There was supposed to be a sunny spell at 6am. I was awake then, and never noticed anything but grey light seeping around the edges of the curtains. At 7am there was supposed to be a shower, but the grounds looks very dry. It seems the forecast for today can't be trusted to be accurate, but I expect the general idea is probably about right even if the details are wrong. In which case it will probably be mostly grey today, but with a very small chance of the sun peeping through at a few random times today. The chances of rain seem low, but some showers will probably fall. It may end up slightly warm, 20° C, for a short while, but be mostly 19° C.
 Let's try again with the brand new, revised edition of the weather forecast ! This revision to the forecast feels like it is going to be closer to reality. It will be a warm-ish (20° C), but dull day with a small chance of a scattered shower some time in the mid to late afternoon. Tomorrow maybe a degree cooler, just 19° C, but there could be sunny intervals popping up at any time of the day, and it should be a dry day.

  I was a lot busier than I imagined I would be yesterday, although my busyness declined in the afternoon. One of the first things I had to do was to empty some rubbish bins, and clear up the kitchen. There were the scattered remains of several takeaways in the kitchen because the rubbish bin was full to overflowing, and mainly because I needed to separate out the food waste to go into it's own special bin. As part of the same job I also took out the recycling stuff to the green wheelie bin, and also emptied out rubbish bins outside my bedroom, and in the bathroom.

  Getting all that done was a major improvement, but I went even further - I got the hoover out... (sounds of celestial trumpets etc, and possibly animated cartoon exclamation remarks in the air). Initially it was just to pick up a few crumbs in front of the settee where I had been eating takeaways, but I ended up doing the whole of the living room plus the hall as well. I didn't do the stairs, although I did at least consider it, but I did a few very selective bits of the back room where some mud had come off my gardening boots. I would like to claim I deliberately let that mud dry where it was to make it easier to remove, which it certainly was, but I was more likely just being lazy. However, having found how easy it was to hoover up, I will probably do the same in the future.

  When I describe it, it doesn't sound like I did that much, but It felt like hard work to me. Maybe not as hard work as gardening, but I maintain that hoovering is harder than digging holes, pulling out weeds and breaking up big twigs and small branches. Not only that, but I did take the brown wheelie bin through the house to park it in the back garden, and I did start to fill it - even if it was just tipping the contents of the two sacks I filled with organic rubble last week into it. I did actually add a handful of freshly pulled weeds before going back indoors, in the dry.

  Much of yesterday morning was dry, but before the rain started properly after midday, there were a few light sprinkles of rain later in the morning. There was one when I nearly started to do some garden clearance, and there was one when, after a rest from my earlier labours, I went out to get some very needed shopping from Aldi. The rain seemed so light that I didn't bother to wear a coat. I think the rain had probably stopped before I had arrived at Aldi, and my t-shirt was barely damp. It dried within minutes of being in the store.

  I was mainly shopping for essentials in Aldi, but essentials included drink as well as food. If I had any way to carry it, I would have bought much more drink. On Saturday I am going to a party, and although I probably won't stay long, because I don't really like parties, I want to take a good supply of Guinness with me, and maybe other drink too. I bought 4 cans of Guinness for the party, plus 4 cans of Innis & Gunn "session IPA". I also bought a twin pack of 2.25 litre Diaet Coke and a 2 litre bottle of sugar free lemonade. It was quite a weight to carry home.

  After getting home I had some lunch. It was some dubious pillau rice that had been sitting sealed in it's foil container for nearly 2 days, with some ready cooked chicken bits from Aldi plus a bit of olive oil and chilli sauce. It was rather nice, but my pleasure was a bit subdued by the fear that the rice would have grown some nasty bacteria since it was delivered. Fortunately that doesn't seem to have been the case, although some of my farts have smelled like they have come direct from Satan's bottom !

  I devoted a lot, but not all, the afternoon to reading and snoozing - and doing some laundry ! I didn't start the latter until late in the afternoon, and did it in two sessions because there seemed to be rather a lot of it. I didn't get to hang it up to dry until a commercial break in Star Trek sometime after 6pm. I haven't checked, but it should be perfectly dry this morning, and leaving the clothes horse ready for more laundry today !

  My evening meal was a huge disappointment. It was an Aldi beef burrito. I am not aware of ever having a beef burrito before, although if I did I may not have remembered it because it was as disappointing as the one I had for dinner yesterday. The description on the packet seemed good, and it was reduced to half price. The reality of a bit of spicy mince with a lot of rice in a breadlike wrap was very disappointing. The spicy beef mince may have been nice, but it was drowned out by the blandness of the other stuff. I think I shall steer clear of burritos in future.

  I spent a couple of hours watching TV, and then went to bed to do some reading. It was well before sunset (around 9.20pm last night), but it was so grey outside that it was like twilight. I didn't read all that much before feeling like I might just turn the light out, and go to sleep. That was what I attempted, but I don't think I managed to fall asleep until almost 10pm. Of course that was actually still an early night, and just not quite as early as it could have been.

  Once asleep I slept quite well, and I think I slept for almost 4 hours before waking up for a pee. After getting back in bed I think I slept well for another 3 hours. From then onwards, until I finally got up, I seemed to sleep poorly. In one respect I felt good when I got up. It felt like I had sufficient sleep, and was almost bright and alert (or something). Unfortunately I was in a lot of pain....maybe a more accurate description is that most things hurt when I tried to move them. My legs very quickly improved as I started to use them, but my arms continue to feel stiff and aching even now.

  It seems my arms are definitely my weak points. My right shoulder has been painful for months and months now - probably even longer. My right elbow is a more recent hurt point, and my left elbow has been trying to catch up for a few weeks now. My left hand continues to be partly numb since waking up from my quad bypass operation in 2013. It is now jointed now and then by my right hand. The latter is almost certainly Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and is easily cured with a little operation that I guess I am going to have to have done some day.

  I don't have any plans for today beyond probably going to Tesco to buy more Guinness and other stuff. The terrible grey sky, and the possibility of rain (it looks like it could easily be pouring with rain right now) put me off any other out door activities.  Perhaps I will do a bit more housework, probably laundry, but I feel a very lazy day coming on - and that is good because I still have one complete unread New Scientist magazine, plus some pages from the previous one to read before the next edition on Friday ! Fortunately I have no more photography to do, but here are some more snaps from the Beer Festival last Saturday.

 Today has started nicely. There has been quite a lot of sunshine, and it doesn't really feel like it will soon be pouring with rain. The latest revision has extended the sunny periods until 11am, but now says there is a 99% chance of heavy rain at midday. By 1pm the rain should be much lighter, and then showers will continue until 10pm. From late afternoon the chance of showers is a lot less, and there could possibly be some sunny intervals. The maximum temperature for today is predicted to be just 19° C - which would be pleasant if there was any sunshine to go with it. Tomorrow should also see 19° C, but a very dull day is predicted with rain for most of the morning, and maybe a little way into the afternoon.

  Yesterday was another busy day for me as I finished all the photo editing I needed to do. Although I felt more relaxed about it, it still left me little time to do anything else - and while I finished in time, I felt too weary to go out in the evening as I originally thought I might.  I did pop out very briefly after 6pm, just before the corner shop closed. I bought some pop from the corner shop, but I didn't have the time or energy to got to Aldi - which I where I really wanted to go to.

 Yesterday: The forecast for yesterday is shown as above, and probably says more about the weather than I can remember, although by tradition it almost certainly does not show reality. I can't remember too many details about yesterday's weather because I seemed to spend much of the day staring at my PC screen instead of looking out the window, but the forecast give an idea of what it was like, although maybe not in the same order or exact times.

  Today's forecast has got off to a good start. At the moment we are having the predicted sunny spells, and if the forecast continues to be right these sunny spells will give way to overcast skies until late this afternoon. It seems it should stay dry today, and with the temperature up to 20° C it should feel pleasant enough even under grey skies. The weather warning, shown in the screenshot above, refers to tomorrow. Sunny spells are predicted for the morning, but by the afternoon the temperature goes up to 20° C, and the chance of rain goes from possible to certain. Although not a specially warm day, there is a chance of summer thunderstorms - heavy rain - flooding - disruption to raods and transport - etc - etc.
 
  Saturday was the day of the Bromley Beer Festival in the Whitehall Recreation Ground in Bromley. Being in a park there were all sorts of attractions besides beer. There was a funfair, and foods from all corners of the Earth, plus other assorted stalls selling this that or the other, and there was the live music stage. I went purely for the live music and not the beer. I even managed to carry a couple of small bottles of water in my camera bag. It was a fine intention, but I still didn't fancy the very long queues for the Portaloos. It worked out nicely that there were a couple of bands on that I didn't really like, and after taking a reasonable amount of snaps of them, I sneaked away to the nearby pub to have a Guinness, and use their toilets. That seemed to work out really well.

  The original idea, and still promoted now, was this morning was going to be bright with sunny spells. As I look out my window right now I see a big black cloud blocking the sun, and it might even rain. Well if the forecasters have done their sums right that black cloud, and all the other ones will completely disappear in the next 15 minutes to reveal blue sky and pure sunshine ! It seems unlikely, but the sun did manage to come out for 30 seconds while writing the last sentence. The afternoon is predicted to be dull, probably like it is right now, and there is a possibility of a shower at 6pm. It is currently thought to be warmest around midday when it should be 18° C. Tomorrow could be a degree warmer, and a bit like today was supposed to be, there will be sunny spells in the morning, and more of them in the early evening. There is a small risk of rain in the middle of the day, but it is shown as being dry.
 
  I felt tired and aching for most of yesterday morning, but I managed to convince myself to do some laundry. The effort of doing that made some of the aches go away. I hung that laundry outside to dry, but after an hour, maybe two, we had what I think was just a single light shower, barely enough to wet the ground, but I brought in that washing to dry indoors. It was still very damp, but I guess it had dried a bit while outside. With the aid of a fan heater on low, and later just on cold,  it was dry later in the afternoon.

  I didn't really want to do anything in the afternoon, but obviously that was rather boring, and I started doing odd little jobs now and then. One was to pre-cook some Tesco "Finest" pork sausages (found on the reduced price shelf at £2.80 instead of £4 - one of the rare big discounts that stingy old Catford Tescos does).  Another little job expanded, and could probably kept me interested late into the night.

