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Friday 13th March 2020
09:32 GMT
 
  The forecast almost got the amount of sunshine right yesterday, although it did underestimate it in the early morning. Just for a change it got the temperature wrong. The forecast said the afternoon would be around 10° C. It was actually closer to 8 or 9° C. The difference was probably due to the wind. Strong winds were forecast for midday, but they seemed to start earlier, and it still seemed very windy long after they were supposed to stop. That made the low temperature feel even lower. Just after dark, when the temperature was supposed to be 8° C, the wind made it feel like it was about 4° C !
bright start, but probably mostly
                            overcast

  The forecast has been revised, but without any big changes since I took this screenshot earlier this morning. After a sunny start, with lots of blue sky, it has now got quite cloudy, and while the forecast still says sunny intervals for a lot of the day, I suspect the periods of it being dull and overcast will greatly exceed the length of sunny periods. The latest revision suggests that the clouds will start to clear at about 3pm, and after a pause of a couple of hours, the sunny periods will resume, and if the forecast is correct, the length of the sunny periods will get longer and longer until there will be non stop sunshine for the last  hour of the day. This afternoon should be 11° C, and with the wind looking to be very light, it may not feel too bad this afternoon. Tomorrow could be 13° C, but it will probably be an overcast day - heavily overcast in the morning, with a small chance of a shower, but the cloud should be lighter in the afternoon.

  The legacy of my couple of hours in the garden the day before lived on yesterday. A few muscles had some mild aches that were fading away even before the day started. The real legacy was lower back pain, and a sort of hip pain. The latter was (and still is) a bit strange because it seems to be an extension, or maybe the source of the lower back pain, but does not seem to be the hip joint itself. Walking caused no discomfort at all, and probably reduced the lower back pain. One time it really showed up was leaning over the bath when I was washing some clothes by hand. It was quite a long way up the discomfort scale, but fortunately not even hitting the lower hints of agony.

  The first test of my body was when I walked to the pharmacy to collect my repeat prescription - or most of it !  I expect that walk to be quite uncomfortable, but I don't think there was any discomfort at all. I did try to walk a little slower than usual because I didn't want to arrive there breathing deeply, or with a damp forehead. It would not look good in these Civid-19, coronavirus panic days.

  My prescription was made up, and once double checked by the pharmacist, was ready for me to take away. Unfortunately they had once again forgotten to order the one drug they don't routinely keep in stock - again. I will admit that I didn't remind them when I went there to order the repeat prescription, but it was the reason why I gave them an extra day to get my prescription ready after ordering. I will have to go back there on Monday to collect it, although it could be potentially there this afternoon (and they are also open on Saturday, and for limited hours, on Sunday too). The one thing the second pharmacist suggested was to say loudly and clearly, so that both pharmacists, and their assistants can hear it "don't forget to order the Jardiance 25mg tablets !!!" when I next order a repeat prescription.

  Apart from washing some clothes, I was mostly lazy until I went out to go for my Thursday drink. I had considered doing a bit more in the garden, but it felt cold outside, and I thought it best to wait a few more days to get over the aches and pains of the previous gardening session. One thing I did do in the last half an hour or so before going to get my train, was to reply to an email from my older sister. She had sent me an email with some family news.

  The most important news was that my older brother, who is approx 80 years old now, has been moved into a nursing home. I gather he is now quite frail, and needs to be hoisted into and out of bed. Not only that but he passes out when standing up. Of course I had quite a bit of health news to tell my sister. I hadn't told her about my mini heart attack last August, or my follow up visits to the Ambulatory care centre where they wanted to check the quality of my urine. There was also my two appointments with the diabetes nurse who set me a challenge on the first appointment that I passed with flying colours, and with some to spare on my second appointment. I wish I could get in the mindset to continue what I was doing then. Maybe I will now that spring is knocking at the door (although yesterday felt like winter was back).
Rainbow
  It felt very chilly while standing on the platform of Catford station (it is 30ft higher than road level, and rather exposed). It was mostly the effect of the strong wind. There was also some rain blowing about in that wind, but not enough to be a real worry with my train only a couple of minutes away. Someone, somewhere must have had a lot more rain. I saw this rain as I walked between the station and the pub yesterday. I am not 100% sure, but I think the white building that can just be seen above the houses, and where the rainbow seems to start from, is The Churchill theatre in Bromley.
new sign outside the pub toilets
  The panic over Covid-19, the coronavirus, continues ! I hear reports of empty supermarkets, and even of people coming to blows as they scrabble over the last packs of toilet paper ! Inside the pub, outside the toilet doors, was this hastily made sign reminding people to wash their hands. Of course many people do this anyway after using a pub toilet because you never know who has been in there before you. The only exception is loud mouthed builders. The type who crowd out the bar, and stop anyone else getting to the bar to order drinks. Of course many of the can't read or write, and so the sign is wasted on them.

