The forecast definitely got this morning's forecast right - it's pissing down ! The only change to that shown above in the latest revision is that 10am is shown as only having a 70% chance of rain, and it may brighten up a bit. Actually there is another small change. The last rain may fall at 4pm. The afternoon will be as cool as 17° C, but early evening may see a slight rise to 19° C. Tomorrow should be dry, but there seems little chance of seeing the sun.

   I was very unsure of what I would do yesterday when writing yesterday morning. By the time I got to that bit it was looking a rather dull outside, and the idea of going out did not really appeal. On the other hand it didn't look that awful, and I knew that the easiest way to fast was to get myself away from accessible food. I'm rather glad that I made the decision to go out because even as I was walking to the station the day seemed to be brightening up, and soon after it was sunny. I suspect I have partly blanked from my mind some periods when the sun was hidden by cloud. It was just like memories of summer - we remember the sunny days, and ignore the rainy days.

  My initial plan was to get a train to Woolwich Dockyard station. It was a station I had been through a few times, but I had never got off there, nor seen it from the outside. I did do there, but it wasn't my first port of call. There was a lot of disruption on the South East London rail network because of a freight train derailment near Lee station. It didn't directly affect me, because I wasn't going by that route, but it did mean a few trains were in the wrong places, and the timetable was a bit disrupted.

  I changed trains at Lewisham station, and the first train that I could use was shown as going to Slade Green. It was amusing that the app on my phone claimed it would not be stopping at stations it wouldn't, and couldn't go through ! However it did show that it continued on beyond Slade Green, and continued back to Cannon Street. There are many services from Cannon Street that do a loop and return to Cannon Street, but until they get to a certain point they are shown on the train, and platform indicator as only going as far as some intermediate station - Slade Green in my case.

  Yesterday was the first time I had stayed on one of these train while it went round the loop and started heading back to London again. I stayed on the train as far as Erith. Before leaving home I had considered the possibility of visiting Erith, and it's pier, but I had only considered it as an option if I didn't do much exploring around Woolwich Dockyard station. I had considered walking to the River Thames, and maybe along the shore for some distance. Instead I got off at Erith and explored around there first.
  Every great adventure starts somewhere, and mine started at Catford Bridge station where I caught this train.
  One of the early sights I saw when I reached the river was this building. It is only an educated guess, but I think it is where the barges that come down from the city, filled with waste destined for landfill, are unloaded. When I worked in Erith, maybe 16 or 17 years ago, the hill in the distance was all open landfill, and I could see those weird tractors with spiked wheels settling all the rubbish in. It now looks like it was capped with topsoil, and grassed over. It looks very pleasant from this distance. I suspect the landfill operation has moved to the other side of the hill now.
  Until I did a double take, and realised I was snot there yet, I thought that Erith pier was not much to write home about. The pier is another 100 - 200 ft away to the right. I would call this a jetty, but the sign says it is Erith Causeway.  It looked like it was low tide yesterday afternoon, but this causeway made it over the deep squidgy mud until the end met the river itself.
  It is a shame this plaque seems so worn. It is on a wall near the start of the causeway. I'm not sure of the two are supposed to be linked or not.
  This is the view from the proper pier with the causeway in the near distance. It is looking upstream towards the city. The water is almost the same colour as the mud, and there is an awful lot of mud to be seen here ! Note the lovely blue sky, but also the banks of clouds off in the distance. From this part of the Thames it is a view to the north. I don't know why, but I didn't take a picture from the shore end on the pier. It was probably because the pier cranks round towards the south half way along it's length, and it would mean shooting into the sun.
  Maybe I am just lucky, but whenever I see the river Thames there always seems to be a Port Of London Authority ships going past. This is a survey vessel called Thame. As far as I can work out, the yellow flag with black dot means "I am altering my course towards port" (turning left !). The Red flag with yellow cross means "You can feel your way past me". Quite what these things mean in reality is something only other captains need to know !
  This is the view from the end of the pier, back to where it joins the shore. It is a bit of a murky looking view, and would be a lot better if the sun was much higher in the sky. I can barely see any shadows which suggests I took it during one of the short periods when the sun was behind a cloud.

  Google maps reckon it is a 0.7 mile walk from the station to the end of the pier. By the time I had walked from the station to pier, and then back again I had walked at least 1.4 miles. I didn't take the exact route Google offered because I was exploring a bit, and so I claim a 1.5 mile walk. What is really unknown is all the other walking - over railway foot bridges, up and down railway station platforms, and then there is the 0.8 miles (2 times 0.4 miles) between home and Catford Bridge station and home. This could easily have been a 3 mile walk.

