Yesterday was very sunny, but still rather
cold thanks to a fairly lively wind. The afternoon
temperature was 10° C.
Prior to this morning, earlier forecasts
for today, going back at least 48 hours, said this
morning would start with sleet or hail. Now it
says it will be dry, but heavily overcast. It
certainly is very overcast, but the ground looks
wet as if there has been a recent light shower. By
late morning the clouds may thin a bit, and the
day will become a bit brighter. From 2pm until
sunset we may get some sunny periods. The latest
revision only changes 10am when it is now thought
there will be a light shower. This morning
it is 5° C, and by midnight it will possibly be
just 4° C (and feel like 0° C). The afternoon will
be a little less frigid at 9° C. The cloud should
be a bit lighter tomorrow, and the morning may see
some sunny intervals, but the afternoon will
probably be lightly overcast. The temperature
range will be very similar to today.
I had another morning, and part of the
afternoon where I didn't seem to do much
yesterday. I'm not sure why this was. I am sure I
must have done something, but obviously it was so
inconsequential that it wasn't worth remembering.
That was most probably the case - one of those
days where you do lots of very little things. Now
I think about it, I did walk through the back room
a few times, and spent a few minutes tidying a
little bit of it every time I passed through
there.
The other reason for not remembering what I
might have done is that my mind was slightly
pre-occupied by two other thoughts. One was that I
was expecting a parcel delivery, and I was
constantly trying to predict when it would arrive.
I knew it had left Amazon's parcel depot in
Dartford just before 11am, but I had no idea how
busy the courier was, and how good or bad the
traffic would be on a Sunday.
The other thing pre-occupying my mind was
that I wanted to go to an afternoon gig. I really
like the idea of Sunday afternoon gigs, but they
are few and far between - as far as I know. The
only pub I know that has afternoon gigs is in
Maidstone, and that is a bit of a trek, but can be
worth it if there is a good band on...or a band I
know, and know to be good. Yesterday's gig was in
Greenwich, and it is possible that it is a regular
thing there as well, although I never see any
advertising for the place.
One thing I did do yesterday was to have a
good shower, and to wash and condition my hair. I
have no idea how long that took, but it could
account for half an hour of "missing time"
yesterday. By 3pm I was ready to go out when I
suddenly got stomach cramps, and had to dash to
the toilet, not once by twice, and a third time
for luck. It was not a good start ! On the
other hand it did explain why my weight seemed to
be a little higher in the morning until I had
"lightened the load" !
I was hoping it would feel a bit warmer
when I walked to the bus stop. It was bright and
sunny, but the wind was really chilling.
Fortunately I only had a short wait for the bus,
but sadly it was a rather long journey. It may
have been some road closures to do with some half
marathon, or something, that pushed traffic out
towards Lewisham, but what ever it was, there was
a lot of traffic - almost like rush hour - and it
slowed my bus up a lot. I didn't arrive at the pub
until 4.10pm - ten minutes after the gig was
advertised to start.
I think I have only experience a handful of
gigs ever start on time, and yesterday it started
about 20 minutes late. That suited me because it
gave me time to buy a pint of Guinness, and say hi
to Max Edwards - the main man from the band Lord
Algae. I think it took a little while for him to
remember who I was, but once he saw my camera he
remembered. He still uses pictures I took of the
band in the days when they played at The Black Cat
(formerly known as The Catford Ram) 3 or 4 (or
more ?) years ago.
The Morden Arms looks huge from the
outside, but that is mainly because of It's
height. Inside it is fairly small, and I found it
quite busy when I arrived. Once the band started
some left, but even more arrived. It would seem
that having a band on keeps many lunchtime
drinkers in the pub for longer, and draws more in.
I can imagine the evening gigs there (probably
Friday and/or Saturday night) can get very crowded
if there is a good band on. Although not far off
the main road, it seems to be a typical back
street boozer with a dedicated local clientèle.
The band were sounding good, albeit with a
few hiccups, during their first set. At the end of
the set I managed to have a few words with Max. He
apologised that they had to keep the volume down a
bit, and omitted some of their heavier songs from
the set. It was still quite loud to my ears, but
by not pushing it too far I think it sounded
better - cleaner, and no distortion. It would have
been nice to hear a Motorhead song, but it did not
spoil my entertainment without it.
When I arrived at the pub the sun was
shining brightly outside, and enough was getting
in to the pub that I was able to take all my
pictures by natural daylight. There were a few
times when a thin cloud probably dimmed the sun a
bit, and some pictures did have some bad
graininess after I pushed the camera as far as it
would go. As the first set drew to a close the
light was fading as the sun became a lot lower in
the sky. That seemed like a good time to put my
camera away.
