Yesterday can only be described as very hot
! The temperature reached 34° C, and the sun was
shining down like a blast furnace, but only until
later afternoon. By 5pm it was getting quite
cloud, and by 6pm it was very dull outside.
Several revisions to the forecasts (both BBC and
Met Office) said that it might rain at 6pm or 9pm,
and that there would probably be a thunderstorm
some time in the evening or night. It actually
stayed dry, but the ingredients for a
thunderstorm, heat, thick dense cloud, and that
sort of tension in the air were all there.
This morning has started bright
and fairly fresh - except it isn't fresh
indoors ! It is predicted we will lose the
sunshine late this morning, and once again the
forecast is going to have another go at
predicting rain for 6pm (like it didn't happen
yesterday). There are no predictions for
thunderstorms today, but cynic in me says
there probably will be one. It is going to be
pleasantly warm even without afternoon
sunshine. 24° C is forecast. Of course the BBC
(Meteogroup) disagrees, and says there could
be sunny spells for a lot of today, and it
will stay dry. Tomorrows forecasts, from both
forecasters, are currently looking to be
similar to today.
One of the first things I did yesterday
morning was to water the garden. In
yesterday's heat it would have got baked dry,
and damaged many of my plants, but I gave it a
good wetting, and everything seemed to
survive.
Watering the garden also helped me to cool off
a bit after having a shower. I had turned down
the gas even more to stop the shower water
getting too hot, but it was still a bit too
warm for such a hot day. I felt cool and
relaxed by the time I was ready to go out.
(Cool and relaxed ?????). I must admit
it was another occasion when getting going was
the most important thing. I didn't have a
definite idea of a route when I set out,
although I had been pondering tackling Blythe
Hill somehow. I was halfway through the River
Pool Linear Park before I had a sort of final
route planned.
Some might say that going for a fairly long
walk in the midday sun was a bit mad, but I
mostly enjoyed it. Some of the enjoyment was
overcoming a challenge. I have to admit I was
feeling very thirsty at the end of this walk.
Had I been walking somewhere non-local I would
have taken a rucksack with some cold water in
it, but I travelled light.
The biggest stresses on this walk were
the amount of hills I had to climb. It is a
fair walk from the Linear Park up to Perry
Hill, but from then on it is gently downhill
until the long climb up to the top of Blythe
Hill Fields. I was helped a bit by Brockley
Rise being very gently uphill, and so by the
time I turned off of it, to walk up to Blythe
Hill Fields, the hill was not as bad as some
turnings earlier on. It was a great relief to
find I didn't have another climb to reach the
top of Blythe Hill Fields. I think I probably
only walked up another 10ft from where I
entered the park.
I thought my mirrored sunglasses would
be most appropriate for a walk in hot
sunshine. The certainly looked cool, but I
think that maybe my rose tinted glasses cause
less eye strain. I found that the view was
still very bright through those mirrored
lenses, but maybe in such fierce sunshine
there would still be a lot of glare with the
rose tinted glasses. I probably should have
taken both pairs and compared them.
After something like 2 miles I came
across the Honor Oak Pub. It is quite a way
from Honour Oak railway station, and that is
where I think of as Honor Oak. Late last year
I began to hear about live music being played
in this pub, and I was sort of waiting to hear
of a gig I would have liked to go to, but one
never came along until all the pubs were shut.
The last time I saw the pub, which was
possibly 10 years or more ago, it had a large
open forecourt, but I note it is now a beer
garden with well spaced tables suitable for a
pandemic.
I was dreading having to tackle a hill
like this. This turning off Brockley Rise was
one of several before the actual turning I
used. This picture just doesn't show how far,
and how steep this hill is before you reach
the top. To the naked eye it looks scary !
Another steep hill that I am glad I
didn't have to climb. It gives me chest pains
just looking at the picture ! This was the
view that greeted me to my left after walking
up a milder hill. The entrance of Blythe Hill
Fields is just beyond the right edge of the
picture.
Here's the sign at the entrance to
Blythe Hill Fields that I used. I was
expecting a lot more hill climbing at this
point, but the main path I would take only
rose another 10ft or so, although the very
highest point of the park was probably another
10ft higher than that.
The way I usually enter Blythe Hill
Fields, from the east, does not have such a
clear view across to London and the north
because of a scattering of trees, but from the
western entrance there is a very clear view to
the north (or maybe north, north east).
