Yesterday can simply be described as hot
! The highest temperature I saw on my thermometer
was 33° C. That was a degree less than the
forecast, but maybe that was because the sunshine
failed after 4pm when clouds started to roll in.
It wasn't a complete coverage, and it stayed dry -
except for the humidity. With little sunshine
heating the front of the house my bedroom
temperature dropped from like a furnace down to a
mere oven. It was a hot, sweaty night !
Today may see a lot less sunshine
according to the Met Office (screenshot
above), although the BBC say it will be
another sunny day. Both estimate it will be
over 30° C again today. Today the BBC has the
edge over the Met Office. They predicted an
80% chance of rain at 7am, although for some
bizzare reason they didn't actually say it
would rain. 80% seems close to a certainty to
me, and indeed there was evidence of a light
shower maybe a bit earlier than 7am, but not a
lot earlier. At the moment about half the sky
is covered in clouds, but that still leaves a
lot of blue sky, and the sun is currently
shining through a gap in those clouds. I
suspect the BBC's forecast for a lot of
sunshine may turn out to be right.
The current prediction for tomorrow is
that there won't be full sunshine until about
11am, but then the sun is probably going to
blaze down until at least early evening, and
the temperature will rise to about 30° C. This
coming Monday and Tuesday will also be hot,
and possibly very humid to as thunderstorms
brew up. Both the Met Office and BBC predict
thunderstorms for both Monday and Tuesday. Oh
well, at least I won't have to water the
garden on those days....probably.
The first thing
I did yesterday was to water the garden. I
was a bit dismayed to find my garden
seemed to have been the toilet for several
cats and a fox. The cats had left about 5
unburied poos in the flower beds, and the
fox had a dump in the middle of the lawn
! I think it was maybe the night
before I was thinking that my lawn was
sufficiently lawn like, albeit deficient
in some ways, that I could take a ground
sheet out there, and lie in the sun. That
idea seemed a lot less attractive
yesterday morning !
After watering the garden I had a
shower, and slowly got myself ready to go
for a walk. I knew there was a certain
madness going out on the hottest day I can
remember, but it was that madness that
appealed to me. I like walking in the
sunshine, but maybe over 30° C is pushing
it a bit. I went out anyway, and
wondered just how far I could walk in the
heat. On this rare occasion I even took a
bottle of chilled water with me.
I had only walked just over a mile
before I was dripping with sweat, and I
noted that by then I would usually have
got in my stride maybe half a mile back.
It was then that I realised I wasn't going
to do a long walk, but I thought that I
would press on regardless. At 1.4 miles,
when I had reached the bow string bridge
in the River Pool Linear Park, I was
starting to feel a bit better.
I thought I had intended to turn
back at that point, and basically re-trace
my steps for a mere 2.8 mile walk, but I
had this crazy idea I could do better than
that. I had the stupid idea that I would
leave the park, and walk back via Perry
Hill, and that meant walking to the top,
and than down the other side.
This
video has clips of all the
significant stops on my walk.
While I was in the park I found
places to balance the camera so
I could talk at it hands free.
In the middle of the video I
explain how the last time, and
possibly the only other time, I
walked up the far side of Perry
Hill it was a mission of mercy.
What I didn't say was that it
was the first time I visited
Angela's house. She was off
sick, and sounding very
miserable. After work I took the
train to Lower Sydenham, and
then walked to her place via
Sainsbury's where I bought
flowers, and some food and drink
for her. It think it could
have been 10° cooler on that
day, but by the time I reached
the top of the hill I was
suffering. Yesterday it seemed a
fairly easy walk. It seems this
practice is paying off.
I noted that the last major reminder
that Bell Green had once had a huge gas
works had vanished. It was a gasometer
(or gas holder), and I believe there was
a local campaign to keep the last one as
a familiar landmark, but it has gone,
and the ground (probably)
decontaminated. I doubt it will
that long before another big retail shed
in built there.
This is what the last bit of the old
gasworks looks like now - cleared and
flattened.
I found it amusing that now most of
these safety signs are redundant. There
is nothing with a roof, and the deep,
water filled pit the gasometer sat in is
filled in, and there is nothing left
that objects could fall from. There are
probably other dangers that are not
easily visible from peeking through the
gates - such as tripping over weeds.
