Sundridge Park. It
might be easy to get to, but I am not sure about
it yet. It has been suggested that I could get the
336 bus from Catford to get there, but if I get to
Catford I will be drawn straight home like a moth
to a flame - and not just because I really don't
like the meandering route the 336 takes ! It may
be that I can get there on a train from Waterloo
East with a change of trains at Grove Park, but I
would probably still have to get the 336 bus home
again. My saviour could come in the shape of my
friend Patricia. She has a hospital appointment
tomorrow morning, and I have the paperwork about
it at home. It is not essential she has it, but
the hospital do prefer it if you have it with you.
Maybe she will want to pop over and pick it up
tonight (but she probably won't).
Wednesday
1st June 2016
07:43
BST
Yesterday was horrible ! It was cold, grey
and wet. Having said that, I guess I was lucky
that I dodged all the significant rain on my way
to work, and then going home again. The worst of
the rain was from late morning until a little
after midday. From time to time it was a bit
heavy, but not as bad as the torrential rain that
was forecast, and there was no thunder and
lightning. It is possible that the temperature may
have hit 14° C, but I think it was closer to 13° C
when I got home from work. This morning started
with some rain, but it had stopped when I walked
to the station at 06:20. Today is forecast to be a
dry version of yesterday - cold and grey - but
with clouds this thick it could potentially rain
at any time. Tomorrow may see a small improvement
on today, but it is not until Sunday that it will
be dry, warm and sunny - maybe 21° C. Of course
the forecast could, and almost certainly will
change by then. It would come as no surprise if we
had hurricanes on Sunday !
From time to time I most definitely felt
sleepy at work yesterday, but otherwise I didn't
feel too bad. That changed a bit just as I was
leaving to go home. I can't recall anything to
provoke it except putting my coat on, but I had
some little stabbing pains in my chest from time
to time. It is faintly possible that this could
have been provoked by the gyrations of putting my
coat on. Waving my arms about has caused a few
aches in the past. As is sometimes the case, the
pains became worse after sitting on the class 376
train, with it's bloody uncomfortable seats, that
takes me from Waterloo East to Catford Bridge
station.
Up until I got home there was nothing
particularly unusual about this, although that
doesn't make it any less bothersome. What was
unusual is that I had never noticed any change at
the top of the scar left from my quad heart bypass
operation back in 2013. It was only by chance that
I looked at in the bathroom mirror, and noticed
that it almost looked bruised instead of it's more
usual pale pink colour. There were even some
thread like streaks of red in it, and it seemed as
if there had been some internal bleeding. I tried
to take a snap of it in case I wanted to show it
to my doctor, but it didn't photograph well.
In fact, in the cold light of day it seems
to be a completely useless photograph ! You'll
just have to take my word for it that it looked
far more like it was bruised last night. Within a
couple of hours it seemed to fade back to normal,
and it seems normal this morning. I could come up
with many theories about how this "bruising" could
happen, but the chances are that they would all be
wrong. On the other hand I feel fairly sure that
it shouldn't happen, and does provide some
evidence of an anomaly. If it happens again I will
attempt to take a better picture of it - perhaps
it will be more vivid using daylight instead of an
LED lightbulb or flash gun.
I made sure that I was in bed nice and early
last night, although maybe I could have tried for
even earlier still. I did very little last night.
I spent a little of the time having dinner. It was
a two part affair consisting of a small cheese
salad starter followed by a couple of fishcakes
and a small tin of garden peas. It was a fairly
modest dinner by comparison with some I have had
lately, but not really modest enough for my
purposes. I watched a bit of TV while I ate, but
as usual, the TV didn't really catch my attention,
and I soon turned it off again.
One useful thing I did do last night was to
clean up an old camera bag. I can't quite remember
where it came from, but I suspect it was one being
thrown out from the place I used to work at before
my current job. It was possibly designed for one
of the big old camcorders that were once popular.
I had never used it except for storing assorted
crap, and over the years it had acquired a coating
of cigarette tar, cat hairs, and other stuff on
top of whatever it had when I first got it
(probably fished out of a skip !). I thought it
was basically black, but after a good scrubbing it
turns out that it is actually a dark blue and
black. I think it is going to be useful on those
mad days when I want to take two big cameras to a
gig, or wherever.
I did a little reading after I went to bed,
but I think I still managed to get to sleep by, or
soon after, 8.30pm. On the whole I slept quite
well, although there was a long period at 3am when
I seemed to be more awake than asleep. This
morning I feel moderately well in many respects,
but I think I still have a sleep deficit, and I
reckon I'll be in bed early again tonight. Like
yesterday morning, my usual aches and pains,
creaks and squeaks, seem unusually mild, but
unlike yesterday my legs are not working so well.
I left home at the usual time, and arrived at the
station at my usual time, but it seemed harder
work than usual to walk there. It is probable that
my blood glucose level is a bit high this morning.
I did get a bit sweaty on the way in to work this
morning, and that could be an indication that the
level is high, but it could also be an indication
that my waterproof coat makes me sweat at any
time, and that after this cold weather they had
the heat up high on the train from Waterloo to
Earlsfield.
Until I said I felt moderately quite well I
really did believe it, but as I was writing it I
started searching my body for ignored aches and
pains. Upon further consideration I have come to
the following conclusions. My chest does seem
creaky and mildly sore. My head feels sort of
heavy and achey, and I do seem to have a powerful
urge to go back to bed for more sleep. Other than
that, I do still feel like I am not dying too fast
this morning. I also have a powerful urge to wish
the day would go by at top speed so I can go home
again. Of course the only way to make the day go
fast is to work hard, and I can't possibly do
that.
I think I only have three ideas for tonight.
On the way home from work I will go via Tesco and
pick up a few things for dinner (and future
dinners). It will probably be the case that I find
all sorts of reduced priced stuff that will
contribute to another night of eating badly, but
hey ho ! I really must wash my hair tonight. It
feels sort of yucky, although I think it doesn't
look too terrible yet. Once my hair is
sufficiently dry it will be bed time. Hopefully
I'll be asleep by 8.30pm again, and hopefully I
won't wake up at 3am again tomorrow morning !
