Yesterday was a mixed day except for one
constant - it never got better than "mild". There
were some sunny intervals during the morning, and
even into the afternoon, but quite often they were
quite short sunny intervals. Light rain was
forecast for a couple of hours starting at midday,
and indeed there were a few spots of rain around
that time, but sometime after 3pm, and perhaps as
late as 4pm, just when the sunny intervals were
supposed to resume, it poured down. There were at
least two heavy downfalls, well good enough to
water the garden, and some lighter rain in
between. An hour or two before sunset the sky
cleared, and there was a nice red sunset. The
afternoon temperature was around the 15° C that
was forecast - maybe a degree more for a while,
but a degree less for more of the time.
This morning has started cold and
very sunny. Before mid morning the sunshine is
supposed to give way to just sunny intervals.
In fact the latest revision to the forecast
says the sunny intervals should start very
soon, but the sky still looks very blue for
now. Bearing in that that for the previous
couple of days the rain has fallen several
hours after it was forecast to start, and now
we are being told that the rain will now start
at 1pm. It will be interesting if it does
start that early. It seems it will be preceded
by an hour or two of it being heavily forecast
- which seems sort of obvious. The afternoon
temperature will probably only be 14° C, which
is a bit cooler than yesterday, but if the
rain is late, and the sun keeps shining for
longer than forecast, the temperature may rise
higher. Tomorrow may be warmer with 18° C
predicted. Like today, and the last few days,
rain is forecast for the afternoon, but if the
forecast has any credibility it may not start
until 3pm, and finish at 7pm. The day after,
next Monday, may be dry, but it is going to be
cold and gloomy.
After all my laziness, and over
eating, I had to get myself out for a walk
regardless of the weather, and almost
regardless of how I felt. Fortunately I was
feeling mostly OK, and quite keen for it
once I got started. To me delight (well I
think it was delight) the weather behaved
itself while I was out. I was expecting
rain, and indeed I did feel a few isolated
spots of rain, but by comparison the
sunshine was more prominent. That
makes it sound like there was a lot of
sunshine - there wasn't ! There was 5
minutes of strong sunshine soon after I
started back from the end point of my walk.
At other times there were a few bright
times, but it was very sunny for the last
half mile of my walk.
I did have a few ideas of where I
might have walked if the weather had been
forecast to be dry, but I didn't want to be
too far from home if I was going to get wet.
The obvious walk was through the Pool River
Linear Park as far as the bow string bridge.
I'm not sure that is the 3.1 miles shown on
the tracker, but the trackers trace does not
seem to show any abnormalities that might
lengthen the distance artificially, and I
have to conclude that yesterday was a 3 mile
walk !
In at least one respect it was a
pleasant walk because on such a grey day
there were few people about. I had the
riverbank to myself, and I wasn't constantly
dodging families with prams, joggers and
cyclists on the path. In fact it was more
like a typical day before lockdown, and
before people discovered fresh air and
exercise. Under that (mostly) grey sky I
could imagine that even Greenwich could have
been almost safe to visit.
On my way back I called in to the
Sainsbury's Local shop by Catford station. I
specifically wanted to get the latest New
Scientist magazine, but I ended up with
quite a heavy bag of shopping when I left.
When I entered the store there were a few
odd drops of rain falling, but I came out
again to brilliant sunshine, and the
sunshine followed me all the way home. It
wasn't a fast walk home. I had felt almost
light on my feet before I had to lug the
shopping home - and it was in one bag, and
so I was unbalanced. It really slowed me
down !
For some of my walk I was being
watched by Corvid 20. Corvid 19 was having a
rest after a large squawk left him feeling
knackered. These are very intelligent
animals, but this one hid his intelligence
but jst sitting and staring.
Using full zoom I was able to take
this snap of a robin on the opposite side of
the river. The robins red breast makes
them seem nice, but as a photographer the
thing I like about them best is that they
will often sit quite still for long enough
to frame a photo. They will also allow you
to get quite close sometimes, although there
was a river between us here.
They are very simple compared to the
lushness of proper roses, but I quite like
these dog rose flowers. Incidently, Jodie
reckons the plant in my back garden, which
shows many similarities to a dog rose, is
possibly a young elder tree. I'll have to
keep an eye on it and make sure it is well
pruned back if it really is a tree. I have
had more than my fair share of tree troubles
in my back garden. Some seem to grow with
undue haste into monsters !
Another picture where a lot more zoom
would have been useful. This moorhen (unless
I have mixed them up again and it is a coot)
seems to have captured what looks like a
sticky bun, but it could be a slice of
pizza. It seemed a strange things for the
bird to be eating.
