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Wednesday 5th
February 2020
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08:47 GMT
Early forecast predicted that yesterday
would enjoy some sunny spells from morning into
the early part of the afternoon, Later forecasts
said the sunny spells would end earlier. In
reality the last glimpse of the sun was possibly
as early as 11am, and even that was only hazy
sunshine. It was also a bit cooler than earlier
forecasts predicted, but only by a degree or so.
The highest temperature was probably only just 9°
C with 8° C more typical for the middle of the
day. During the night the temperature fell low
enough for some frost this morning.
It is going to be another dry day, and that
is just as well or it could snow during the colder
bits of today. My thermometers almost agree with
the 4° C forecast for now (they say it is actually
closer to 3.5° C). I must confess it could be
heavy condensation, but I can see what looks like
frost on neighbours garden shed roofs - sometime
in the early hours of this morning it must have
been 0° C. Like yesterday, the forecast is
changing to better match reality. The latest
revision says the afternoon temperature may be 9°
C now, but that the last sunny spell will be at
2pm. Curiously, it now says there will only be
sunny spells right now, but it seems to be "sunny"
at the moment, but as a sort of compromise it is
only weak and slightly hazy sunshine. Tomorrow is
predicted to be lightly overcast all day, but it
should stay dry. It will also be a degree or two
colder than today. Incidently, the "Weather
Warning" seen on the chart above refers to Friday
and Saturday when we will be blessed with roof
ripping strong winds - maybe !
I didn't feel as bad yesterday as I did the
day before. It meant I could get a modicum
of enjoyment out of my walk, although I still
didn't feel like rushing around. One problem was
that it felt cold out, and I would have been more
comfortable in my thick winter coat. I had my
lightweight, leather-looking jacket on, but even
with it done up I was feeling a little more cool
than I liked. The biggest impact was on my
photography.
I took my Canon Powershot SX420 out for a
walk, and I encountered difficulties taking good
pictures. It was a combination of things. One
significant thing was that it was a dull day, and
the camera was seeing less light than how my eyes
saw it. I could possibly have over-ridden the auto
controls, but in auto it wanted to do some quite
long exposure times. That meant I had to hold the
camera very still, and that was not so easy with
frozen hands.
I also noted that the camera tended to
slightly over expose some shots - shots where
there was, for instance, one small bright flower,
like a daisy. The petals of the daisy would be
almost bleached. The same happened to a dove, or
white pigeon. Another annoyance was that the
operation of the camera seemed slow - not good
when trying to snap a wren that couldn't keep
still for more than a tenth of a second.
In good daylight, and with a stationary
subject, that camera is really good, but I don't
think I can recommend it for wildlife photography
on a dull day. I think I can improve it by
changing some settings, but ultimately it is going
to need good daylight to use one of it's
potentially useful features - a powerful
zoom. Some of the pictures I tried to take
yesterday needed the exposure to be at least
1/40th of a second, and even 1/15th of a second.
That demands no movement at all or blurring will
occur. At full zoom an exposure time of something
like 1/1000th would be very desirable to avoid
camera shake, or the subject moving. For a speed
like that it would need bright sunshine !
The subject of the photo above is the hen
duck (are ducks hens and cocks ?), and not the
more colourful cock who "photobombed" the picture.
I thought this hen duck looked quite pretty.
This hen duck seemed quite pale, and for a
while I wondered if it was a Mandarin duck, but
the male Mandarin duck was nowhere to be seen
yesterday. Maybe this duck is a bit younger than
the duck in the photo above this one, and that
their plumage darkens with age.
I did make a small, very small, effort to
try and find the difference between a dove and a
white pigeon yesterday, but I never came up with
an answer. This picture shows how the camera
slightly over exposed the shot, or specifically
the subject of the shot. I have not checked, but I
suspect that spot metering is not turned one, and
the exposure was automatically set to be correct
for the background, rather than the subject. In
the original, uncropped version of this picture,
there is a lot more background to be seen, but I
cropped it off to bring the pigeon/dove to be the
main subject.
