One thing today's forecast omitted was the 10 to 15 minutes of sunshine at about 8.30am.  Right now, as per the forecast, the sky is only lightly clouded, and small cracks in the cloud are visible. It is possible that a bit more sunshone could leak through one of those cracks. In fact the latest revision to the forecast acknowledges this. It now says there could be sunny spells all through the morning, and a few hours into the afternoon, but with one exception - there will be no sunshine seen at 11am ! Any sunny spells may finish by 3pm, and by 6pm the light cloud will turn to thick, dark grey cloud. Of course soon after that it will be dark anyway, and then the weather can do what it likes...sort of. The afternoon temperature could reach 13° C, and in the sunshine that may not feel too bad. Tomorrow may be even warmer - maybe 14° C, but at the expense of any sunshine. Only light cloud is currently forecast for tomorrow.
 

   The weather said no, and my creaking bones agreed, but I knew I had to get out exercising yesterday. I was beginning to feel a bit ill, and my weight was hanging in the balance while sitting around all day doing nothing (or nothing much). The only positive thing is that by the time I was ready it was 12° C out, and heading towards 13° C. That is not exactly warm, particularly with no sunshine, but it seemed like it should be comfortable enough without a coat provided I kept moving.

  That did seem to be the case, although it was a close thing. I certainly put in enough effort to get a bit of sweat on my forehead, but at the same time I must have been losing body heat. When I got home again after my 4 mile walk, my body temperature seemed to be down to just 33.8° C. That is rather low ! It did make my house feel very warm when I first walked in. Maybe less than an hour later, with my body temperature back to normal I needed to put some heat on.

  I think I put my low body temperature into the "interesting" category. I shall make a point of checking it after further walks to see how it changes. The one thing I usually do before anything except stripping off my outdoor clothes, is to weigh myself. Yesterday was far from a hot sweaty day, but my weight did drop over half a kilogram after the walk, and while still not as low as after some very sweaty walks, on hot sunny days, it was down to a satisfactory level.

  I can't say I enjoyed my walk that much, but it had it's moments, and it was interesting to see the effect of autumn getting stronger and stronger. One thing I did notice was very interesting, and is seen in the picture above. This is an inlet I have never noticed before. It is 20 or 30ft upstream from the bridge I dubbed "The Bridge Of Doom" before the rotten decking was replaced. This inlet, and it must be an inlet because I could see water flowing into it, must be the source, or at least one of the sources of the little stream that almost runs parallel to the main river, and comes out 20 to 30 feet downstream of the "Bridge Of Doom". I can't think why the river needs this small bypass, although I think an even smaller stream runs into the small stream. Maybe this inlet provides enough flow to keep the little stream clear so the even smaller stream doesn't just back up, and cause a swamp if the channel to the main river is blocked. Who knows ...
  One of those pictures that would show more if it were in 3D. This is the little muddy path along the river bank. The significance of this picture is that it is supposed to show how the overhanging vegetation is all dying back under the grip of Autumn. In the height of summer the path was almost impassible. Now it is a pleasant stroll, although under a dull grey sky it was very gloomy.
  This is by the entrance to the Sainsbury's Sydenham, aka Bell Green, main store, once known as the Sainsbury's Saver Centre. I took a picture this time because the middle poster, that says "Please wear a face covering" is the reason I don't shop in there, or indeed any shop or supermarket, and don't go on buses and trains. I find the idea of wearing a mask to be deeply unpleasant.
  You probably wouldn't think that a supermarket car park, Sainsbury's in this case, would be the best place for bird watching, but among the pigeons, crows, and magpies, there were a lot of starlings. I can't think why they all find the carpark such an attractive place. I guess there is an occasional accident when someone drops some shopping, maybe spreading a few crumbs, but generally the place looks freshly swept.

  My walk felt like hard work, and my legs were aching almost before I had started heading back home. For some mad reason I wanted to push myself to complete 4 miles, and that is why I looped around to head home via the Sainsbury's car park. I then gritted my teeth and left the park again to go up the hill to Perry Hill (coming out almost opposite Angela's house). The strange thing is that going up that hill from the park to Perry Hill was hard and easy at the same time. That sounds like a contradiction, but I'll try and explain. My legs were feeling stiff and sore, and yet I went up the hill almost easily. In the past I would stop for a few seconds to get my breath back, and do that maybe twice, but yesterday I went up that hill almost non stop. I will admit I stopped near the bottom of the hill to blow my nose, but that is all.

  Having reached the top of Perry Hill it was almost downhill all the way home, and yet even going downhill seemed like hard work. I have never know my legs to be so stiff and creaky. I guess it was a combination of not using them for almost a fortnight, and the cold damp weather. I hope if I go out again today, and I think it would be a good idea if I did, my legs would be in better working order.