I decided I would document a lot
of my walk by making a short
video. Unfortunately it turned out
to be a long video ! I have cut
out a lot of stuff, and speeded up
some sections, but it still lasts
for 9 minutes. It starts from when
I enter the park, and ends when I
have visited my favourite rocks,
and walked on the exposed river
bed. The walk along the narrow mud
path by the river is the favourite
part of my walk through this park.
It felt really
good to get home and put down my heavy
shopping. This time I made sure I didn't
buy anything outrageous....No, I lie. I
did. The heaviest part was two 2l
bottles of Pepsi Max. I also bought some
salad, some sausages, some cheapo ham, a
bottle of low calorie (but high sugar -
Grrrr) salad dressing, and the
contentious part was some reduced price
sandwiches. Yesterday was a day when I
intended to reduce my carbohydrate
consumption to a minimum, and eating two
packs of Tuna Crunch sandwiches for
lunch rather spoiled that intention.
Once I had sat down, and taken
the weight off my feet, and probably
strongly aided by the two packs of
sandwiches, I began to feel tired. In
one respect that was a good thing
because on the two previous lazy days, I
couldn't relax. Yesterday afternoon I
had a short snooze, and it happened
almost without intention. It didn't feel
like I had been asleep that long, but
when I woke up I noticed big puddles in
the road. The forecast rain had finally
come, and at that point it seemed it had
gone.
In fact there was another heavy
downpour half an hour later. Once again
I missed the start of it, but I was soon
awakened to it. I was in the bathroom
washing a t-shirt, and few other bits
and pieces, and rather more pairs of
underpants than I had realised I had
tossed into the washing bag. I was
happily (?) washing and rinsing when I
became aware of water hitting my face.
It was rain being blown through the 6
inch gap at the top of the open bathroom
window. It too, like the earlier fall of
rain, was a lot heavier than the
forecast seemed to suggest (and of
course happening several hours later
than forecast). The garden got a good
watering yesterday !
I had a two part dinner at 6pm.
Part 1 was a Sainsbury's salad that had
been in the fridge for a few days, and
was just about to deteriorate. I added
some watercress and spinach, plus some
pre-cooked flavoured chicken chunks. I
dressed it with some Sainsbury's French
style dressing. The label made a big
thing of it being healthy and low
calorie, but the second ingredient on
the list was sugar. That was hardly
healthy. It is lucky I was not
attempting to drink the stuff my the
pint !
Part 2 was the spare chicken
shish kebab that I had ordered when I
got the takeaway fish and chips the
previous night. I had already peeked at
it, and was a bit dubious about it. It
wasn't nasty in any way, but it didn't
seem to contain much grilled chicken,
and the salad was like something you
might get in a pub - a bit slap dash. I
am glad I had my customised Sainsbury's
salad first. The two together seemed to
be an adequate dinner, and I didn't eat
any snacks later (although I did pour
myself a couple of big whiskies later).
Last night was another night when
TV barely held my attention, and once
again I ended up in bed reading before
9pm. I did have a bit of difficulty
getting to sleep, but I was probably
asleep not long after 10pm. The
difficulty was that my bedroom was at
that silly temperature where it is too
warm with the duvet, and too cold
without. Later in the night, as my
bedroom continued to cool I was very
happy to wrap myself well in the duvet !
I can only recall a bit of one
dream from last night. It was a variant
on a common theme for some of my dreams.
I was back in a telephone exchange, but
this time I seemed to be a visitor
rather than working there. It was a
future (from my perspective) version of
Bromley Telephone exchange, and the "new
generation" switching equipment had been
replaced with even newer, and far
smaller equipment. It made the place
look big and airy. It was one of those
dreams which seemed to last a long time,
but very little happened.
This morning, apart from liking
the morning sunshine, but feeling quite
chilly, I otherwise seem to feel fairly
OK. My blood glucose has come down
to a far better level, 7.0mmol/l,
and that is less than I was expecting.
As usual, a figure starting with a 6, or
even a 5 would have been preferable. My
weight is still higher than it was a
couple of days ago, but seems to be
heading down again. A few good days, as
unlikely as that might be in this
autumnal weather, could see me hit a new
low.
I think I will be going for a
walk today. It will probably be a
duplicate of yesterday, but I did have a
new route in mind if I could raise
enough faith that I could do it while it
was dry. I was thinking of getting the
train to Hayes (Kent) station, and
taking a wander around Hayes Common, but
it seems unlikely I could complete it by
the time it starts to rain - assuming
the current forecast for a 2pm start is
sane. (Actually I note the start time
has been put back an hour, and if today
is like the last few days it could be
even later still).
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