It was another cold night, although not cold enough for a frost this morning. It has been quite sunny, but the clouds are building up now. The last of the sunshine may finish not too long after 10am. This afternoon it is probably going to rain. The latest revision has changed the forecast in the screenshot above to say it will be dry at 3pm, instead of light rain, and there will be heavy rain at 4 and 5pm instead of light rain. 6pm should see just light rain again. The rest of the evening should be dry. It is going to be cooler today, and the maximum temperature may just be 8° C. It could reach there by 11am, and start falling again after 3pm. Tomorrow should see a lot of sunny spells, and maybe a maximum temperature of 11° C.


  Yesterday was good and bad, and sometimes the good was bad. I'll explain that later.  I was unsure if I would go for a walk yesterday, but I had a route in mind if I did go out. By 11am the weather was not perfect - sunny spells instead of sunshine, and it didn't seem like it would feel warm - but in the end I decided I would go out. For once this year, Daily exercise" was actually daily even if it were just for these two consecutive days.

  Once again I went out in just a t-shirt and sleeveless denim jacket. It was just warm enough not to feel cold - comfortable but far from luxury. With hindsight I realised I had gone out a bit late if I were to accomplish my full plan. That was to walk to Brockley & Ladywell Cemetery, and have a walk around there before moving on to my next objective. That was to be outside the Jolly Farmer at 1pm, and then walk towards Angela's workplace in the hope of bumping into her. I didn't !

  I think Angela was at work, but maybe she might have partly worked through her lunch break so she could leave early. There is a reason why I think that might be possible that I shall come to later. I did hang around outside the access road to her office for 5 minutes, but after that I continued on my walk. It was a fairly short walk compared to my usual, but it somehow seemed longer. I don't think I can still believe how close Brockley & Ladywell cemetery actually is when you know the short cuts to get there.
  I have to admit this baffled me at first. I can't think of any way that closing cemeteries can help reduce the spread of Covid. I have never noticed large crowds visiting cemeteries - apart from when a very large family attends a burial. At another time they are quieter than parks, and while I have seen an occasional jogger, I can't recall seeing any cyclists whizzing through the cemetery. Then I thought about that last sentence on the sign. The one that says the Brockley gate is open. I can't help thinking that the man who opens the gate could be bothered to walk from one end to the other to open the Ladywell gates !
  I spotted my first open pub yesterday. The Ladywell Tavern was open at just before 1pm, and I even saw a couple of people fumble to put on masks before going in. It is obviously essential to wear a mask for the 23 second walk through the pub to the garden out the back !
  While the artists who painted the dull looking hoarding outside a building site in Ladywell Village have to be applauded, it is a shame that a lot of it is hidden behind a bus shelter - at least from the point of view of anyone trying to take a photo from the other side of the road - like me ! The rest of is says Ladywell in great big decorated capital letters.
  There were three pigeons perched on this gravestone, but one flew off a second before I took the picture. It looks like another was flying in from the right to join them, but it flew straight past, and the two pigeons flew off to join it. This was in St Mary's Therapeutic Garden - which was open, as were all the entrances to the graveyard next to the church.
  The Jolly Farmer, formerly known as The Jolly Farmers, where I hope to resume lunchtime drinking with Angela one day, was shut. Maybe they open in the evening, or maybe they are waiting for the 17th May when indoor drinking may be allowed again.
  There is a tree/bush/shrub a few minutes walk from home where there always seems to birdsong. From below it is quite dense, and whatever it is, it doesn't drop it's leaves even in winter. You see nothing when looking up, but from across the road, using a lot of zoom, and if you are lucky, a steady hand, some of the birds can be seen. They are sparrows, although I suspect other small birds may live in it.

  After the relatively short walk I felt fine when I got home. I don't even remember my right knee, or the muscles around it, complaining much on this walk. Maybe it just needs exercise to do whatever exercised does for it. Even my feet didn't seem to complain during, and after such a short walk. I think this proves that I ought to try and step up the amount of walking I am doing if I want to start doing some extra long walks this summer.

