07:42 BST

  Yesterday was rather splendid - much better than the weather forecast predicted. There seemed to be either sunshine, or sunny spells, through most of the day. I did see at least one big black cloud, but it was never overhead, and it stayed dry and sunny while it sailed through the sky. It also felt pleasant warm with the temperature possibly a degree or two higher than the forecast 20° C.

  If I choose to believe the BBC weather forecast, and not the Met Office forecast, as shown in the screenshot above, it could be a day of sunny spells. At the moment the sun is out, but it is obvious there has been some rain, possibly even heavier rain earlier. It does look like it could rain again soon, and both forecasters agree on rain for 8am. It is after that that they differ - a lot ! In the latest revision  the Met Office insists there will be a thunderstorm at 1pm, but the BBC still says sunshine or sunny spells all day. I think today is a day to wait it out and see what really happens. The only certainty is that both forecasters agree on it being 20° C this afternoon. Tomorrow may start sunny, and it might, or might not be sunny in the afternoon. The temperature will be similar to today or yesterday.

  Yesterday was a surprisingly good day. It wasn't too far into the morning that it began to feel good for an adventure. I don't know what it was exactly, but it just sort of felt right. It seemed to take a fair time until I was ready to go out, but I was out in time to get the 12:05 train from Catford to Blackfriars station. At Blackfriars there was a short wait for my next train that took me to Elstree And Borehamwood station. It was quite a long ride - I arrived at Elstree And Borehamwood almost exactly an hour after leaving Catford station.
  Here's the first proof of my visit - a station name sign taken from the opposite platform. I can't help but thinking that "Borehamwood" sounds like a place name in a "Carry On" film. I think that it probably did influence some naming of places, or even hospital wards, in those films. Many of those films were actually filmed in Elstree. Wrong, the Carry On Films used Pinewood studios for studio sets. Anyway, lots of other stuff, both for the big screen and small screen were shot at and around the Elstree studios - a generic name for many studios both inside, and some slight outside the Elstree and Borehamwood area.
  This is the front of the modernised Elstree & Borehamwood station. It is in the modern, all glass style, and probably replaced a very elegant brick built station. Once upon a time the station was called just Elsreee before they added Borehamwood to the name.

  Having taken some snaps of Elestree & Borehamwood, I caught the next train that called at Kentish Town station. As I had suggested in my last paragraph yesterday, I had a plan to change at Kentish Town for the Underground Northern line so I could visit High Barnet - one of the most northern ends of the Northern Line, and also to visit Mill Hill East which sort of hangs off the side of the route to High Barnet.

  The National Rain, and London Underground stations are co-located at Kentish Town. One peculiarity is that when you get off the National Rail trains you have to go up onto a footbridge to cross the tracks, and enter the station building. Once inside the station building you go down escalators to a level that may be at a level below the National Rail tracks. I am uncertain about that because the national rail tracks are in a fairly deep cutting. It is possible the tube tunnels are just the other side of the cutting retaining wall, but I can't think of an easy way of finding if that is true or not. There is one thing I do know, and that is the north and south bound tube tunnels are on top of each other rather than side by side.
  It seems to take a fair while, but maybe only 20 minutes, to get from Elstree to Kentish Town, and then it must be at least 20 minutes to get from Kentish Town to High Barnet station. A third or so of the ride on the tube is underground, and I got the impression that the noise level, either from the tube car wheels, or from the track, in some of the underground sections, is considerably higher than I remember it being. It almost feel loud enough to invoke some sort of Health & Safety rules about the maximum allowed sound levels without ear protection.
  High Barnet station has two entrances. The one in the picture is from the car park, and it does give level access to the nearest platform. There are three terminal platforms at High Barnet, and they are used sequentially. At the time I was there trains were arriving, and departing at about 2 minute intervals. You didn't have to wait long if you chose the wrong train - as I did.
  The second, and probably the original entrance is halfway down a fairly steep footpath from (presumably) the main road. You get an idea of how steep it is by the sawtooth shape of the fence footings (or whatever they are called) on the right of the picture. This too promises wheelchair access. There are lifts to platform level that have been added to what was once just a bridge with steps down to each platform.

  It was getting on for 2pm when I got to High Barnet, and I was worried about getting caught on rush hour trains, but I decided to get the first train, but a mistake meant it was the second train, to go back to Finchley Central station where I could change to get the branch to Mill Hill East.
 There was a 10 minute wait for the train to Mill Hill when I was at Finchley Central, and that gave me a chance to have a quick look around. I found a time portal giving a view back into the 1960s. I must admit I found the Paisley trousers quite attractive, and the boots were both silly but rather good. She looked quite cute too.
  I must admit I was rushing when I got to Mill Hill East. Trains at this single platform seem to wait for 7 minutes after arriving, before departing again. With a service only every 15 minutes I decided to make sure I was back on the same trains that I caught to get there. With hindsight that was a bit silly, but I was still worried about impending rush hour travel.