  It started with transferring some of my recent videos to my video archive hard disk. It was not a quick process because it ended up with around 20GB of video to be transferred to the USB hard disk. Once that was done I backed that hard disk to another. To do that I used the old HP laptop that my friend gave me. It is not a fast machine, but I can leave it doing slow job while I do other stuff on my desktop PC. I can also boot the laptop into Windows XP for those odd occasions when Windows provides an easier solution. Labelling Light Scribe disks is one task that is easier using Windows since the Light Scribe system became obsolete, and no longer supported on Linux.

  While the laptop got on with it's job of copying files from one external hard disk to another, I wondered if it was possible to increase the amount of RAM in the laptop in the hope of speeding it up. During my research I found that one stick of memory is hidden under the keyboard, and that it is a simple job to get at it - once you know it is there, and where the two screws are that hold the keyboard down from underneath.

  Once the disk copying had finished I shut the laptop down, and inspected the memory under the keyboard, and the stick in the back that I think I installed when the laptop was first given to me. After rummaging through my big box of old/spare memory I found an identical 1GB stick of RAM to the one in the expansion slot in the easily accessible hatch under the back of the laptop. In theory the laptop should have become faster - but only in more memory intensive tasks - like opening too many web pages with an obscene amount of scripting on them.

  Another thing it should have made easier was installing a newer version of Linux on it. I spent some time working back from the latest version of Linux Mint to earlier versions to see which one would boot in live mode, but no recent ones would - which seems sort of strange. I would like to have spent a lot more time on that, and I didn't stop until I had made myself a tiny bit late to get out to Chain's gig in Beckenham.

  What a disaster that turned out to be. There were a selection of reasons why I might have stayed at home, and they included aching limbs, tiredness after getting up so early in the morning, a bit of a headache, wanting to carry on playing with the laptop, and not really like the pub that Chain were playing in. The pub is very small, and I knew it was going to be crowded. Had I known about it in advance I would not have even bothered trying to go to the gig.

  What I found when my bus got to Beckenham was that the High Street was closed, and the buses were on diversion. I'm sure it was only about 6 months ago that the High Street re-opened after being partly closed for 2 years for "improvements". Those improvements obviously didn't include anti-skid surfacing. I had to get off the bus at the bottom of the High Street, and walk up the High Street, and it is uphill, past the foul and nauseous stench of the resin used to stick the anti-skid grit to the road surface to get to the pub.

  Oddly enough, walking up the hill to the pub didn't seem nearly as hard as it did at some random time last year. I think I was going through a bad spell of Costochondritis at that time. This time I have had a lot of individual twinges, but my chest is stable most of the time - for the time being ! Despite the minor thrill of not being overly taxed going up the hill, I was still getting hot, and the bus diversion had left me feeling really annoyed. So annoyed that I said hello to a few people, and then almost in the same breath, goodbye, and walked back down the hill to the bus stop without even stopping for a single drink - of which I was offered several. I only paused for 47 milliseconds to glare at Nigel, an idiot I have taken an extreme dislike to.

  Forty minutes later I was back home, and pouring myself an extremely large whisky. I had actually calmed down by then, and maybe burnt off some of my irrational anger by putting a bit of extra effort into walk from the bus stop to home. It is a bit of an enigma as to why I should feel so ill when sitting down at home, and yet somehow come to life when I start walking. It takes quite a bit of faith to believe that once I get moving I will be fine, and sometimes, maybe many times, I lack that faith. Maybe the only thing I regret was eating all the sausages. I should have left some for breakfast this morning, or better still, for sandwiches later today.

  Once again I have to believe that my body will be working well when I got out to The Bromley Beer Festival. Like the previous two occasions, I don't intend to drink any beer, but I do want to snap a few pictures of the bands on the mobile stage parked up on the grass. The only trouble is that it is a long session, and some bands are crap ! The first and last bands are OK, but there is almost a 5 hour gap between them. If that wasn't arduous enough, I also want to go and see a possibly crap band in The Black Cat pub tonight.

  The forecast for today seemed very bland at 5.30am, but the latest revision adds a bit of variety. The latest revision seems pretty sure there will be some rain at 9am, but after that it resumes the predictions shown in the early forecast. It is rather dull outside now, and it will probably stay that way until late afternoon when the clouds should break up to give some sunny intervals. The afternoon temperature should be a pleasant 18° C. Tomorrow is currently thought to have a wide smattering of sunny intervals, and once again a top temperature of 18° C, but only for an hour or two. Much of the afternoon will be a degree or two less than that.
 
  Like several people I know, this recent damp weather has left us aching in our most vulnerable areas. I managed to make it worse with long periods of inactivity, but when I was active I mostly felt OK. Yesterday morning was a good example of this. Patricia had gone out for a days worth of interpreting at St Thomas and Guys hospital, and I could have just lazed about feeling stiff and uncomfortable, but I raised the enthusiasm to go to the shops.

  I seemed to buy quite sufficient from the SAM 99p shop, and abandoned any ideas of shopping elsewhere. Once I got out the front door and started walking my aching legs (mainly right knee) worked perfectly, and if I had worn a more comfortable pair of shoes it would have felt extra good walking to and from the shops. The one thing that did cause some discomfort was a few twinges from my chest.

  I think I mentioned yesterday that I was teetering on the edge of another flare up of my Costochondritis, and these have been a couple of times when I thought I was there. I think I just had the one twinge while out shopping, and it was either when I was taking off my rucksack, or putting it back on again. I would have a few more, and more painful twinges later on in the day.

  I was particularly after one item from the 99p shop, and I completely forgot it ! I did buy some assorted stuff though - and quite a bit of it. Of particular note were tomato and herb infused Ritz crackers. I was not aware they existed before yesterday. Maybe they were a test run that the 99p bought when they decided not to continue making them, or maybe they have not been on sale in this part of the country, or maybe I had just never noticed them before. The good news is that the two crackers I tasted were rather nice.

  Another couple of purchases were some Indian incense sticks. I have been disappointed with many incense sticks recently, but these "Clove brand" sticks seem very good. I tried lighting up about 5 sandalwood sticks, and very soon the whole of upstairs was smelling like an Indian restaurant (minus the curry smell). A single stick of patchouli smelled nice too. I burnt those early yesterday afternoon, and I am sure I can still smell them this morning. Fortunately it is a pleasant smell (to me).

  I finished off the last of the Indian takeaway (which those incense sticks would have accompanied nicely if I had them two nights ago) yesterday. I had baked beans on cheese on nan bread for breakfast, and the sag aloo for lunch. The latter was small, but seemed filling enough to leave me feeling very dozy in the afternoon. It seemed to be really hard to get myself together to go out for my late Thursday afternoon drink.

  Once again I felt felt fine once I got moving. I don't think I got to the station in record time, but it was certainly in good time. One thing that slowed me a bot, or felt like it did, was wearing a rain coat. The forecast said rain, but it was dry, and for a short while the sun came out while we were in the pub. There was no sunshine when I came home, but it was still dry - except inside the coat where I was feeling mildly sweaty by the time I got to the pub.

  I had intended to just have three quick pints before rushing home to have dinner with Patricia. I did only have three pints, but it was one of the more interesting nights, and I think we were all drinking quite slowly as we bantered. I ended up getting the train at 7pm - half an hour after intended. Fortunately, after rushing home from the station, I found that Patricia had not been in that long, and that she too had found it to be humid and a bit sweaty while travelling.

  Last night was Patricia's last night here. We celebrated with a couple of Tesco Chinese ready meals, and Patricia had several G & Ts (instead of her normal one). After an hour or two of chat Patricia went to bed in readiness for an early morning. I stayed up longer, but I was still fast asleep by 11pm. At 1.30am, almost exactly, I woke up to go for a pee. I had woken up from a dream, but I had forgotten what the dream was about within seconds of getting out of bed. That was a shame because it left me with an intriguing idea.

  My last memory of the dream was just a sort of feint impression that it was a dream about nothing in particular - like I was going through the motions of a normal day. With no more information than just that vague idea I was left with an odd idea. It was probably inspired by reading too much SciFi. As I stood there peeing my mind was free to wander, and the idea popped up that if the dream seemed to be about boring, normal reality, was I actually dreaming while standing there peeing ? Could I be living in two alternate realities, and switch between them during sleep ? Of course there is always a possibility that the original dream included waking up for a pee, and that what I remember this morning was all dream !!

  I was up very early this morning to make Patricia her last coffee, and to wish he well as she heads to Barcelona to meet another friend before going on to Italy. Her plane was due to leave Gatwick Airport sometime after 9am (in fact as I write this it could be any minute now). The original plan was for her to get the 06.31 train, the one I always used to get to work, as far as London Bridge, and then a fast Thameslink train from London Bridge to Gatwick. In the end she got up earlier than she had set her alarm for, and was able to get the 06.01 train without having to rush. She would have got to London Bridge about 20 minutes later, and would probably have waited no more than 10 minutes for a train to Gatwick. That train only takes about 28 minutes and so she would have had plenty of time to check in, and then a long wait for the plane.

  Once Patricia had left my original intention was to go back to bed, but I spent a half or so on my PC before going back to bed. I did sleep a bit, but I found it hard to get comfortable again. At one time I turned over and my chest went crunch. That didn't hurt then, but it is usually an indicator of more twinges to come. I had several yesterday afternoon, including one in the pub where I think I picked up my pint glass in an awkward way. I'm not exactly sure what "an awkward way" is, but it produced a momentary sharp pain below, and slightly to the right of my right man boob. It is a common place for a (usually) momentary twinge.

  Since getting maybe half an hours worth of sleep, instead of the intended 2 or 3 hours, I have had breakfast, and written all this up to this point > ·. As much as it is lovely having Patricia staying here, it is also lovely eating warmed up ready cooked (alleged) "Fiery" chicken wings while just sitting in my underpants ! It is not my habit to do so, and generally I try to avoid any breakfast, but this morning I did it because I could.

  Apart from one thing that is about 70% definite, I haven't really got a clue what I might do today.  Two options are to do some laundry, and to do more garden clearance. The brown wheelie bin was emptied yesterday, but maybe the garden is still a bit muddy. I don't think today would be good drying weather for laundry. So there are two excuses to not do the two things I could usefully do. Maybe I'll have to find something not useful to do ! Tonight I definitely want to make the effort to see some of Chain's gig in The Coach And Horses, Beckenham. It is an awkward little pub to have well attended gigs in, and I suspect it will be well attended. I'll probably only stay for the first set, and save my energy for tomorrow - the day of the Bromley Beer Festival. It's held in a park with a stage on a back of a trailer for live bands from about 12.30 to 6.30pm, and at least two of the bands were are worth taking a few snaps of.

