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Monday 13th
April 2020
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Lockdown
day 21
07:54 BST
Yesterday wasn't quite as warm as the day
before, but only by about a single degree. The
afternoon high was 23 or maybe 24° C. In the
morning the air did feel "thick" and the idea of a
thunderstorm, as predicted in earlier versions of
the weather forecast, did seem possible. There
were also periods of time when there was a lot of
cloud to the north, but the south was much
clearer, and so the sunshine mostly continued.
There were predictions of rain falling in north
London, but I didn't see any confirmation that any
rain actually fell.
There was a 69%
chance of rain this morning, and yet the
forecast doesn't show rain, and while the sky
seemed quite threatening, no rain has fallen -
yet. It is still very dull and cloudy at the
moment, and it looks to me as if it could
rain. After the recent sunny days I wouldn't
be sorry if we had some rain. In fact the
garden would welcome it - the grass seed might
actually do something if given a suitable
drenching. Even the latest revision of the
forecast predicts the sun starting to break
through at about 11am, and full sunshine by
1pm. Unless it rains very soon it is going to
be another dry day. It is also going to be a
rather cool day compared to recent days. The
afternoon temperature may be no higher than
11° C - long trousers and light coat weather
again ! Tomorrow may be worse. Maybe the same
afternoon temperature, but quite a cold start,
and only occasional sunny spells.
I wasn't sure I would go out again
after my 4 mile walk the previous day. My
legs, and my feet didn't seem to have
recovered from the day before, and yet they
didn't seem that bad. I reasoned that
it would possibly be a good idea to give my
legs a bit of use to avoid them seizing up
completely.
My first thought was just to walk to
Ladywell and back, but then it seemed a good
idea to do a bit of shopping on the way home.
To that effect I walked past home and
continued down to Catford Bridge, and the
Turkish supermarket.
That supermarket rarely gets any
queues, although I did wait outside until
someone exited. It would have been quite a
quick in and out again if the person 2 people
ahead of me in the queue for the till hadn't
been apparently buying a weeks worth of
shopping.
Once again I took two phones with me on
the walk, and once again it was the old Cubot
Dinosaur phone that suffered a GPS glitch
while the Huawei P20 Lite gave a perfect,
glitch free trace. I would have liked to
believe the Cubot Dinosaur phone because 2.02
miles seems like a nice round number, but in
this instance I can only claim the 1.85 miles
on the Huawei phone.
It seems quite unusual to see a rat in
the park in daylight, and yet these two were
foraging at the water edge. I guess with less
than usual amounts of people in the park they
were feeling more confident - although there
were not that many less people yesterday. The
park was being well used by walkers, joggers,
and cyclists, but nobody was kicking or
hitting any balls. There did seem to be less
slow walking, meandering all over the path,
families about - which was a good thing.
I have to confess I was surprised this
picture of a rat (possibly a third, but
probably one of the two above) came out so
well. I had my glasses on, and what with the
glare from the sun, I was having a hard time
seeing anything in the camera viewfinder
(particularly with the camera horizontal to
take the picture looking down). All I saw was
some blurry movement in the viewfinder, and I
pressed the shutter button without even being
sure exactly what it was I was snapping !
My legs did not feel too bad when I got
home, but I don't think I would like to have
walked much further on them. Unfortunately my feet
were really sore - not generally, but in some
specific spots. I had decided to take another old
pair of walking/hiking boots fr a walk to see how
they felt, and they felt bad. This was actually
strange because they are the same make, although
slightly different design to the pair that seems
to be mostly very comfortable. Examining the tread
underneath the boot shows it to be very worn, and
so once upon a time they must have seemed far more
comfortable. I have now set them aside, and
ideally I should throw them away, and I would if
only I could work out why they are uncomfortable
now when once they weren't.
Once again I had a very lazy afternoon. I
did hand wash a t-shirt, a pair of lounge pants,
and some underwear, but nothing else involving any
physical effort. One thing I did do was to take a
bit more control over what I ate. By doing so I
started this morning with my blood glucose at a
saner level. My dinner was just diced beef cooked
with pak choi and spring onion, plus lots of
Chinese inspired spices. It smelled lovely when
cooking, but it's taste didn't live up to that
smell. It was still very tasty though, and
theoretically , and it seems practically, quite
low in anything that bad for me.
