It seems like the rain may be drying up. The latest revision to the forecast shows very little rain, and that only in the late evening. This seems to be true in Bickley too - more of which later. There seems very little chance of any sunshine today, and the afternoon temperature is now shown as peaking at just 18° C. (I don't know about global warming, this seems more like we are heading into another ice age - as used to be the prediction 20 or 30 years ago before global warming became the "in" thing). Tomorrow could see some rain at the end of the day, but there may be plenty of sunny spells until mid afternoon, and the afternoon temperature is predicted to reach 21° C.

  Yesterday seemed a very hectic day, and I didn't seem to find enough time to write anything yesterday. In some respects that didn't matter because I hardly did anything notable the day before yesterday. Hardly anything is not the same as nothing, although I will admit that if it wasn't for one little job I could have written the day off as nothing at all except reading, snoozing, and eating. With regard to eating, I did seem to nibble a lot - miserable gloomy weather is to blame for that - but most of what I ate was fairly "safe".

  The one job I did do turned out to be far easier than expected. I was going to change the faulty machine head on my guitar, plus the other 5 so they would all match. I started with the faulty machine head, the one for the G string. Two small screws undone, and I had the unit in my hand to examine it. The fault was easy to see. The base plate was warped, and that increased the space between the cog and worm drive enough that they were barely meshing, and so could easily slip.

  Some gentle brute force with a sturdy pair of pliers bent the base plate back into shape, and after screwing it back on the guitar, and fixing the string to it, it tuned up easily with no slippage. My guitar was once used in school for teaching, and it is very obvious it suffered a few bad knocks. My guess is that it was once dropped, and it fell on the G string machine head which bent under the blow. Anyway, it is all tuned to my electronic tuner, and just awaits someone to play it (I can't !).

  Yesterday morning I woke up full of anticipation ! I also was relieved that my excessive nibbling had only raised my blood glucose to 8.1mmol/l. Yesterday was to be the first day of Chatt Fest* 2021, and I wanted to go and see one band in particular...Actually I would have liked to see several bands, but one was on in the early afternoon, and the others in the evening. I didn't feel I had the stamina for staying there long enough for that.

* Previously it was Chattfest, one word, but this year it is Chatt {space} Fest.

  Getting to and From Chatt Fest was a bit difficult with Transport For London insisting face masks still have to be worn on buses. My only option was to get a National Rail Service (who only say face masks are advisory now on crowded trains) from Catford station to Bickley station. That bit was easy, but then there was a 0.8 mile (according to Google maps, but probably closer to one mile when walking through the station, and walking from the road into, and through the pub to the garden) walk to the pub.

  That walk was downhill, but in many places it wasn't that noticeable. It was very noticeable when walking back to the station, and I was knackered by the time I got down onto the platform to wait for my train (by luck a less than 10 minute wait). I think I would claim the round trip, home to to the pub, and back again, would have been very close to 3 miles, and so I got my daily exercise done. Of course that doesn't include being on my feet for around 3 hours, walking around in the pub garden. One day I will learn to sit down and relax in between taking photos of the bands. The trouble is that there was no where I wanted to sit. There were people I know sitting at a couple of tables, but I didn't want to intrude.
  The first band on were John Blackburn & The Getaway. It featured these two girl singers. Apart from one person, probably the lead guitarist, being called John Blackburn, I have no idea who else was in the band. I was not keen on their music style, but they were good performers.
  I have no idea what her name is, but she looks nice.
  The stage was not very photographer friendly with a couple of support pillars in awkward places. This was the closest I could get to getting a snap with the whole band on view. As is so often the case, it is the poor drummer who is left out.
The guitar player on the left is probably John Blackburn.
  I did manage to get a picture of the drummer, and a better picture of the bass player, but going around the side of the stage.
  This is who I mainly went to see - Estrangor - the acoustic incarnation. With a full compliment of players they are a full on loud electric rock band, but sadly I have never seen them in that form before.
  Steven Blessing - one of those guitarist who really knows his way around his instrument. He should have been playing electric guitar, but this was the acoustic version of Estrangor.
  The ever bubbly Carrie May fronting Estrangor, and giving me a warm smile. She is also making her mark as an actress, and has been hosting some stuff on small TV channels.
  It was good to see Dylan Tidman back on the stage. He is a good drummer, and has depped for quite a few bands. It may have been something like 5 years ago he was traumatised by a mugging in Lewisham, where he was seriously stabbed, and he gave up drumming, or at least any public appearance. Yesterday was his first time on a public stage since then. He was only playing a cajon box, rather than full drum kit, but that was part of it being an acoustic set with Estrangor. It is unfortunate that this was the best picture of Dylan. For a lot of the time he was smiling, but the only time he faced the camera he was looking over my shoulder waiting for his dad to bring him a drink.