  In that 7 minutes I could have taken pictures at platform level from both ends of the platform, but I was delayed by what seemed like a mad idea. The ticket office was manned, but not for selling tickets - only to give information. I asked if they had any old "London Connections maps" left. The helpful lady said no, but did have one that was not too old. I said that was actually what I wanted rather than an "old" map. She said it was really part of the ticket/information office kit, but said she could "accidently lose it". There was no opening on the help/ticket window, and she had to open the door to hand it to me. Until that time I had been working from a 2013 edition of the map. The one I was handed was from 2018.

  From Mill Hill East I took the train as far as East Finchley where, after a wait of only three minutes I changed to a train that would take the Charing Cross branch through central London. As we neared central London the train almost reached rush hour crush level - maybe about 80% full. That was unpleasant. At Charing Cross I got off and made my way to the mainline station. I was surprised how much I remembered the route to take considering it is probably 10 years since I last travelled that way.

  It was evident that when I got into the mainline Charing Cross station that I had just missed a train to Catford Bridge. There was something like a 24 minute wait for the next one. I used some of that time by going to the rail information kiosk to ask if they had any London Connections maps, and to my surprise, they did ! It was a December 2019 edition, and so almost up to date, although it doesn't show the new Elizabeth (Purple) line.

  I think it was the 15:24 train to Dartford that I caught to take me to London Bridge where I thought there would be a train coming from Cannon Street that would take me to Catford Bridge before the next service from Charing Cross. I was wrong, because I didn't really realise that I had split the original 24 minute wait in two, and I could stay on the same platform at London Bridge, and only wait 10 or 12 minutes for the train I wanted. That didn't feel too bad.

  I arrived home at about 5 past 4pm, or just over 4 hours after I had started out. I was feeling slightly tired, but surprisingly good. I noticed that I slowed down a bit when walking on the level, but during my outing I had breezed up stairs as if I had far more energy than usual. I did what I did after I had gone on my walk last Saturday. I tried to rehydrate myself with a pint of water drunk fairly quickly. Maybe I didn't give it enough time to get to my blood because when I checked my blood glucose level it had only dropped from 9.1mmol/l to 9.0mmol/l after fasting the whole day up to that point. That was very disappointing !

  I decided I was still going to eat regardless of any caution. I started with a Tesco ready made side salad that I added two different, end of packet, cheeses to. One was the last little bit of Shropshire Blue cheese, and the other was a drying out bit of Red Leicestershire cheese. Later on I fancied a can of beans with smoke bacon, and finally, for my dinner I had two cod and chorizo fish cakes with some mixed lettuce leaves. It didn't seem an excessive amount to eat, although it was all a bit bunched up from late afternoon to early evening.

  I never seemed to have the time for, and didn't really need the snooze I would typically have after an outing. It was certainly less hard work than a 90 minutes of walking (like last Saturday), but it did require some effort. There were staircases to go up and down, long station platforms to explore for better photography viewpoints, plus standing up on a wobbly tube train burns quite a few calories as the muscles are in constant action keeping you upright. Instead of a snooze I spent some time selecting and editing the pictures I had taken (much more than I have shown here - lots of trains and stuff). I even edited a small video I shall show last.

  I watched one episode of Qi, but declined the second episode (episode or edition ?) that followed it on Dave, and went to bed. It had been my intention to read for half an hour or more, but tiredness seemed to have caught up with me all of a sudden. Instead of reading I turned the light out, turned over, and I think I was fast asleep before it was even dark outside. It was a strange sort of night. Sometimes I seemed to sleep very well, but at other times I tossed and turned without really being asleep at all.

  I'm not sure what time it was, but I suspect it was around 3am when I got up for a pee, and I felt cold when I got back to bed. I had been sleeping under the duvet for most of the night, and I pulled the duvet over me again. Within seconds I felt far too hot. I kicked the duvet off and then felt both hot and cold at the same time. It felt like my belly was tingling with cold while my face was hot and sweaty. It might have been something like a fever, but it didn't seem quite like that somehow. I eventually got back to sleep mostly uncovered.

  I woke up an hour or two later, and everything was back to normal. I felt cool, but not cold, and provided I left an arm and a leg out, I felt generally comfortable under the duvet......or maybe I didn't. If that was about 4.30am, then that was my longest period of insomnia. It was almost light outside, and I did think about getting up, but after a long time, maybe almost an hour, I did get back to sleep again. It was just before 7am when I got up.

  As usual, one of the first things I did was to check my blood glucose. I had expected it to be, at worse, the same as yesterday, and hopefully a bit less. It was up even higher ! I narrowly missed crossing the red line with a reading of 9.9mmol/l - just 0.1 under that red line ! I feel sure that what I ate yesterday would have been considered very benign, but maybe only if spread across the day. Either that, or my strange sweatyness in the night was my pancreas finally dying, and in a few weeks I'll be on insulin.

  Today I will try to keep all my eating as early in the day as possible. I have had one single bowl of instant noodles for breakfast this morning, and I will try and have a simple, albeit slightly late lunch. The main entertainment today is to (hopefully) meet Angela for a lunchtime drink. A couple of pints of Guinness will liven up my appetite, but hopefully I can be satisfied with another simple salad, and maybe more cheese, for lunch. Dinner will probably be well grilled bacon with salad leaves. The only flaw in today's plan will be the possibility of a thunderstorm when I am supposed to be walking through the park. It will be horribly wet, but could also be exciting. I hope Angela thinks the same way.