This is the can of Guinness I bought in the
supermarket. I bought it was I was curious as to
how "Guinness Original" differed from ordinary
canned Guinness. The answer came as soon as
I opened it. The can had no "widget" in it that
injects a very fine stream of microscopic bubbles
to give the traditional Guinness head. So it is
"original" in so much as this is how it was canned
before the invention of the widget. As soon as I
open the can, and started to pour it, it foamed up
like it had detergent in it. I got little more
than a shot glass measure of it in the pint glass
before the foam hit the top of the glass. With
patience I managed to get the whole canned poured.
Without the compressed Nitrogen from the widget I
am guessing that the foam is just Carbon Dioxide,
and that seems to make it taste slightly more
bitter. If the normal cans were not available I
could happily drink this, but otherwise I think
I'll stick to the normal cans.
 The other beer I bought yesterday
was in a bottle, and I thought it was Danish
Tuborg. The bottle label does allude to
Coperhagen, but it seems it is brewed in Turkey -
which seems odd because Turkey is quite Islamic,
and they do not approve of booze. I guess it is
just one of the all too familiar weirdness of the
brewing industry. I think I mentioned another
example recently - Gulder beer. The name has a
sort of Belgium feel to it, but it seems like to
have Dutch roots because it was brewed in South
Africa where there were many Dutch settlers. The
whole weirdness come full circle when you find it
was brewed under licence in Holland ! Anyhow,
Tuborg Gold seemed very pleasant to drink.
Last night's TV viewing was very
patchy. I started watching The Horror Channel at
about 6pm. They have been running a series of
classic SciFi films recently. I missed the
beginning, but I probably saw almost the last hour
of "20 Million Miles From Earth". It was a typical
American SciFi film - many scenes of people
running around in shear panic. Those chaps really
have no stiff upper lip. It is no wonder that
America loses all the wars they start. They have
no British phlegm !
The next offering was a film I have seen
before, although I think I have seen a low
resolution version of it before. It was actually a
British film, but I think it was the American cut
of it. Here in Britain I think it was very
strongly associated with Gerry Anderson of
Thunderbirds fame. It was a mix of live action and
"supermarionation" using many of the sets, or
equipment that would be used, or had been used,
for "UFO" and Moonbase Alpha. The trade mark
explosions were very "Thunderbirds" ! Having seen
it once before, I only watched a few bits of it.
I turned the TV off for at least half an
hour, and maybe a whole hour, before turning it on
again to watch more old episodes of "'Allo 'Allo".
Unfortunately the episodes being shown now are
towards the end of the series, and the plots are
getting a bit thin, or too weird, and the clichés
are a bit threadbare. Oh well, I obviously can't
complain too much because I think I watched all
three episodes that were shown last night.
Before attempting sleep last night I read a
bit more from the book I am currently reading. It
is one of Isaac Asimov's science fact books, and
is just as good, and maybe in some ways better
that some of his fiction. He does have a way with
words that makes it a very easy read. I have no
idea when I got to sleep, but generally I slept
well. I did have an annoying break in my sleep
where having got up for a pee it seemed to take
ages to get back to sleep, but this morning it
feels like I had some nice sleep.
I have already mentioned that my blood
glucose level is down to a more sensible level
this morning (although lower still would be
better). My temperature and blood pressure
continue to be boringly normal. The only negative
thing is that I have gained a bit of weight
compared to the really low weight when I was
dehydrated after my 4 miles walk. That
disappointment is tempered by the hope that the
average trend is still slightly, annoyingly very
slightly, still down. In other words, although my
weight has gone up, it hasn't gone all the way up
to what it was a few days ago - although the
difference is measure in just a few hundred
grammes.
I really don't know what I will be doing
today. I'm not sure if I will go for a walk today.
I probably ought to, just to keep in practice, and
I do have another old pair of hiking boots that I
should re-evaluate some time. Maybe I might just
do a quick walk in the park, or maybe I won't.
Maybe I will do some gardening - or maybe I won't.
I think I am probably waiting for some sort of
inspiration. Some good rain, or some strong
sunshine could affect the outcome of today, and I
don't think we will get either. Maybe some more
work in the back room could be good, but I'll see
how I feel.
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