Time now for a silly video. It starts
with a visual joke, and then goes on to me
walking up the river bed. It was a bit of
exploration I have been wanting to do for some
time. Sometime in the future I may even go
further, but yesterday I found the source of
the sound of rushing/falling water. The rest
of the video is short progress reports.
As
usual, I hope this video is playable
in whatever browser you use to read
the rest of this web page. It is
just over 5 minutes long.
Once I got
home, feeling very hot, and very thirsty,
but only mildly footsore, I thought I
deserved beer and ice cream. The ice
cream, as is boldly displayed on the
outside of the carton, is fairly low in
calories compared to most common tubs of
ice cream. It was rather delicious, doubly
so on such a hot day.
If I hadn't started to feel so
dehydrated I could have walked even
further. It seems all the practice I have
been doing has made 4 miles walks almost
routine, and oddly enough even when so
many hills are involved. To my surprise,
even my feet didn't feel that sore at the
end, although I noted they, and my ankles
had swelled in the heat. As I mentioned
further up the page, if this wasn't a
local walk I would have taken chilled
water to stop myself getting so thirsty.
Sooner or later I might have to give in,
and wear a mask so I can travel further
afield, but maybe it won't be until
something like October when the trains
start to get less busy with people rushing
to the seaside.
I didn't do much after getting home
from my walk, and that included eating. I
was in a similar state to the other day. I
didn't really feel hungry in the heat, but
on the other hand I did have a strong
desire to eat. I wanted to eat just for
the sensation of eating, and savouring the
flavours - in other words I was bored and
wanted some sort of stimulation. I didn't
have lunch, and I didn't have a dinner,
but I did end up snacking a lot...although
it didn't feel like a lot at the time. I
base the quantity not on what I remember,
but on my blood glucose and weight this
morning.
I had a little difficulty getting
to sleep in the heat last night. My
bedroom was only two degrees cooler than
my blood heat according to my clinical
thermometer. Once I did get to sleep I
seemed to sleep OK, but my sleep was
punctuated with dreams. I can remember
some basic details on two dreams, but I am
sure I was dreaming far more than the two
snapshots I can just about recall.
The first dream concerned black
leather jackets. I was with two other
people who were wearing black leather
jackets. One had bought his recently, and
said he got it from someone the other
person knew. That other person said that
is where he bought his jacket, and that it
was very cheap compared to some places,
and more significantly it was tailor made
to fit him. I mentioned that I might be
interested because my black leather jacket
was too small for me, and it had been
years, and years since I had been able to
zip it up. I was asked by one of the two
if I was sure. He then grabbed the zip,
and zipped me up while remarking how much
weight I had lost, and I didn't realise
it.
That was sort of nice, but back in
real life I can't imagine ever being able
to zip up my leather jacket ever again,
but I suppose miracles could happen. The
second bit of dream was set at work in a
workshop that was a sort of amalgam of all
the places I have worked. I was repairing,
or at least trying, a Laserdisk recorder.
Such things never existed in real life,
but in the dream this one recorded onto 12
inch, LP sized, silver disks. They were
already very obsolete by the time I was
doing this, but the workshop had one
recordable disk left that still had some
space on it. The details are rather hazy
beyond the setting for the dream, but I
think I did eventually record some video
on the disk.
My bedroom was still very warm this
morning - quite warm enough to sleep with
no covers in bare skin. I woke for a pee
at 5am, but still felt tired. I was quite
amazed that I seemed to fall asleep again
almost instantly after having that pee. I
slept for another 90 minutes or so. It
felt like I could probably sleep some
more, but it was daylight outside, and I
decided to start getting up.
As I mentioned further up the page,
my weight and blood glucose were both
disappointing this morning. It appears
that my walk wasn't good enough to lose a
single gram of weight, and what I ate
meant I started the new month with my
blood glucose at a very annoying
8.4mmol/l. I could blame the beer for some
of that, but I think I only drunk about 3
x 330ml cans, and I have found 3 pints of
Guinness cause less change than that. In
fact Guinness sometimes seems to reduce my
blood glucose tiny bit !
I guess I feel basically OK this
morning. I do feel a bit tired (or just
lazy ?), but nothing really hurts - no
after effects of my 4.2 mile walk
yesterday. Basically this means I could do
anything today, but at this stage in the
morning I only have two plans. One is to
have a shower, and get dressed, and the
other is to water the garden. After that i
don't know what I will do. It could be
gardening, or it could be walking, or it
might just be reading a book....
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