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December 2019
January 2020


Sunday 26th January 2020
15:18 GMT
 
  Yesterday was yet another not very nice day. Once again it was overcast and grey, and while there may have been a brief peak of 9° C (and I am not sure if there was), it seemed to be rather cool all day. Maybe not bitingly cold, but most definitely very cool.
sometimes not as overcast as predicted
   For a few hours this morning the weather was not quite as bad as the forecast in the screenshot above. The cloud was not that dense, and some of it was thin enough for it to get almost bright (although I don't think the sun was ever actually visible). At 9° C it wasn't that cold either. It almost felt that with a bit more effort it could almost feel nice. Of course it didn't last, and even before the forecast time of 2pm the rain had started to fall. It's is fairly light rain, but it may not stop until almost midnight. At the moment it is around 10° C, and it merely feels quite chilly instead of bone numbingly cold. Tomorrow is still forecast to be a couple of degrees cooler, but it should be dry until almost sunset. After that light rain is forecast to fall until 10pm or later. The forecast doesn't show it, but maybe tomorrow morning could be bright if the thin cloud is thin enough to have gaps in it.
  Everything I did yesterday was leading up to going out in the evening. I did a bit more housework, and more reading, and basically not much. I was conserving my energy for the evening, but I wasn't entirely idle. The housework I did was mostly in the morning, and on reflection it was actually quite extensive...or to put it another way, I spent several hours doing it. The most noticeable thing I did was to clean the back room windows - and not just the glass, but the framework too.

  There were no paw prints actually visible, but some of the "mud" on the window ledge was a legacy of past cats coming in with muddy paws (sometimes with live prey that they would then lose indoors !!). So I cleaned up the paintwork as best I could, as well as the glass. I also fitted a couple of bolts to the lower (sash style) window to improve security. I still didn't get around to do anything with the unruly bookshelves next to that window, but I did some tidying up near there.

  I am not sure why I needed to grit my teeth to do it, but it seemed I had to before throwing away an old amplifier and a couple of speakers. I originally bought the amplifier from a second hand shop for about £10 (or maybe less) in about 1975. It was used as a mixing desk monitor in my old radio studio. In later years it was to drive my PC speakers. The speakers were a couple of Toshiba TV surround sound speakers retrieved from a skip. They were small(ish), and designed to be used near CRTs, and so ideal near my PC monitor. Their own problem was that they were really supposed to be mid-range speakers (the bass would have originally been a separate woofer), and so sounded a bit thin. They, and the amplifier can be currently found at the bottom of my wheelie bin.

  One other bit of housework involved the kitchen - and it was more than just doing the washing up, and wiping down the work surfaces and inside of the microwave - although it did include that too. Until yesterday there was an unholy mess behind the garden door. Odd bit had been dumped there, and the whole lot was covered in cobwebs, dirt, dust, and even old cat litter. With all the crap cleared out there was a nice space to store a couple of old tower PCs that were previously in the back room. Eventually I will probably dispose of them, but not before removing a few things I do not want to throw away (which includes a couple of almost unused 3TB hard disks from a project that was never fully realised).

  It was while I was working downstairs that I missed a call on my phone from Angela. At first I got a bit excited. I thought that maybe she was ringing me to discuss doing something together in the evening. I called her back and found she only wanted some travel advice. It turned out that she was going to spend the evening with her daughter (and stay overnight), and she was unfamiliar with most aspects of the journey. First of all I had to tell her to get the DLT train from Lewisham, and then how to change at Canary Wharf to get to Stratford. With her heading in the right direction (still on the bus to Lewisham) I did some research to try and find what platform to send her to at Stratford.

 It soon became apparent there were no National Rail services running at Stratford yesterday (and today). Angela would have to catch a rail replacement bus which would take over 50 minutes to reach Romford (her destination) - at least 30 minutes longer than by rail. To make matters worse, Angela jumped on the first bus she saw going to Romford. Instead of the rail replacement bus it was an 86, and according to TFL's website, that would stop at hundreds (or maybe tens) of stops, and take 1 hour and 17minutes - if it went as fast as timetabled - which in Saturday shopping traffic cannot be assumed.

