I was quite surprised to see there had been another light fall of snow during the early hours of the morning. I'm not sure that it lasted as long as 6am, as shown in the screenshot above. It was quite a light fall, and I expect most of it will have disappeared by, or soon after midday when we should be having some nice sunny spells. In fact the sun is doing it's best to shine even as I write this, and I am sure it is behind the rooftops that are in it's way at the moment. Today is going to be a colder day than yesterday - a high of just 0° C even when the sun is shining if we believe the forecast. The rest of today, and also tomorrow should stay dry. Tomorrow may also be very slightly warmer - plus 1° C, but it seems I'll be walking to the hospital for my first covid jab when the temperature will be minus 1° C ! There could be some sunny spells tomorrow afternoon. That will make the day seem nicer even while it is bloody cold.

   I originally had some doubts about getting out for a walk yesterday, but I was ready to go before midday, and I went....   I had no grand ambitions beyond taking a look around the Linear Park, and maybe take a few snaps of the scenery. I knew that I had missed the best of the snow, and therefore the most photogenic views, but a few pictures do show the remains of the snow, and of the ice.

  One thing I had been concerned about was slippery surfaces, and in particular, black ice. On the whole the roads were almost completely clear, but it was a different story in the park. The main path had many patches that could lead to a few bruised bottoms, but it was the "Bridge Of Doom" that re-justified it's old name once again. There have been warnings of it being slippery well before there was any snow or ice. Yesterday, with the snow and ice slowly melting, it was positively lethal. I saw many people trying to grip the sides to try and give some stability, but I didn't see anyone actually fall on it.

  There were two other things that concerned me. The more immediate one was how my legs my react to this walk. In particular, how my pulled muscle in my left thigh would stand up to it. I needn't have worried. My legs were generally a bit stiff when I first started walking, but that is nothing new, and they soon settled down. At the end they felt better than at the end of the last walk I did, 5 days earlier. Walking on part frozen mud, sometimes still with crispy snow on it, is far, far easier than sloshing through a quagmire !

  My other concern was that I was expecting a delivery from Amazon, and while I thought it wouldn't arrive until quite late in the afternoon, I couldn't be 100% sure about it. It partly inspired me to go out a bit before the sunny spells became regular, and I felt an urge not to stay out too long. I was feeling good enough that I might have walked a bit further if I hadn't felt the need to get home so soon.
  I was surprised, but delighted to see some icicles hanging down from the brick arch as the path into the park goes under the viaduct that carries The Catford Loop Line. I suspect it may actually be a bad sign because water running through those bricks will slowly dissolve the mortar, but I expect that viaduct is still basically good for another 100 years.
  It is part of my standard walk now to have a look at the pond, and usually the stream too, in the Vineries area. That is where I spotted these three mini snowmen that had been made on the seat that faces the pond.
  This is where the fish bypass rejoins the main river. I am told it is a popular place to see kingfishers - maybe only when the fish are migrating up (or down) the river, whenever that is ? Spring maybe ? All I saw was a pair of crows very close to the end of the channel.
  As I mentioned further up the page, the Bridge Of Doom has reverted to living up to my nickname for it. It is not so obvious in my picture, but the first yard or so up either side is quite steep. The whole bridge was slippery with ice and snow, but that first bit was as slippery as an ice rink, and I found myself clutching the almost, but not quite, hand rail at the side to steady myself. I was not alone in doing so. Some were walking sideways so they could clutch it more tightly for fear of losing their grip, and going flying !
  This picture shows the main path at one of the worst stretches. The ice and snow is slowly melting, and that just made it really slippery. I walk in the mud at the side for much of the length of the path - over half a mile at a guess.
  The picture I showed last Saturday of this field showed it to be a complete and utter quagmire. This view was taken a bit further into the field, and shows the remains of the snow on top of the churned up grass. What surprised me was that while in many places the ice and snow was melting, the ground here was still frozen. It made walking over it easy - unlike last Friday when it was hard work.
 I had seen this "thing" being installed on my way to the park. The identical one in the distance was already in place when I first passed it. I am not really sure what they are for. I have seen identical planters across roads to block them, allegedly for traffic calming reasons. These, assuming more are not added, seem to have little purpose. They do mark mark the boundaries of the primary school that is off the right hand side of the picture. I have often thought that a chicane might be a good idea to slow down some of the mad bastards who go down this straight, and generally clear bit of road at full throttle. (I find it funny when the very low slung BMWs bash their undersides at speed when going over the speed bumps). Maybe their use will be revealed in the future, but in the meantime it incenses me that that they put Covid-19 signs on these things as if they are using that as an excuse to mess up the free flow of traffic in the side streets.
  Like when I was out last Friday, the sky was bluest, and the sun was out much more as my walk came to an end. I took this picture at 1.30pm, and from then on, until sunset, much of the sky was blue, and the sun seemed to be shining most of the time. We even had a nice, although sadly not red, sunset.
  True sunset was still about half an hour away when I took this snap, but it shows the sky being mostly blue, with a scattering of clouds. Note the snow still laying on the roof of the building on the opposite side of the road.