  I had my usual three pints of medium strength beer yesterday. It was a bee brewed by the Bexley Brewery, and featured hops from New Zealand. In some ways it is almost a cross between a lager and an ale.  I think it was only about 4.2%, but it seemed to have a strong effect on me. I was very tempted to go into the fried chicken shop on the way home, but I resisted the idea because I didn't want to appear weak in front of my friend and neighbour Michael who had also gone for a drink with us. I was also looking forward to some beef koftas that I had waiting for me.

   There was a problem with those beef koftas, and it was not just that they did not live up to expectation - pleasant, but not actually nice. The bigger problem is that contrary to expectations, they needed to be cooked in the oven for a good 30 minutes rather than a few minutes in the microwave. I had felt really chilled by the time I got home, and my chest was complaining about the icy wind despite my coat being done up to my chin. I wanted something hot, and I wanted it NOW ! The solution was a can of "chunky vegetable and lamb" soup. Note it was the vegetables that were chunky, and not the lamb. The lamb was in there somewhere, but it was not easy to find.

  That soup went down well, but there was still 20 minutes to wait for those koftas, and so I heated up a can of "mild chicken curry". I added a generous amount of very hot chilli sauce to make sure it was mild, and not bland. Finally it was time to try those beef koftas. Maybe it was the long time waiting that built up the anticipation to fever pitch, but it all came crashing down when I tasted them. They were "OK" in it's blandest definition, but I could never love them.

  In fact they probably had a negative effect that made me feel more hungry. I satisfied that hunger with milk and cookies. The milk was full fat milk, and the last of the 4 pint carton I had bought to cook the smoked haddock in a few days ago. The cookies were sugar free chocolate digestives - probably more than I should have had, but I didn't want to leave just three biscuits in the pack. I suspect that I would have done better to give in and to have bought some fried chicken - even with "fries". The guilt of that would possibly have meant that I would have eaten less than I did last night.

  I don't think it was any one thing, and it may have even included the raw white cabbage I had eaten the night before, but I seemed to have a surplus of wind when I went to bed last night. Some came out the front, some out the back, and some was trapped for a while. I belched hard enough once or twice, and had some acid reflux. A couple of antacids took care of that. My farts were really vile - particularly those done under the duvet ! The trapped wind was not that uncomfortable, but was enough to distract me from sleeping - and I had to visit the cold toilet twice when it decided it was no longer trapped.

  The first half of my sleep was very disturbed, and it was much relieved when the second half felt like I had slept well - but obviously only with hindsight.  Maybe I might have suffered less if I had eaten chicken and chips instead of throwing all and sundry down my throat. Oh well, maybe next time. This morning I still feel a bit creaky and so I definitely won't be doing anything in the garden. I rather doubt I will be going anywhere further than a supermarket today. There is nothing I desperately need, and while I would be buying a few things, I am sort of curious to check out these stories of empty shelves that are going around.

  I think today I will be mostly lazy. I will do some snoozing and some reading, but I do need to do some light housework. I suspect there is a strong chance that I might treat myself to a takeaway tonight. I will have to resist what I would really like - a 12 course Indian, or 24 course Chinese - and stick to the healthy option of grilled meat and salad - aka a kebab !
very bad upload speed

  I have been meaning to show this screenshot almost all week. I became aware that I was having great difficulty uploading anything, and uploads are what these web pages are when viewed anywhere except on my home network. The screenshot was of a speed test when the problem was almost at it's worst. (At it's worst the upload speed was a big fat zero). I don't know what the problem was, but I was sure it was outside on Virgin Media's network. It could have been something equivalent to what ever a big data centre's equivalent is to an Ethernet patch cable with a poor connection on one of the channels. I didn't really expect it to work, but rebooting my Virgin modem (wifi router box with wifi turned off, and only one port being used) worked, It took a very long time to do all it's handshaking, and stuff it does to make a connection, but after that long wait the light on the front changed to the correct shade of purple, and I had my puny upload speed of 5Mbps back.
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