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Wednesday 4th
March 2020
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09:47 GMT
It was cold enough for a frost yesterday
morning, but it was a bright and sunny morning,
and the frost did not linger. However, despite the
morning sunshine, it was still a rather chilly
day. The sunshine ended before midday, and the
rest of the day was overcast. There were a few
light sprinkles of rain in the early afternoon,
but I don't recall any more rain falling later.
The afternoon temperature was 9° C - just below
10° when the first signs of warmth are just about
detectable - but feeling even colder because of
the grey sky, rain, and the wind.
There was no frost this morning, but we
only escaped it by a degree or two. This morning
is dull and overcast, and it will get even duller
this afternoon when rain is expected to start
falling until late at night. The latest revision
to the forecast now says there will be light rain
at 10am, and drizzle at 11am. There might be a few
hours of dryness until the rain starts up again at
2pm. It is going to be a cold day. There will be a
few hours this afternoon when it is 8° C, and at
other times it will be colder. Tomorrow could be a
truly awful day. The current forecast says rain
all day, and the temperature only ranging between
6 and 7° C.
Yesterday started good, but ended bad. The
seeds of the badness were planted the day before
yesterday when I had my quarterly gas and electric
bills come through (I actually pay monthly by
standing order). Those bills showed that I had a
lot of credit, to the tune of a couple of hundred
pounds for my gas account, but I owed rather a lot
for the electricity. The latter is a big annoyance
because my standing order is "tuned" to even out
the cost over the course of a year. Unfortunately
EDF Energy seem to use a different year to my
previous energy suppliers. They demand their money
(with menaces) just after the winter peak usage.
So now I have to go through the bother of paying
off a lump now, and then going into a surplus in
the summer months.
Having turned all the (electric) heating
off before going out should have saved some money,
but it was to have it's consequences ! I set out
on my daily exercise (daily sometimes means just 3
times a week !) at 12:22. It was a little earlier
than usual, but not early enough to do a long
walk, and yet by weaving across the park, and also
going through Lewisham Park, I was able to get the
total mileage up to 2.66 miles. I had wanted to
try and stretch the end of the walk a bit more to
take it up to 3 miles (and maybe a tiny bit more)
but as I approached where I would have to diverge
away from the quickest route home, I decided I
needed a pee more than walking an extra half mile
!
Once again I had planned my route (mostly
while actually walking it, rather than before I
left home) to go past Angela's office window. We
waved at each other, and mouthed that we would see
each other in the pub soon. I don't really know
why I did it, but as well as getting Angela's
drink in, I also bought her a bag of cheese and
onion crisps. Maybe it was telepathy or something
because she did want a bag of crisps (and I knew
before they are her favourite flavour).
When Angela arrived at the pub she was
delighted to see the packet of crisps waiting for
her on the table. We had a very nice lunch break
together, but this time it was back to the usual
two drinks. We were interrupted by a call from
Miranda, Angela's daughter. Unlike calls from
lover boy she answered it straight away, and I
noted that she told Miranda she was in the pub
with me. Our lunch time drinks are notionally a
secret, but only from lover boy. It is probably
another false conceit, but I think Miranda
approves of our meetings. I don't have to delude
myself much further to think that maybe she
prefers her mum to hang out with me instead of
lover boy because I seem to have a strong tendency
to make Angela happy, and lover boy can sometimes
have the opposite effect.
I'm not sure if I imagined it, but when we
said goodbye I seemed to be given an extra strong
hug, and slightly longer hug. Maybe it wasn't
Angela leading it, but me. The only sad thing was
when Angela said she might need to go shopping
during her lunch break today. It was tempered by
her suggesting that maybe we will meet on Friday.
This morning she confirmed she is going shopping
today, and that does mean I can get a few things
done here, at home, that I couldn't if I had been
out today. I look forward to Friday lunchtime when
I will hopefully be meeting Angela again.
Black headed gulls are not exactly rare
around these parts, but they are vastly
outnumbered by the more usual all white gulls that
think the playing fields are the sea (or a rubbish
dump). I saw this black headed gull on the running
track, and that was almost what it was doing. It
was walking quite fast,, and keeping between the
white lines.
I saw this tree in Lewisham Park. If it had
been sunny, and not dull and drizzly, it might
have almost gglowed like pink candyfloss. It was
because of teh dull light that I had to use a few
photographic tricks to try and make it look a bit
brighter, a bit pinker.
Also in Lewisham Park - I noticed a fairy
ring, but it wasn't of fungi. To my eyes it seemed
to be a perfect circle, albeit with some thin
sections, of crocuses. A more conventional fairy
ring of fungi usually grows in expanding circles
around the rotting remains of an ancient tree
trunk. I can't think of any natural reason for
crocuses to grow like this, and can only assume it
was done as a sort of joke by one of the
gardeners. The placing on the grass seems
completely random, and the only non random thing
is that they have been sown in a circle.
There were other flowers I could see in
Lewisham Park, but I didn't fancy going to
investigate them because I needed to pass Angela's
office in less than 10 minutes, and the drizzle
was annoying me. I did stop just once more when I
passed Angela's favourite seat in the park. I sent
her a picture of it to sort of amuse her when I
sent a message to say I would be passing in 7 or 8
minutes time. My guestimate of the time turned out
to be about right, and I passed Angela's office at
about 12:55 - giving me 5 minutes to order our
drinks from the so they would be ready on the
table when Angela arrived.
