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Friday 13th
March 2020
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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 !
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).
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.
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 !
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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