  Of all the symptoms of Covid that are well known, there seems to be an unknown symptom that I shall now reveal. It is a susceptibility to "auto suggestion". During my walk, my top half felt mostly OK except for a tendency for my nose to run. This condition pre-dates Covid by a factor of 50 or more years. My nose can even get blocked on a warm sunny day when out walking. It is one reason why I have never wanted to try and wear a mask. My runny nose can be triggered by cold weather, warm weather, and definitely by a change of climate - such as walking into a supermarket.

  That runny nose, and the need to blow it every 10, 15, 20, ?? minutes, was my only upper body problem until I walked past the school near where I live. It has posters up from the parents to remind them not to even approach the school if they have covid symptoms - one of which is a prolonged dry cough. As soon as my eye caught the words "dry cough" I started coughing, and didn't stop until I passed the schools some 40 ft further on. My cough then stopped as quickly as it started !

  When I finally got home I felt very tired - a sort of weary fatigue. As I said further up the page, I found my temperature was unusually low, and that I had last a useful bit of weight - albeit only temporary. I really didn't feel like doing much at all, and I didn't. It was almost 3pm when I got home, and gone 3pm by the time I some soup for lunch. I then lay on my bed reading, but expecting to sleep. I didn't seem to feel comfortable enough to snooze properly, but maybe I did doze off for 10 or so minutes.

  By 5pm I started to go through the photos I had taken. I wasn't too impressed with many of them. I had been using my Fuji HS35 EXR camera. It is a "bridge camera" - looks like a DSLR but has a fixed zoom lens. I was inspired to use it after looking at some pictures I had taken with it 4 years ago.  They seemed really crisp and nice, but they were taken on a sunny summers day. I paid good money for that camera, possibly as much as £50 in a second hand shop, and thought I ought to get some more value out of it by using it yesterday. It didn't like the dull grey light yesterday !

  By 5.30pm I was still feeling tired, and didn't fancy cooking. It didn't seem unreasonable that I should reward myself for forcing myself out on a 4 mile walk, and for some reason I had in mind that I might like a Chinese takeaway.  That was a bad idea that I did anyway. The food seemed unusually expensive, and I had quite a big bill after making a varied selection of stuff. Even after spending so much it will be difficult getting three meals out of it.

  There was worse though. I was not impressed with the quality of the food I did eat. I ate just two items. The first was salt and pepper spare ribs. This dish was both good and bad. The meat was lovely and tender, and oddly not stringy so it didn't get caught in my teeth like spare rib meat usually does. My only complaint is that while the meat was tasty there was not a hint of any peppery taste. It looked like there was finely chopped chilli with the meat, but I could not taste any spice at all.

  Maybe this is another Covid thing. The most popular version is a complete loss of taste, and I had that back in March, but I have heard some report a loss of just the taste for sweetness. I think I had a touch of that in April or May, but it was very subtle and short lived. Now it could be loss of taste for hot stuff. The second thing I ate last night was a couple of spring rolls. They are usually quite peppery (just white pepper if I recall correctly), but last night they tasted very bland. It would not have been so bad if they had not been dripping with oil. I know that used to be very common, but most places try and reduce fat content these days. Overall I didn't enjoy my takeaway at the level expected.


  I washed down my dinner with some strong Polish beer. I ended up having two can as a sort of nightcap. With the one on the left, the Okocim, being 6.5%, and the one on the right, Karpackie, being 9%, I expected to feel quite good by bed time, but while nice to drink, I am not sure they had much effect on me. (I blame Covid - it is a convenient scapegoat for anything these days).

  Maybe one reason why I was not asleep as early as expected was because it was only 7.30pm. It felt so much later. I ended up reading in bed until I had finished the book I had only started the previous day (or maybe the day before that, but I think it was on Friday). Even then I still couldn't seem to get to sleep. I did have one other interruption that delayed my best effort to sleep. It was some acid reflux from those oily spring rolls. I had to stop to take a couple of antacid tablets.

  I was probably asleep before 11pm, and I think I slept fairly well. I suspect I would have slept better if I had turned the heating off, and been able to sleep under the duvet instead of fighting with it. It wasn't very cold last night - just ordinary cold !

  This morning my legs are just as stiff and aching as they were yesterday morning. I don't think that is a good omen for a walk today, but if I can I will push myself to go for some sort of a walk. Maybe it would be better of I accepted even just a couple of miles as being good enough. Apart from my legs, everything else seem fairly OK, My blood glucose is still reasonable, but it was up to 7.8mmol/l this morning. My weight has returned to exactly what it was yesterday morning. That is the reason I feel I should do my best to try and exercise a bit today.

  At the moment the sky looks very misty, and there have been none of the promised sunny spells. The latest revision to the forecast shows no more sunny spells for the rest of the day. These are not good conditions for an enjoyable. Like yesterday, I may have to resign myself to a not enjoyable walk if I do get out. At the moment, with the back of my right thigh feeling stiff and sore, making it very uncomfortable to sit here typing, I have strong doubts I will get out, but like yesterday, maybe a good hot shower will revive some enthusiasm. If not, I still have loads of "multimedia" stuff I could be getting on with.