  The forecast is suggesting that today is going to be yet another miserable day, but like  fool I have some irrational hopes that it may not turn out so bad as the current version of the forecast says it will. I base this hope on the fact that it seems dry now when the forecast says it should be raining ! I might also note that the sky has some small areas that seem to be very thin areas of cloud that could possibly break up to reveal blue sky. The latest revision to the forecast now shows the first rain arriving at 9am, and that even the time with the highest probability of rain will only have light rain. It is still going to be mostly cool with the temperature no higher than 16° C for one brief moment of glory at 1pm.  At the moment it looks like tomorrow afternoon could see some sunny spells, and the temperature may rise to a pleasant 18° C. The morning will probably be rather dull, and a little cool.
 
  Nothing much happened yesterday afternoon, or to put it another way, I did almost nothing yesterday afternoon. It was partly because I was off colour. Some of it may have been the last remnants of a very mild, but definite hangover. Some of it was almost definitely the damp weather causing my bones to ache (I think I am old enough to say/blame that now). Some of it was probably something I hadn't even imagined at the time, but would realise later.

  I had hoped to take Patricia out to an Indian restaurant last night, but as the time came it was drizzling outside, and while I was perfectly capable of walking to the restaurant, and might even have enjoyed the walk, it didn't feel like the best way to start a meal. I don't think Patricia had that much enthusiasm for it either, although she had more than I did. The best alternative was to order an Indian takeaway, and that is what I did. I ordered the same stuff, but in larger quantities, that Patricia would be used to from a Wetherspoons chicken tikka masalla. Plus an assortment of stuff for me (some of which I may well be having for breakfast soon !)

  The restaurant I used was new to me, and may have been actually relatively new, although it's latest Food Standards Agency report was made nearly a year ago (they scored a 4 - not perfect, but still good). I think I am inclined to not use them again. While the food was perfectly OK, it seemed to be what I can only incorrectly describe as "watered down". Obviously not literally watered down, but the gravy/sauce in some dishes was a bit thin. What I really mean, although I can't find the words to describe it, was that it didn't seem very exotic. In some ways it was a bit like supermarket curry ready meals used to be (and some still are) - lacking richness while being basically correct.

  I know all that sounds very negative, but I still enjoyed my food, and Patricia declared it to have been very nice. It was a couple of hours later, almost as we were getting ready to go to bed, that what had probably made me feel off colour was finally revealed. It was the hot (actually hot, not spicy) food that did it - probably. I started to feel uncomfortable, and had to dash to the toilet. I was barely out of the toilet for more than 3 or 4 minutes before I had to run there again. I started to feel much better after that.

  Apart from the heat from the Indian meal helping to cook up the ingredients, it had nothing to with the meal itself, and I would guess everything to do with eating two bowls of salad on top of 5 pints of Guinness the evening before ! The change in how I felt after that episode was a great relief, and it allowed me to have a good sleep - even if I did get up rather early this morning - but I blame Patricia for that - she is still running on Italian time, and goes to bed and rises an hour earlier than my body clock is set.

  This morning I think we can take it as read, and I won't describe all the usual aches and pains. On the whole, if I ignore all the yawning, I feel sort of OK this morning...at least I think I do. To a great extent it doesn't really matter. I have no great plans, or indeed any plans for the day prior to going out for my usual Thursday drink just before 4pm. Patricia will soon be going out to do some interpreting jobs, but she may be back before I go out.  Maybe I might go to the shops later this morning, or maybe I will go back to bed !

  Tonight will be Patricia's last night here, and I guess I should avoid drinking anything too heavy in the pub, and I ought to make sure I don't stay out too long so we have enough time to share one last gin together. She will be leaving early tomorrow morning to catch her plane at 9am (or 9.45am ?).  This year I will be seeing Patricia again for a short time. Sometime in July (mid July, maybe) she will be back for a very short stay for an interpreting job, and to pick up new glasses being made for her by Specsavers.

  To finish, a video shot at Stretchy's Open Mic last Tuesday. This features Stretch himself singing Bruce Springsteen' s "I'm On Fire". It is slightly spoiled by the occasional yells of the drunken Yahoos at the end of the bar.

  The forecast for today has been almost right, but in the most important ways, wrong. Earlier on there were a few sunny intervals, and as yet there has been no rain - but there were a few times when it looked to be very likely. The most up to date revision of the forecast, 5 minutes ago, insists that it should be raining now. The sky is rather grey, but it doesn't look like it will be raining just yet...but who knows ??? A weather warning has been issued with an amber warning for rain today. It warns of possible flooding, disruption to transport, and also of thunderstorms at unspecified times this afternoon - although the hour by hour forecast doesn't show any periods of heavy rain - just light rain. If today's temperature really did peak at 16° C, the time for it has passed, and the current forecast shows most of the afternoon flatlined at 15° C. It feels cool to quietly sit here typing, but comfortable to walk to the shops and back. Tomorrow may be a degree or two warmer, but it is forecast to be a mostly grey day, but with the chance of some sunny spells late in the afternoon. It will probably be dry, although a single shower is predicted for 2pm.
 
  The second big feature yesterday, after my morning walk, was going out to Stretchy's Open Mic. There was some very light, almost ignorable rain, as I walked to the bus stop to go to Bromley (or a small way past Bromley in my reckoning). I didn't have long to wait for the bus, and the journey was, as per usual, very boring, but uneventful. The eventfullness started when I got to the pub.

  There were three golf playing, business suit attired, hooray Henreys, blocking one end of the bar - the best bit of the bar. The bit nearest the microphone(s). These irritating arseholes were rather loud, and got louder still to compete with the music. The trouble was that they were completely unaware of anyone in the pub but themselves except for one of the barmaids who they treated like their personal slave. I think it was around 10.30pm when Vince, known to have a fierce temper when provoked (but usually a very happy go lucky person), almost threw his guitar to the floor, and stormed over to the yahoos. I don't know what he said, but they did take in good grace, and did calm down for a few minutes. I think that two of them did go over and apologise to Stretchy before they left. So it ended well, but it could equally have been a dramatic end.

  I had travelled light to the session partly because I had been expecting to take a gift to Jenni, but at the last minute she sent me a message to say she had developed a nasty eye allergy, and wouldn't be going. Sadly Jenni does seem to have some unusual allergies. She once posted a picture on social media showing the ankle all red and puffed up, and maybe with some small lesions, where she had used an elastic bandage on it that contained latex !  So I just took my pocket sized Cannon camera for some stills, and relied on my new mobile phone for a couple of videos. For some reason most of the still pictures were rubbish - even when I was using flash. Maybe I had my thumb over the flash gun when it fired - something I find easy to do !
  This was one of the very best pictures I took last night. When shrunk to this size it doesn't look that bad, but despite using flash there is still some motion blur, and I had to do a lot of colour correction.
  It is such a shame that this picture still looks awful after a lot of corrective action. Sue had recently received some good news about the result of a recent CT Scan she had done. The good news was that a possible diagnosis of cancer was ruled out (although she may have some other, rather less serious, problems). Sue managed a lovely smile, and her forehead wasn't all wrinkled with worry. Also her trademark bags under her eyes didn't look nearly as bad as the sometimes do.

  I stayed at the pub until a minute or two before 11pm, and then left to walk to the bus stop. I was very slightly concerned that it might be raining, but it was dry. I only had to wait about 6 or 7 minutes before a 320 bus turned up to take me to Catford Bridge station...and perilously near the fried chicken shop. Maybe it was knowing that Patricia was at home that helped me resist the lure of that shop. Instead I went straight home, walking at almost the sort of pace I like to walk home. (Maybe it was just my normal pace, but felt faster for some unknown reason).

  When I got home I went straight to the fridge. After all I had gone out without having any dinner. In last night's case I got two Sainsbury's ready made salads out, but I did adulterate them with some left over corned beef and spiced salami slices, and a probably rather generous amount of mayonnaise (well I was drunk !). I ate the salad, and soon after I brushed my teeth and went to bed. I don't really remember much after that. I must have fallen asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  Inevitably I woke up once or twice to drain off some of the Guinness I had been drinking, but it seemed like I had been sleeping very soundly. While it may have seemed that way, I have my doubts because I have been feeling very tired today. It seemed I got up fairly early, but Patricia had got up earlier. It took me a long time to get my head around starting some work. The first bit being transferring pictures and video from last night to my phone, and the second bit trying to make some poor quality photos look barely acceptable. It seemed like hard and long work despite there only being 21 snaps to consider.

  Once I had made the best of the pictures I laid on my bed and tried to sleep again, but I felt too uncomfortable. All sorts of bit ached. My right knee seemed to ache worst of all while laying down, but my neck and right shoulder ached a bit too. The worst, although it is not an actual ache most of the time, is my chest. Maybe it is while this wet or unsettled weather persists, but I seem to be on the point of a flare up of my coctochondritis recently. I've had a few twinges, and heard a few internal pops and grinding noises while laying in bed this morning.

  Apart from those few little twinges, nothing bad has happened yet. Without doubt the worst thing is a feeling of fatigue, but I know it is not fatigue in any traditional sense. Much of it is probably all in the mind, with a pinch of hangover added. It took a lot of effort to get off my bed, and to go and have a shower. I guess that helped a bit, but what helped most of all was doing what I had showered for - going out to Tesco to buy a bit of shopping - particularly some fresh bread and some Diet Coke.

  Once I was out in the fresh air, and it was very fresh, I got into my stride, and I felt almost perfectly fine. I was probably perked up by the fact that I saw that 1 litre bottles of Haig were still cheaper than the smaller bottles, and so I bought one. I was not so happy that there was no hot, ready cooked, chicken portions available. For quite some time now they have been a complete rip off (and not that nice either). Maybe they are selling a lot less now that many other people are coming to the same conclusion as me. This lunchtime I had a stupid urge the negative things about them, but to reinforce those negatives ideas by actually eating a few bits of tasteless greasy chicken. I ended up buying some pre-cooked, but cold (alleged) BBQ flavour chicken thighs. I slightly overcooked them in the oven to dry them out a bit, but they were still not terribly enjoyable. The didn't taste as if they had even been in the same town as a barbecue !

  I have now done all I need to do to last nights pictures. I have showered, and I have been to Tesco. I've eaten some crap chicken, and some coleslaw (for some random reason). Now all I have to do is to do something with the video I shot last night, but there is no rush for that. I think I might lay down and read, and hopefully end up having a snooze. Maybe tonight I will take Patricia out to an Indian Restaurant if there is the time and inclination (and if the rain is light or non existent).

