Today started very dull, and the latest revision to the forecast does not even include any sunny spells until about 5pm this afternoon. The earlier sunny spells in the early morning revision of the forecast, as above, have been replaced with "light cloud". Nevertheless, it should be a slightly warm day with a high of 16° C - not that different to yesterday. Tomorrow see the start of rising temperatures, and a return to much more sunshine. The temperature could reach 19° C tomorrow, and will rise further for the next few days.

I didn't think I felt up to a long walk yesterday, and yesterday morning I mentioned that I thought I might try for just 2 miles or less. Once I got walking I realised I did feel OK to walk much more than that, and I ended up walking right to the very end of the Pool River Linear Park.   At the far end I did a loop around the outside of the big Sainsbury's store there. I noted there was a gigantic queue outside on this occasion. I am so glad there are so many handy little shops I can use in Catford. I just could not stand being in a long, slow moving queue.   All bits of me, except my feet, stood up very well to this long walk. There was one other thing that didn't stand up to it, and that was my Motorola G phone that I had taken along to compare with my main phone.

  The app, "Simply Walking", on my main phone was recently updated, and started displaying odd little glitches on the GPS trace once again. The second phone had previously proved to be almost perfect, and was a good check on the main phone. Yesterday that second phone decided to freeze for a portion of the walk. It was almost like it had somehow gone into pause. It's estimate of just 3.06 miles was patently rubbish. The 3.844 miles recorded on my main phone does show a few little glitches if you zoom into the trace on the phone (the picture above is a screenshot, and can't be zoomed). Comparing this walk with previous times, it seems I probably walked closer to 3.6 miles, but that is still almost twice what I thought I would do.
  The first thing I saw on my walk was right at the beginning before I had walked even three paces. The picture above is one of my window boxes, and I concluded it was doing exactly what I hoped it might do - look sort of pretty. Although I put some rubble in the bottom of the box, it still has a bigger depth of potting compost, and the flowers are doing much better than the other window boxes. As these start to die back I think, or I hope, that there are other plants in there that will come to the fore.
  It felt hot in the direct sunshine, and a sort of humid heat beneath the trees by the riverside. It seemed to make some of the insects a bit drowsy, and two Damsel Flies (or possibly Common Hoppers) sat still for long enough to get fairly good snaps.
  This was the other Damsel Fly. The first one, on the cow parsley, was set against a "busy" background, but this one, on a plain leaf, presents a clearer image. If I had one of my DSLR cameras, with a proper viewfinder, rather than a screen that is difficult to see in bright light, I reckon I could have taken a couple of stunning snaps of these Damsel Flies.


  I had a stupid idea that I might walk all the way to Poundland at the end of my walk, but my feet were starting to feel uncomfortable, and I fancied buying some beer. Beer is not available from Poundland, but it is from PFC - which might stand for Polish Food Centre. Originally it was the Turkish bakery before turning into the Turkish Supermarket. They still sell Turkish and Cypriot food in there (from both the Turkish and Greek end of Cyprus), but now they have a lot of East European food, and beer in there. The latter includes stuff from Romania where they unfortunately call carp, the fish, crap !

  I saw the tin pictured on the left, and decided I just had to buy it for it's comedy value - a tin of crap ! As I say, it is what we know as carp, and it is canned with a piquant oil (probably olive oil with chilli). I am not sure if I have ever tasted carp before, and so there were two good reasons to buy it.




   I certainly found some nice strong beer in that shop. Both of these beers are from Belgium, and both are a very strong 8.5% !!!  It was tempting to open one or more of them when I got - particularly because one of my feet had gone from aching a bit to aching badly after I had semi rested it in the shop. That last quarter (or fifth) of a mile to home was really quite painful, and yet there was no great damaged revealed when I took my boots and socks off.

  Instead of guzzling very strong beer I did something worse. I had some lunch that included a packet of crisps - and it was a big packet ! After lunch I took the weight off my feet by laying down to read, and after a while, to have a snooze. I don't know how long I may have slept, or even if I did sleep. All I was aware of was that I was resting my eyes, but quite a bit of time seemed to pass. At 4pm I felt ready to go out again. 

  I still wanted to check Poundland for an adaptor for my hose that would fit on the big nozzle of my stupid mixer tap. I wore different shoes to go to Poundland, and they were, almost as expected, instantly very slightly uncomfortable, and also as expected, would remain very slightly uncomfortable all the way home again. Oddly enough, that very mild discomfort was in different places to to much stronger discomfort from wearing my hiking boots. I guess I just have weird feet !

