08:11
BST
Yesterday
was the final sunny day in a string of sunny
of sunny days, and it was like the best was
saved for last. Maybe I only say that after
looking at the start of today. Anyway, there
was non stop sunshine from dawn to dusk, and
the afternoon temperature reached a nice warm
feeling 17° C. The only problem is that the
sky stayed clear beyond the end of the day,
and by 11pm the temperature had fallen to 9°
C, and continued to fall.
Maybe the
temperature only fell to 6 or 7° C this
morning, but the dark and gloomy sky make it
feel even colder. Earlier forecasts for this
morning predicted mist or fog. This morning's
early forecast said not even mist, and yet it
is misty, and it is condensing into dew fast
enough to make it seem like there is a very
fine drizzle out there (enough to make it a
waste of time to water the flower beds last
night). This misery may continue until 3pm
when the sun may break through to give some
sunny spells, and raise the temperature to 12°
C. 6 and 7pm could feature full sunshine. The
current prediction for tomorrow is for 3 hours
of fog followed by three hours of mist. The
middle of the day could feature 2 hours of
sunny spells, but then white cloud will fill
the sky. The only good thing is that the
temperature in the afternoon could be 15° C.
In the early hours of this morning, 1am
to be precise, the clocks changed to British
Summer Time. It meant getting up an hour earlier
- according to my mechanical clock, which I
haven't changed to BST yet, it is only 7.25am as
I write this, although my computer correctly
says it is 8.25am. As a consequence I feel
tired, but there are other reasons for that, and
I'll come to those later.
Yesterday was a tiring day, but I did
make a start on a project, and while it was
basically pointless, it was also very
satisfactory except for one minor problem. That
project is the one I mentioned yesterday
morning, and concerns the idea of visiting the
most distant stations that my OAP's Freedom Pass
allows me to travel to free of charge. I left
home at about 11am, and I had a plan to visit
three railway station. Of course my Freedom Pass
is valid on London Underground, and on buses.
A potential future challenge could be to
travel on every bus route to as far from London
as possible, or even from end to end, but the
latter would probably be quite boring, and even
exploring the outskirts of London by bus could
be a bit boring too. I think I'll mostly stick
with National Rail and London Overground for
now, and maybe the ends of The Underground lines
as the next objective, although I think it will
count if the Tube terminus is also a national
rail station, or it is convenient to get on a
tube service if I am in the right area.
The first station I visited is now
officially in Zone 8. I know this now because
there is a poster outside the station that says
so. That station is Swanley, and it was an easy
station to get to by direct train from Catford
station. It is a curious paradox that while I
like travelling by train, it is also often
boring. The ride from Catford to Swanley is
boring because I have done it so many times
before, and the views are very patchy -
sometimes just the back of houses or offices,
sometimes just dense wood or hedge, and
sometimes just the sides of a cutting.
This is Swanley station. The poster I
mentioned saying it is in zone 8 is on the far
right of the picture. The station has recently
been refurbished/part rebuilt. Maybe that was
because of some sort of recognition that as
London ever expands it is less in the
countryside, and now almost in the suburbs.
This train, 700049, seen here just
approaching Catford station, is the train that
took me directly, via 7 intermediate stations,
to Swanley. From Swanley my route got more
complicated. I had to get a train back to
Bickley station, which my train called at on the
way to Swanley. From Bickley I could get a train
to Orpington station, and from Orpington station
I could change to get a train 2 stops down the
line to Knockholt station.
Knockholt station really is isolated in
the countryside, and it has quite a sparse train
service. It was a 24 minute wait for my next
train. It is also a station that has been
modernised to such an extent that it has lost
any typical railway station look. I didn't
realise it at the time, but you can just see a
name board above the door and window of the
building on the left. I opted to concentrate on
the name above the noticeboard as a generic
picture of the front of the station.
The next stage of my quest would be a 25
minute rise to Hither Green station where I
would change trains again. The timetables said
it would only be a one minute connection, and in
that time I would have to race over a footbridge
from platform 3 to platform 6. I thought I could
make it if the wind was in the right direction,
but it was not to be. We got held at a red
signal between Grove Park and Hither Green for
about 2 minutes. It was long enough that when we
finally arrived at Hither Green station the
train I wanted, that would take me to Dartford,
had left at least a minute earlier.
Fortunately I had prepared for such an
eventuality, and knew that my best bet was to
stay on the train all the way to London Bridge
station. I could have caught a train to Dartford
from London Bridge, but by then I was feeling
tired, and decided to get the first train back
to Catford Bridge. That meant a dash, although
there was plenty of time for a very relaxed
stroll, plus some time to photograph a few
trains, but I dashed anyway from platform 6 to
platform 2. I even ran a little way up the
escalator until someone got in my way. I'm sort
of glad they did because they are very
l o n
g escalators !
By the time I got back to Catford I was
definitely feeling very tired. I am not sure why
sitting down for long periods of time on a train
should be so tiring. Maybe it is because I tend
to stay on high alert all the time so I can try
and observe everything there is to see. Maybe it
is because travelling alone seems subjectively
to take longer because there are no distractions
as you might get when travelling in company.
It may have been tiring, but at least it
was productive. I have now visited 2 out of the
43 stations tat are on my list to visit as part
of this quest (that includes some London
Underground termini). I also took pictures of 14
trains I previously didn't have pictures of, and
maybe another 14 of trains that I already have
pictures of. As well as being tired, I was also
hungry. I can't remember if I had any breakfast
yesterday, although I probably had a single bowl
of instant noodles.