  After yesterday, today was like waking up on a new planet. The forecast above was an early guess at what the weather would be like. As such it doesn't predict too bad a day, but it was still a pessimistic forecast. The reality was that there was a lot of blue sky even at first light, and while an there were many annoying clouds that managed to sit in the exact position to reduce the sunshine, much of the sky remained blue even for the periods when the sun wasn't shining. The warmth built up quite quickly in the sunshine, and by mid morning I was feeling quite warm when out in the sun. The sunshine has fallen back to just sunny intervals now, but the latest revision of the forecast says there will be sunny intervals until 7pm. From 7pm we may have a couple of hours of light rain, but it should be a dry night. Tomorrow morning might be dry, but light showers are forecast for most of the rest of tomorrow. It may only be a degree cooler than today, but it will be a bit dull - possibly...
 
  If think it best if we just forget about yesterday. It was a disgusting day, and I didn't go out, and the only thing I did was a bit of laundry that hung inside to dry. Fast forward to the evening, and once again I didn't fancy a proper dinner. I had three bowls of instant noodles with lashings of chilli sauce on them. After that I may have felt it was slightly cool, but my face was sweating like there was no tomorrow ! Several hours later I went to bed, and I seemed to sleep rather well - possibly even better than some of the fairly good sleep I have been having recently.

  It was bright outside when I woke up several times this morning. I went back to sleep several times because it seemed too early, but I wanted to get up at around 7am to get Patricia's breakfast ready for her - just coffee and Jaffa Cakes. It was about 6.30am when I thought I would just close my eyes for 10 minutes, and then start getting up. The next thing I knew was that it was close to 7.30am, and Patricia had already got up and made her own coffee.

  Patricia had an interpreting job this morning, and so went out fairly early. I took 10 or 15 minutes to convince myself to do it, but once I had convinced myself I was really up for it, I also went out. I needed to get out and stretch my legs after a very sedentary day, and I was curious as to what all the rain yesterday had done to the river that runs through the park.


  I wasn't quite sure how far I would walk, or even be able to walk, and so I wanted to record my route, and how far it was. Unfortunately I ran into a similar problem I had with my previous phone that ran Android version 9 - aggressive battery saving. On my new phone the problem was slightly different, and presented the possibility of overcoming it.

  I had walked less than half a mile when a message popped up to say that one app, Simply Walking, the app I use to record my walks, was using a lot of battery power because it was using the GPS, "sat nav" , radio receiver all the time. I didn't realise it, but it had stopped the app when it took me to the settings page with options about battery usage. Not realising it had stopped the app probably meant I dug an even deeper hole for myself. I set the options for what I believed would keep the app running in the background.

  What I didn't do was to restart the app, although by that time it would have been meaningless. I had walked a fair bit between when the app had been stopped, and when I noticed the message about battery drain. Even if I had started again, and had got the settings correct, I would have still lost a portion of my walk. I am not convinced I have got the settings right to run non stop when I use the app, and to shut it down when I am not using it - and the latter doesn't include wanting to use the camera, for instance.

  The track on the left is from last year, but covers most of my walk. I have added the missing bit in purple ink. I think a case can be made to guess that the total distance, original + extra, comes to at least 2 miles, and hopefully a little bit more ! Along the way I had a couple of slightly uncomfortable brief twinges, but as usual it was my feet that complained most. On this occasion they may have had a better excuse.

  I thought it might be prudent to wear my recently re-waterproofed, lightweight hiking shoes this morning, and on the whole they were comfortably uncomfortable. It was the socks I wore that caused more discomfort. They are supposedly hiking, or sports socks, and they have quite a tight elastic top to hold them up. Unfortunately on my left leg, the leg that donated the artery for my quad heart bypass operation, that elastic top just makes a tendency for the left leg to swell, and when I got home I had a deep indentation in my lower calf. While in situ it was mildly uncomfortable, but it almost stung for some tens of seconds as I peeled it off.
  One of my first problems was getting across the moat that seemed to be guarding the entrance of the park. Curiously enough, it was only when editing the picture that I realised that the path next to the fence at the back was clear of water. I walk a few more tens of feet to the right where the gigantic puddle had narrowed to just 3 ft wide.
  One of the main things I wanted to see was the weir by the bridge that leads from the park into the grounds of Lewisham Hospital. I was not disappointed. The weir was almost covered by the sheer torrent of water cascading over it. Usually the few rocks that can be just seen on the far side are well above the water.
  All along the river bank the foliage has been growing like nobodies business since I was last in the park, and like in my garden, that rain is going to make it grow like mental ! Once upon a time it was more formal, ornamental bushes and suchlike, but now the emphasis is on "natural" growth, and the brambles, once almost surpressed by the "park keepers" are growing in a most aggressive manner. This bramble shoot sticks out about 5ft across the path. At the moment it is slightly above head height, but soon it will get longer and droop, and then it will grab someone by the throat !
It wasn't always like it, but there was a lot of blue sky while I was out. Sometimes, like when I took this picture, the cloud on the left of the picture was mostly blocking the sun, but while it looked stationary, it was actually moved quite fast, and the sun would soon be shining again.
  I spotted this fox across the other side of the railway. It looked a bit muddy, and I think it was looking for a nice place to bask in the sun to dry out after spending a very miserable wet day yesterday.

  The final bit of my walk took me past the new Sainsbury's by Catford station. I didn't have a bag with me, and so I had to buy one, but I popped in to buy some salad, bread, a couple of sandwiches, some tins of ready mixed gin, and completely forgot to buy the orange juice I promised to buy for Patricia. I'll have to see if the corner shop does a reasonable carton of orange juice when I go there a bit later.

  I arrived home feeling like it would be very nice to get those walking boots, and socks off. It was slightly fatigued, but not badly, and I think I would have been happy to have walked an extra mile, but still not ready for the 4 miles I walked in Worthing recently. Of course my work wasn't over once I got home. I had to prepare all the photos I took - the ones I've shown here are just a small selection of the better or more interesting. Plus I have been sitting here for almost 90 minutes writing all this (although I did take a few short breaks in that time).

  As I come to this closing paragraph I can look forward to a rest, and quite probably a snooze, but sooner or later I need to wash my hair and have a shower in preparation to go to Stretchy's Open Mic in The Bricklayers Arm in Bromley tonight. It will be my turn to stay out late, and Patricia can be woken up as I come stumbling in full of Guinness tonight !

  As can be seen in the forecast above, today is set to be a bloody miserable day. It is almost certain to rain in every hour of the day, and sometimes that rain will be heavy. It will also be almost cold. Most of today will be 13° C, and with no sunshine it will probably feel almost freezing...well maybe not "freezing", but definitely chilly. Tomorrow was also forecast to be not much better than today, but the most recent revision suggests it may not be that bad, and the afternoon could be pleasant. It will start fairly cool, but sunny periods are expected from about midday onwards, and the afternoon temperature should rise to about 18° C - which is still rather short of "flaming June", but at least a step in the right direction. The day after that, Wednesday, will probably see some rain, but also some sunny periods.
 
  After being so sedentary on Saturday, and feeling stiff and creaky afterwards, yesterday was a time for action. Patricia went out for a picnic with her sister and her sisters son in Greenwich, and I got dressed up to go out into my garden for a bit of garden clearance - and more !
  In the finest tradition of the British Empire I put on Khaki shorts, and (sort of) stout boots before heading out into the jungle - except now there is very little jungle left in my back garden.
  This "before" could have been better. For instance I should have taken it before I moved the brown wheelie bin onto the garden path, and stepped back a bit for a wider shot. When I took this picture I was mostly concentrating on all the weeds, and rotting debris under the weeds, that I intended to dispose of in the brown wheelie bin. This high angle shot doesn't give a good idea of just how much "garden waste" there was to dispose of, although the couple of old tennis balls in the bottom left of the picture may help give some kind of scale to the picture.

  I had hoped to take that entire area back to bare earth, but before long (maybe almost an hour of back breaking work), I had filled the wheelie bin, and almost had to stop. If you refer back to the picture of my naked knees you'll see two blue rubble sacks. They are both full of stuff that wouldn't fit in the wheelie bin because I wanted to clear so much. I can tip them into the wheelie bin after it has been emptied on Thursday, and save myself a bit of work.
  This is the "after" picture, and is a wider shot that the "before" picture. The best point of reference is the fence post just left of centre in this picture. I almost managed to clear one fence panel's width of debris, but towards the left there is still a small pile of debris that I could have fairly easily shovelled into another blue sack. The other thing to note is how the entire width of the garden path has been exposed. There are hints in this photo of how uneven the left hand end of the path is. In reality it is worse. There is a big tree root running under the path, and several of the paving stones rock backwards and forwards on it !
  With about 5ft of what was once going to be a flower bed cleared, it was time to actually put it to use - maybe.  Remembering a tip given to my by a friend - "plant everything is straight rows, and anything that deviates from that line is probably a weed or undesirable", which is so obvious with hindsight, I planted the "seeds" in the picture above. I think the potatoes stand a good chance of growing, but I am not so sure about the tomatoes. Both types of tomatoes were in my fridge for far too long, and in one punnet the tomatoes are green and hairy. Maybe they will grow, or maybe they won't, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  At the end of my gardening session I was feeling very knackered. Digging just two small trenches to plant the potatoes and tomatoes stretched my endurance to near the end, and I was dripping with sweat as I worked in the nice sunshine. In days of old I would have stopped to have a cigarette, and 10 minutes later I would probably have been able to go on for another half hour, but I had achieved all I wanted to achieve, and maybe some more on top. It was a good time to stop until the wheelie bin is emptied again...maybe.

  I must admit that on reflection I was surprised at how I stood up to the hard work. In particular how I was able to bend over to use my hands near ground level. My body must be more supple than I usually think it is. Of course later in the day... I waited to calm down a bit before going for a nice hot shower, and washing the twigs out of my hair. OK, that was exaggeration, but I did wash something small out of my hair. Maybe it was a spider or something. I just saw something small and black heading towards the plughole as I tried to keep the soap out of my eyes.

  It felt good to be clean again. Once I had cooled down, and dried my hair, I put on outdoor clothes, and walked to Tesco. Sometime last week Tesco sent me vouchers for £9 off any shop over £60. I thought there was no way I was going to spend £60 in Tesco, but I did ! My original shopping list included Diet Coke, a bottle of Tesco Special Reserve Whisky, and some bread and salad for Patricia. I had barely reached the end of the first aisle when I spotted something on special offer that I had to buy for Patricia.

