I didn't feel all that good yesterday. I reckon two late nights in a row, while I was years out of practice, just did me in. On top of that was the gloomy weather, and on top of that was the fact I had to wade through a stupid amount of photos taken at the gig on Saturday night. Maybe it was not stupid because I did potentially take some good pictures. I say potentially because they were almost all spoiled by being under exposed.

   I could have made my flash gun brighter, or better still, turned up the ISO sensitivity on the camera. Oh well, I managed to salvage two dozen pictures out of the 240 I had taken. 240 sounds a lot, but some were multiple exposures where I was hoping to capture some particular action at the best time (like the singer punching the air). As soon as I saw the action starting to take place I would just hold my finger on the shutter button. Sometime what I had anticipated didn't happen.
  I meant to shrink a few more pictures down to fit on this web page, but for some reason this is the only one apart from the other one I showed yesterday. It was because each picture I selected for a photo album needed some tweaking, and some needed a lot, that I didn't finish my photo editing until almost 5.30pm yesterday. It was lucky I managed to put Jodie off coming over for a beer session. She was going to go to a gig in the evening, but had originally arranged to meet Mark here so he could drive her to wherever the gig was (which I believe he wanted to see as as well).

  I wasn't photo editing non stop, although sometimes it felt like it. I took breaks to read a few pages from the book I am reading, and breaks to set up a couple of audio transfers from cassette tape to PC. I also stopped to have some soup for lunch. I also stopped a few brief times to get something to nibble on. It was mostly that the distractions were not strong enough to stop me feeling hungry.

  One tape I copied to mp3 format is going to take a fair bit of audio editing. It is two bootleg recordings made by Jodie of the band Atom Heart Mother. We used to follow them in the early 1990s. They were a bunch of roadies who decided that they wanted a bit of the limelight, the girls (probably) and some fun. They released one album on CD that had few sales (but I got one !). They broke up soon after the album release, and were basically never heard from again.

  Jodie was lucky enough to have one of the better Sony Walkmans that could be used for recording.  The bouncers at gigs probably didn't think Walkmans could record, and thought nothing of a girl using a Walkman. The other useful thing was that the Sony headphones made idea microphones. Rumour has it that they did indeed use capsules intended as microphones for headphones. The secret was to carefully wear the headphones very loosely, and slightly offset on the ear, and you could get an excellent bootleg recording. Unfortunately Jodie never got the knack of wearing the headphones correctly all the time. It made her recordings very variable. On top of that was trying to get a good place in the audience where the sound was good - if the sound was good, and sometimes the PA could sound horrible !

  I was really looking forward to my dinner, and putting my feet up last night.  As I mentioned further up the page, I finally finished my photo editing by 5.30pm, and that was just right to prepare my dinner. My choice of dinner was dictated by having little choice, and the Aldi "southern fried flavour" chicken steaks being one day after their "best before" date. I think my intention was to cook all four steaks, and keep two for today. I ended up eating them all, and then felt bloated to the extent that I felt it wise to take a couple of antacid tablets before I went to bed.

  There was nothing on TV last night, and I had to somehow amuse myself until it was bedtime. I think it was probably a funny time for it to happen, but my thoughts turned to the problem I had on Friday night. I had used a backpack/rucksack like affair designed for photographers to take my camera to the gig. In one sense it was good, but it is rather small for me, and while it would have been fine in just a t-shirt, it was a bit tight with a coat on, and made it difficult to do my coat up in the cold and damp night air.

  Last night I had a look on Amazon, and found a reasonably priced larger version of what I already have. Incidently, the one I have was effectively given to me when I bought a second hand camera from Cash Busters. I think, or at least I hope, that if I set up the velcro'ed inner partitions correctly I may be able to fit two cameras in the backpack. That could have it's uses. At some gigs, particularly like Petts Wood Calling, it has been suggested that I could use two cameras - one with a wide angle lens, and one with a telephoto lens. It would certainly mean I wouldn't have to stop to keep changing lenses all the time. The new backpack could arrive as early as Wednesday. I am certainly looking forward to it, although Wednesday won't be a good day because I am hoping to meet Angela at lunchtime.

  I really have no idea what time I went to sleep last night. I think it could have been before 10pm. I know I was feeling very ready for bed a few hours before that. If it was 10pm then it means I may have got four solid hours of sleep before I woke up. That is a bit of a record. I think I only slept for an hour before waking up because I think I was feeling a bit cool by then. I turned on the heater, just on low, and then slept for another three hours. From 6am, or thereabouts, I didn't sleep very deeply, but I managed to keep falling asleep again until 7.30am when I reluctantly got up.

  This morning my blood glucose was a shocking 9.5mmol/l, and I am not really sure why. I know I had too many nibbles yesterday, but I though they were all safe. It is looking like the blame is going to fall on those Aldi "southern fried flavour" coated chicken steaks. I am sure I have had them before with no bad effects, and it was the Tesco equivalent that was bad (as well as using very inferior reconstituted chicken). It is looking like the Aldi version is now on my blacklist as well.

  So far this morning I have done two things of note. I have had a shower (which is more than I did yesterday) and I have been shopping in Aldi. I used to get to Aldi soon after they opened on a Monday morning, but now I find that between 9 and 10am is a good time. It is good because for the last 3 or 4 weeks someone else has managed to get one of the manned checkouts opened, and all I have had to do is to queue up behind them.

  This morning there were two people in front of me. The woman in front was like a comic book slag. Hair up in a bunch, terrible make up, and a permanent scowl. She also had a typical Croydon council estate accent. Not my type at all !!!!!!!!! I was mostly careful about what I bought in Aldi this morning, but I did buy a 30% price reduced pack of chilli beef and cheese wraps. I dread to think what they did for my blood glucose, but they were sort of tasty, although they didn't taste that wonderful enough to excuse themselves.

  From now on I could have a very lazy day. Having put Jodie off yesterday she reckons that tomorrow would be better than today to come over for some beers. Maybe I don't blame her. I am not sure if she has a better reason, but this afternoon's weather may be a good reason to stay in - although the latest revision to the forecast says the worst of the rain will be this evening. It even acknowledges that we have just had another short sunny spell. Maybe this afternoon I'll end up starting the audio editing I mentioned further up the page.