It seems the main feature of today's weather will be wind. It is the remnants of some storm that crossed the Atlantic. At the moment it is just a bit gusty, but maybe it might get stronger. One thing omitted from the forecast for this morning is rain. It says there is a less than 5% chance of rain, and yet something wet is hitting my window in very small quantities - possibly enough to fill a teaspoon over the last 20 minutes ! There is a 30% chance of rain for 3pm (and I would add plus or minus 3 hours !). It seems the sun may break through the clouds now and then, but it's looking to me like today could be described as "cloudy". The afternoon should see the temperature rise to 22° C, and that is acceptable. Tomorrow is probably going to be similar to today.

  There was hot sunshine as I set out on my walk yesterday. I didn't have set route, and I made up a lot of it as I went along. My only objective was to arrive in Lewisham Park just after 1pm in the hope of meeting Angela in there. On this occasion I sent her a text message just after midday to say I would be passing through the park, and would stop for a chat if she was there. I didn't see Angela, and nor did she even acknowledge my message. That left me feeling miserable in the evening.

  The good thing about my walk was that I came to realise how it wasn't really very far to Lee High Road (where it says A20 on the little map on the left). There is nothing of any real interest in Lee High Road, but it has always seemed to be a 2 bus ride away, and so it is somewhere I have rarely visited. In a way that is a shame because there is one old pub there (pictured later) that was a music venue, but it always seemed to be too awkward to get to it, but I now know that it is fairly easy to get to - just under 2 miles. Of course I wouldn't want to walk there carrying all my camera gear, and would definitely not want to walk back with it in the dark.
  I very nearly made it to the top of Mountsfield Park, but I took advantage of a gap in the trees to stop and take this picture. I was actually within a few feet of the top, and maybe 50ft from the usual place I take pictures of the distance. Well the usual gets boring, and so here is a picture featuring a much smaller mast than the TV masts I usually snap. Ignore the Cellular phone tower to the left. It is the very much more distant mast just to the left of centre of the picture which is of interest in that it is marker of distance. There used to be three smaller masts on that distant hill. They used to be part of the Metropolitan Police radio network up to the 1980s when the radio system changed, and the new mast erected.
  I featured this mosaic as a brief glance in a video the last time I passed it, but I thought I should take a still picture of it this time so it was easier to study.
  The last time I passed by the shutters were down. Yesterday it was closed, but I could take a peek through the window. I could see a rack of expensive looking beer cans and bottles, some tables and chairs, and a card saying not to forget to wear a mask. The tables and chairs are for drinking on the premises. It must be hard doing that while wearing a mask.
  At this time I had walked through Manor Park Gardens, and down to Lee High Road. It was there that I noticed this ex-pub. It is amazing just how distinctive they are. Even if the style doesn't give it away, the old pub sign, now repainted to say "plumbing supplies" is another strong clue. Finally the golden cockerel marks it as an ex Courage pub.
  This old building looks out of place on the road. I can recall seeing it in the past, and wondering what it was. I now know it is Boone's Chapel, and was attached to an area of Almshouses erected by the Merchant Taylors - one of the old Guilds of London. I didn't cross the road to inspect the brown painted device next to the chapel. It seems to be some sort of info display, but it also looks like it can dispense a book or pamphlet. I shall investigate some day.
  As I mentioned further up the page, this is one place I sort of regret never visiting. The Dirty South was once called The Rose Of Lee, and may have had an earlier name......Just checked, it was once called The Hogs Head - https://whatpub.com/pubs/SEL/10650/dirty-south-lewisham The significance of it is that it was once a music venue, and in the past has had some famous names perform in there. Had I known that it was possible to walk there - possibly less than 2 miles by the most direct route - I might have gone to the odd gig there. It was reported as closed down at one time, but the shiny barrels outside suggest that it has re-opened again.
  One aspect of yesterday's walk was to test an old pair of boots. I used to use these boots when doing my long coastal walks prior to 2013 when angina grounded me until my heart bypass operation in 2013. I had managed to wear out the insoles in those days. Last year, or sometime, I put in some hi-tech foam and gel insoles that I had bought from Aldi (maybe they weren't quite hi-tech !). They were too thick, and a trial walk using them turned out to be very uncomfortable. For yesterday I took out the gel and foam things and put in some simple insoles which were almost like cardboard, and they transformed back into comfortable boots. After the battering the soles of my feet took when I walked to Hilly Fields in trainers my walk yesterday was not perfectly comfortable, but it was more comfortable than I expected.

