Thursday 21st May 2020

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Thursday 21st May 2020

Lockdown day 59

09:24 BST

Yesterday was gloriously hot. Non stop sunshine raised the temperature to around 27° C.

This morning started with the sky a little hazy, but that has cleared now, and we can look forward to another hot and sunny day like yesterday. Yesterday's forecast for today featured several hours of potential thunderstorms. This morning that had reduced to just one thunderstorm at 10am. The latest revision says no thunderstorms at all for today. As far as I can guess, the clouds that might have given us the thunderstorms ended up passing to the north of us, and apparently Essex is priming itself for some potential downpours. The maximum temperature for today has been revised upwards to 26 or 27° C, but it looks like tomorrow may be a fair bit cooler. Not much sun is forecast, and the afternoon high might be 22° C or less.

Before leaving the subject of the weather, I have to say I am disappointed about losing the thunderstorms. I was hoping a good downpour would kill any queues outside Aldi, and for the first time in 59 days I could get some shopping there. Once again I think I will stick to smaller shops in the area that don't have queues outside, nor silly one way systems inside the store. I need to get a bit of shopping, and maybe I might see what the queue is like outside Tesco before probably moving on to a quieter shop.
more hills climbed

I was not really sure if I should go for a long walk yesterday after the battering my heels took the day before, but it seemed awful to waste such a hot and sunny day. I devised a plan that might work, and in a way it did. The first part of the plan was to wear what I thought would be comfortable trainers. That was based upon the idea that they were identical in style and make to a pair that seemed to be very comfortable for walks of 1.5 to 2 miles. They were branded Lee Cooper, and I wore them out. I replaced them with an old pair of 95% worn out hiking boots that, with the correct socks, were even more comfortable.

The trainers I wore yesterday were a white pair of Lee Cooper trainers that I had been keeping back for summer. Like the blue pair I had completely worn out, and had to throw away, they were comfortable for the first 2 miles or so. That is all I thought I would walk, but as I walked my ambitions kept expanding. As can be seen in the map on the left, I walked rather more than 2 miles.

The 5.097 miles is not to be believed because there is one small glitch, and one big glitch in the GPS trace, but it was still quite likely to have been 4.5 miles, and maybe a little more. It was certainly the longest walk I have down in quite some time. To make it even more impressive, it involved a lot of hills ! Although it doesn't seem quite as high, the walk to the top of Blythe Hill Fields seems more arduous than walking to the top of Mountsfield Park.

The second hill was theoretically even easier to climb, and indeed it was when I compared it to last time - all this practice certainly helps. It was the walk up to to the top of Perry Hill. That is where Angela lives, and in the past I used to find it a bit of a struggle to walk up that hill. Yesterday, after going up and down Blythe Hill, it seemed less of a struggle. I would still classify it as had work though. On the other hand, if I was walking up there after a fresh start, maybe even from the bus stop at the bottom of the hill, I could easily arrive at Angela's house without appearing on the edge of death !

Another badly put together video with loads of wind noise blocking what I was saying - particularly on the top of Blythe Hill Fields. This is the "story" of my walk up to Blythe Hill Fields. I stopped several time along the way, but only for the duration of each video clip - just 17 to 20 seconds except for the last clip - and that seemed quite sufficient time to get my breath back. I was particularly interested in using my Pulse Oximeter to check my blood oxygen saturation and pulse rate along the way. My oxygen saturation varied between 97 and 99%, and that seemed pretty good considering the effort I was putting into the walk. My pulse rate didn't seem to go as high as it did the day before - which is both an enigma, and probably a good sign. Once again, sorry about the wind noise, and the unclear speech. I must try better one day.

I had to dodge around this fallen tree half way up Perry Hill. I had passed it, and turned around to to this snap because the light looked better from this direction. The obvious thought is that the tree had been hit by a vehicle, but while I didn't do a close examination, I didn't see any obvious scar. It almost looked like it had just fallen over when the ground dried out - possible, but it still seems unlikely.

My walk took me to the entrance to the River Pool Linear Park by the kids playground. I thought I had to get a picture of this official sign board. The reason being is that some sources say it is The Pool River, and some say it is The River Pool. I'm sure it can't be so, but I have this feeling that at the other end of the park it is called The Pool River Linear Park. I am sure that I am getting very confused by this, and it may be my own fault by trying to impose an old, and now superseded name of the river onto the name of the park.

I thought I had better check, just to make sure it wasn't the heat addling my brain, and Google maps says it is the Pool River, and Open Street Maps agrees. I have a feeling we may be in the middle of one of those changes of name that slowly happens over the course of many years. It is the way language develops. I am not going to do it now, but I wonder what Lewisham Council's web site says about the river and/or the park. It may be that I would find both names being used - Pool River, and River Pool.