  Patricia discovered gin and tonic very late in life, and now I think of her as a gin lover, but I forget that she is not a gin fanatic. Anyhow, I spotted bottles of Parma Violet flavoured gin liqueur, and I thought I had to buy a bottle so Patricia could taste it, and I quite liked the idea of it myself. I think we were both unexcited by it when we had a small shot glass of it later in the afternoon.

  Further around the store I picked up my bottle of Tesco "own label" whiskey. As I was standing there I noticed that Tesco was being very weird - again ! They had 70cl bottles of Haig Clubman whisky for same at £25 a bottle - about the normal price for what to my palate seems to be a very nice whisky. On the next shelf down, and a bit to the right, they had 1 litre bottles of it, and they were selling for £22 ! At that price I had to buy a bottle before they realised they had swapped the price between the two sizes. When I got to the checkout with three bottles of booze my bill was over £60, and I hadn't even contemplated taking one of the £9 off vouchers with me because I didn't think I would ever be able to use one.

  When I got home I went into a bit of a decline. After putting the shopping away I ate a triple sandwich pack of cheese sandwiches - three slightly different ways of filling a sandwich using cheese. After that I lay on my bed to read. It wasn't long before I dozed off, but it was not a nice sleep. I felt uncomfortable as I lay on my bed. It was nothing sinister, or at least I don't think it was. It just seemed like it was the first opportunity for my abused muscles to complain.

  I didn't feel all that good for the rest of the day. Patricia came back from her picnic at about 4pm, and offered me a still wrapped, but cold McDonalds hamburger that was spare from their picnic. It essentially formed most of my dinner. I have to confess, ans much as I hate to do so, but even cold it was rather nice. Maybe it was the simplicity of the thing - just a thin patty of beef with a smear of sauce and a bit of greenery in two halves of a small bun. It was certainly much more tasty than the burger I had in the Wetherspoons a few days ago.

  Dinner was supposed to be an Aldi ready meal - a Tuscany sausage with pasta bake - and indeed that is what Patricia had, and very much enjoyed. For some reason I didn't fancy anything more than some fruit. Apart from the natural sugar content, the fruit was much healthier for me, and surprisingly I found it very enjoyable. It also seemed filling enough. I am unsure why I have been buying fruit recently. One reason is that maybe I thought Patricia might like some, but she is not a big fruit eater. Maybe it was because my own brain was secretly luring me into buying fruit because I need something from it. It may become a short lived habit that I will learn to enjoy.

  After dinner we had a big gin and tonic and talked for an hour or so about the world, and why so much of it is crap, but I was feeling very tired, and so was Patricia. It was almost 10pm when Patricia went up to bed, and not much later before I went to bed. Initially I tried to read in bed, but I don't think I managed to read a whole page before I tossed the magazine away, turned out the light, and failed to instantly go to sleep. While distracted by reading I felt extremely tired, but comfortable. As soon as I didn't have any distraction it seemed to take ages before I found a comfortable position, and finally fell asleep.

  Those "ages" to find that comfortable position was probably less than 5 minutes in reality, but it felt much longer. Once asleep I slept well for about 3 hours before I needed a wee, and then for maybe another 3 hours before I needed to wee again. After that it seemed like I was hardly sleeping at all, and yet huge chunks of time passed without me being aware of it. The most telling thing was when I woke up just before 8am, much later than I though I would sleep to, and found that Patricia was up and dressed, and had already made her breakfast - coffee and jaffa cakes ! I was amazed that I had slept all through that.

  This morning I probably feel no worse than any other morning. It is even possible that I ache and creak slightly less than what now passes for normal. I was expecting to feel really sore this morning. Patricia has gone out to a doctors appointment, but she will be back later. I expect we will have a spot of lunch together, but I have no grand plans for today. Patricia will be mostly working, and maybe I'll find some work to do - maybe even housework ! Whatever it is it will almost certainly be indoors because the weather is appalling - although maybe not quite as appalling as the forecast made me think it would be.

   This morning it is, as the forecast promises, sunny, although it mostly seems slightly hazy sunshine. With luck the sunshine we do get will push the temperature up to 18° C. That is only a degree higher than yesterday, but with a bit of sunshine that should feel much better. This evening the chance of rain increases slowly, but the first rain might is currently thought to fall at 11pm tonight. That rain is predicted to continue all through tomorrow, and not stop for the next few days after that ! Meanwhile, tomorrow is forecast to be a rather chilly 13° C !
 
  Yesterday I achieved a little, nothing, or a lot - it depends how I think about it. One concrete thing I did achieve was to wash some clothes, and hang them indoors to dry. I did that mainly as a way of stretching a few muscles after being being very sedate. It all started when I was trying to find a picture that I had sent to Patricia when she was in Argentina. It was a photo of a letter from her bank saying that her bank details were changing as HSBC swallowed up the last remains of The Midland Bank.

  The short version of the story was that Patricia had had payment for a translation job go astray, because her invoice had shown the wrong bank details. It turned out that she had copied and pasted most of the details from an older invoice, but there was still a mystery of when the change had happened. Patricia thought it was sometime this year, but in fact it was several years ago.  The long story is that I had an "interesting" time trying to find the original photo.

  I thought I had found it on an old mobile phone backup, but just as I was about to open the thumbnail image from a memory stick something odd happened. I think I have a dodgy USB extension lead, and I must have disturbed it in my haste. That caused the memory stick to momentarily disconnect, and because it was formatted as a Windows file system, it became corrupted. Then started a long process to try and recover those files that had become corrupted by using a file recovery program.

  It was fortunate that I had deleted older versions of the backups, and moved a few things around, and the recovery program was able to find and extract the deleted files onto a temporary directory on my PC. The only problem was that I had to stop the process early because the recovery program had found a PDF file that seemed endless, and ended up trying to fill my whole hard drive with this PDF file. There were actually two silly sized PDF files, but the larger was ultra silly - 85GB ! I suspect that a PDF of the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica would be smaller.

  The recovery program also extracted loads of unnamed mp3 files, and I spent quite a long time using a command line program called id3ren to read the id3 tags embedded in the file to change the name of the file to something that actually gave some information about it. It was only after almost finishing that job that I realised that all the mp3 files were left over when I copied my "psuedo radio" mp3 files to my work PC via the memory stick. As such I have all the original files on my home PC, plus two other back ups, but it was useful to know how to recover those files.

  By the time I had finished all my file recovery work it was early evening. I have to confess that I had not even washed by then, and the idea of going out to a gig was not very attractive. Although it was dry (at least I think it was) I didn't fancy walking down country lanes to get to Chain's gig. Instead I fancied some dinner. At this time I didn't have to worry about Patricia. She had gone to a wedding, and I was not even sure she would be home last night. I prepared a two part dinner.

  Part one, because it was very quick to cook, was an Aldi ready meal - a chicken jambalaya - a variant on Paella or risotto, or even biriani, but using American "southern herbs and spices" - probably. Part two were some low fat sausages. I sprinkled hot pepper sauce over both, and maybe I paid the price for that later. All evening I was sweating - even when my room felt rather cool. I do wonder if it might have been a slightly feverish sweat rather than a chilli induced sweat. I wonder that because I felt very odd when I went to bed. I wasn't actually in pain, but I felt very uncomfortable in all sorts of places. By 1am, or thereabouts, I had to get out of bed to go to the toilet - and for more than just a pee. I felt much better after that, and as far as I can recall, I slept normally from then on.

  Sleeping "normally" included waking up at first light, getting up for 20 to 30 minutes, and then going back to bed for another couple of hours sleep. What I should have done next was to have a shower and wash my hair so I was all clean when Patricia came back home at about 9.30am this morning, but one thing held me back. It was, and maybe still is, my intention to go and do a bit more garden clearance - which is hot and sweaty work. I think it will be the first thing I do once I have written this...maybe.

  Patricia only stayed long enough to have a shower, and get her things together before going out again to meet her sister and nephew for a picnic in Greenwich Park.  She should be back mid to slightly late afternoon. By then I should be fully washed and dressed, and ready to possibly go out for dinner together somewhere. Mention was made of either an Indian or Chinese meal. If it is the latter I think I might advocate getting a takeaway rather than eat in a restaurant. I never did get the knack of eating in Chinese restaurants ... all those fiddly little dishes ... I like just heaping my plate up with just one dish. In the meantime I might investigate if any of the two "gastro pubs" do any late Sunday afternoon/early evening meals. I think most tend to only do Sunday dinners at lunchtime.

   This morning has certainly started off wet and miserable, but it does seem to be starting to brighten up a bit now. The forecast reckons we won't see any sunshine until 5pm. After a couple of hours of sunny intervals the sky should clear completely, or enough to give non stop sunshine...maybe ! The prediction with a high probability of being correct is that the temperature should reach 17° C this afternoon. Tomorrow may start rather chilly, 11° C, but with sunny intervals predicted to happen throughout the day, the temperature may reach 18° C tomorrow.
 
  It took so long to finish writing yesterday that I described most of the morning, and part way into the afternoon.  Today should be slightly different. Patricia is going to a wedding this afternoon, and if I don't finish writing this because of assorted interruptions, I should be free to finish writing once Patricia has gone out. One of the highlights of yesterday afternoon was Patricia hand washing some of her clothes. I can't say I approved of her method - not nearly enough rinses between detergent and fabric conditioner - but she was very confident it would be fine.

  When Patricia had finished the washing it was dry, in as much as it wasn't raining, and it was relatively bright. Sadly, and maybe predictably it didn't stay that way, and maybe it was only an hour later she had to rush down into the garden to bring all the washing in again. It was far from dry, but at at least it was not dripping. She then hung it on the clotheshorse in the front room to dry overnight.

  I can't remember how the subject of smoking came up, but I reminded Patricia of my promise to my heart surgeon that I wouldn't start smoking again until my 80th birthday (assuming I make it to that decrepit old age !). I then fished out the last packet of cigarettes I had bought just prior to September 2013, and showed that the packet was still sealed. Of course those cigarettes will be little more than dust in 16 years time. Those cigarettes were in a bottom drawer along with what might have been an alternative back in 2013 - a pipe. In fact two pipes. I never really got started with pipe smoking before I stopped smoking, but for a laugh I did pose with a pipe, and tried to put on my best Bill Bailey look. Many people think I look like Bill Bailey, and more than one drunk has been convinced I am the famous musical instrument playing comedian.

