There were two things I did
yesterday that were combined into one.
The first was to take my Olympus X42
pocket sized camera for a walk in the
park, and the walk in the park was to
get me to The Jolly Farmers to have a
drink with Angela. Both were pleasant,
or very pleasant. It has been a long
time since I tried that camera out, or
at least outside rather than indoors
or maybe in the garden. I was quite
pleased at how well it worked under
some testing conditions.
The camera is best illustrated
by the picture on the original
retail box it was sold in. I was
lucky to get almost the complete kit
when I spent something that I am
sure was less than £20 in (I think)
The Salvation Army charity shop in
Catford. The only thing missing was
the software CD, but that was of no
concern for any practical reasons.
What I am very glad about is
that it came with an adapter to
enable the use of a cheap and very
common micro SD card in the
XD-Picture card memory slot. XD
cards are still available, unused,
from Amazon, but they are in
extremely short supply, and bloody
expensive - £56 !!! There are
cheaper, and very dubious XD cards
available on Ebay, but I have strong
doubts they would all work.
My very first digital camera,
and Olympus C100, also used what is
now an obsolete memory card - The
Multimedia Card, or MMC card. The
other thing that it shares in common
with the X42 is that it takes rather
good pictures, and the X42 manages
very acceptable pictures in poor
lighting. One difference is that the
X42 has a x5 zoom lens. The C100
didn't have any optical zoom.
Olympus don't make any consumer
cameras now, and that is a shame,
but they still exist making
microscopes, and medical imaging
equipment.
I had only taken two paces
into the park when I came across
these crocuses (at least I think
they are crocuses) already
flowering, and bringing a bit of
colour into the park.
I saw plenty of Ring Necked
Parakeets high in the leafless, and
heavily pruned trees at the side of
the sports arena. It wasn't a good
pose, but this one was the easiest
to get a snap of using full zoom. It
must have been at least 20ft up the
tree.
Between midday and 1pm the
sunny spells were a bit thin on the
ground - which was a shame. There
was a lot more blue sky to be seen
behind me when I took this shot, but
that would mean shooting straight
into the sun. This picture, looking
north towards Ladywell, does show a
sliver of blue sky in the top left
of the picture.
(
09:54am and the sun has just
come out at full brilliance for
just a few minutes - contrary to
the pessimistic gloomy forecast).
You may notice some slight
grain on this picture. The sun was
behind a cloud, and the light was a
bit dull, but using a lot of zoom,
and just hand held, the camera has
captured a fairly good snap. Many of
my little pocket cameras would opt
for a slow shutter speed for less
grain, but that would give a lot of
motion blur at full zoom, and
produce a worse picture. I think I
rather like this camera.
This is another example of
how the X42 can capture a fairly
good image when using full zoom in
dull light. One of my DSLR cameras
could do a better job, but with
lens, would have cost 10 or more
times the price of the Olympus X42.
I have been aware that there
was a name board above this tin can
of a stand alongside the sports
arena in Ladywell Fields, but until
yesterday I had never known what it
said. Now, with the aid of full
zoom, I can read it. I can't say I
had ever heard of Clinton Rhule
before, but I have never taken any
interest in sports stuff, and even
less for football. You can look his
name up by doing an internet search
if you have any interest in that
direction.
The walk in the park was
enjoyable, and lunchtime with Angela
in the pub was very enjoyable. I
don't think there was any one
highlight about it though. It was
all warm, happy and intimate - or as
intimate as you can be in a pub.
Maybe it was better than I thought
because like any high there is
always the downside of coming down
again. I could feel a smidgen of
sadness walking home as I dwelt on
the idea that I would have to wait
another week to do it all again.
I was distracted from that
sadness by another small. but needed
sadness. During the night the mouse
(hopefully just the one) in my
kitchen had managed to eat the
grains of bird feed without setting
off the trap. I guess those few
grains were just a snack because it
was obviously out looking for more
while I was out in the park and pub.