  I ended up buying quite a bit in Poundland, but no tap adaptors. With hindsight I realised that while I had searched the gardening area, I hadn't searched the tool area, and so I'll have to go back there again - maybe even today, but probably not. The most significant thing I bought, at least by weight, was 4 bottles of Pepsi Max. They only sell the 1.25 litre bottles. That works out to less than £1 per litre compared to £1.05 per litre in the Sainsbury's local shop. I bought 4 bottles, and that should last a few days. When I am close to running out again I'll pay Poundland a second visit, and this time I'll check the tool area for tap/hose adaptors.


  The urgency to get a proper adaptor seems to have faded a lot since last night. An hour or two before it got dark I watered the garden. This time I gave the top jubilee clip, on my home made adaptor pictures on the left, an extra half turn, and it was 99.8% leak proof this time. I gave the lawn area a good soaking, and the flower and potato bed a good soaking too. I just hope that all the green shoots that started spring up after that bed got some rain a fortnight ago really are wanted seeds growing, and not just weeds. They do look suspiciously the same at the moment, and I sowed maybe half a dozen different seeds. At least the potato plants, growing from potatoes I must have missed when harvesting them last autumn, are very distinctive.

  I've spent a fair bit of money in food shops this week, albeit it a fair proportion of was beer, and I have a reasonable selection of food in the cupboard/fridge/freezer, but last night was one of those nights when I didn't really fancy anything I had the ingredients for, and I didn't fancy cooking. At a time when I should be being a bit more careful with my remaining money, I ordered a takeaway.

  I thought I would give Deliveroo a go last night. I had previously checked their website a few days earlier, and noted they listed more kebab emporiums than Just Eat. Just Eat have recently changed their website, and as usual when web sites are changed, it has become less easy, or convenient to us. It seemed the perfect time to see if I wanted to defect to the opposition.

   Having now signed up to Deliveroo (a really stupid name), and placed my first order, I am not sure I like it. As usual I ordered two shish kebabs - one for last night, and one for tonight. The came from The Ladywell Kebab shop, a shop that is not on Just Eat's listings. I ordered one plain chicken shish, which I will be eating tonight, and one special chicken shish kebab. The special was the only one I have investigated so far, and I have mixed feeling about it, and Deliveroo.

  Deliveroo's menu structure appears a bit weird. It seems you have order a pot of chilli sauce at the end, rather than asking for chilli sauce on the kebab (as seems to be the universal way of doing it elsewhere). A pot of any sauce costs an additional 49p. I am sure it is less, and maybe even free when ordering from other shops via Just Eat (just as it is when bought across the counter). Deliveroo also seem to add on a delivery charge at the last minute, rather than each shop specifying a delivery charge (which from some places is free). It seems that as a new customer I get free delivery for a 30 day promotion.

 The actual special chicken kebab was a bit weird. It was more like a very thick stew containing lots of meat, and it was served in a foil container with the pitta bread cut into squares at the bottom. It made leaving the pitta bread slightly tricky. I will admit that it was nice and tasty. The salad came in a separate container, and was not quite "traditional". It was mostly iceberg lettuce with onion instead of thinly sliced red cabbage, and thinly sliced lettuce of a different kind (or maybe it is not lettuce at all). It was all tasty, but I think I will choose somewhere else next time I use Deliveroo in the 30 days free delivery period. After that it might be back to Just Eat.

  After I had eaten I cracked open my first 8.5% beer. It started to slip down very easily ! It had been my expectation that I would drink all four cans last night, but after the first two I thought I would save the other two for tonight. I probably wasn't sober, or at least not fully sober when I went to bed last night, but I can't say I felt drunk. I even stayed up reading until around 11pm if I recall correctly. I slept well until 3am when I had one of those annoying intermissions when I can't seem to get back to sleep. It seemed to last for ages, and yet an occasional hour would pass without me really being aware of it. I have a theory that I may have dreamed I was awake for some of the time.

  I purposely had a bit of a lie in this morning, but eventually I needed a wee. I was going to go back to bed again after that, but suddenly I felt wide awake. I seem to feel fairly OK this morning. In fact considering the dull, cloudy day outside, I probably feel better than that. I was even thinking of going for another walk under the grey sky, but now I am not so sure. Maybe I might still do it, but I have been think I might do some stuff at home today. That decision is partly based on the need to stop putting off some jobs I need to do, and partly because despite several bits of naughtiness yesterday, my blood glucose is still only 6.6mmol/l this morning. I have very little in the larder that would pt a serious dent in that, although something could hit my weight a lot ! My weight would appear to have risen by one kilogramme in the last 36 hours - which isn't easy to do. I suspect I am due another digestive clear out soon. Either that or it's water retention - maybe it was the strong beer. Perhaps I should drink Guinness tonight. I know from past experience that Guinness is safe !