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.