Friday 10th April 2020

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Friday 10th April 2020

Lockdown day 18

09:20 BST

Finally, the weather lived up to expectations yesterday ! As the forecast predicted, most of the daylight hours were sunny, except for the last few which only featured sunny spells. The afternoon high was 20° C.

As usual the forecast has been revised since I took the screenshot above earlier this morning. It still shows that today should be a very sunny day, but the prediction for the afternoon temperature has now been reduced to 20° C. In other words today will be like yesterday, and as a means of predicting the weather that has been shown to be more accurate than all the super computers combined. So tomorrow should be the same as today, but the current ~~prediction~~ guess is that the afternoon temperature may rise to 25° C. Sunday should have featured rain - which would have been good for the garden - but now is predicted to be dry except for a light shower at 7pm.

I didn't feel on top of the world yesterday morning, but I didn't feel that bad either. Then there was the lure of possibly seeing Angela (although that included the heart ache of not being able to get close enough to her for a nice warm hug). It seemed enough for me to grit my teeth and go for a bit of exercise. It turned out to be harder than I thought. I don't know if it is lack of practice, and made worse by spending far too long just sitting down in front of my PC, but I found my right leg to be very sore.

I was in light pain for all the walk, and it hardly changed from beginning to end. I think it might have eased a bit at the end, but that maybe just me trying to convince myself that the cure is to get out for another walk as soon as possible. I find it hard to say exactly where the pain was coming from. It seemed to be mostly muscular pain from my upper leg muscles, but I fear it was hip joint, and knee joint pain. I have had both in the past, but regular high doses of fish oil seemed to cure it - or perhaps mask the underlying problem. Maybe the condition has got to the point where no extra lubrication from fish oil is going to work. I hope not.

Despite the discomfort I still managed to walk 2.33miles. I had a deliberate route in mind - up to Ladywell road, and then over to Lewisham Park. It was in Lewisham park that I hoped to see Angela, but she wasn't there at the predicted time. I did speak to her later, and she said that she had something to finish at work, and so left about 10 minutes later than usual. I probably missed her by less than 10 minutes.

I thought these were
lilies, but now I am not so sure

I walked as fast as I could through the park. It was predictably fairly busy in there, and I am sure that many were not really following the lockdown rules properly, but I really didn't care. My philosophy is to treat all strangers as filthy disease ridden people, and where possible to keep more than 2 metres from them. It wasn't until I went into the St Mary's Church Therapeutic Garden that I stopped and got my camera out. Their gardener obviously has far green fingers than mine, and the place was very colourful. I thought the flower above was a lily, but now I have doubts.

I suspect that coronavirus attacks the brain more than anything else. It would certainly explain many of the nutters around at the moment, and would explain why I can't seem to say with any confidence that these lovely flowers are tulips.

There are explanations of the symbolism of features of Victorian burials, and I probably should look them up, but I prefer my own ideas. For instance, I assume that this is supposed to represent an urn, but unless it has the corpses false teeth in it for use in the afterlife, then I can't thing what it is about. My personal theory is that the corpse was a squirrel lover, and that this is actually an acorn to attract squirrels to the grave.

Now in Lewisham Park, and these rose bushes have more the stature of young trees. I think these are a variant, perhaps more primitive than the highly cultivated modern rose bushes that are more common. Of course it is possible that they just look similar to roses, but are actually something else. I must admit I didn't notice any rose like scent from them, but while still suffering from hay fever, I didn't want to get my nose too close. The funny thing is, since the weather forecast has been saying the pollen count is now very high, my hay fever is almost gone.

I have always thought my hay fever was caused by tree pollen, but I guess it probably depends on the type of tree. The first trees to bloom have now gone on to start producing fruit, and whatever they were seemed to cause me a lot more trouble than these glorious pink blossomed trees in the park. I still needed to give my nose a very occasional blow while I was out, but on reflection it didn't seem unusual. The most significant thing was the itchiness up my nose, and a slight stinging in the eyes, has now gone. With luck it won't be back until mid autumn when some fungal spores seem to cause a lesser effect.

I took a strong carrier bag with me in case a passed a shop with no more than a small queue. As I approached the Tesco Express on the high street I thought my luck was in. I could not see a queue at all. I was looking forward to popping in, and getting a few bits and pieces. What I couldn't see, because there was a bus shelter in the way, was that there was a big queue, and for some mysterious reason they were lined up, at 2 metre intervals, alongside the road, instead of along the front of the store. I found that very strange.

