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Saturday 22nd
February 2020
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08:10 GMT
Yesterday's weather followed the forecast
quite well. The morning featured some sunny
spells, and the afternoon was overcast, but dry.
The afternoon temperature was around 11° C, but
dropped to 10° C after dark. It stayed there all
night.
There was no sign of any rain at 7am, and
the temperature may have only been 10° C instead
of 11° C. The temperature for a lot of the
afternoon should be around 13° C, but the whole
day is going to be overcast to some degree or
another, and so no sunshine today ! There is a
small chance of rain at any time, but the forecast
doesn't even speculate when any rain might fall.
With luck it will be a dry day. One feature that
has been added in the last revision is for gale
force winds at midday, but the rest of the day
should see much more moderate wind. Tomorrow could
start almost warm, and very likely wet. As the
rain dries up there could be a few hours of strong
winds, but the afternoon may be calmer. No
sunshine is predicted for tomorrow.
I thought I would try another pair of old boots
yesterday. They were proper Regatta walking boots
that I tried for a time maybe 10 years ago. At
that time I used to try and wear thick woollen
sock, allegedly designed for hiking, but they
always seemed to ruck up inside the boot, and made
walking very uncomfortable. Since discovering that
thin cotton socks are far more comfortable, I gave
those boots another chance - with mixed results.
I ended up walking about 2 miles in them -
and not the 2.17 miles shown in the picture on the
left. Look carefully and you'll see a big spike to
the left at the top of the rightmost track. This
happened while I momentarily took the
tracker off pause while in the pub. The distance
covered suddenly flicked from 1.33 miles to 1.53
miles (I am a little unsure about the first
mileage, but it was in the region of 1.33 miles).
To avoid quibbling about hundredths of a mile, I
am going to claim it was a 2 mile walk.
It was good to see Angela in the pub, as it
always is, but yesterday was a bit more special. I
knew she was down in the dumps, and took her a
couple of gifts to help cheer her up. For a while
they did, because of course they were only a
distraction from some problems Angela has that I
can't do anything about except extend sympathy,
and try and offer some advice.
It felt good to be able to help, and from
the hug I got when we parted I knew that I had
done some good.
I checked the purple fungus again
yesterday. It doesn't seem to have changed to a
deeper purple colour yet, but I am still hoping. I
thought I would snap this unusually big, and sort
of floppy looking, head of the fungus, rather than
the small, more toadstool shaped heads. I
remembered yesterday that this fungus is sometimes
called "witches butter" fungus.
These are the boots I took for a test drive
yesterday. I think I have funny feet because they
were both uncomfortable and comfortable at the
same time ! They started out feeling a bit
tight in places, and yet they didn't seem to rub.
What I thought was odd is that they didn't become
more uncomfortable as I walked, but then again
they didn't get more comfortable either. On the
whole I thought that they were probably marginally
more comfortable than the brand new boots I bought
the day before. Maybe those new boots were a waste
of money....but maybe not.
Sometimes it can take a long time before I
find that some boots and shoes turn out to be very
comfortable. Maybe it takes until they are in the
last third, or even quarter of their life. I'm
sure that is the case with my most comfortable
boots. They were once uncomfortable, and it was
not until I tried them with thin cotton socks that
they became not just comfortable, but very
comfortable. Sadly they are near the end of their
life, and all this boot testing is to try and
select a replacement for when my current favourite
becomes to the end of their life.
Maybe it was encouraging that I walked two
miles in those boots without any detriment to my
feet. It was also the case that I felt in no hurry
to take them off once I got home again - like the
day before, with the brand new boots, I kept them
on while I did a bit of cookery in the kitchen.
When I did take them off yesterday I noticed no
abrasions or reddening. I will probably just have
to persevere with them until either they mould
themselves to my feet, or my feet mould themselves
to the boot.
Yesterday's walk was the most significant
thing I did yesterday. There was one other little
job that maybe wasn't so little. I hand washed a
bath towel. That towel had been in use for far too
long, and while it still wasn't smelly (as far as
my nose can detect) it had picked up a lot of old
soap and dead skin after all the towelling it had
done. It meant that I had to give it six rinses
before the rinse water was clear enough.
Manhandling a very heavy towel takes quite a bit
of energy, and I found I didn't have enough to do
it in one go - at least not without really
exhausting myself. I ended up taking a 15 minute
breather halfway through. It was good to finally
hang it up to dry.
I'm not sure why, but I didn't feel that
good late yesterday afternoon, and into the
evening. I wasn't even sure if it was physical or
mental, but I couldn't be bothered to cook myself
any dinner, and decided to order a takeaway to
cheer myself up. I had been hoping to cut down on
such luxuries as my budget tightens, but I'll just
have to cut down on something else instead. As is
now usual, my takeaway was grilled meat and salad.
On this occasion I had a "special" lamb shish
which included grilled peppers and mushrooms as
well as the lamb. It was very nice, although once
again I thought the chilli sauce was very mild. I
am beginning to think that I was spoiled by the
Kebab shop on Catford Broadway (that has since
changed hands, and has gone down a posher, and
expensive route). The old kebab shop used to have
a very tasty chilli sauce with a bit of fire to
it.
Although I didn't seem to feel sleepy, I
was keen to get to bed last night. Initially I
read in bed for maybe an hour before turning out
the light. I have no idea what time I went to
sleep - it was probably later than 9.30pm, and
probably earlier than 11pm. I guess it may
have been closer to the earlier time because I did
get up earlier than usual this morning. I had
slept mostly OK, but this morning I had, and still
have, a selection of aches plus a sort of
headache. It feels a lot like a hangover, but I
don't think one large whisky has ever caused
anything like this before.
It currently feels like I need some strong
sunshine to clear all these negative feelings -
both physical and mental. It actually feels worse
because I can't really say where it hurts, and
"hurts" doesn't seem the right word for this
almost all over aching. Oh well, there is nothing
physical I need to do this morning, and probably
not in the afternoon either, but it would be nice
to feel OK to go to a gig this evening.
The band "Something Else", who I don't
think I have seen before, although I do seem to
know a couple of their members, are playing in The
Railway pub next door to Blackheath station. I
have never been in that pub before for any reason,
and so there is a double novelty value to going -
new band and new pub. Plus it is very easy to get
to. The 54 bus, which I can get from the end of my
road, stops outside the pub.
While I may not be doing anything physical,
unless you include snoozing (if I can) this
morning, and maybe into the afternoon, I will, or
should be quite busy. I have to edit all my past
daily archive pages to include some navigation
buttons. I started these archive pages at the
start of January, and so I have a fair bit of
editing to do. It doesn't sound much, but as well
as adding two icons I have to type in the links to
the pages they point to. Those new icons look like
this.
Of course these demo icons don't point to
anything, but having now seen them on the page
for the first time I can see I'll have to shrink
them down a bit. They are a lot bigger than I
imagined.
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