  I watched most of the next band, and maybe I'll have some pictures ready for tomorrow. The sky seemed to be getting very dark when I left. I think I timed my exit well. I saw some pictures on social media last night which looked like the band were playing to an almost empty garden as rain teemed down. I felt some rain on my way back to the station. As I said further up the page, I hadn't realised just how much hill I had to walk up to get to the station, The ironic thing is that at the top of the hill I had to walk down into the cutting where the railway station platforms are. None of the walk was much worse than a gentle slope, but it went one, and on, and on, and on, and on........

  After sitting on the train back to Catford all the aches in my legs seemed to fade away, and the walk from Catford station to home didn't feel too bad. I arrived home a little after 4pm. I guess that means I was only out for 4 hours, but it seemed to feel a lot longer. It wasn't long before nothing in particular ached, but I felt weary to the bone. I was also feeling hungry. I started on cans of soup, and by dinnertime, 6pm, I had eaten three tins of soup. In consequence my dinner was quite small and simple. It was just some ready to cook "southern fried" flavour chicken goujons that I baked/grilled in my mini oven.

  I passed nearly all my time from getting home until going to bed, selecting and editing both video and the pictures of the first two bands on (as pictured above). I didn't do the third band, but I left my photo editor open all night with the first picture selected and ready to edit. I'll be doing that soon after I've finished writing this (and doing a quick design for an August 2021 pages in this ever expanding journal, or diary, or what ever all the scribbling I do on the PC keyboard is.

  When I think about it I have no idea what time I went to sleep. I know that I tried to read some ore of the book I am reading to help me relax, but I didn't really need it. It was definitely after dark when I turned out the light, but the days are getting noticeably shorter now (sunset is at 8.49pm tonight). I had no problem getting to sleep, and I seemed to wake less in the night compared to normal. I probably should rephrase that to say I woke a lot less until about 4.45am. After that I did seem to wake up quite a few times before I gave up and got up. maybe I was feeling cold. Once again, for about the 3rd or 4th morning running, I have put the heater on low for an hour or so in the morning. That seems ridiculous in August !

  Soup is usually pretty safe, and I didn't a lot more than soup yesterday, but it seems my blood glucose is up to 8.6mmol/l this morning. That is OK providing doesn't keep creeping higher. I don't think I would have been dehydrated this morning. At least it wasn't a hot sweaty night, but I guess the three pints of Guinness I had at the pub might have still been working all night or something. I know I was sweating a lot as I walked up the hill to the station, but I am sire I had plenty of drink after I got home.

  It is all a bit of a mystery. One possibility is that I am fighting some sort of infection. That can raise blood glucose levels. I do feel pretty crappy this morning, but it feel more like fatigue than infection, although I have coughed a bit at random times, and for a while my nose felt very stuffy. Oh well, I'll have to see how I get on. My aim today is to go back for the second day of Chatt Fest. I would like to see Chain, who are on at 5pm. I would get there before then, and so I could see some of The Love Handles set.

  After Chain it is The Retro Rock Icons. They are pretty good, and I'll stay to get a few snaps of them. I will probably leave during their set. The next band, are the headline band, and they are Glamstar. They are really good, but I don't care for them. All that glitter and spandex is not for me, but I know all the old grannies love them. I don't know what to do about going home. I really don't fancy that walk back to the station. I could possibly walk to Bromley South station. That is mainly downhill. I might take a face mask with me in my camera case, grit my teeth, curse silently, and get a bus back to Catford. Many people tell me they take their masks off on the bus if it is not crowded, and only put them on to make sure the driver lets them on the bus !