One of the nice things about walking is
that it allows you to stop and study
things. I had probably seen this war
memorial from the top of a bus as it
passed by, but I had never seen it
properly until yesterday. It was erected
by the board of the South Suburban Gas
Company to honour employees who joined
the armed forces, and lost their lives
in the first or second world wars.
The warm memorial stands outside the
Livesey Memorial Hall. The South
Suburban Gas Company was evidently a
very progressive company with an ethos
that probably doesn't exist in modern
business. This memorial hall was built
by the company as both a memorial and a
leisure hall for use by their employees.
It featured a small auditorium, a games
room, and a library. There was also a
games field out the back too. It is now
reduced to being a "function hall" to be
hired by all and sundry, and presumably
now owned and run by a completely
different business.
After 3.3 miles it was nice to
get home, and back in the cool....well
it was cool by comparison in my dining
room in the north part of my house.
During my walk I hadn't felt the need
to touch the chilled water I had taken
with me, but once I had weighed myself
I enjoyed a couple of cold cans of
beer. I can't remember what my weight
was, and I didn't record it. I guess
it was not as low as I hoped it would
be. I waited until I had drunk the two
440ml cans of beer before checking my
blood glucose, and once again I was
disappointed. I can only assume that
Carling Black Label contains a lot
more sugar than, say, Guinness.
During the afternoon I was in a
strange transposition of both wanting
to, and not wanting to eat. Eventually
I decided to wait until dinner time
before eating, and that I would order
a takeaway rather than prepare a meal
myself. My mind was further made up
when I received a typical spam-like
message from Just Eat. Their marketing
message said that The German Doner
chain were doing free delivery
yesterday. I had heard some favourable
comments about German Doner kebabs,
and I must admit I was intrigued by
the concept of kebabs made to German
standards (or some such bullshit).
As 5.30pm approached it was
time to get online and order my
takeaway. I selected German Doner
kebabs from Just Eat's website, and
tried to make an order. It would seem
that the German Doner Kebabs menu
options are more than Just Eat's
website can handle, and I managed to
crash their website twice before
selecting another restaurant. I was
then able to order some kebabs with no
problem. I ordered one for last night,
and one for tonight. After eating
(almost) nothing all day I also
ordered a burger as well.
My order was delivered about 10
to 15 earlier than predicted, and that
was nice. The food was good and bad.
There was something about the salad I
wasn't keen on. I think it may have
been sitting in the shop for long
enough to lose it's crispness. The
meat was good though. I think I
ordered the kebabs without pitta
bread, but they came with pitta bread
anyway, but it was wrapped separately
and I wasn't left with a bit of soggy
pitta bread to dispose of. The burger
seemed particularly nice. It's flavour
was enhanced by the option of having
chilli sauce on it. That shop, whose
name I can't even remember without
looking it up (it was on Lee High Road
I think) does seem to do a nice chilli
sauce.
I was both looking forward to,
and not looking forward to bedtime. I
was tired, and the prospect of sleep
was very appealing, but I knew it was
going to be a very hot sweaty sleep. I
did managed to get to sleep fairly
quickly with the fan blowing over my
naked body, but I woke up many times
in the night feeling hot and thirsty.
I think I got through over a pint of
dilute orange squash during the night.
I didn't feel good when I woke
up. I had been thrashing around a lot,
and as usual I had triggered a flare
up of my dodgy ribs and chest muscles,
or whatever. It was, I will admit, a
mild flare up, but I also had a
headache, and other bits seemed to
ache. The good news is that my weight
seemed to have dropped several hundred
grams. Some of it may be attributed to
being dehydrated after sweating a lot
during the night, but on the other
hand I had drunk a lot more than usual
during the night. I couldn't have been
too dehydrated because my blood
glucose was 8.0mmol/l this morning.
That is an improvement, but I want it
under 8, and maybe even under 7 if I
can manage it.
When I first woke up I was
definitely not going for a walk today.
Now I have been up for a few hours I
have changed opinion to "I don't think
I am going for a walk today". If
things improve I may end up going for
some sort of walk, but for the moment
I don't feel any particular urge to go
out. I would like to have a snooze or
two so I can catch up on some of the
poor sleep I got last night. I will
water the garden next, and then have a
shower. After that I will try and come
up with some sort of loose plan for
the day.
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