   The forecast has seen a few small changes since this early morning screenshot, but the message stays the same - it is going to rain, and more than that, it is going to rain all day ! In fact, now I compare the older and later forecast for today I find I can't really see any difference. If we are luck the only heavy rain will be at midday. The rest of the rain may be like it is now - just a very fine and light drizzle. On closer examination the rain may have stopped as I write these words, and it has brightened up a lot. I don't think the sun will break through, but it would be nice if it did. It seems like it will be a very cool day today. The maximum temperature forecast is just 17° C, and with no sunshine, and any form of rain, that is going to feel very cool. Tomorrow may be no warmer, but at the moment only a few hours of rain are forecast in the morning, and from 3pm onwards there may be sunny spells.
 
  Yesterday was a very uneventful day. Until just after 4pm I was on high alert waiting for a parcel delivery. It was actually 2 parcels. One had a new battery for Patricia's laptop, and the other was a couple of "toys" for me. It is probably silly to call them toys because both things are highly useful. One item was a powered USB hub to replace a very cheap looking (and actually cheap) one I had bought some time ago, but had been intermittently faulty from day one. I feel it is a dry joint (poor soldering) on one of the tiny components in there. A few years back I would have had the resources of work to inspect, and hopefully repair it, but no longer.

  The other item was a USB to SATA hard drive adapter. I can plug it onto a hard disk with SATA interface, and read the contents of the disk via USB on my PC. I don't think I specifically ordered for the first thing I used it for. That was to have another go at seeing if I could read the hard disk from my old web and ftp server. The last time I tried to do that was using a very old interface, and it sort of suggested the disk was dead. Using the new interface I could read the disk perfectly, and I found a  few things on it that I didn't realise I had - mostly music, but also a very short 1940's porn film. Back in it's day it must have been extremely hot, but they would have no trouble showing it on TV after the 9pm "watershed" these days. All it reveals is bare boobs.

  In the middle of the afternoon Patricia went to see her sister, and I stayed in to wait for our parcels. I had already emailed everybody going to the pub later in the evening, to say that I would not be seeing them last night. In fact the parcel delivery was early enough that I could have gone out....well, almost early enough - I am forgetting that we would have been drinking in Bromley, and it can take well in excess of 30 minutes, typically 40 minutes, to get there. The train to Shortlands, where we most frequently meet, takes just 9 minutes !

  Once the parcels arrived I had a play with my new "toys", and that kept me amused for 30 or 40 minutes. After that I mostly relaxed, almost "aka lazed about", but I was reading IT news and stuff. I was expecting Patricia to be back around 7pm, and that we would have dinner then. Fortunately I had eaten a couple of sandwiches earlier, and didn't really need any dinner, because Patricia didn't come home until almost midnight, and I had gone to bed by then. I think I had only just about dozed off when her opening the front door woke me up.

  She had not only seen her sister, but visited the nearby home of another couple who were all mutual friends. Ideally I would have turned over and gone back to sleep, but I was curious about what had kept Patricia out so late, plus I was keen to see if I had ordered the right battery for her laptop - and so was Patricia. Fortunately it was the right type, and it had about 50% charge in it when tried. After that I went back to bed, and because I had the heater on low I could sleep easily without fighting the duvet all night. I think the duvet only covered one of my legs in the end.

  This morning I felt a little tired, but basically OK. I have had a few chest aches, particularly under, and slightly to the right of my right man boob. It is, or I believe it to be, a muscular/rib problem, and just a facet of my costochondritis. I couldn't be that bad because I have done two shopping trips since then. First of all I went to Aldi with Patricia, and we bought some lunch, and a few other bits and pieces. Once we had finished shopping I took the shopping home, and Patricia went around the corner to the bus stop to get  bus to Lewisham. She needed to visit Primark to exchange a couple of item that were too big for her (lucky bitch !)

  We had walked to Aldi at a good pace, and I tried to match that going home again, but I found it was more comfortable to walk a little slower....but only a little bit. Once I got home I could partly relax while I unpacked the shopping, and put it away. Then, stopping only to put on a raincoat because the very light rain I had ignored before had gotten heavier, I went out again. This time it was to The British Heart Foundation charity shop where I bought half a dozen CDs for 99p each, and then the 99p shop next door.

  There were only a few things I wanted from the 99p shop, and I bought them, but more besides. My intended purchases were bleach and facial cleaning tissues, but I was also on the look out for coloured pencils and colouring books. These were for Patricia's neice, or nephew, or......actually I'm not sure, but he she or it is of the age where they well soon be starting school, but not to old for colouring books. I really don't understand these things, and I just selected two colouring books, and several different packets of coloured pencils. I think my selection passed the unstated requirements.

   Today has got off to a good start, and it is in accordance with the forecast for once. There are some fluffy clouds floating around the sky, but the sky is mostly blue, and the sun is shining. The only disappointing thing is that as midsummers day approaches, the track of the sun now arcs above the house, and for some time now I haven't benefited from the warming effect of the sun shining through my front windows. With it just 11° C outside I have had to resort to turning the heating on. This afternoon, if the forecast holds, it should feel very nice at 18° C in bright sunshine. It is best not to think about tomorrow.....cold and wet !!!
 

 During the afternoon Patricia stopped work for a time, and we had a chat over a glass of fruit cider, but soon she was back at her laptop translating English to Spanish, or vice versa. At about 5pm we went out for a meal together. It was not to a nice restaurant, but to the Catford Wetherspoons where Patricia had one of their chicken tikka masala curries. Many people say they they are quite good, and Patricia certainly agrees with that. She had been looking forward to another one since the last time she stayed in England.

  My meal was not very good. I opted for the 6oz burger with chips. It was the chips that were the biggest disappointment. They looked like typical chip shop chips - at least in size and shape - but sadly they tasted more like "fries" - those abominations that are served with American fast food. I can only imagine that they are delivered to the pub part cooked, and just need a few minutes in hot fat, or maybe even in a microwave, before being served. They were not nice. The burger itself seemed very dry, and not very tasty, although at least it didn't taste nasty like some of the chips did.



  We only stayed for one drink, and the food, in the pub, and then came home again. I then treated Patricia to a large gin and tonic while we chatted for an hour or so. As 9pm approached Patricia started to yawn, and decided to have an early night. I think her body clock was still on Italian time, and was probably up at 2am to see her partner off on his flight back to Italy.  I stayed up for another hour, but thought that I may as well go to bed early too. It wasn't that early, but I was possibly asleep by, or very soon after 10pm.

  Last night I did not sleep well. I thought that I wouldn't need to have any heating on last night, but some time after 1am I woke up almost shivering where I had typically part thrown off the duvet. After going for a wee I wrapped myself up in the duvet, and slowly warmed up as I slowly fell asleep again. The next time I woke up I felt far too hot, but if I put an arm or leg outside the duvet it felt freezing. After another wee I went back to bed, and once again managed to fall asleep while covered by the duvet.

  It was about 5am when I woke up next, and this time I felt so hot that I was actually lightly sweating. 5am was still too early to get up, and so I managed to get back to sleep again until just before 7am. I had promised Patricia breakfast in bed at 7am. Fortunately her breakfast is typically coffee, jaffa cakes and the Aldi equivalent to Muller "corner" yoghurt (a pot of yoghurt with a separate compartment with choco-balls in it).

  Patricia has now gone out. She has an appointment at Specsavers at 9.05 this morning, and then she has other shopping to do in Lewisham. There is probably stuff that I ought to do today, but very soon I will be on high alert for a parcel delivery. I ordered a new laptop battery for Patricia, and thought it might be a good idea to pay for next day delivery. The battery arrived at Amazon's Dartford depot at 1am this morning, and so is definitely on it's way. It once would typically arrive between 2 and 4pm, but recent deliveries have been much later. One recent delivery was at around 7.15pm !

  One thing I am curious about is that there is also another parcel of stuff I ordered for me that arrived at the Dartford depot about an hour later than Patricia's laptop battery. That second parcel is not due until tomorrow, but I am wondering if it will be deliberately held back, or if it will arrive in the same van as the laptop battery. It would be nice if they both arrived today, but the current weather forecast for tomorrow does not tempt me to go out anywhere at any time, and so I will be in to await the arrival of my stuff if it doesn't come today.

  There are two possible things I might do today depending on when the parcel arrives. The brown wheelie bin has been emptied this morning (or if it hasn't yet, it soon will be because the assorted "dust carts" are out this morning), and I could spend a few hours in the garden filling it up again. I could also go out to my regular late Thursday afternoon drink. Patricia was also thinking of going out late this afternoon to visit her sister, and I shall let her take precedence to do that if we are still waiting on the parcel delivery. I have the whole year to go for my drinks, but she is only in London for 10 days (plus a couple of days in July when she has an interpreting job to do - and will be mostly busy). Mostly I will be staying in earshot of the front doorbell today !

   When I took a screenshot of the weather forecast this morning it gave hope of it being a rather nice day - albeit a bit cool. Sadly the reality is that apart from a few short periods of sunshine this morning, it has been mostly overcast up to now, and some of the clouds have looked quite threatening. The latest revision to the forecast hold out some hope that sunny periods could start from around 4pm, and continue until sunset. While being rather sedate, the 18° C, like yesterday, feels quite cool. There is some hope that tomorrow could see more sunshine - possibly quite a lot, but then again the forecast for today looked quite good this morning. Maybe we will be lucky tomorrow.

  There were lots of things I wanted to do yesterday, but I found it hard to raise the enthusiasm to do much. My enthusiasm was partly damped by a selection of aches and pains from my frenzied work the day before. I did a few little jobs in preparation for Patricia's visit, but they were very few, and very little ! One more significant thing I did was to go and get yet more shopping. I went to Aldi, and while I was in there I had an idea that it might be useful to have a few cans of cider on hand because Patricia does like the occasional cider - or at least she did until she discovered gin and tonic !
  Aldi had some fruit ciders, and I ended up buying 10 cans in all. That was of three different flavours. I tested two yesterday, and they were both rather nice, and if they had any fault it was that they were as easy to drink as a glass of pop. It would have been easy to drink many more. I noted that according to the can they were vegan free. That came as some relief. I don't think I would like it if the can contained vegans. You never know what disgusting things they might get up to in the can.

