It was just 5° C when I checked my outside thermometer earlier this morning, it is now already up to 8° C, and by 3pm it is expected to be a rather marvellous 21° C. After so many cold days that is going to feel very hot in the sun, and all of today should feature non stop sunshine. Tomorrow should see the same temperatures, but some hours will only feature sunny spells instead of non stop sunshine.

   The weather was perfect for a nice walk yesterday. I'm not so sure that all my walk was nice. For some insane masochistic reason I chose to walk up to the top of Blythe Hill Fields. The original inspiration, but for a much shorter walk, was to take my tripod, with it's new pro-camera head up there, but it felt too heavy to carry all that way - at least without some sort of carrier for it. I still took my big Nikon DSLR camera, although in a way it was wasted. I had hoped for some really nice views across London with the blue sky in the background, but the air over London seemed to be slightly murky.

  I am not sure what route I might have taken originally, but if I had taken a tripod I would have probably taken a more direct route to Blythe Hill, and then come straight back again. My route via Catford Bridge was not the most direct route. Once I has puffed and wheezed my way to the top of the hill I had the idea that if I was fairly quick I could get to Lewisham Park in time to spend maybe 20 minutes with Angela, if she was in there ! My estimate was about right. I got there just after 1.30pm, but as she tends to do, Angela had probably gone shopping rather than sitting in the park during her lunch break.
  Most of the fruit trees in the Ladywell Fields orchard were flowering as I passed them on my way to Blythe Hill. The trees are completely unguarded, and as far as I know the fruit is free to pick. It is really good that I see no sign of vandalism, and I get the impression that most fruit is taken after it has fallen from the trees rather than kids climbing up them, breaking those thin branches as they go.
 View from the top of Blythe Hill Fields towards the City Of London with it's (in)famous tall buildings - "The Walkie Talkie", "The Cheese grater", "The Gherkin", etc. It is a shame the air was not clearer. Even the blue sky looks a bit polluted.
  This is the view in a more north direction. The big chimney in the distance, in the centre of the picture, might be an incinerator chimney as far away as Edmonton, but I will confess that is no more than a guess.
  Slightly to the East is the grouping of skyscrapers often known as Canary Wharf, although I think only one or two actually stand where Canary Wharf used to be. It is odd how the details on the building look reasonably sharp, and yet the picture still seems hazy.
  Once upon a time it was Hilly Fields school - so called because it sits in the middle of Hilly Fields - but it has changed it's name several time. It might, or might not be called Prendergast school now (or was that it's previous name ?). All I know is that I would hate to be a schoolkid, and have to traipse up that big hill for school everyday.
  There are many bright spring flowers in the "Therapeutic Garden" behind St Mary's Church. This is just a small selection of them.
  I am almost proud of this photo, but it is not perfect. I was trying to track the squirrel with my camera as it bounded across the grass. As you can see, the grass is motion blurred, but the squirrel is almost sharp - sadly not sharp enough to win awards.


  I like these types of dog, and this one had golden eyes (I have better shots of the eyes, but they are all out of focus). I spoke to her owner, initially to ask if it was OK to take the photo, but we ended up chatting for a minute or so. He told me that she had liver trouble, and had recently been under the care of the vets. You can just see shaved areas on her legs where she had a drip, and where blood samples were taken. Liver problems are really serious, and I hope she recovers, although having said that, I think she is of a fair age, and her gait suggested some arthritis, or something affecting her back legs.

  I was feeling like I had walked much more than almost 4 miles when I got home. My legs were starting to ache, and I just wanted to sit down. Ideally I would have laid down and had a snooze, but I felt compelled to deal with the photos first. I had taken my Nikon D3200 DSLR camera out with me, and I was hoping the pictures I had taken would be better than the Nikon "bridge" Camera (Coolpix P500) that I have been using for quite a while now.

  Most of the pictures, if not all, didn't need the capabilities of the DSLR, and so there was noting that exciting to see. The panned picture of the leaping squirrel is probably the only one that probably wouldn't have worked with the other camera.



  It was another case of "I really shouldn't have bought them", but soon after getting home I tucked into a couple of cheese and bacon puff pastry slices (or whatever they call them). The silly thing is that while they were nice, they weren't that nice. In terms of looking after my blood glucose level I could have done a lot better.

  I did do better for dinner, but it ended up as quite a big dinner. Most of it was white cabbage - which as far as I am aware, is a very safe food. It was cooked with meatballs in stock with soy sauce, chilli sauce, and black pepper. I think it was the black pepper that made that dinner. It added a nice piquancy, and it seemed to dissolve into the fat liberated from the meat balls, and coated the cabbage to make it strangely delicious. In theory I could have saved half that dinner, but I was finding the flavoured cabbage to be so nice that I ate the lot. I then had a dessert that was very close to OK - very reduced suagr dark chocolate - 4 squares of it !

  My sleep was not good last night. My right knew had been stiff yesterday morning, but gave absolutely no trouble while I was walking, but obviously took a bit of a battering on the walk. I was basically OK until I laid down to try to sleep. It became very painful unless rested in a certain way - a way that didn't seem natural for sleep. I ended up taking a couple of Paracetamols, and after maybe an hour I was able to get to sleep. Every time I woke up, and try to move I could easily jar that knee, and it was painful walking to the toilet.

  Since getting up the knee has returned to not bothersome - mostly ! It still feels stiff once I start walking, but seems to clear after half a dozen steps. It is worrying that this is probably not a transient thing, and is eventually going to put paid to my walking. At the moment it doesn't seem to affect my walking directly, but if it is going to make for agonising bedtimes.....

  I was hoping my blood glucose would have dropped a bit more this morning, but it didn't - well not much. It did drop from just 8.7mmol/l yesterday morning to 8.6mmol/l this morning. Oh well, at least it has moved in the right direction, but I was hoping it might have been a lot closer to, or even under 8.0mmol/l.

  Today is going to be mildly hot, and so last night I checked out my shorts. Most of them still seem to fit OK, but at least one pair that was always a bit marginal, is currently too small. It could seem that I haven't put on as much weight as I thought I might have done over the winter, but I have to be realistic that there is quite a bulge above my waistline. If I can increase the frequency and length of my walks that may take care of itself. The good thing is that I have several pairs of shorts I could wear, and I have selected one pair to wear today. My only difficulty now is where do I go ? I want to take my big Nikon camera into the linear park, but I am also curious about whether Angela will be in the other park, in the opposite direction at lunchtime. Decisions, decision !