08:44 BST

  It took a bit longer than forecast for the sun to break through the clouds, but by late morning there were sunny spells, and the afternoon featured very long periods of sunshine. There was the occasional cloud that passed in front of the sun, but I think the forecast of "sunshine" was justified. The temperature reached 22° C, and it was still 13° C at midnight.

  

  Once again the early forecast was a bit optimistic about the amount of sunshine. It is almost 9am as I write this, and the sun is still struggling to burn off some thin cloud, but it is starting to get sunny. The latest revision to the forecast now says we will get full sunshine at 11am, but that it will be reduced to sunny spells as early as 5pm now. The temperature is still predicted to hit 22° C, but now maybe only for a single hour instead of the two hours shown above. Tomorrow may start, and finish, with rain, but the middle of the day may be dry, and almost as warm as today, but there may be very little sunshine, or even none at all.

  I saved most of my energy for the evening yesterday, but I did do some laundry. I hand washed two towels, and some underwear that I hung on the line to dry. One of the towels needed special treatment to try and get rid of some blood stains. (It was from the small shaving cut that took a long time to heal - and I quite possibly scratched it in the night to make matters worse). I gave that towel a pre-wash and soak in smelly bio detergent.

  My extra washing did almost work, and reduced the bloodstains, which were old and well dried into the cloth, to just a few, almost shadows, left on the cloth. I hardly noticed them while it, and the other laundry was drying in the sunshine, but when seeing the other side, yes, there are a few sinister looking stains to be seen. Maybe they will come out on the next wash. Anyway, it was nice to bring in that laundry at about 4pm feeling nice and warm from the sun, and bone dry.

  It must have been around 1pm, or maybe a bit earlier, when I had a lunch of spreadable cheese on Marmite rice cakes. At 3.30pm I had a very, very early dinner of southern fried fish burgers and a few fish fingers. The fish fingers were to bulk it up a bit in an attempt to not feel hungry later. That did work, but maybe I over did it for reasons I'll explain a bit later. At about 5pm I washed my hair and had a good shower.

  That gave me a couple of hours to cool off before going out. The occasion was Whitestar playing in The Lord Holmesdale pub in Bickley. It was another occasion when Angela particularly wanted me to go to keep her company while lover boy played the drums as a guest drummer for the band. I could have got to the pub by a long and tedious bus ride on the 366 bus, or get a train to Bickley station.

  The bus, despite being suicidally boring, would have taken a lot less effort, and I sort of wish I had gone that way now. On the other hand I wouldn't be reminded just how out of condition I am - or maybe that big dinner was still holding me back even after allowing three hours to digest it. I chose the train because it was, or I thought it would be quicker.  Maybe the bus wouldn't have been such a long journey after all.

  First I had to walk to the station, and I felt I couldn't walk very fast. I allowed 15 minutes to get up to platform 2 of Catford station. I actually did it in slightly less than 10 minutes. That is almost a record, and yet it felt slow, and it felt painful. I was feeling bad by the time I had walked to the station, and up the long stairs to the platform. I even had to stop for just long enough to check the time as I went over Catford Bridge - maybe that took 10 seconds, but it seemed enough to get my breath back.

  My troubles were not over when I got to Bickley station. You go up stairs to get out of the station, and the first bit of road is uphill. I felt knackered by the time I got to the top, but fortunately it was downhill from there. One thing was for sure, there was no way I was going home by the same route. It is quite a climb from the pub to the top of the hill ! Fortunately I had a far better offer of a way home.