Many of the train pictures I took were of
the the trains I was actually going to use, or
had just used, but I also took pictures of any
trains I could - like this train at Bickley that
was heading towards Victoria station. I had just
got off the train on the platform to the right.
Both trains were about to depart and it was a
rush to get to 377515 before it departed.
The first thing I did when I went through
my front door was to head for the kitchen to get
something to eat. My original idea was for a
couple of cans of soup, but in the end I opted
for the last two cans I had of the Romanian cans
of beans that had no English translation on
them. One turned out to be beans with a sort of
sausage, and the other was just with a few diced
vegetables. I put some Parmesan cheese slices on
the latter.
Both were nice, and more enjoyable than
Heinz Baked beans. I think the lack of added
sugar makes them easier to enjoy, plus I rather
like the giant beans they use. The other plus
point is that where they add meat, it is
recognisable as meat. It is obvious that
"traditional beanz with sausages" just have a
sort of squeeze of semi solidified pink gloop
(mechanically recovered meat). The bacon in the
Romanian beans is real bacon with fat still on
it. The sausages in the can I had yesterday was
very obviously cut from real continental style
sausages. Very tasty !
I really felt tired as I sat down to
review, select and edit the pictures I took
yesterday. I had to stop at one point and have a
quick snooze. It is typical that I woke up from
that snooze initially feeling worse than when I
started, but I did end up benefiting from it. I
didn't feel I had the energy or patience to add
the prepared pictures to my ever growing
spreadsheet where I am listing every fair or
better pictures of trains I have taken snaps of.
My late lunch (it was about 3pm after
having been out for nearly 4 hours) meant that I
had a late dinner. I looked in the fridge to
plan my dinner, and ended up seizing a packet of
pork sausages. My dinner was nothing but
sausages with a squirt of low sugar tomato
sauce, and a scrape of mustard. I just couldn't
be bothered to prepare anything else. One thing
I did do that added extra flavour was to mini
oven/grill cook them in the fat from the beef
burgers I had the night before. It gave those
sausages a delightful taste even if they were
not as fat free as the could have been.
I didn't fancy watching a Neil Sedaka
concert last night, and that meant there was
nothing on TV for me last night. I spent the
evening drinking a couple of very large
whiskies, and reading. I don't really know when
it was I went to sleep, but I think it could
easily have been as early as 8.30pm, or as late
as 9.30pm. What I do know is that I didn't
always sleep well. It was partly a temperature
problem, but in some positions my right knee was
aching.
I had the heater off about an hour before
going to sleep, but at 1am I felt compelled to
turn it on again. That was an interesting time
for two reasons. The first was something that
has happened many times recently, as in the last
month or two. I went for a pee, and then got
back in bed, and tried to sleep laying on my
right side. I immediately started coughing as
soon as my head hit the pillow. It seems to be
an allergic reaction to, maybe, something on one
side of the pillow or bed, but the curious thing
is that it only seems to happen the one time in
the night.
The only cure for that cough is to have a
drink, and lay on my left side and wait for it
to subside. It was while waiting that I realised
the time was a minute away of the clocks
changing. As I watched the clock screensaver on
my PC, which I can't make display a 24 hour
clock, rolled over from 12:59:50 to 02:00:00. I
don't think I have ever seen that happen before.
I was soon sleep again after that happened.
Even with the heater on I still didn't
seem to sleep that well. I think the light, but
persistent pain from my right kneecap, when in
the wrong position, unfortunately a position I
naturally fall into, didn't help my sleep, but
some of it was sexual frustration ! At least I
think it was. I did have one dream, featuring a
lady friend whose only feature I seem to be able
to remember was a very nice bottom in tight
white trousers. The intention was to have
"intimate relations" but somehow, like in some
slapstick comedy, something would always get in
the way. I can remember hardly anything about
the dream, but I am pretty sure nothing ever
happened.
I woke up almost on the dot of 7pm, but
of course it felt like 6am (which it was in GMT
currency), but it was just about light, a rather
gloomy light, and so I got up. I felt pretty
lousy - just like I had been fighting all night,
and maybe I was ! The good news is that against
all expectations I scored a magnificent blood
glucose reading. It was just 6.7mmol/l, and I
felt that deserved two bowls of instant noodles
this morning. Despite the two (small) cans of
giant beans, I seemed to do a very neat poo this
morning.
I should feel fighting fit this morning,
but maybe the ultra gloomy weather, and dampness
(it still looks like it has recently rained) is
dragging me down. I don't feel like doing
anything today, or at least anything yet. I
could do some apocryphal rainy day stuff - like
doing more to me train pictures spreadsheet, or
maybe swapping the hard disk for the new solid
state drive in my laptop. In theory it should
brighten up, and be a lot warmer later this
afternoon. I am not seeing Jodie today, she is
going to a gig today, and so I could potentially
go on one short train journey today to Hayes
(Kent). It is not exactly an exciting journey,
but it would tick one more box on my Freedom
Pass limits quest.
There are two things I probably ought to
do today. Both are shopping trips, but I think
they need to be done separately because I don't
know what I'll end up buying on one of them. One
shopping trip will be to the little supermarket
on Catford Bridge to stock up on instant
noodles, and anything else that looks useful.
The second trip will be to Poundstretcher. I
will be assuming their 50% off clearance sale is
still on. There are quite a few things I might
buy at half price, and than might include some
storage boxes. They seemed to have a lot left in
their on Friday. If I could get them home I
could be tempted to buy quite a few, but today
it would have to be a modest amount.