  I did hear later that Angela successfully made it and met up with her daughter. I sent Angela details of a possible route home that would only take 10 minutes more (plus an unknown amount of walking and waiting) from Romford to Catford compared to that long bus ride from Stratford to Romford. It was 15 minutes on a 193 bus to Hornchurch Tube station. The 193 bus runs every 15 minutes. Then from Hournchurch to Blackfriars on a district line train. They run every 5 minutes, and the journey time is a rather long 42 minutes. Finally it is a 23 minute journey on the train from Blackfriars to Catford station. Unfortunately those trains are only every half hour, and so a long wait might be possible.

  After some intensive resting on my newly made bed - did I mention I changed all the linen - a bit more housework achieved yesterday - it was finally time to go out,a d I really had to force myself to do it. As much as I was looking forward to seeing Chain playing for the first time in something like 3 months, I also really wanted to stay in the warm, and go to bed early. However it was a simple journey, and it took less time than I expected.

  The venue was The White Swan pub in Charlton village - a pub I have never visited before, and neither had Chain. Getting there was simple. I caught a 54 bus from the end of my road, and it stops almost opposite the pub. I didn't time it accurately, but I don't think it could have been any more than 5 minutes longer than 20 minutes. It felt quicker than getting to Bromley, and in the summer it would be a nice ride in daylight. I had a 30 minute wait before the gig started, and maybe another 10 minutes before a few sound problems were sorted out.
Chain at The White
                          Swan in Charlton
  Here's the full band for the night. From left to right: CC Harrison on keybords, Chris Mayer on lead guitar, Guy Harris on Drums, Jo Woodstock on vocals and guitar, and Steve Pitt on bass. I get the impression that CC Harrison is now a regular member of the band.
Jo Woodstock
  I did have a sort of worry that I may have forgotten how to take photos last night, but some came out rather well. The reason I am writing this so late in the day is because I has 133 photos to choose from to make a photo album, and everyone I chose needed some work to improve it - sometime things like selectively making faces at the back look a bit brighter. I was trying to keep my flash gun power down to retain some of the colour of the lights, and on low power it wasn't quite reaching Guy and Steve at the back. It also took quite some time to prepare a shaky video of one song - although the computer did most of the work - I just had to wait for it to finish.



  The video (if your browser can play it - some can't) is of the song Freebird. It also features the rather cute looking Fiona Mairs, and her friend doing what looks like country and western line dancing to the song !

  I didn't stay until the end of the gig. I started home just before 11pm - my brain still thinks that all pubs close at 11pm. I believe the gig actually finished at near midnight. After feeling slightly rotten going to the gig I felt fine once there, and I felt fine right up until I got off the bus in Catford. It suddenly felt like I had run out of energy. each step I took seemed like hard work, and I was glad to get in. I was also glad to get in to start eating my very naughty supper I had bought from the fried chicken shop very near the bus stop. I had grilled wings - which were moderately harmless, and chips which definitely weren't !

  It wasn't long after eating my supper that I was in bed, but it seemed to take ages to get to sleep. I guess I was excited or something. It could also be that my bed felt uncomfortable in a way that was completely different to how it was uncomfortable before I changed the sheets, and duvet cover, and straightened out the rucked up memory foam mattress protectors. Maybe my body had moulded itself to the previous lumps and bumps. I eventually got to sleep, but I thought I was not sleeping well. Maybe, but I was surprised that it was gone 9am when I finally got up.

  Since then I have done a lot of photography processing, and I have been shopping to Aldi. I have also stuff I bought from Aldi - including some very nice reduced price fish cakes - cod and chorizo flavour. It may sound like an unlikely combination, but it is very nice. Writing this is my last task. Once it is all uploaded I can be as lazy as I want, and I want to be very lazy because I don't feel that great today. It's nothing bad. Probably just a poor night's sleep, although I would not be surprised if my blood glucose level weren't running a bit high today. I could have also had a sort of digestive anomaly. I think it is over now, at least I hope it is. Nothing explosive has happened, but I have had several episodes of weapons grade farting. It has been as if something had died inside of me - maybe a rat !

  Apart from being intensively lazy, or intending to be for a while, I am contemplating the idea of going out again tonight to Stretchy's Open Mic in The Swan And Mitre in Bromley. I doubt it will happen tonight - a doubt strengthened by looking out the window. It is not quite sunset as I write this, but it is already as dark as night, and it is raining. I very much doubt I want to go out in that !