  Maybe it was because of the impending Amazon delivery, but I didn't feel that tired, or indeed that hungry when I got home. I had some rice crackers to nibble on as I transferred my pictures and a video (coming a bit further down the page) onto my PC for selection and editing. When I had done all that I decided I did fancy some lunch, and "cooked" a couple of Aldi pot noodles.

  They were chicken and mushroom flavour, and I had to admit they were better than many generic pot noodles. The "soup" was thicker and tastier than in many I have tried. The only downside is that I have reason to believe that their sugar content was a lot higher than I thought (probably indirect sugar). After that hot food I could quite happily have laid down, and probably have had a snooze, but I still had to stay alert for that all important ring on the doorbell.

  I think it was just after 4.30pm, 10 or 15 minutes later than Amazon's latest estimate of the delivery time, that my parcel arrived. It contained booze (see the picture yesterday), and so it could only be delivered to someone over 18 years of age. Since "non contact", "socially distanced" deliveries started all drivers have ever asked for is my date of birth, and that is all they enter into their PDA/Mobile computer/mobile phone. That is all yesterday's driver did in the end. Initially he wanted to see some sort of ID, but his command of English was very poor, and he couldn't seem to say what he wanted to see. I ended up letting him see my 60+ Oyster card, and Senior Railcard. The former even has my mugshot on it, and either would be adequate proof that I am old enough to drink, but he didn't accept them. I think he probably wanted to see a drivers licence, or passport. I have a dark suspicion that if I had either to show he would have taken pictures of then for some nefarious purpose.

  I stood my ground, and he gave in and almost threw the box at me. Inside the box were the 50% Cutty Sark, Prohibition Edition whisky, and the lovely bottle of Dimple Whisky with it's fine wore cage and seductively shaped glass bottle. It tasted nice too. The 50% whisky was, as expected, a bit of a shock to the system, but it seemed quite drinkable. It is possible that it is strong enough to withstand a little splash of water to liberate it's taste....or something.

  Before long it was dinner time, and I decided I would have a very simple dinner of nothing more than pork and leek sausages. They were nice, and with the timer on my mini grill/oven working again, nice and simple to cook. My only misgiving, apart from not having any vegetable apart from the leek in the sausages, was that I wonder if they somehow were a source of sugar that I have overlooked.

  Tomorrow morning I have to be up very early, and so last night I tried to get in some practice for going to sleep early as I will need to try and do tonight. I think I was partly successful. I must have been asleep not that long after 9pm. I can't seem to remember long sequences of dreams, and I can't remember being awake for any more than 5 or 10 minutes at any time during the night, and so I guess it must count as a good night's sleep.

  While I don't remember any long sequences of dreams, I do remember a little bit of one dream that ended with some high weirdness. The dream was about covid vaccinations. In my dream world the vaccination took the form of 4 jabs on 4 consecutive days. I was just about to get jab number 3 when the need to pee woke me up. The very first thing I saw when I  opened my eyes was the clock showing 03:33:33. All those threes after my third jab must add up to something weird and supernatural, but I haven't a clue what it could be.

  This morning I was a bit miffed that I seemed to run out of sleep at 6am, but that is the exact time I want to get up tomorrow, and so I shouldn't complain about it. It is what I was practising for after all ! When I first got up I felt very stiff, but it was more my back than my legs that were complaining. After a while I had no complaints other than what I moan about most days - maybe it is time to invoke the Americanism "SNAFU" (Situation Normal, All F.. err... Fouled up).

  The one thing that does concern me a lot is that my blood glucose remains high. I didn't think I ate much yesterday, and although done at a fairly slow pace, mainly due to either stopping to take pictures, or being careful on slippery surfaces, my walk should have burnt off as many as 400 calories or more. I expected my blood glucose to drop at least a point, but it has stubbornly stayed high. I hope that something I ate, maybe several somethings, had a lot more sugar in them than I thought. It is either that or my pancreas is now in it's death throws. At any other time that would be annoying, but during the pandemic, with medical services all messed up, it could be a real mega irritant.

  Today there are just a couple of things on the agenda. This afternoon should see a "lite" boozing session. I have to get up early to get to the hospital for my first covid jab at 8am. Technically my appointment is between 8 and 9am, but I am hoping of I am there early I might be in and out very quickly. Having a hangover tomorrow morning would not be a good idea, and being half asleep would not be good either. Therefore I shall have to be careful what, or how much I drink, and I need to try and get to sleep early again tonight. I have given orders to Jodie that we try not to have too many strong beers, and that she leaves a lot earlier than she has done the last few visits.

  Prior to all that I need to wash my hair and have a shower. Ideally I'll give the dining room floor a bit of a hoovering. Once again there are little slivers of cardboard on the carpet where I have been slicing up boxes to put in the recycling bin. I also want to prepare and precook my dinner so I don't have to waste time after the boozing stops. I think it is probably going to be stewed beef with a couple of green vegetables. I have some lean diced beef, and so it should be fairly healthy for once.