This morning has started off
very wet. The rain probably varies between
light and medium heavy, but seems to have been
quite persistent since I first looked outside
(maybe around 6am). At the moment the sky is
very dark grey, and it looks as if the rain
could go on forever, but it may be like
yesterday and brighten up mid morning. The
latest revision to the forecast says the
chance of rain after 10am will be no higher
than 10% for the rest of the day. There could
be sunny periods around midday, and a full
sunshine for 4 and 6pm. It is only a chilly 9°
C now, and the afternoon high may be no more
than 14° C. Tomorrow may start bright and
sunny, but by early afternoon, and maybe a bit
before, we will lose any sunshine, and there
could be some hours of light rain. It will be
even colder - just a chilly 12° C maximum !
When writing yesterday morning I had
doubts about going out for a walk. I am not
sure when it was a change of heart, and
decided that not only would I go out for a
walk, but I would choose a route that was a
bit longer than my previous walk or two, and
would include a lot of hill climbing.
Without intending to do it I seem to
have realised that the more hills I tackle the
better I get at it. I seemed to tackle a few
hills yesterday that I could have avoided in
the past. The first hurdle was going up
Rosenthal Road from Rushey Green to
Mountsfield Park. I did that non stop (except
for the briefest of stops to blow my nose),
but I will admit I found it hard going.
I was probably still warming up at that
point because after entering the park, and
going back down 75% of the hill, it felt
easier than usual to go back up to the
top. Note: "easier" does not equate to
"easy". I still had to grit my teeth a
bit to do it non stop. Once at the very top I
did stop to take a few pictures, but I don't
think I actually needed to rest, and could
have carried on walking, but I could be
deluding myself. Anyway, you have to stop when
there are photo opportunities.
This picture looks under exposed, but
that is deliberate to preserve some detail in
the clouds. This is the view upon entering the
park from the top of Rosenthal Road (although
it is actually a few yards into George Lane at
this point). It illustrates what the sky
usually looked like during my walk. There was
a lot of blue, but a few clouds, like the one
just to the left of centre of the picture,
that would sometimes drift across the sun for
a minute or two.
I was walking around the park in
the opposite direction to usual, and somehow
that made me see it differently. Maybe the big
difference was the angle of the sun rather
than anything else. It is a lot lower in the
sky now as the seasons move on. This view was
the closest I could get that made me think of
the old Windows XP desktop wallpaper.
As I said further up the page, when you
get to the top of the hill you have to take a
picture of the view. This time I used a lot of
zoom to get a close up of the Crystal Palace
TV transmitter mast. I had to enhance this
picture by increasing the contrast, among
other things, because the original looks very
flat. It was like I had taken it on a dull
day. Maybe it was during one of the brief dull
periods, or maybe it was big streak of bright
cloud behind the mast that fooled the camera.
Although I admit that cloud does not look
bright at all in this picture.
Turning the camera to the right reveals
this view, and in this picture the sky does
look very cloudy in the distance. This is
almost the view in the opposite direction from
when I was up Hilly Fields. Just left of
centre of the picture is the school at the top
of Hilly Fields. It is The Shard, near London
Bridge station that is in the centre of the
picture. To the right is one of the three
tower blocks opposite Lewisham Hospital, and
the big building from the centre to the left
of the picture is the new Lewisham Hospital
building.
I took the opportunity to walk through
the new estate built on the grounds of the old
Hither Green Fever Hospital. If it wasn't for
the automatic barrier, and a bit of car
sticking out beyond the bushes, this view
could have been very "olde worlde". It is the
main entrance drive to the hospital grounds.
The funny thing is that my memory from days
when the hospital was still in use was that
the entrance road was ordinary tarmac.
A few of the old hospital buildings
still exist. This building, which originally
held the "Discharge Rooms" (as it says on the
red plaque at the top of the arch) is now used
for something, but I am not sure what. The
left hand side of the building was for waiting
rooms. That, or possibly another part of this
building is currently used as a pharmacy. I
think there are a few preserved bits of the
old hospital, and some day I shall explore a
bit more of the estate.
I knew this sign existed
underneath this railway bridge a short
distance from Hither Green station, and it
seems I waited quite a few years before
actually walking past it. It did so yesterday,
and took a snap of it. Unfortunately the sun
was in such a position as to be able to shine
over the left hand edge, and bleaching it out.
I will make a point of walking this way again
some time in the hope of getting a better
picture.
The last time I stood on the footbridge
looking down on the River Quaggy as it enters
Manor Park, it was a warm sunny day, and the
river was just a trickle. If it hadn't been
guarded by a load of kiddies and their mums I
would have gone down for a close look, and
even gone for a paddle (sort of - I would
still be wearing my waterproof boots).
Yesterday what was a mere babbling brook was
trying to be a raging torrent after the recent
rain.
Just to prove it is Manor Park.... This
is by the Longhurst Road entrance.
Who wouldn't want to live in such a
nice named road ?
