Today is forecast to follow yesterdays pattern - sunny morning followed by sunny spells in the afternoon. The latest revision to the forecast shows the last hour of full sunshine to be 1pm (an hour later than the screenshot above). The temperature should reach a rather nice 23° C this afternoon. Tomorrow should see the same temperature range, but the current prediction is that the sunshine should last until about 6pm. That will be nice if that prediction turns into reality. The weather suddenly changes for the day after tomorrow. The current forecast says cold and dull. Let's hope that turns out to be wrong.
 
  One of the things I said I was going to do was to try my second new pair of boots with some medium thickness socks. This socks gave a loose feel, and thick socks didn't seem to leave enough room, but the socks pictured on the left seemed to be a reasonable compromise between thick and thin. They are designed for hiking, and have all sorts of weird bits of elastic in them that is supposed to do wonderous things. I am not convinced these weird features helped in any way, and maybe they even hindered a bit.  I only did a 2.65 mile walk yesterday, and so I can't really compare it with some of the longer walks I have done this week. At the end of it my feet were complaining a bit, but like the day before's 3.08 mile walk, they did seem to recover very quickly once I got home and took the weight off my feet. At some point I shall attempt a longer walk in these socks and the same boots, and see how I fare.

  Yesterday's walk was just a scenic route to, primarily the pharmacy, and secondly to check the queues at the Tesco Express store, and Aldi. Both had queues I didn't fancy waiting in, and I ended up going to The Catford Food Centre (the place I have incorrectly been calling The Catford Food Market). I bought some Diet Coke and a couple of bottles of beer in there. As usual there was no queue outside, and only a few people in the shop.
  I took few pictures on my walk yesterday, but this was one, and it needs an explanation because by itself it is not a great picture - or at least the subject looks boring. Near the bottom of the grass field that extends up to Ravensbourne Park Road is a sort of long ditch that is supposed to represent a driver river bed. The whole modern theme of the park is to present all sorts of wildlife (both animal and plant life) habitats. A dried out river bed is one such habitat, although during the long spells of heavy rain we had a month (?) or so ago, that dried up river bed was anything but dry ! These scruffy looking flowers are possibly a marsh plant, and although it is mostly dry now, it was certainly very marshy at this spot until recently.
  My first ever sight of an Egyptian goose (that I am aware of) was some weeks back, and it was a mile or more up the river. Yesterday I saw this one on the rocks by the weir that is by the bridge that links the park to the hospital.
  I suspected it would not take long before the local yoof broke back into the basketball court. I suspect the culprits were probably the black boys at the other end, but I guess it could be these girls at this end of the court. It is annoying to see such disregard of the law, but in reality there was probably no reason to put this area out of bounds. Statistics suggest that the age of those making use of these facilities are least affected by Covid-19. Deaths from it hardly register until you reach 44 years old, and even in the next age range (my age !) the death rate is still fairly low.

  I must say that I was surprised at how smooth my visit to the pharmacy was. The idiot who always seems to get things wrong (not a good idea for someone dealing with drugs) was nowhere to be seen, and the place was being run, very efficiently by the senior staff. I phoned my repeat prescription request through the day before yesterday. The phone was answered quickly, and my details checked just as quickly. I knew one drug needed to be ordered specially, and I reminded them of this, but was still told I could pick up my prescription yesterday afternoon.

  I was surprised that the pharmacy was empty when I got there, and the head pharmacist recognised me instantly as he walked past the counter towards the interior of the shop. As he passed he picked up my prescription, already made up, and in a carrier bag, without breaking his step, and handed it to the assistant to give to me. I was just about to leave when the head pharmacist called me to stay a bit while he checked his computer. He wanted to double check before reminding me that I would need a review with a doctor before my next series of repeat prescriptions were issued. The other pharmacist reminded him that the doctors were really doing any consultations at the moment. The head pharmacist said not to worry. He said to call him about a week before I was due to run out again, and he would send the request through to next door, the surgery. They would either approve it, or call me in for a review. There is also the possibility that things will be getting closer to normal in a couple of months time.

  Yesterday morning my blood glucose level was high enough to spoil a good run of low figures, although by itself it was not really of any great concern. I think I may have had a handful of peanuts early in the morning, but I had intended to otherwise fast until dinner time. Yesterday afternoon I felt "edgy", and I couldn't control my hunger until 6pm - even though that was less than 3 hours away after I got home. I had a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. I think that just made things worse. By 5pm I was thinking about nothing else but dinner.

  I ended up having my dinner about 20 minutes earlier than usual. It was not a very healthy dinner, and it wasn't very nice - which made things even worse. I heated the last 4 "weekend sausages" (smoked Polish pork and beef sausages), and I ate them with mushy peas. The big problem is that I had decided I didn't really like those smoked Polish sausages. The smoke taste wasn't quite right, and the skins seemed very tough. The texture and taste of the filling was not that great either.

  It was quite a big meal - even the plate felt heavy. This morning my blood glucose is the same as yesterday, and my weight might have dropped a little bit. Sometimes I don't understand nutrition ! Maybe I knew that my blood glucose would not really drop after that dinner, and that is why I refrained from drinking the beer I had bought while I was out. All these things, and maybe none of these things, meant that last night I seemed to sleep rather well.


  This morning I had a grand plan. I thought that if I could get out early enough I might be able to do some shopping in Tesco. I went out just after 8.30am, and found there was no queue to get into Tesco. There were quite a few people inside though, and they were the type whose idea of social distancing was more like 6 inches rather than the more usual 2 metres. It made me feel zero guilt in completely ignoring the stupid one way system around the store. I knew roughly what I wanted, and where it was. I took the most direct route, while avoiding people where it was possible, to each item I wanted. Having had one prior experience of the system I knew the start of the queue for the checkouts started by the beer aisle, and because I wanted beer, I was in the right place at the right time.