  It was about 4pm when I got a text message from Angela to say that the Perry Hill pub had re-opened, or would be re-opening. I assume she had just walked past it at about 4pm, and so had probably left work around 3.30pm ! I went past it on 2nd February and it looked like it was closed for good, and probably dues to pulled down so that flats could be built in it's place.
  The pub was originally known as The Two Brewers. It is good that it is re-opening, and I hope the new owners are able to make enough money to keep it open - unlike many pubs in the country. I have to admit it is a lousy picture, but I think the 2nd February was a particularly dull day, and I really had to force the picture to show some of the details.

  The other good thing about the pub re-opening is that I made a suggestion to Angela, and she seemed to give a very positive answer. I suggested that one day, when Angela was working from home, we could meet for a lunchtime drink there. Her actual answer was "that sounds splendid".  This was one of the good and bad things I mentioned near the top of the page. It is good, excellently good that this may happen, but bad in so much as I feel incredibly impatient for it to happen. It could be weeks away.

  The other bad thing really was a bad thing. I was looking for pictures of the pub, and I thought I had probably taken a snap when passing it in January. What I found was several corrupt files. I have superficially lost a lot of pictures taken in January, but fortunately most are still on the camera's memory card (I try not to re-use camera memory cards because they are a useful extra back up). I really, really need to change the hard disk in my computer very, very very soon before I lose even more pictures and stuff.

  I tried to do what I did the day before and fast until dinner time yesterday, but I gave in and had a small wine glass full of peanuts to quieten my stomach down. It turned out that was a safe choice because at 5pm, just after I had prepared my dinner, I checked my blood glucose. It was down to a perfect 6.7mmo/l. I haven't seem it that low for ages. I then probably spoiled things by eating three nectarines. They didn't seem to be very ripe, and not very sweet, but.....

  My dinner was the same as the previous night - well roasted pork belly strips with beansprouts cooked in stock with some chilli and soy sauces. I also added a sliced green bell pepper. It was another delicious meal, but somehow it left me still feeling hungry. It was not that long after I had more peanuts and a chunk of cheese. I went to bed soon after that to avoid wanting to eat any more.

  I don't know if I slept well or not. I seemed to be asleep a lot, but I was having some vivid dreams. The easiest one to explain was a dream about being down by the river. For reasons unknown I was wearing flip flops, but I guess they were useful for going in the river. The river level seemed to be very low, and that had left a sort of sandy beach along one side, and in places on the other side. I walked some way on this "beach", and even ran a short distance. When I came back to where I had come down the bank I noticed that the river was so shallow that it was easy to cross to the other side - and I did - just for fun.

  I have no idea if that dream had any significance, but it was a pleasant dream. I don't think I would like to walk to the park in flip flops, but I guess I might have changed out of my boots before the dream began or something. I seem to recall two other dreams. They seemed a bit like one long dream, but I am sure that one was a sequel to the other. Both seemed to involved meeting some people I from my past I would prefer to forget. Maybe they also involved a few people who I had forgotten about, but was happy to meet again. Some of them were probably just imaginary people, although they did seem young to match the ages of the people I did and didn't want to remember.

  This morning I got a shock. My blood glucose seemed to have shot up for no good reason that I can think of. Yesterday morning it was 8.0mmol/l. Yesterday afternoon it was 6.7mmol/l, and this morning it had shot up to 10.0mmol/l after not really doing anything that different to the previous day. I thought I would check it again now that about 5 hours have passed, and it is now 9.1mmol/l. That is better, but far from ideal, and it can only get worse.

  The main thing on the agenda today is a Thursday boozing session with Jodie. Today we will have some of the fruit beers I bought. Hopefully they will help take the taste away of some of the weird stuff Jodie is likely to bring along. Her latest bit of madness is wanting to order some Yorkshire Pudding ale - ale partly brewed with factory made Yorkshire Pudding rejects. I don't fancy even a small taste of that beer !