This is a closed pub at the junction of
Ryecroft Road, and Courthill Road, SE13. I've
passed it once before maybe a couple of months
ago. It has a sign up saying for sale, but
nothing has changed except for the sound of
someone working inside. I would have to check
my old pictures, but I think that maybe it has
had a new lick of paint. At the moment there
is no external sign that anything else has
changed. It would be nice to think that it is
going to re-open as a pub, but that seems
unlikely in this day and age.
I was feeling quite good on this walk,
although that is not to say that feeling even
better would not be very desirable. I found my
legs sort of ached almost from the start, but
they didn't really seem to get worse apart
from when going up one of the steep hills.
Even that was a short lived ache. Even my feet
seemed almost happy, but I had taken care to
cushion all the common sore spots. I wasn't
aiming to walk more than 3 miles, but there
was an easy route to make the walk longer by
walking the entire length of the north end of
Ladywell Fields. That took the entire walk up
to 3.7 miles, and that was a fair bit of
exercise considering the hill climbing
involved. I would dare to say it took the same
effort as a 5 mile walk over level ground.
When I got home I didn't feel in a rush
to get my boots off and strip off my outdoor
clothes. The first thing I did was to go out
into the garden and do some "gardening". Now
admittedly it was just a 5 minute session, but
it should count by some rule or another. What
I actually did was to cut off a few vines
(branches, shoots, bunches, ???) of tomatoes
to bring indoors. I hope to ripen them by
putting them in whatever sun can shine through
my bedroom window. It was actually sunny as I
did this. Some do seem to be turning from
green to red, but whether they will all ripen
enough is something I will have to hope for.
(Just checked, a few more are starting to
ripen this morning).
With my few minutes of "gardening"
done, I stripped off and weighed myself. As
usual I had lost a fair amount of weight -
even if most of it was dehydration. It was
still not as low as the readings from a few
days ago. I seem to be going through another
annoying little (I hope it's little) peak
again. I didn't have too much time to worry
about it because I had to get the back room
cleaned up again for the "Thursday Club -
Catford branch". A couple of hours later and
Jodie and Michael would be round for some
beers and a gossip.
At 1.25pm, the heavens opened
for a while. It was probably all over in about
10 minutes, but for about that long the rain
fell like stair rods ! Then the sun came out
again. It was all over so quickly that by the
time I had put shoes and a shirt on, grabbed
my waterproof camera, and put a hooded
raincoat on, I missed the actual rainfall. The
top picture shows a few puddles that hadn't
been there before, plus a general sheen of
wetness across the road. The picture
underneath shows the next blue sky heading
towards me.
Fortunately both Jodie and Michael
missed any rain as they came here. We had a
very pleasant drinking session. Maybe an hour
before I had a tin of canned Ravioli to "line
my stomach" before embarking on my drinking
session. It didn't seem to work that well. I
drunk enough beers to erode any of the care I
should have taken with my dinner. Our drinking
session ended at about 6pm - a good time
because I didn't have my dinner too late.
After the beer I felt ravenous, and I
ended up eating what I hoped would be two
dinners. That was based on the idea that I
thought I had some rice to go with the lamb
dhansak that was to be my main, and only
course. I ended up eating the chicken tikka
too. I have to admit, maybe with hindsight, it
did feel a bit excessive, but I don't think I
can blame it on what was to come.
I went to bed feeling rather bloated.
It was a bit uncomfortable, but I managed to
get to sleep a bit later than intended. I
slept for maybe 3 hours before waking again
feeling more uncomfortable. It was then that I
realised it wasn't bloat from eating too much,
but trapped wind. That became much more
obvious when it started to escape the trap.
Sometimes it was more like trapped howling
gale than
just wind. At around 3am I
paid two visits to the toilet, and reduced the
pressure a lot, but by that time my sleep was
too disturbed. I think I was awake from before
2am until at least 5am.
I managed to sleep, sometimes a bit
fitfully, until about 7am. After getting up,
and having another wee, I weighed myself. I
was shocked by what I saw. I seemed to have
put on a lot of weight - more than should be
theoretically possible in just 12 hours !
Since then I have visited the toilet several
times, and my weight is still more than it
should be, but it is less shocking. I really
ought to be very careful about what I eat
today. on the other hand, my blood glucose
level is a very satisfactory. It is 7.7mmol/l,
a lot lower than yesterday's 9.5mmol/l, and
not far off my previous monthly average
(although I think this months average is
looking like it will be over 8 instead of
about 7.5.
With the sun almost breaking through I
think it is likely I will go for a walk today,
but it may be just a very short one. I would
like to take a look at the "Bridge Of Doom",
or maybe "The Bridge Of No Longer Doom" now
that the repairs should have been completed,
and the bridge re-opened. Of course there is a
chance that the rain may have delayed the work
- particularly if painting was involved. In
some ways a visit tomorrow may be safer. The
other thing I do intend to do is to have a
play with some of my old computer bits. I have
a couple of second hand mother boards, with
processors, that may be faster than my current
PC. Sooner or later my PC needs an upgrade,
and rather than buy something there is chance,
admittedly a small chance, that I might have
something here already. Anyway, it is a long
time since I had a play with computers, and I
could be loosing my skills.