That queue was too big for me, and so I continued until I got to the grandly named Catford Food Market. There was no queue outside, but I noted several people inside waiting to be served. I hung back until a couple had come out, and then went in. I picked up two bottles of beer, and two bottles of Diet Coke. I was in and out in little more than 10 minutes. One of the beers had a name I am sure I recognised from the days when I would accompany Jodie to weird and wonderful beer shops which stocked a range of imported beer.

One of the beers, and I am sure I have a beer glass with it's logo on it, was called Gulder. The name has a sort of Dutch of Belgium feel to it. Upon reading (as best I could) the tiny info on the label I think it actually came from South Africa, and the name is sort of Dutch from the Boers who settled there hundreds of years ago. The ironic thing is that my bottle of beer was brewed under licence in Holland - so it's name has sort of come home again.

It was nice to get home, and take the weight off my right leg. Despite that discomfort, and not seeing Angela, I felt good, as in sort of happy, after that walk in the sunshine. It turned out that "sort of happy" was enough to make me feel that I could do some stuff to keep busy, and not have any lunch. Just before lunch my blood glucose level was nice and low (although still at least 3 points off being low enough to cause a hypo - Hypoglycaemia - so low that it is like being drunk, and potentially a killer, although I suspect that is very rare).

I spent the rest of the afternoon "developing" the pictures I had taken. (Actually just a bit of selecting, straightening, cropping and shrinking of the picture shown here.) I also washed some more glasses, and gave them a dry and polish before cramming them into my drinks cabinet except for the bigger glass that have to sit on top of the cabinet. I also did some reading. As 6pm approached I started to prepare my dinner. It was the second part of my Indian takeaway. It was a chicken tikka main course, and a tandoori chicken starter (just a leg of chicken). Unlike a kebab, the salad comes in a separate container, and so I could heat up the meat, and add the cold salad after.

It was very nice. I did one thing in reverse. I also had a portion of Chana Chilli - chick peas cooked in a sauce with sliced green chillies. I could have had it as a started, but I had it as a sort of weird dessert. In theory it should have been a very healthy meal, bit I have a strong suspicion there was a lot of hidden sugar in it. It is the only way I can explain my blood glucose being very low (5.5) before I ate it, and really high (9.5) this morning. Oh well, it was an interesting experiment, but I guess I'll stick to shish kebabs in future.

I could have easily had an early night last night, but at 9pm there was a special 2 hour edition of Red Dwarf on, and I felt I had to watch it. It was curious in that while bits of it were crap, it felt closer to some much earlier episodes. Even the cast didn't seem to show their age as much as some of the more recently produced episodes. Sadly, while they showed their age less, there was no disguising the fact that the actors are 20 years older now than when the series first started. I guess some credit must go to those who persevered to continue the series - and who occasionally manage a really good episode in among far too much mediocre, and occasionally embarrassing grot.

Red Dwarf finished at 11pm, and I went straight to bed, but I didn't try to go to sleep straight away. I read for at least half an hour before I couldn't keep my eyes open. I could still feel some discomfort from my right leg while laying in bed, but as far as I can remember anything about the night, I probably had my best sleep for ages. I woke at first light, and after a pee, I got up the latest weather forecast on my PC before going back to bed. I think I then fell asleep after thinking I wouldn't, and slept for another hour.

Apart from my right leg, that still feel a bit stiff, but possibly less so than yesterday (or so I try and convince myself), I guess I feel mostly OK. My blood glucose is a bitter disappointment, but I just have to write that off as a lesson learned. It seems likely that if I manage a big bowel movement soon, I may find I have shaved off a few grammes from my weight. I think the warm sunny weather compels me to go out for another walk today. I am not sure how far I will go if my right leg complains too much, but even a mile would be good enough, although the walk I have in mind, through the Pool River Linear park, could be 3 miles long. I would like to do that if I can.

Footnote: I read an article yesterday that said the lockdown/social distancing/social isolation was announced on the evening of 23rd March, and so I have counted 24th March as day one. I am now including a tally of the days since then above the time near the top of the page. It was initially said to last a minimum of 3 weeks, and if today is day 18 then it could be over soon, but it may be extended for a further 3 weeks. Some have suggested that it may end on 27th April. Time will tell how long this annoyance actually lasts.