  Inevitably I bought some food that I was too keen to eat there and then. What I did eat wouldn't have been so bad if it had been spread out through the day, but I had too much of it for lunch so I could use up a Tesco burger kit that was already on it's use by date. The ironic thing is that while it looked like it might have been good, it was actually not very nice - not unpleasant, but there was nothing good I could say about it. The kit contained 2 not very good burgers, two slices of American cheese flavoured plastic, and sachet of "burger sauce" (whatever that is), and two very indifferent pre-sliced burger buns. I'm glad it was reduced price. I would have felt very cheated to have payed full price for the kit.

  The only notable thing I did in the evening was to try and breathe in whisky ! I had poured a large whisky, and was just sipping it until I came to the last bit. I think the last bit was bigger than I thought. I tossed it into my mouth, and swallowed, but for some incredibly stupid reason I tried to breathe in before I had swallowed it all. I guess it amounted to no more than a few drips, but they really stung as they hit my windpipe. I was probably coughing for 10 minutes before I settled down.

  I was in bed, and asleep by 10pm. Once again I seemed to sleep well apart from a series of dreams. One dream was most strange. I dreamed that I had won something like a nobel prize, but quite what the actual name of the medal was seemed to be omitted from my dream. The dream seemed to be set in World War 2, and I suggested an easy answer to a problem to do with defence - although I have no idea what the problem was, but I did suggest that the answer to the problem had already been solved, and was in regular use in telephone exchanges.

  My "medal" was more like a bracelet or necklace. It had one central engraved disk plus lots of trinket like things. Two of these trinket like things were of nicely enamelled metal. One allowed me free travel on the District line provided my journey started from Plaistow station. The other gave me free travel for a distance of something like 6 bus stops on a bus service that I have never heard of.

  After several false starts, including the one where I took the screenshot above, as well as al my morning pills, and not forgetting having a wee, I went back to bed and managed to sleep for another 90 minutes. Then I had to get up again because sooner or later I would be getting a message from Patricia to say she was on her way. That message came through very soon after I had showered and washed my hair. I didn't even have any trousers on when that message came through to say she was just one station away from Catford.

  By the time Patricia arrived I was properly dressed, and had made a few more preparations to make her visit a bit more comfortable. Since then I have only been able to write all this in snatches while she has been working (she is still carrying on her day to day business of doing translations). I the last hour I have finished some laundry I had started before Patricia arrived, and taken the brown wheelie bin out where, if the bin men are back on schedule after the bank holidays, it will be emptied tomorrow morning. Next on the agenda, maybe just after 5pm, we shall go out for dinner together - in the Catford Wetherspoons !!

   The forecast earlier this morning was a but optimistic, and it has changed for the worst now. Instead of rain predicted for late this afternoon, rain is now predicted for quite a lot of the day. It was much brighter earlier on, but now it is distinctly grey, and rain is currently forecast to fall with a 95% probability any minute now, and may last almost until midday !  There may be a couple of hours of respite then, but by mid afternoon it may well be raining again, and by late afternoon heavy rain is forecast. From 9pm it will probably be dry until tomorrow. The highest temperature today is now forecast to be only 18° C. That should still be mild, but it feel very cool right now, and I've just turned my heater on !

  It is tomorrows weather that is now more significant. I heard from Patricia late yesterday afternoon. Her plans have changed because her partners mum's partner (evidently not her partners dad) is seriously ill, and so they are staying in Wales one more day. Her partner flies back to Italy early tomorrow morning, and Patricia should now arrive here sometime tomorrow morning. Sadly it seems that her working holiday in London is going to be spoiled by lousy weather. Having said that, the current forecast for the next 2 days predicts it may be dry with sunny spells, and with the temperature a rather disappointing 18 to 19° C - not too different to today, but maybe feeling very different if the sun manages to shine.

  I was incredibly busy by my standards yesterday, and the fact that I was in a rush to do stuff is evidenced by some of my terrible spelling and grammar mistakes yesterday (and I would not be surprised if there are that many fewer today). I am now convinced that something I speculated about recently is actually true. I think it was last Friday when I most recently said that working in my garden was easier, and had less consequences than doing housework even if that garden work left me puffing and panting, and dripping with sweat.

  Yesterday I did lots of hoovering as well as many other smaller cleaning jobs. In one day I managed to hoover the spare room, bits of my bedroom, the upper landing, the lower landing, the toilet, the stairs, the hall, and the living room. I also got a duster and can of polish out. I emptied the rubbish bins, and scraped some old food into a food waste bag to dispose of in the mini food waste bin. I did all the washing up, and made sure the kettle was clean (at the same time I poured a couple of jugs of boiling water onto some bleach down the kitchen sink plughole). Finally I made up the spare bed - but maybe I didn't do all those things in the order described.

  In one day I managed to get much of my house about as clean and tidy as it may ever get (which is far from perfect) ready for Patricia's visit. It was actually quite good news when Patricia said she would be here a day later. It allowed me to relax in the evening knowing there were still things that I would have liked to do, but didn't have the energy. I felt completely exhausted by the evening, and bits of me were starting to ache. Even my left arm had managed to find a new, and previously unexplored ache. I have no idea what action I was doing that might have caused that. I reckon my whole body is now coming to the end of it's useful life, and decrepitude is just around the corner.

  There was a time yesterday evening when I felt like I didn't have enough energy to relax, and later that I was too tired to sleep. (Such is the reward for doing unaccustomed work - I expect most people take what I did yesterday in their stride, and probably do it everyday, but not me !). I was definitely wrong about being too tired to sleep. I contemplated the notion for about 5 minutes once I went to bed, and then suddenly 3 hours had passed, and I had to wake up again for a wee.

  I think it was about 10pm when I went to sleep, and so the idea of waking up, and getting up at 6am this morning seemed perfectly reasonable, but I felt awful then, and while I can't remember more than a handful of images of them, it did seem that I spent hours dreaming before waking up. The fact that I could, for at least a few minutes, remember such a lot of dreaming suggests I wasn't getting that much good sleep. That seems to be born out by being able to go back to bed for a couple of hours of sleep and more dreams.

  This morning I still feel strangely lousy, and the idea of doing lots more housework is highly repellent. However, I am starting to feel better, despite still yawning almost non stop, and the extra housework I think I may end up doing is mostly small things - a bit of polish here and there. There is one possible big challenge, and that is cleaning out the fridge. I have to admit it would be nice to get it done, and Patricia's visit would be the ideal excuse to do it. Maybe....
  One thing I managed to do yesterday evening was to finish going through the pictures I took at Stretchy's Open Mic on Sunday. Fortunately there was not that many to consider. All but one of the pictures I had taken on my new mobile phone were not worthy of consideration. It is just off the top of the picture above, but there is a twin light fitting which gives off a light that is even more orange-red than normal tungsten filament lights run at full brightness. It confused my phone, and it confused my pocket sized Canon camera. Correcting that strange light has given this picture of Stretch, Dawn and Vince a rather pale look.
  With the picture taken from another angle, and the camera seeing less of that almost orange light, the colour of the picture is much closer to natural. This is Carrie accompanying herself on Guitar. I didn't previously know Carrie played guitar, but she can, and played it quite well as she sang Bon Jovi's "Dead Or Alive".
  This photo of Adrian Taylor (if I have his name right) was taken using my mobile phone very early in the session, and when there was a lot of daylight. It didn't come out that bad, but needed a lot of tweaking to make it better. The daylight helped a lot, and using the "pro mode" with some manual setting also helped, but the shutter time was still very slow - as can be seen by the blur on Adrian's right hand as he strums the guitar strings. I did have high hopes for the camera in my new Huawei phone, but while it can produce quite good pictures in low light, it is useless with moving subjects in low light. I don't think I have ever seen a camera review that includes taking pictures at gigs, and we have to find out ourselves by trial an error. The one good thing about my new phone camera is that it does seem to take very good video in situations that knacker it's still image taking !

  Back to today, and I have already said that I expect to do a bit more low level housework today. Fortunately there is no sense of panic about it. It will just be stuff that would be nice to do, but nothing essential. With rain expected I don't intend to go anywhere today except to one or more of the local shops, but even that depends on a window in between rain showers - which have still not started to fall - although the sky looks like it has a million gallons to dump on us !

   The forecast has changed a little since I took this screenshot much earlier this morning. The main change is that the periods of sunshine have changed to better reflect reality - sunny intervals. Another small change, but one for the better, is that the afternoon high is now shown as 20° C. So far this morning the weather has been pleasant without being anything to get excited about, and the clouds don't look like they will drop un-forecast rain on us. Tonight will probably be fairly typical, and it won't get particularly cold. It is tomorrow that concerns me. Over the last week I have been watching it closely because it is tomorrow that Patricia arrives to stay with me here in Catford for 10 days. Some days it was forecast to be a nice day, and some days the forecast suggested it would be wet and horrible. The current forecast says suny intervals until early afternoon when it will become grey and miserable for 3 or 4 hours, and then sunny intervals will return until sunset. With a peak temperature predicted to be just 19° C, and that grey afternoon, it is not going to be a nice welcome for Patricia.

  I should have been incredibly busy yesterday doing spring cleaning in readiness for Patricia's visit, but I found other ways to be busy. I spent quite a lot of time editing photos and video from Chain's gig on Saturday night. That wasn't all I did, but it was probably the most significant. I guess I wasted time as well. I did some reading and had a snooze or two. I'm sure I did something else, but I am not sure what it was. Evidently it was nothing important.
  It was not until this morning that I finished going through all the photos I took of Chain on Saturday. I split the job into two parts - photos taken without flash at the beginning, and photos taken with flash after it had got dark outside. This photo features Rob Todd doing his guest spot. He managed to find, or cause a loose connection in the microphone connector as he sang.

  Unfortunately reality has not turned out as well as the forecast for today. There has been some sunshine this morning, but what I can see now is more typical of this morning - it is bright outside, but there is no actual sunshine, and the sky is white instead of blue. The earliest time shown on the latest revision of the forecast is midday, and that, and most of the rest of the day, is shown as sunny intervals. It also says the temperature should be 25° C, and that it will feel like 27° C. I'm not so sure. At the moment there are occasional gusts of breeze blowing through my window, and they feel quite cool and fresh. I think the temperature will, indeed, reach 25° C, but it may feel cooler in this breeze instead of hotter. Late this after there is a very small chance of rain, but so low that none is forecast. Tomorrow could see the maximum temperature be just 19° C, but there should still be plenty of sunshine - sometimes sunny spells, and sometimes non stop sunshine.

