Tuesday 7th July 2020

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Tuesday 7th July 2020

Lockdown day 106

09:24 BST

If it wasn't for the heavy cloud that appeared in the early afternoon, it might have been a nice day yesterday. Early morning was sunny, and later in the morning there were still sunny spells. Those sunny spells became shorter and shorter, but there were still some as late as 2pm when some really heavy, really dark clouds were gathering in the south. A later update to the weather forecast warned of rain, but it stayed dry here, and by early evening the clouds were thinning out enough to show patches of blue sky. There was even a fairly red tinged sunset. It seemed a bit warmer than the 17 or 18° C forecast for when I was out walking in the early afternoon. The forecast did say 20° C by early evening, but I suspect it reached that at least several hours earlier.

bright start, but another long
period of being overcast

The forecast in the screenshot above is wrong ! There has been bright sunshine all morning, and for most of it the sky was completely clear, but clouds are gathering. For now it is quite thin, streaky clouds. If that was the worst on offer it could still be a good day, but the most recent revision to the forecast seems pretty sure that from 11am the clouds will completely cover the sky. By 8pm the clouds may thicken enough to give some light rain for the night. It should be a reasonably warm afternoon at 20° C. Tomorrow could start, and finish with heavy rain. In between there will be light rain. How nice ! It will probably feel quite cool with just 18° C predicted to be the maximum temperature.

As I wrote yesterday, my visit to the pharmacy was a waste of time. My prescription had not been made up - maybe because they were waiting for delivery of one of my drugs, but that wouldn't have stopped them getting the rest together, and giving me a ticket to say they owed me the rest. They have done that in the past, and while not ideal, it has worked out OK. My second port of call, Aldi, was more successful, but not everything I bought was good.

very sweet
tasting American style sweets

As I mentioned yesterday, this weeks (or fortnight ?) theme in Aldi is American style foods. I bought some "American style" sugar free Cream Soda, and it was rather nice. It tasted a lot like R. Whites, non American style, Cream Soda from too many years ago to accurately remember. However, the sweets pictured above really were American style. Despite being sugar free, and actually made in Germany, they are sickly sweet - sort of nice-ish in very small quantities, but that is the best way to eat them because the artificial sweetener can often cause all sorts of interesting effects on the gut !

I have to report that the individual steak, and steak & kidney pie I bought yesterday were not good. The box described them as a new product, and it appears they were not selling well. So the last of them were offered at half price. If served with mashed potato, some nice gravy, and perhaps some peas, they may have been OK, but I had the two I bought for lunch yesterday, and I found them very disappointing.
2.6 mile walk

The highlight of my day was a semi-short walk. Much of the walk was in sunshine, but that was getting a bit infrequent by 1pm when I hoped I would see Angela in the park. I have no idea why she wasn't there. Maybe like on Friday she wanted to do some shopping. I did send her a text message after I got home. It asked if she had gone to The Fox And Firkin for a drink.

I didn't think she was that keen on going to a pub after hearing how it is currently so different to the pubs we knew and loved, but I thought that maybe she was curious about it, and maybe the Fox, which was always very quiet of a lunchtime, might not be too bad. She very quickly answered my message with a very brief "no". When I replied to say I was just wondering why I didn't see her in the park she never responded.

I was not inspired to take many pictures during my walk. I did take a few of some flowers in the therapeutic garden behind St Mary's church, but my little Canon just does not take good pictures of flowers. I think I could override the auto controls to make the depth of focus a lot less so that the background was blurred. That makes the foreground (the flowers) stand out instead of merging with the back ground.

Instead of pictures I shot a bit of video. As usual it is mostly pointless, but hopefully the commentary explains it all.

I managed to stretch out what could have been a much shorter walk to 2.6 miles, and that seemed to be about right. When I arrived home my feet were just starting to feel slightly sore. I could have done another mile before then became really sore (I think/hope), but not over doing it should mean they feel good for another walk today (true - as I'll explain soon). I was obviously disappointed not to have seen Angela, but otherwise I felt quite good for having done a bit of exercise. I am not sure if I really felt hungry enough to have the two individual pies I had pre-cooked earlier on, but I did anyway because I was curious about them. Maybe having them cool was one reason why I didn't think they were very good.