After saying goodbye to Angela I entered
the park again (Ladywell Fields), and came across
a squirrel that seemed less skittish than most.
Provided I kept a reasonable distance it was happy
to study me as I studied it.
I have been trying to reduce my duck
photography because I feel I have been over doing
it in the past. However I couldn't resist another
snap of the Mandarin Duck that has made the river
it's home for the last few years. I posted this
picture elsewhere with the caption - "Specially
for all the xenophobes, a Mandarin duck that has
flown all the way from Wuhan* in China to say
hello".
* Note to future self; Wuhan is the area
where Corvid-19, aka Coronavirus originated. The
'flu like infection that at this time might or
might not become a world wide epidemic, and might,
or might not kill lots of people. At the moment
the deaths are headline news, but in actuality the
virus is probably less lethal than some strains of
'flu.
I got home to a very cold house. There had
been no heating on downstairs for 24 hours or
more, and none in my bedroom since before I had
gone for my walk (and none in the night prior to
4am when I thought it was getting a bit too
chilly). I was feeling a little warm after walking
for about a mile at a fair pace, and only put the
heating on low in my bedroom. I thought that, and,
once they were cooked, some hot sausages would
keep me feeling comfortable. I was very wrong !
It is worth mentioning two other things
before how ill I started to feel in the afternoon.
During my walk, prior to drinking just two pints
of Guinness, I was conscious of some aches. They
shared some similarities with how my angina pains
started, but diverged in one important respect -
those aches had started before I had even taken a
dozen steps, and never got any worse as I
continued to walk. In that respect they were
almost 'flu like - or like the symptoms of
coronavirus in it's milder form - which seems to
be more common than the deadly form.
The second anomaly was after I had been in
the pub for 15 minutes. The long walk had warmed
me up, and I could feel my arms, inside the well
insulated sleeves of my thick jacket, getting a
bit sticky as I walked. After 15 minutes, with my
coat off inside the pub, I thought I had cooled
down, but suddenly I realised I had started
sweating - mainly from my forehead. That seemed a
bit unusual.
Having got home again, and after a long
wait for the sausages to cook in my mini
oven/grill, I fancied a snooze. Initially I lay on
my bed with a magazine, but I barely read a whole
page before my eyes started drooping. At that
point I was aware that the bed felt very cold to
touch, and that I felt rather off colour. I did
drift off to sleep, and I slept for 30 to 60
minutes. I woke up feeling awful. I felt really
cold despite having the heater on at it's usual
low setting. When I went downstairs, to go to the
kitchen, it felt like walking into an icebox as I
went down the stairs. I knew it was cool down
there, but how I felt was all out of proportion.
I don't know why I never think to take my
temperature on these occasions, but it felt like I
was running a fever. I turned the heater up full,
and it wasn't until a bit later, after I ate a can
of meatballs in tomato gravy (with added hot
chilli sauce), and then a can of chilli con carne,
that I started to feel more comfortable. At least
I didn't feel so cold, but I still had an
assortment of aches. I did think that maybe I had
gone down with 'flu, or even coronavirus. I wasn't
worried about the latter in terms of it being
potentially lethal - until I dies of it, I will
continue to think of it being no worse than 'flu -
even if bad 'flu can be bloody awful !
During the course of the evening I had the
heater going full blast, and I had a few whiskies.
As bed time neared I turned the heater to low (I
had also put a heater on low in the living room to
keep the chill out). I felt warm enough by then,
but I still felt "ill" in a way that is hard to
adequately describe - an ache here, and an ache
there, and a sort of nondescript tiredness that is
not quite the same as feeling sleepy.
To my surprise I feel asleep quite easily,
and by 3 or 4am I was feeling warm enough to
partly discard my duvet. It was probably after
that when I had some dreams about a very different
Catford station, where some "vintage" slam door
trains were providing the train service. At one
point a steam loco passed on a through track with
no platform. It was both an entertaining, but
frustrating dream. The views were really worth
taking photos of, but for a whole host of reasons
I couldn't seem to get a good snap. Mostly it was
a case of not getting a good view - sometimes just
people getting in the way. There were a few times
when I couldn't seem to operate my camera. For one
intended picture I kept trying to use my camera
back to front !
This morning I feel much better, but I
still feel slightly odd. For some unknown reason
my neck seems to ache a bit. It is almost as if my
head is too heavy ! It was about 7.30am when I got
a message from Angela saying she needed to go
shopping at lunchtime. It was nice of her to let
me know so early so I could formulate alternative
plans. If it was a warm sunny day I could have
been tempted to consider going to the seaside for
a 3 or 4 mile stroll along the front.
Unfortunately it is cold and dull. It will
probably be raining soon, or if not soon, that
during the afternoon. (So far it has stayed dry,
but the latest forecast revision predicts drizzle
at midday, followed by proper rain at 1pm).
I'm not sure what I will do today now. I
may brave the rain, if it is not too heavy, to go
to the shops, but there is nothing I am desperate
for. What I will probably do is to get back to my
project to transfer an old gig recording, made in
1993, from Cassette tape to PC (and probably on to
CD). I have done the actual transfer to one big
digital file, and now I need to split that one big
file into individual songs (where possible), and
maybe touch up the equalisation of the audio - if
it needs it. I will be using my laptop, booted
into Windows XP to do that audio editing, and I'll
be doing that in the front room. So hang the
electricity bill - I had better get that room warm
and comfortable before I start !
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