Thursday 30th April 2020

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Thursday 30th April 2020

Lockdown day 38

09:18 BST

Yesterday morning started out a bit brighter than the forecast suggested it might be, but by about 1pm reality caught up with the forecast, and it started to rain. The first rain was very light, and didn't last long, but later on there was some slightly heavier, and more persistent rain for a few hours. It was forecast to stop after 6pm, and I think it probably did, although I did note more rain after dark, and possibly before midday. The highest temperature felt higher than the 13° C forecast.

The latest revision to the weather forecast shows today being quite similar to

yesterday (how it actually was, rather than the forecast). Yesterday afternoon the forecast for this afternoon looked very different. The prediction was for thunderstorms ! Now the forecast just shows light rain from midday to 7pm. That will make any afternoon walking a soggy affair, but looking on the bright side, it will be good for the garden. Unfortunately it seems it is going to be a degree cooler than yesterday at just 12° C. The good news is that tomorrow might reach 15° C, and there could be sunny intervals all day, but like those early predictions of thunderstorms for today, the forecast for tomorrow will probably change a lot in the next 24 hours.

I finished yesterday by saying that I would be going for a walk, and that I might go for distance instead of speed, and that is exactly what I did. My average speed was just 2.5 mph, and on reflection it was not that slow considering that in some places the ground was quite muddy, and I had to be careful. There is also the fact that towards the end I was tiring, and that would have reduced my average. The significant thing is that I managed to walk 4 miles yesterday, and that fact was confirmed by both phone I had been carrying with me.

I thought that by walking all the way to Bell Green, and doing a loop at the end, would be enough take my total up to 4 miles, but as I approached home I had to take an imaginative route to reach the full 4 miles (and a little bit more).

One thing I was glad about was that I hadn't attempted to go out in shorts. It wasn't really the weather for shorts, and I was expecting the narrow path alongside the river to be getting narrower, and the nettles to be growing even higher after my last walk there. At this point along the path the way was blocked by nettles that would have stung my bare legs if I had worn shorts, and I was not extremely careful where I put my feet !

Not unexpectedly, the river was much deeper after all the rain. Last week, some of the riverbed was exposed and dry, and I had been able to walk out to the rock in the middle of this picture. There was no chance of that yesterday !

I still can't make up my mind if this is a duck standing upright, or a goose. I think it is a goose, and these are her goslings. I've never seen anything like this on the river before. It was a shame that a small family had taken prime position to watch them, and I had to use a bit of zoom to take this picture a bit further up the river bank.

I often saw wagtails near the river where I used to work, and I always found it hard to get a good pictures of them because they skitter about so much. Perhaps a little more patience, and a better camera allowed me to take this shot. I assume it is a wagtail, but it looks rather drab, and possibly a tiny bit bigger than those I saw around the River Wandle in Earlsfield.

I finally satiated my curiosity about these arches yesterday. They go under the railway line a short way before the railway crosses the main road, and yet there is no awareness of them when on the train. Yesterday I went through the blue arch as part of my exploration (and to extend the distance of my walk). The other arch carries the river. I have to confess it wasn't terribly exciting, but it was another little tint bit of my internal map updated. The path comes out on a side road that leads down to the main road a hundred yards, or less away.

If you can play this short video, and I know some web browsers can't, you'll find the scene is not terribly exciting. The point of it is the sounds. There is some background noise, but it is the birdsong that is the main thing. One other thing of note is that down by the river, in the shelter of the trees, it felt surprisingly warm and humid. Despite what the outside temperature may have been, I started to feel quite sticky in my rain coat when down by the river.

It was a bit of challenge to keep going to achieve the full 4 miles (and a bit) at the end of my walk. I guess I feel a bit proud that I was able to grit my teeth and keep dodging away from home until I saw the magic 4 miles come up on my tracking app. I have to admit that came to my great relief, and yet I didn't feel completely exhausted when I got home. Like the last long walk I did I was able to go through the pictures (and video) I shot, and do the needed editing. Before I lay down on my bed I had some lunch. It was one of the Tesco Greek Salads that I had bought the previous morning. I will admit I did add some cheap and almost nasty chicken slices to bulk it out a bit more. Then I laid on my bed to do some quiet reading, and have a snooze, although I don't think I actually did have a snooze in the end.

I'm not sure which of many thought processes won out in the end, but after considering what I had to eat for dinner, and what I should eat for dinner, I concluded that a chicken shish kebab would be better for me, and to that end I ordered a takeway - one kebab for yesterday, and one for today. It was a luxury I shouldn't really be wasting my money on, but it was nice, and it had the desired effect on my blood glucose level, but maybe not my weight.

I think it got to 9pm last night, and there was nothing on TV to amuse me. I didn't feel very sleepy, and so I thought I would give Sue a ring and see how life was treating her. The one thing I was very firm about was not letting the conversation go on into the small hours of the morning, and I made sure we finished the call by midnight - almost exactly midnight, as it happens. It was still a very long call, and it could easily have gone on longer, but it served it's purpose as we both talked about the inequalities, and the stuff we miss during this lockdown. Sue is very pessimistic about the pubs opening again this year. I hope she is very wrong...although the thing I was most looking forward to, resuming my lunchtime drinks with Angela may not happen now.

I had a fair sleep last night, although I did have the annoyance of waking at 3am, and finding it hard to get to sleep again. I think it felt longer than it actually was before I fell asleep again. This morning I think I sort of feel refreshed, but I am not really that sure about it. The really great thing is that my long walk, plus being careful about what I ate, means my blood glucose is very low (by comparison, but not in absolute terms) this morning. It has been some time since I last saw it measuring 6.0mmol/l. The big disappointment is that I don't seem to have lost any weight (although at this time I have yet to go to the toilet).

Today is another in a long series of mystery days. In theory I would like to go for another long walk - probably not a very long walk, but enough to maintain what it is that I am doing by doing all this walking. The fly in the ointment is the potential for rain early this afternoon. I am not sure I want to go out when it is raining, but I would be OK if was going to rain, but hadn't actually started. The latest revision to the forecast says that the rain is due at 1pm, and so maybe I can get out before that. If I went out at what seems my most usual time of midday I should be able to walk to Ladywell and back before any rain. Maybe that is what I end up doing because I could do that in just shirtsleeves - so much nicer than having a clammy raincoat flapping around me. Tomorrow I will report back what really happened !