  I was probably at the pub for maybe 15 minutes when Angela arrived at the pub. She was so pleased to see me. She said she had sent me a text message to ask if I was going/to remind me about the gig, but maybe because she had had a few drinks before she left home, she must have sent it to some unknown number. She really was so happy to see me, and made quite a fuss over me all evening - which I was more than happy to receive. I was surprised at the amount of cuddling, stroking, and such like almost in front of lover boy (although most of the time his view was obscured by the bass player).
  You can just see a bit of lover boys elbow sticking out behind Gus the bass player.  I must say the band were generally well lit last night, and I didn't have to resort to using any flash. Unfortunately the place was busy, and it was not always easy to get a clear shot without elbowing someone out of the way. In fact there was a pissed woman I had to mouth "fuck off" while waving her away while she kept trying to dance facing me and camera. This morning I learned that she, and a probably doped up boyfriend, had to be escorted off the premises by the police after I left the pub.
  I have to give credit to the pub for keeping their windows spotlessly clean. That enabled me to get this snap through the window of Angela waving at me, although lover boy may have thought it was to him as I took this shot through the window of the scene above his drums.
  In this instance in time it looks like Angela is covering her face in embarrassment, but if it were a video, instead of a still, you would see that she was actually blowing me a kiss !
  In glorious purple, here's "Stretch" (Martin) who did a guest spot on mandolin for the final song of the evening. This is one time I never managed to get a snap with the lighting on a more favourable colour.
  There was extra support for Whitestar last night. Both me and "Stretch" had white stars on our shoes. I didn't notice it at the time, but a quick flick through the pictures I took last noght shows a man who appears to have the same trainers as me.

  For the last 3 or 4 years it has been unusual for me to stay to the very end of a gig (except an encore last night), but I had a very special temptation. Last Wednesday Angela has said that maybe we would share a cab home. Last night, just as the second set was about to start, Angela confirmed that was what we would do. I must admit that I felt I had seen enough, and taken all the photos I was going to be able to get, before the first set had finished, and I had considered going home then.

  Fortunately Angela confirmed the offer, and seemed very keen that I take it. It has been years since I've been in the back of a can with Angela, and although I didn't try to take any liberties, it was a very close experience, and I feel sure if it wasn't for circumstance, Angela would have loved to have spent more time with me, but she was expecting Lover Boy to arrived a bit later once the band had packed up, and he head loaded his little van up with his drum kit.

  Angela paid for the cab to drop me off at Catford Bridge station after she got out outside her house. I could have got the cab to take me right home, but I think Angela was having trouble remembering my post code - which isn't surprising because she hasn't had to use it for 5 years or so now. Catford Bridge station was an easy Landmark for the cab driver. It was about 13° C, and there was almost no wind when I walked from the station to home, and it felt nice and refreshing.

  One thing I thought I would probably end up doing was having something like a late supper when I got home, but I think I was satiated with other forms of nourishment last night, and it didn't seem hard at all to not have any food, or even any more drink. (I only had two pints of Guinness at the pub, and then they run out of Guinness). I think I read until midnight, and then tried to get to sleep, but I was still feeling too good for sleep. It didn't seem like I would ever get to sleep, but that state probably lasted no more than 10 minutes, and 5 minutes may be more realistic, before I was fast asleep.

  Generally speaking I seemed to sleep well last night. I did have a few troubles with the temperature - the old story of too hot under the duvet, and too cool without it ! I solved that problem when I turned the heater on low at 3 or 4am - probably the latter. I am sure I remember having a lot of dreams, but I don't seem to be able any more than that they existed - or probably existed. No single detail seems to have survived waking up.

  This morning, after my eating pattern yesterday, my blood glucose was down to a figure I haven't seen for some time now - 7.7mmol/l. I thought that was worth of celebration, and I had two bowls of instant noodles for breakfast. There is slightly better reason for such extravagance, and it is that I have quite a busy day today, and I am not sure if I want to take time out to eat before this evening.

  Once I have washed and dressed I need to get some shopping from Tesco. My cupboard is looking rather bare at the moment. Once my shopping is down I have a load more pictures that I took last night to go through, and select the best for a bit of editing to make a photo album. I am unsure how long that will take. it all depends on how many of the pictures I took are good enough to be usable. Some will need clever editing to try and remove odd bits of people appearing on the edges of the photo.

  Once that photo editing is done I intend to go out and get more photos ! Today is the final day of service of the Southern leased class 455 trains. Ideally I would like to travel around the network getting as many pictures of them in service as I can, but failing that there is a special railtour in one of those trains. It is going all over the southern network, and even onto the SouthEastern network. It is supposed to be passing through Catford station, towards Sevenoaks at about 16:55, and then back again towards Blackfriars at about 18:10. I can't remember ever seeing these trains on my local lines, and so I really want to get a good snap or two of them in Catford.