I guess I had been at the pub for half an
hour or so when Michael, my 75 year old friend and
neighbour walked into the pub. He had only left
home about 15 minutes after me, but had been
slowed even more by the heavy traffic. He had said
he was interested in the gig some time ago, but I
didn't really expect to see him - the recent wet
weather has caused him a lot of aches and pains. I
already get hints of that, and I guess it won't be
many years before my mobility is modulated by the
weather.
At the end of the first set I thought I had
enough pictures in my camera (plus one video), and
I was happy to leave having seen enough. I thought
I had better stay to keep Michael company, but he
too was happy to leave then, and so we walked up
the road to the nearest bus stop. I think we had
an 11 minute wait for the bus. The traffic had
either calmed a lot in the previous 90 minutes, or
it was just a better direction to travel, but the
journey home was fairly smooth. My only complaint
was that I had to stand downstairs rather than go
upstairs where I believe there were plenty of
seats to choose from. I know that Michael is not
happy about climbing up and down bus stairs.
It was still light when I got home, but
only for another 20 minutes or so. I expected to
see a "sorry we missed you" card on the mat when I
got home, but there was nothing. The first thing I
did after getting home was to put some sausages on
the mini grill/oven to cook for dinner. I had just
shut the oven door when the doorbell rang. It was
my parcel. That courier certainly earned his
pittance for wages being out past 6pm. Of course
it would have helped if he had left the depot at
8am instead of 11am, but there were probably
reasons for that I don't know about.
The sausages would take a long time to
cook, and I was feeling very peckish, and so I had
a sort of starter of cubed Cheddar cheese and
sundried tomatoes in olive oil with garlic and
herbs. It was a nice "starter", although those sun
dried tomatoes pack in a lot of sugar, and so once
again my blood glucose was high this morning.
However, my weight had dropped a fair bit (300 -
400 grams) this morning - and that was before a
morning poo !
I spent most of my evening editing photos,
and editing the one video I had taken. It all took
quite a time. I was quite pleased with the video.
I shot it on my phone, and this time I did not
start coughing while I was trying to shoot it, and
I seem to have kept the camera more steady than I
usually manage (but it would have been a lot
better if I had taken my steadycam with me). I'm
not sure that the band would like the video
because they did make a few mistakes, and Max did
forget the words for one line). However it was a 7
minute version of Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling
Stone" done with full guitar widdling, and some
good noises from Max's bass and from the drummer.
My sleep was good
and bad, which is actually quite common, and
only the details vary between different "good
and bad" versions. I probably got to sleep
fairly quickly, or at least I can't seem to
recall any difficulties or delays. It was
probably around 2am, after several hours of
good to middling sleep, that I woke up with my
throat feeling dry and tickly. I was laying on
my side when I started to cough, and that
resulted in a momentary sharp pain
approximately behind my right man boob. For
want of a more accurate description, I had
"popped a rib" again. Fortunately the actual
pain was quite brief, but there was a sort of
threatening tenderness, or so I thought - I
didn't want to provoke it to find out if it
was real.
I spent the next hour, or maybe two,
partly awake trying to be very careful how I
lay in bed in case I provoked that pain again.
Eventually I fell asleep properly, and the
next time I awoke I was feeling comfortable.
Like the last few days (or more ?) I seemed to
wake up earlier than I thought I would. I was
yawning a lot, but couldn't seem to fall
asleep again, and so I started to get up.
I still feel a bit tired, but mostly I
feel OK. This dull, overcast daylight does not
inspire me to want to go for a long walk
today, but I will walk at least as far as the
pub at lunchtime to have a drink with Angela -
unless I hear that she can't make it today. It
is possible that if it brightens up earlier
than the forecast predicts, particularly if
the sun come out by midday, I may extend my
walk by some unknown amount.
Before I go on that walk I want to try
and get to Aldi to see if they have any 3 ply,
mansized, tissues in yet, They ran out a few
weeks ago, and all they had left were the 2
ply tissues. They are useless unless you can
only blow your nose with the strength of an
asthmatic ant. Those 2 ply tissues were very
slowly being used up, and there was a lot of
shelf space left for the 3 ply versions if
they get fresh supplies (this could be part of
the predicted paper shortage following
Brexit). Of course I won't be only going to
get tissues. I'll probably buy some food too,
and Michael says they have some new cans of
beer that he strongly recommends !
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