  Most of yesterday morning, and then a few hours into the afternoon, were taken up with a very long phone call, and so not much got done. I don't think I had my lunch until nearly 3pm ! It was part of my previous night's Chinese takeaway order - a rather nice "house special" chow mein. I was feeling optimistic that it might not be all that unhealthy, but under the layer of seemingly low fat/oil meat and vegetable was some fairly oily noodles. Not good, but very, very nice !


  After allowing a bit of time for that lunch to settle down there didn't seem to be much time to do anything, but I did do a couple of things. The first was to lay on my bed - initially to read a few pages from a magazine, and also to rest my eyes for a while....

  As 5pm approached I thought I had better have a shower and wash my hair prior to going out a bit later in the evening. As I went through my ablutions my mind was just freewheeling, and for some unknown reason the idea popped into my head that I had not tested the front facing "selfie" camera on my new phone. Well there was no time like the present, and the result is shown on the left in all it's wet dripping hair glory ! While I'll leave others to pass judgement on the subject, I will say that the camera does work very well. Later on I would re-test the rear camera video capabilities again.


   At 7.20pm, or thereabouts, I grabbed my camera, and made my way to the bus stop to get a 199 bus to Greenwich, and The Mitre where Chain were playing. When I arrived at the pub the band were just about ready to start to play for an unusually empty pub. I was informed that there was some very important football match being played last night, and many people would have been in "sports bars" or other places they could watch the ball kickers in action. I was absolutely fine with that. I don't like pubs that get too crowded, and by 10pm The Mitre can get very crowded. Last night I broke with habit and stayed for the first three songs in the second set - I would usually leave at the end of the first set. For unknown reasons the first set was longer than usual, and so I stayed at the pub considerably later than usual.

  I seem to have taken 199 pictures last night. I have transferred them to my PC, but as yet I haven't looked at them. I have looked, and done the necessary editing of three videos that I took last night on my new phone. Apart from the last, which was an experimental snippit taken when the pub was at it's darkest, they came out well. I am still quite surprised how well the sound comes out. The frequency response seems very good, and there is not particularly noticeable distortion, although the dynamic range is rather compressed by the automatic recording level setting.

  This year is the 50th anniversary of Woodstock (although it won't actually be until 15th August), and Chain have made a head start in celebrating the fact. Joni Mitchel wrote the song, and performed it acoustically. Crosby, Still, Nash and Young used electric guitars, and Mathews Southern Comfort probably recorded the most well known version. I'm not sure who Chain based their "never performed live before" version on.

  Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words....
 This was how the sky looked at about 8.45 this morning - very high whispy clouds set against a deep blue background. For one day only, summer is here ! I went out into my garden to take this picture, and the forecast 17° C felt fine with no shirt on. A fair bit more very high cloud has appeared since taking this picture, and it is currently making the sunshine slightly hazy. It's still sunshine though, and whether strong or hazy, the forecast predicts the sun will be shining all day, and the temperature will reach 25° C.  Tomorrow may see similar temperatures, but less sunshine. The day after should still have lots of sunny intervals, but may only reach 20° C. The day after that, Tuesday, the day that Patricia should arrive to stay with me for 10 days, it is currently forecast to be overcast, and just 19° C. Sorry Patricia.

  I didn't feel that good yesterday morning, but with hindsight it was probably partly a hangover. I took it easy (aka lazy) yesterday morning, at least in a physical sense - I did go through the pictures I had taken at The Entourage Band gig the night before. I found the light at that gig to be "funny". It didn't seem dark in the pub to the eye, but I think that was because there were bright spots, and a lot of backlighting. Unfortunately that was no good for my camera which does like faces to be lit up for best effect. The pictures I took on my new Huawei phone were rubbish even when I switched to "pro mode" and selected my own ISO rating, and shutter time.

  The resulting pictures confirmed my worse fears - at high ISO ratings the pictures become intolerably noisy/grainy. It is an excellent example of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". My big Canon could just about take usable pictures in such light, although they did need some post production noise smoothing. After a few shots I resorted to using the Speedlite flash gun. From then on my only problem was trying to find pictures of Kornelia with her eyes open. She is such a dramatic/emotional singer that she screws her eyes up a lot of the time. Meanwhile, Richard often pulls weird faces - and it is not just me who thinks so. He commented on my pictures "I must work on my guitar face".

  I was feeling particularly rough after sitting at my PC for so long. Even my chest was starting to feel like I had a Costochondritus flare up coming on. It initially felt good to finish on the PC, and lay down to do some quiet reading, and I may have had a short snooze too. I wasn't keeping track of time, but I may have been laying there for over an hour. At first it felt good, but then I began to feel uncomfortable. What I did next took me by surprise !

  While laying down the brown wheelie bin (for garden waste) was emptied. It was a day late because of the recent bank holiday. I think my first plan was just to take it out into the back garden, but once out there I felt a surge of enthusiasm...or was it masochism ? First of all I grabbed a saw, and sawed off an 8 inch long log from the old tree trunk. It was from the thicker branch, and I had to rest for a few seconds now and them while sawing through that thick branch. I decided not to saw off another piece until another day or something, but I did saw through a branch from a much older tree that was half the thickness. That branch was almost rotten, and I had managed to snap off a suitable sized log, but when I tried sawing through the longer piece, it fought me all the way, and it was only about 3 inches thick !
  To add to the sawing I have to do (or not*) there is also the part rotted remains of a square fence post found under a pile of stuff by the right hand fence, and it is far too big to go into the wheelie bin (although I have taken a few liberties from time to time with the stated maximum sizes of stuff on the label on the wheelie bin.)
* I think it is inevitable that when the time seems right, I will have a bonfire, and just burn some of the thicker wood rather than cut it up.
  If I had been feeling the same way as when I started I would have stopped after that bit of sawing, but I had warmed/loosened up my muscles, and worse than that, I had stoked my enthusiasm. I still didn't want to do any more sawing, although I thought I might possibly come back to it later. What I did do was to tackle the area between the garden path and the right hand fence.
  It looks small in this picture, but when you consider those fence panels are 5ft wide (or some whole metric number that is possibly a bit more than 5ft), I cleared about 3ft back to bare earth, and another foot that is free of weeds, but has some rotting wood and other small debris on it. You might even notice that more of the width of the garden path has now been exposed. It was this area that had the most junk on it.

  I am unsure how I will dispose of it all yet, but among the old twigs and rotting tree branches, left over from a tree felling 10+ years ago, were two metal frames chairs, and old ironing board, and a length of industrial quality lino. The lino was an off cut of an off cut that I acquired from where I used to work when I first moved here in 1983 !  I used it on the floor of the little box room I used as a workshop. The rest I put in the cupboard under the stairs. It may have been 10 years ago that the cupboard under the stairs became home to several mice that had probably escaped from my cat when he brought them into the house while still alive and kicking. It was also home to a rat that had come up from under the floorboards.

 Unfortunately it was a dead rat, and it had died on that lino. I didn't fancy cleaning dead rat off that lino, and so it was thrown out into the garden. Yesterday it was just home to an ants nest, but it still seemed to be in fair condition after all the years in the elements. It is currently unfolded, and sitting on top of a patch of nettles. Eventually I will either cut it up to be disposed of in the black wheelie bin, or it too will end up on a bonfire - maybe in small pieces because I can imagine it will generate thick black smoke. I think the metal work of the old chairs will need cutting into 6 inch lengths, and disposed of in the recycling bin.

  I'm nit sure how long I was working in the garden, but I was working without a short on, and I was still freely sweating out there. I feel sure it was at least 2 hours of (to me) very physical work I did out there. I was enjoying most of it, but it came as some relief when the wheelie bin was filled to the brim, and I had to stop. It wasn't all that long before I was under a nice cleansing shower, and had washed my hair. I waited another hour to cool off, and for my hair to dry before I got dressed, and went out.

  I had originally intended to go out in the morning to the pharmacy to collect the rest of the drugs from my repeat prescription. It was about 5.30pm when I left to walk to the pharmacy, and I felt slightly concerned that they may have closed, but when I checked I noted they actually close at 9pm on a weekday. Despite all the promises my drugs were not ready to take away, but the assistant was the good one. It seemed there was no actual printed prescription because it had already all been dispensed, and so she just worked on the records to get me the correct drugs.

  While she was doing that another person who may be a trainee pharmacist came from stock area and asked me "if I enjoyed the concert last night ?". She was actually referring to the gig I went to in The Catford Bridge Tavern. "Concert" sounds a bit posh for a rock and roll band !  I always though she was Spanish. She looks very Spanish, but it turns out her name is Monika (which rung a bell as soon as it was mentioned), and she is Polish. What's more she is yet another of Dik's friend (Dik, aka Richard, is the guitarist, and who formed the band). She had seen my photos that Dik had shared on a well known social media website.

  Walking to and from the pharmacy used a different set of muscles to those used clearing the garden, but I was still happy to get home again. It was about 6pm when I got home, and it seemed like a good time for dinner. I could have cooked something, but I fancied treating myself to a Chinese takeaway. The restaurant I chose to order from, because it scored a maximum 5 on it's last Foods Standards Agency visit, did seem a bit expensive, but not excessively so, and maybe not at all once my order was delivered. The delicious chopped ribs was not a starter as I thought it would be, but a full meal in itself. I could imagine it would serve 2 if combined with a heap of rice. I had it without rice, but I did follow it with pork with black bean sauce. Oddly enough, although that was definitely a main course dish, it was smaller than the ribs. I still have a large rice, and a large chow mein left over to eat today.

  I enjoyed that meal, and afterwards I watched some TV while I started to digest it. The last thing I watched was Have I Got News For You. Soon after that I went to bed, and on the whole I seemed to sleep well. My garden clearance work left it's legacy on me when I got up this morning, but maybe not as much as I feared, and now, many hours later, I feel basically OK.

  Many hours have passed since getting halfway through that last paragraph, and maybe that was a good thing. If I hadn't been speaking on the phone for four (!!!) hours to an old friend, I would undoubtedly have been moaning about how much I hurt, but now it is well into the afternoon, most of the aches and pains have evaporated. I'm not sure how I will feel if I actually do anything more than talking, typing, or going for a wee, but it seems possible that I might feel fine.

  Hopefully I'll be feeling fine when I go out tonight. Chain are playing in The Mitre, in Greenwich again, and I think I would like to go and watch the first set. I guess there is a 15% chance I might even stay for some of the second set, but the first set provides ample opportunities for photography, and enough musical entertainment for me.