Despite the walk not really stressing me, I still felt tired in the afternoon. That was probably enhanced by eating those two pies. Maybe having an afternoon siesta is just now part of the way I live since retiring. The trouble with a sleep in the afternoon is that it seems to sap energy instead of recharge it. I had originally thought I might do something in the garden in the afternoon - even if it was just to water it. In the end I just could not be bothered to do anything out there. I did manage to do a little tidying in the back/dining room. Mostly I sort out a box that acted as my stationary cupboard. About half of it was crap, and I through it away. The other half may still never be used, but you never know.....

My dinner was a very simple plate of salad leaves, mayonnaise and grilled salmon. It was very nice, but not fully satisfying. I had a Pink Lady apple, a Coxes apple, and Conference pear for dessert. I think the day before I said that the Conference pears did not taste very good. They were sold as "ripen at home", but they seemed soft rather than quite hard - and I do like them to be crunchy. Last night, after a day to ripen more, it did taste about right, but I would still have preferred it crunchy like an apple.

I had a couple of large whiskies before bed, and once again I slept well until sometime in the early hours. It was either 2 or 3 am that I woke up from a dream, and then spent ages trying to remember what it was all about in some detail. I knew it was about writing this blog, diary, or whatever it is. I also knew it featured either a lot of pictures or videos. I can remember feeling frustrated because I had lost the chronology of my post, but what kept me awake was trying to remember just what the pictures and/or videos were all about. Sadly that memory has fully evaporated as fully as the whole dream would have had I not become intrigued about it in the small hours.

My sleep after that felt a bit lumpy, and once again I seemed to want to start getting up at 4am. I managed to get more fitful sleep until gone 6am when I slowly started to get up. There was a bit of good news this morning. My blood glucose level was quite satisfactory, but not as good as yesterday morning. It is possible that I have passed a hump in my weight, and I am now on a downward trend again, but only by a whisker.

I waned to get washed and dressed early today so I could reprise yesterday morning. I have been the the pharmacy, and the pharmacist himself had taken care of my drugs, and I was in and out in 5 minutes flat. Then, like yesterday, I went around the corner to Aldi. I just wanted one product, and it was a heavy one ! I had noted that Carling, a rather weak pissy lager, but useful in hot weather, was being sold for £12 for a box of 18x440ml cans. That works out to 67p per can, and that is cheaper than Coca Cola ! I have to confess that carrying two packs, 36 cans !!!, home was bloody hard work !

Before I took my boots off after getting home I did some work in the garden. The picture above shows the latest carnage caused by one of the local foxes. The plant pot had been knocked over once, and it might have been a cat, but I think not. The first time I set it right, and the flowers that were starting to shoot seemed like they would be OK. The night before last I saw the fox in my back garden, and the pot had been overturned again. Last night all the potting compost had been pawed out. It was as if the fox thought the soft compost was great to burrow in. He (or she) must have been pissed off when it reached the bottom, and could burrow no more.

I still have to clear the mess up, but I spent a bit of time putting plant support stick in strategic places in the stupid hope it might deter the fox digging new planted plants up. I will look for better solutions later. The other thing I did was to give the garden a good watering. The plants I transplanted from pots to directly into the soil are not looking too happy now. They seemed to perk up initially, but I guess I have not kept them watered enough until their roots can penetrate the soil. Most of the seeds I have sown in other pots seem to be doing well, although one or two show evidence of a paw mark !

The next thing I shall do today, possibly the only other thing I shall do all day, is to go for another walk. I think it will be similar to yesterday's, but today I will go past The Jolly Farmers to see if it is open. I may be a bit annoyed of I see Angela in there. I would hope that she might say she is going in there, but I guess there is no real precedent for it. I will wait patiently in the park in case she goes there, but I feel quite pessimistic about it.