  Of course what I have described so far is only part of it. From Erith I caught a train as far as Woolwich Dockyard station. I didn't expect it to be, and it wasn't a very exciting station, but at least I can say I've been there, and had a look around. I also managed to do a fair bit of trainspotting there because there was quite a long wait until a train going via Lewisham arrived. Two earlier earlier trains had been cancelled. There were still quite a few trains going through the station, and they included the Thameslink service to/from Rainham (Kent). Those train don't stop there, but the run every 15 minutes in both directions, and I think I saw 4 of them go through (2 in each direction) while waiting there.

  It was just before 4pm when I finally got back to Lewisham, and I had a 25 minute wait for a train back to Catford Bridge. In that direction it is a really lousy collection. By that time the platforms and trains were starting to get busy, and while I tried to keep walking around as much as I could, I had to essentially stand still for the last 10 to 15 minutes. My legs were starting to ache before I stopped, and by the time my train arrived the sciatica (if that is what it is) in my right leg was getting agonising.

  The train was very busy when it arrived. We hadn't left Lewisham station more than a minute ago when an announcement was triggered, probably automatically. It was one that is now out of date because it warns of fines for not wearing facemasks. That was all I needed to trigger me. My throat suddenly went tickley, and I couldn't help but let out a few soft coughs. I really wanted to do a good throat clearer, but it was too crowded on the train for that. It was a great relief to get off the train at Catford Bridge. Of course once I was in the fresh air the tickle in my throat quickly faded away.

  I got home feeling like I had done at least a 3 mile walk, but not so bad that I couldn't start going through the photos I took - and I took quite a lot. Over half of them were train photos. This was part of my plan to get as many pictures of "Networker" (class 465/466) trains before they are withdrawn from service - allegedly this autumn. At 5pm I couldn't wait any longer to check my blood glucose before I had something to eat. I was feeling ravenous ! At the time I thought that 8.3mmol/l was not a big enough drop from the morning reading of 9.0mmol/l, but maybe I was expecting too much.

  I ended up having a snack of some sliced salami and a single packet of crisps. It was only an hour later that I had dinner. I started with some barbecue chicken wings I had bought from Iceland. I have to admit they were a real disappointment. They appeared to be low sugar, and I wonder if a bit of sugar in the marinade mix might have produced a better flavour as it caramelised. I followed those wings with two cans of Tesco brand chicken soup (which has the lowest sugar content of any soup I know).

  I was in bed, and asleep just after 10pm if I recall correctly. It was another sleep that I find hard to describe, and hard to evaluate as to whether it was good or bad. I tend to lean towards it being bad. It seemed like I probably slept in quite big chunks of time, and it seemed like I was awake for long periods between them, but with hindsight I don't think I was. I think it just felt like I was awake a lot, but I suspect the reality was that I may have had to turn over twice to do it, but I was probably asleep in less than  5 minutes after my head hot the pillow.

  The only exception was in the last couple of hours of sleep where I woke more frequently, and seemed to be awake longer during these spells of sleep. That is possibly quite normal, although I did feel sort of annoyed when I had to face the world when I just couldn't get to sleep any more. The other negative things were my dreams. I had a long dream that was a mild sort of nightmare. In the dream I had been told that I was to warm up a chain gig. At first it seemed like I had been given (or dumped on !) 2 hours, but a check of the mathematics showed it was only 20 minutes.

  It still left me with the problem that I couldn't play any instrument or sing. One possibility was Jodie had an 8 string mandolin (?) but she couldn't play in public, and I am sure that you don't string a mandolin with the strings crossing over each other ! As the dream started to fade away I think I found someone who could play acoustic guitar, and whose repertoire could stretch to just about 20 minutes.

  Maybe it wasn't so bad getting up when I did to avoid any more of that dream. It wasn't exactly scary, but it was all very perplexing or something. The better news was when I checked my blood glucose. it was down to a very nice 7.3mmol/l this morning, and I rewarded myself with some peppered smoked mackerel. It was very nice, although the later fish burps are not recommended !

  It looks like the rain stopped a little while ago, but with the chance of going back up to a 90% chance soon, it doesn't seem like an outdoor day today. I did want to get a little more shopping in, and maybe I may make a dash to Tesco a bit later if there is another lull in the rain. Mostly I think I will be doing photography, in a very broad sense, today. There are a few pictures taken yesterday that I expect I'll be showing tomorrow, and a lot of train pictures just for my archives. There is also my project to record the time, date and location on a spreadsheet of every train I have taken a picture of. Why ? I haven't a clue - it just seems like a good idea. In an ideal world I ought to index every picture of everything I have taken. There have been too many times when I have thought I am sure I have a picture of "that", but but just can't find it.