To get back to the narrative about my walk, when I took this picture my feet, mostly my heels, were getting quite painful. From here to home is about 1.3 miles, and I had no choice by to carry on walking towards home (although I would go into Sainbury's along the way before I got home).

As I neared the Catford exit from the park I came across my worst nightmare. On one side of the path were a family, with pram, who were taking up a fair bit of the 2 metre wide path (just a guess), and on the other side were a couple of cyclists chatting to the family. I will give the cyclists their due - they did have some awareness of others, and did move a couple of inches back before they came up to the stinging nettles. Thanks to these people my social distancing broke down to less than one single metre. If I now die of Covid-19 you know the reason why !

I had prepared to go into Sainsbury's before I started walking by stuffing a Sainsbury's carrier bag in my back pocket. I mainly wanted some salad and some drink, but I gave in and bought something else too. It was a very hot day, and even if the actual distance was a bit less than my phone said, I had walked a long way. I gave in and bought a very expensive (£3.50 ?) tub of Halo Top ice cream (a brand that claims it uses less sugar, and has lass calories than most). I then tried to get it home as fast as possible before it melted. Fortunately it came out of a very cold freezer because I just could not manage a fast walk on my painful heels.

It was a joy to get home, and strip down to my underpants. Before I did anything else I got on the scales, and while I knew it was mostly the result of dehydration, I was very pleased with what I saw. After that I tucked into that ice cream. Being less sweet, and not very gloopy, it did bring every possible pleasure, but it was still damn good after that long, hot walk. I decided I would have rest before tackling the videos and pictures I had taken. This time I didn't fantasise about trying to walk anywhere else like I had done the previous day.

The afternoon seemed to pass quite quickly considering I didn't really do much. I don't think I even had a snooze....or did I ? I think I tried, but nothing happened...I think. Before long dinner time was approaching, and I was feeling ravenous - so ravenous that I had an early starter. As I said I would do, I put the chicken wings that I had ordered the night before, into the microwave, and zapped them for 3 minutes. I am pretty sure that improved the taste and texture of them.

My main course was the spare chicken shish kebab I ordered, that didn't come with the salad I feel sure I ordered. I didn't have many ingredients, but I made my own very simple salad to go with that grilled chicken. On this occasion, because of the lack of salad, it was easy to heat up the chicken in the microwave. In one respect that chicken was a bit underdone - but only in as much as it wasn't seared on the outside. It was as if had been cooked on a cool grill for long enough to cook it through, but it lacked the taste of mild charring. The only good thing about the shop I ordered these kebabs from was the chilli sauce. It was hot and tangy - a nice change from the insipid sauce that has come with kebabs from other places.

I couldn't seem to find the patience to watch much Star Trek, or other stuff on TV last night, and before the second episode of Star Trek was over I decided it was time to water the garden. I also wanted to use the hose to wash off a very dust encrusted shelf that I had taken down in the back room. I washed the surface dust off, but resorted to some spray on cleaner, and a cloth to get rid of the nicotine to bring the surface up what again. With that done I went to bed.

I read in bed for perhaps an hour - maybe a bit more, or a bit less - before trying to get to sleep. I felt tired, but not sleepy, and it took some time before suddenly I was asleep. I didn't sleep well in the middle of the night. It may have been around 1am when I got back into bed after having a pee, and crunched my ribs when I got back into beds. That was a bit worrying because the pain did not feel quite right. I took a couple of ibuprofen to calm any inflammation down, plus a couple of antacids because the pain did have a hint of heartburn about it. I was just settling down from that when I felt like I needed to go for a poo. That was unusual for what must have been 2am, or later, but it was all boringly normal with no dramatics. Finally I was able to get back to sleep, but I am no sure it was good sleep.

I managed to have a lie in this morning, but only after I got up to do the usual routine. Although it was no lower than the previosu morning, I was very happy with my blood glucose. I expected the ice cream to push it up a lot. I was also very happy with my weight. I expected that to shoot up again after re-hydrating myself, but it was still low. I am now tantalisingly close to a possible new low figure. To be truthful it is where I was back in January, and by now it should have been far lower if various things had not interfered with my diet. Motivation was once easy, but circumstances change, and now I feel very little motivation, and the best I seem to be able to do is to go through the motions, and hope for the best.

As I said at the top of the page, I was hoping for thunderstorms this morning to clear the queues outside the supermarkets. That is evidently not going to happen now, and today is going to be like yesterday - although possibly slightly more humid. I now have to try and decide what to do today. I am considering jumping on a train for the first time since lockdown, and going for a walk around Beckenham Place Park. It features both grassland and woods, and should be good, but I have never learned a path through it that I seem to enjoy. Maybe I'll seek one out today, or maybe I'll do something completely different - something I haven't even imagined yet !