It wasn't always raining yesterday, but it
was raining most of the time. Most of the
rain was quite light, and some was very light, but
there were one or two heavy downpours. Needless to
say, there was no sunshine at all, but it did seem
quite mild. The forecast predicted 8° C for a few
hours in the afternoon, but I reckon it was 9 to
10° C until late evening.
The latest
revision to the forecast says the last of
the heavy rain will finish by 11am today,
and from then until 8pm there may only be
light rain. Interestingly enough, the
temperature may be down to just 2° C by
8pm, and although the forecast doesn't
mention it, it would seem to be cold
enough for that last rain to fall as sleet
or even snow. At the moment it is around
5° C, but the temperature is already
slowly falling towards that low of 2° C.
The temperature may stay at a stable 2° C
until 8am tomorrow when it will drop to 1°
C for a couple of hours. Tomorrow should
be dry, and there could be sunny spells in
the afternoon, but with a maximum
temperature of just 4° C it is going to be
a rather cold day.
Yesterday started off rather
boring, and I did little except quietly
reading (and possibly having a short
snooze). I think it was gone midday
when I made a point of doing something,
and initially that was to have a well
overdue shower. I allowed a bit of time to
cool off after all that hot water before
getting dressed to go out. I didn't intend
to go far - just to the mini supermarket
on Catford Bridge. According to the till
receipt I paid for my shopping at 3.30pm.
Until I checked the receipt just now, I
don't think I realised it was that late.
Before I
went into the mini supermarket I
took the first of some video I
wanted to take to send to
Patricia in Argentina. She has
been following the news about
the latest tier 4 lockdown, and
had imagined Catford of looking
like a ghost town. I must admit
I haven't been to the high
street for some time, the place
Patricia would really like to
see, and maybe it is very quiet
there. On a wet and soggy day
there were few pedestrians
about, but just look at the
traffic on the South Circular.
It looks like rush hour !
I doubt I
was away from home for more than
20 minutes, and maybe less, but
I got home to see loads of blue
flashing lights. I couldn't see
the ambulance until I had almost
reached the end of the road
opposite, but once I did the
reason became clear. 2 doors
away there was a very old woman.
She seemed very old when I first
moved here over 30 years ago.
For the last couple of years she
had visits from an ambulance
every 3 or 4 months - possibly
getting more frequent in the
last 6 months. I don't know for
sure, but I am guessing she has
now finally popped her clogs.
Quite why it needed two police
cars to investigate a sudden
death, and why they needed to
stand watch outside for the rest
of the afternoon is a bit of a
mystery. Once upon a time just
one 6ft 8in tall constable would
prop his bike against the wall,
and wait to let the coroner, or
forensic examiner in when they
arrived, but now it takes 4 5ft
10in officers, in stab vests, to
slouch around outside for hours
(when they could be back at the
station eating doughnuts).
I didn't buy all that much
from the mini supermarket yesterday. I
bought some nice juicy oranges, some pots
of bean type salads, a couple of bottles
of Diet Coke, 4 cans of Polish beer, and
finally a ???? I don't know what it is
called. It is a ring of bread about the
size of a single record (7 inches), and
the dough was rolled in sesame seeds
before baking. I think it is a traditional
Turkish bread. The nice thing was that the
lady on the till felt it and declared that
it felt a bit stale, and then selected a
fresher one. They do seem to treat me very
nicely in there. Maybe a smile, and please
and thank you go a long way in there when
many of her customers seem rough and
grumpy. Some nationalities are always
complaining, and some always seem to be
very dour. I'll leave you to affix your
own racial stereotypes to these
descriptions.
For the remainder of the afternoon
I slowly ate that sesame seeded bread ring
- mostly with some pate I had in the
fridge. It was very enjoyable - probably
enjoyable enough to offset the negative
health effects of it. I would pay a sort
of penance for it by having a very
stripped down dinner. Part one was just
well grilled pork sausages, and part two
was a selection of fruit. I had 3 little
Tangerines - they are not very sweet, and
probably not too bad for me. I had an
apple, and they are pretty neutral. The
final bit of fruit was a single nectarine.
They are fairly sweet when properly ripe,
but they tend to be artificially ripened
at this time of the year. I am unsure if
that is good or bad for me, but it does
make then a little less enjoyable because
the flesh seems very soft on the outside,
and harder on the inside. That makes
preparing them for eating rather messy.
The temperature was at a very
awkward level yesterday evening. I should
have turned the heater off before going to
bed, but I thought it would cool down more
than it did. It meant I was too hot when I
went to bed, and it seemed impossible to
get comfy. I was either too hot under the
duvet, and it felt too cold if I kicked
too much of the duvet off. When I finally
fell asleep it seems I was fully covered
because I woke up a couple of hours later
feeling like I had been cooked.
It was quite worrying in one
respect. I was sweating like I had a
fever, and I had a dry cough. Both were
explainable without bringing covid into
it, but it makes you think. The sweat was
because I was literally too hot under that
duvet. The dry cough was because of a dry
throat. In fact my mouth was so dry my
teeth were sticking to my lips ! I must
have been snoring like a buzz saw ! A few
gulps of drink moistened my mouth, and
after a pee I went back to bed.
I should have been able to get back
to sleep easily enough provided I select
the correct number of limbs to leave
outside the duvet, but I got caught up in
a sort of positive feedback. Although I
had moistened my mouth and throat, I still
had to cough a few times. They were not
dry coughs, but very mildly wet. so far so
good, but I started listening to my
breathing. Was it sounding a bit laboured
? Was it sounding a bit hoarse ? The
trouble is, and many, if not most knowm as
soon as you concentrate on your breathing
it is hard to ignore it. I must have been
laying away varying my breathing to try
and diagnose nothing in reality, for well
over an hour before I fell into a troubled
sleep.
I think the first couple of times I
fell asleep again it was only for about
half an hour at a time. After that it gets
a bit vague. I know I was dreaming a lot
until after getting back to sleep for the
last time. I seemed to have dreamless
sleep for a good 90 minutes, and woke up a
lot later than I had originally intended
when I went to bed last night. I did have
a crazy idea of getting up and dressed
before sunrise, and then going for a walk
in the rain to see if I could spot Angela
walking to work - which I am sure she
wouldn't be doing in the rain !
I can remember quite a lot of bits
of dream, and I could recount some
sequences, but I suspect they would mean
very little when written out of context.
What I can say is that upon waking up I
had a bit of an eureka moment. I realised
that in my dream there was no lockdown, no
social distancing, and the pubs were open
quite normally. It was a return to a
normality we all hope to return to one
day. If it were possible I would return to
my dream world until the pandemic was
over.
This morning, despite the sweet
fruit, and the bread, my blood glucose
level has dropped a bit. I guess I am
happy with that only from the point of
view that I was almost expecting the
opposite, but I know it is still too high.
The trouble is, a grey miserable day is
not the sort of day to make depriving
yourself of all that is nice in the world
an easy thing to do. Today does have one
difference to an ordinary grey miserable
day. It is a Thursday, and that means beer
day. This is good and bad. It is good
because it is a reason to be cheerful, but
it is bad because the beer, may, or may
not, depending on how it is brewed, be
good for my blood glucose. It is
frequently slightly bad - and that is by
itself. Taking into account the effects of
getting drunk, and it is usually a
disaster !
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