  It was a fairly sweaty walk in the hot sun yesterday, and I was happy to see that I had lost 600gm at the end of the walk. That soon went back on when I drank 2 cans of cold Guinness. I had the Guinness instead of, or maybe for lunch. It almost worked. I drank through the first can and a half while going through the photos I had taken. With that done I lay on my bed intending to read for a while, but ended up falling asleep. I am unsure how long I slept for, but it could have been a whole hour.

  When I woke up I was feeling very peckish. I didn't want to eat anything too big, and settled on some rice crackers with cheese and pickled sliced jalapeños. The went down nicely, and kept me going until dinner time. Dinner was supposed to be very light because I am concerned that my weight is creeping up again. I opted for having nothing more than a whole bag of sprouts, bacon and chestnuts - a frozen remnant of last Xmas. I cooked them in a bit of Oxo stock.

  With hindsight I probably should have used chicken stock. The sprouts tasted like sprouts, and the chestnuts had the right texture, but their taste seemed a bit attenuated. the bacon was allegedly smoked, but I don't think I could taste it against the strong taste of the sprouts. I think I have a dim memory of being able to save two bags of frozen sprouts with bacon and chestnuts because I was just as disappointed around Xmas time.

  I washed that dinner down with a couple of bottles of German beer (basically very nice tasting lager). I was probably only half way through the first bottle when I felt like I wanted more to eat. Once again I went for the rice crackers and the sliced jalapeños, but I thought I would omit the cheese. That was a bad mistake because without the cheese the jalapeños seemed really painfully hot. With cheese they were just a nice tang. I ended up having a chunk of cheese to cool my mouth down because beer did not help !

  A bit later and I still felt hungry....well I didn't really. It was just a reaction to feeling ignored by Angela. I guess here was a reason why she didn't respond to my text message, and it was probably Lover Boy looking over her shoulder. Anyway, knowing the reason for it didn't stop me wanting food, and I opened a little pack of sugar free chocolate cookies, and ate the lot. Despite being sugar free I don't think they did me any good when eaten on top of a couple of pints of beer.

  I stayed up a bit late reading last night, but when I turned out the light I seem to remember that sleep came easy. What I really remember is not remembering much about it at all - one moment I was awake, and then I wasn't. I did seem to sleep very well last night, and probably woke up less times than usual. The proof of that may have been the size of the wee I did at about 5am this morning. There seemed no urgency about it, but once I started it seemed to take ages to finish - must have been a gallon !!!

  This morning my blood glucose is up, but not too high, and the scales are not my friend this morning. I think my blood pressure, while still pretty low, is slowly starting to rise a bit. It was 3 or 4 days ago that I decided to stop taking one of my tablets because I was getting a bit worried about some of the very low readings I was getting in the evening. Some tablets affect the systolic pressure, and some the diastolic pressure. It is my diastolic that seems to be very slowly rising now. I'll see how it looks tonight and tomorrow morning, and maybe try omitting a different tablet.

  Today I feel I ought to, and want to (to a limited extent) go for another walk. I am intrigued to find out how far a couple of miles would take me to the west. I tried to mentally mirror yesterday's walk on the map, and it seems my furthest point would be on the outskirts of Peckham Rye Common. That seems an awful long way away, but evidently it isn't. There is a catch though - there are some bloody huge hills to the west, and getting up them could be very taxing. Maybe I'll just have a look at how bad it could be rather than attempting to get to the top.