It was most definitely cold again
yesterday, but there was a fair bit of sunshine.
The morning featured sunshine and sunny spells,
and to a limited extent they continued past the
forecast end, and a little way into the afternoon.
Behind glass, aka my bedroom windows, the sun felt
nice and warm, and for a few hours I had the
heating off. After the last of the sunshine it
rapidly started to cool down again. There were
some snowflakes blowing in the breeze in the late
afternoon !
At
7.30am my garden thermometer said it
was -0.4° C, and there is a sharp
frost outside. It is currently sunny,
and it is supposed to stay sunny for
quite a few hours yet. The sun will
help warm things up a bit, and by 3pm
the temperature could be up to 8° C.
Soon after that the clouds may be
thick enough to make it very gloomy
(and there is a 10% chance of rain
possible - although no rain is
actually predicted). No sunshine is
predicted for tomorrow, but
paradoxically the temperature is
expected to rise to an almost, but not
quite, good 11° C.
Yesterday turned out to be a
fairly productive day. One bit of
productivity was a bit of hand laundry
- 2 t-shirts and some underwear.
Another bit of productivity was a bit
different to the rest, and I'll come
to that later. The final bit of
productivity was some photo and video
editing. I can finally show a small
selection of pictures of the street
gig on Sunday, as well as two videos.
I think I probably showed this
picture the day before yesterday, but
it shows the whole band, and the other
pictures are of individuals.
This is Richard "Dik" Tokarski
who plays guitar, and is probably the
driving force behind this, and similar
gigs.
Abby Harte on vocals, and Steve
Cox on bass guitar. Steve was the
original bass player with The
Bluesiscians who later changed their
name to Chain. I first saw Abby
singing in the jam/open mic sessions
on a Sunday evening in The Catford
Ram.
Close up on the singer.
I also have some video of the
band. I always wonder if it is worth
including these videos because some
web browsers won't play them. Some
browsers will soon be rejecting all my
web pages because none of them are
encrypted, oh well....
This
is an instrumental version
of "Little Wing" - most
famously played and sun by
Jimi Hendrix. Dik uses his
looper pedal on this, and
then gets a bit carried
away. It sounds like he is
pushing his little guitar
amp too hard, and with it
not being a valve amp it
does not distort gracefully.
It is a horrible harsh sound
!
The
song is "Tainted Love", and
although the best known
version was by Soft Cell, it
pre-dates them by many
years. I videoed this using
two cameras, and for the
first time in ages I was
able to switch views as the
music played. It could have
done with some slicker
editing, but I am out of
practice.
My final bit of
productivity for the day is actually
defined by what I didn't do, rather
than what I did do - I didn't eat
much. It was my intention to fast
until dinner time, but by 1pm my
stomach was growling so much that I
gave in and had one single can of
"Chunky Beef And Vegetable" soup. I
noted that it's sugar content was only
marginally higher than Heinz "no added
sugar" chicken soup. It seemed to do
the trick, and I was able to relax
after eating it.
I timed my dinner for the usual
6pm. It was a very simple meal. It was
also a bit experimental. It was a red
cabbage casserole. It was literally no
more than quite a pile of red cabbage
cooked in beef Oxo with black pepper
and dark soy sauce. I was quite
disappointed to notice that soy sauce
has quite a bit of sugar in it.
Fortunately I don't drink the stuff by
the pint. In fact I think I only used
about two dessert spoons full as a bit
of extra flavouring.
It wasn't wonderful, but it was
fairly pleasant, and fairly filling.
In theory, and I am sure in practice
too, it was a very low calorie and
sugar meal. Unfortunately it wasn't
quite satisfying enough, and maybe an
hour later I had a small snack
featuring some ham, a small quantity
of peanuts, and a chunk of cheese.
Then I definitely stopped. Watching
Star Trek: Enterprise seemed to be a
good distraction - because it was one
of the good episodes from what was a
rather weak 3rd (or 4th ?) series.
I thought I was going to have
the same trouble I had the previous
night when I went to bed. My bedroom
was fairly warm, and so I could have
turned the heating off, but if I had I
would have to face sub zero
temperatures this morning. I left the
heater on low, and this time it didn't
feel too warm to pull the duvet over
me. I remember it taking a while
before I first fell asleep, but once
asleep I seemed to sleep quite well. I
only have vague memories of waking up
to pee a couple of times. One of those
times was about 4.20am, and before I
got back into bed I turned the heater
up full.
I think my body has switched
from winter to at least spring mode.
The trigger is not the temperature but
the amount of daylight. I probably
only got something like 6 hours out of
my preferred 8 hours sleep, but at 6am
it was more or less light (daybreak
today was officially at 6.23am), and
my brain said it was time to get up.
The first thing I did was to go to the
toilet, and the second thing was to
check my blood glucose level. Despite
my eating not going fully to plan, my
blood glucose was down from near the
danger area to 7.6mmol/l. That is just
0.1 above my self set target. If I
could keep up a similar eating regime
for the rest of the month I could
probably lose a kilogram, and maybe
two, as well as having a much better
blood glucose level.
The more I think about it, the
less I have any idea of what I am
doing today. I will probably go
as far as the little supermarket on
Catford Bridge this morning, but I
doubt I will go further than that. I
just don't fancy walking in the cold
because of the paradox that I will
over heat in a thick coat, and be too
cold in a thin coat ! What I ought to
do is to force myself out into the
garden this afternoon, and do a bit of
gardening - even if it is just running
the strimmer over the out of control
grass !
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