I came home to a dead mouse in one
of the traps. I took it out and left
it on the tree stump that supports
the bird table. I just checked, and
it looks like some lucky crow or
magpie had fresh mouse for
breakfast.
It wasn't long after I had
dealt with the mouse, and I was
feeling OK again with the thought
that if I was lucky, that was the
end of my mouse problem (I am hoping
it was just the one that had got in
through the kitchen door while I was
outside, and the door not closed). I
was soon brought down again by a
call from Jodie. She told me that
Kayak (a Dutch band who I like)
would be playing in London again in
May.
That was good news until I
went to the website of the venue,
The Islington Assembly Hall. The
ticket price, including booking fee,
was £34, and that seemed a lot to
me. It put me off a fair bit, but
what nailed the final coffin home
was "
All
ticket holders are required to
demonstrate a valid NHS COVID
Pass. This can be one of the
following: An NHS COVID Pass on
the NHS app or a negative PCR or
negative NHS Lateral Flow Test
registered online and taken with
in 48 hours of the show door
time. Entry will be denied to
those that cannot provide
evidence of one of the above
requirements.". I've
had all my jabs, but I am not going
to add dodgy government apps to my
phone, or even phone up the NHS to
get a printed covid passport sent to
me. The idea of doing so just makes
me feel very cross and depressed.
From that point on I felt so
depressed that it cause almost
physical pain. It did not do good
things to my eating, and I ate all
sorts of old crap before I managed
to reign in my hunger. I had
sandwiches and crisps as snacks, but
my dinner was more controlled. I
just had three roast chicken things
(with bones and skin on them). My
original intention was to have some
green vegetables with them, but I
just couldn't be bothered to cook
anything else.
During and after dinner I
watched some TV, but nothing really
caught my attention enough to be
enjoyable. I think I was in bed with
a book before 9pm. I had drunk a few
large whiskies before going to bed,
and maybe they hastened me putting
the book down, and going to sleep
earlier than expected, although I
have no real idea when that was -
probably before 10pm, maybe a lot
before 10pm.
I would say I slept well
because in a way I did, but I had
loads of dreams, and they were not
nice dreams. They rather spoiled the
quality of my sleep. I can't
remember the earlier dreams, but I
do remember a vague outline of the
one of the last dreams I had. I
think I had been at work, or
something work related, and I was
able to get a lift home. That lift
started in a small car, and for part
of the drive it had to be driven in
reverse for no obvious reason. The
car seemed to morph into a very
small bus as we progressed.
I was trying to track our
progress, or at least see where we
were using my phone, but the map
would not come up. Eventually we got
to what I thought of as Lee Green,
and I thought I recognised a road
that I could use as a short cut to
walk home. I got out of the bus, and
once again tried to get a map on my
phone to help navigate my way
through the side roads, but my phone
went crazy. It had been infected
with a virus, and stuff was popping
up on the screen faster than I could
get rid of it. It was so active that
the drain on the battery was making
it get hot, and so on top of
everything else I was worried that
battery may catch fire.
I am sure there was much more
to that dream, but that is the best
précis I can remember. I was more
than happy to wake up from it. That
was at about 6am, or an hour before
I really wanted to get up, but I
needed to go to the toilet for a pee
and a poo. After that I tried to go
back to bed, and I did sleep, but
not for long. It was just after 7am
when I checked my blood glucose.
After all my snacks I knew I had
ruined a fair start to the month,
but it was not as bad as I feared.
It was 8.5mmol/l and not that much
more than my typical readings so far
this year.
I will try to do better
today, but that is probably
clutching at straws on a day when I
am liable to be drunk my dinner
time. It's Thursday, and that means
Jodie, and I think Alan too, will be
over for another beer
tasting/drinking session. It is
possibly the only significant thing
that will happen today. I hope it is
one of the better sessions. It will
help if Alan is here for most of it,
but generally he tends to come later
to meet Jodie before they go off to
some other drinking establishment
(or a gig).