Yesterday's walk was not just about
wildlife photography, or keeping fit - not that
one and a half miles is going to do that much good
for me. The core reason was to see Angela. Once
again there was some doubt about whether I might
see Angela. Earlier she said she might go to
Lewisham to get some shopping. I arrived at the
pub just a few minutes before 1pm. At three
minutes past 1pm I got a message to say "see you
soon". Five or 6 minutes later Angela arrived, and
we had a lovely time together.
Maybe the saying about "absence makes the
heart grow fonder" had some relevance yesterday. I
had not seen Angela for almost a week, and I think
she was actually looking forward to meeting as
much as I was. That idea was re-inforced when we
said good bye with a very warm hug outside her
work. She thanked me for a lovely lunchtime, and
then suggested that we might meet again on Friday.
As far as I can recall, that latte suggestion was
unprecedented. Normally it is me who makes any
suggestion, and I rarely suggest Friday's because
I thought that Angela often goes into Lewisham to
get some shopping on a Friday. I very much look
forward to Friday !
With my spirits raised, and two pints of
Guinness in me, I didn't feel the cold so much
going home. I couldn't quite raise the enthusiasm
to extend my walk, and took a mostly direct route
home. When I got home I didn't mess around. I
turned the heater on full blast in my bedroom. I
had another cold salad, and then also like
yesterday, I lay on my bed to read. Typically
enough, I was soon dozing, but this time I didn't
wake up feeling freezing cold like the day before.
On the other hand, I didn't feel hot either. A
couple of hours of the fan heater on full blast
normally gets my room quite hot.
Unlike the day before, I didn't feel the
need for pints of hot soup yesterday, and that was
an improvement. However I still felt "ill" in a
very vague way. If there was such a thing as one
day 'flu I would say I was suffering from that on
Monday, and that yesterday I was in the recovery
phase. I guess it was going quite well because by
5pm I thought I would spend a bit of time in the
backroom sorting out the bookshelf in there. I
think I surprised myself by making more
progress that I thought I might. One hold up at
the moment is that the wheelie bin is full, and I
will have to wait until tomorrow to toss more junk
in it.
Maybe there was nothing on TV to hold my
attention, or maybe I was just feeling tired, but
I think I was fast asleep in bed before 10pm (I am
sure I recall 9:12pm being the last time I saw
before going to sleep, and maybe I was asleep much
earlier than 10pm). Unfortunately it was another
night when for one reason or another, I woke up
every 2 hours or so. Sometimes it was for a wee,
and sometimes I just felt uncomfortable in other
ways. It often seemed to take ages to get back to
sleep.
I have to conclude I didn't sleep well last
night, and yet I did seem to wake up fairly early.
I did my best not to get up at 6am, and did indeed
manage to get a little bit more poor quality
sleep, but it seemed like my body was ready to get
up at 6am. Sunrise was officially at 7.34am this
morning, but I saw the first signs of light not
all that long after 6am. In theory I have now had
quite a few hours to consider how I feel, and I am
still not sure. I do have a selection of aches,
but I can't really pin down how bad they are, and
whether they are the type that will disappear once
I get moving.
One thing I do know is that my blood
glucose is very high (although still under the
danger level) this morning. I was expecting it to
be high, but maybe not as high as it is. Last
night I had two Tesco ready meal curries, and I
ate the rice from both of them. That rice would be
responsible for much of my elevated blood glucose
this morning, and I can probably blame the 4
bottles of sweet tasting beer I had last night for
the rest.
Yesterday I had some silly ideas about
putting on my winter coat, and having a quick trip
to the seaside to take a few snaps of the sea,
seagulls, and anything else that takes my fancy.
Now today is here I seem to have changed my mind.
It is going to feel bloody freezing outdoors, but
whatever sunshine we get is going to warm up the
south facing front of my house, and that extra
warmth, plus the brightness may trick me into
doing some spring cleaning. If I get really
carried away I might wrap up warm and try to do
something in the garden. Maybe I will just be lazy
all day - that sounds nice, but I have things,
mostly a selection of very small things, rather
than some grand plan, that I think I want to do.
Tomorrow I will be able to say exactly what I did
(or the more interesting or easy to describe
things), but for now I have ideas, but no plans.
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