There may be a
couple of random hours with no sun at all, but
the majority of today should feature sunshine
even if only sunny spells. In most respects
today will be like yesterday. Even the
afternoon high of 22° C will probably be the
same. It is almost as if summer has finally
started. However, tomorrow may see a little
less sun, but not that much less. The
temperature may be a degree cooler at 21° C.
Yesterday was carefully planned, and
the planning went well. Part of that planning
concerned eating. I had two fish burger
patties for breakfast, and then two bowls of
instant noodles for a late lunch. That was all
I ate for the whole day. The next part of the
plan was to do some laundry. I hand washed 2
t-shirts and 5 pairs of underpants, and
managed to get them on the washing line
seconds before 11.30am.
That got what might have been the easy
part of the day over. It took a while before I
felt ready to tackle the next job. That job
was gardening. If I had infinite energy, and
infinite patience, I would have cut the grass,
and weeded all three flower beds. All I
actually managed was weeding half of one
flowerbed, and I didn't do that all that well.
It was hot under the strong sun, and bending
over to pull those weeds was not good for my
back.
I had noticed it before, but I hadn't
appreciated the extent of it....Pigeons are
such messy eaters that quite a lot of corn
gets scattered around the bird table. I must
have at least a dozen stalks of wheat growing
around the bird table. It's a shame that there
I can't really use it for anything. Even
threshing it to try and get the kernels is
probably not really worth it. I suppose I
could take up flower arranging and use the
dried stalks in that, but it is not a hobby
that appeals to me.
If I hadn't let the weeds grow so
rampantly I might have had a lot of pansies to
make the garden looks a lot nicer. Instead all
I have is dense weed and the occasional flower
that manages to grow so tall that it can pop
it's head above the weeds. That has
consequences as I learned yesterday.
This was part of the area where I did
most of the weed clearance, but as can bee
seen, I wasn't very thorough. The reason was
it was difficult to untangle the weeds from
the flowers. In the bottom centre of this
picture you can just see a glimpse of yellow.
I think it is a marigold flower. They had to
grow so high to try and peep out above the
weeds (but never quite made it) that the weak
stems were only supported by the weeds, and
the two were almost knitted together. Trying
to untangle them seemed to take ages, and why
I left the job only a quarter finished or
less. There are actually two marigold plants
in this picture. One was probably killed when
I accidently uprooted it. I replanted it, and
gave both plants a good water in the hope that
they may perk up.
I felt hot, sweaty, and dirty after an
hour in the garden, and it was nice to relax.
I did nothing of any significance for a few
hours until it was time to wash my hair, and
have a shower in preparation of going out in
the evening. When I first started the shower I
realised the water was much too hot, and it
was time to restrict the gas to the heater to
get cooler water (the thermostat does/or could
work, but would start to leak if moved again).
Restricting the gas is handy because gas is
getting to be a luxury purchase since all the
power companies raised their prices by about
50%.
On a very warm day it was nice to have
a cooler shower. It meant that I could almost
dry my head and hair with a towel instead of
sweating faster than the towel can catch it -
which would have been the situation if I had
washed my hair and body using rather hot
water. Once I was fully scrubbed, and had
blown dry my hair, I could relax again. I had
approximately an hour to do nothing before
going to the station to catch a train.
I was going to take some photos of the
band Hell On Tap playing in The Swan pub in
West Wickham. I caught the train as far as
Eden Park station, and then got a bus to the
pub. What seems like a more obvious idea of
getting the train direct to West Wickham
station is marred by having to walk up the
hill to the high street where the pub is.
Getting the bus from Eden Park means I can
arrive at the pub feeling cool.
Hell On Tap could be described as old
school heavy metal, and that would be close
enough, but doesn't convey how some of their
stuff is covers of old songs done in a heavy
style. A lot of the heavy metal sound is due
to Steven Blessing and his guitar - seen in
the picture above.
Mike Chappel, above, make a good racket
on the drums (and I mean "racket" in a
positive way.
I have to confess I can't think what
the bass player's name is. Like many bass
players he tends to stay at the back a lot of
the time, and it was not easy to get a clear
photo of him.
The "front man" is actually a front
woman by the name of Carrie Mae. I don't think
I could say she is a great singer. She puts
power before delicacy, but she has a great
stage presence, and really works the audience.
Here's the whole band in one picture.
I only stayed at the gig until I felt I
had taken sufficient pictures to make a small
photo album. There was also the fact that the
place was getting busier, and it was getting
too hard to get clear shots - made even harder
by some people using their mobile phone to
photo or video the band in close up. One
person in particular, and the reason I don't
go to many gigs in the Bromley area now, is a
real pest for somehow always managing to hog
the best position, and never yielding it to
anyone else - even if he is taking his usual
54 close up photos of the lights. I am sure he
is "
on
the spectrum".
I guess I saw only about 40 minutes of
the gig, but I came away feeling satisfied,
and the journey worthwhile. It was quite
pleasant walking down to West Wickham station.
For one thing it is down hill ! It was also
feeling nice and fresh. The temperature had
dropped to the point where it was almost
starting to feel a bit cool. Despite being
after sunset, there was still a lot of light
in the sky. The only disappointment was that I
had only missed a train by about 5 minutes,
and the next one was nearly 5 minutes late. I
guess it was probably no more than a 15 minute
wait.
Having got on the train, it often
seemed to run a bit slowly, and at one point
it came to a complete stop. I suppose it could
have been a red signal ahead, but the only
reason for that could have been if the train I
had missed had got stuck at Clockhouse station
for a long time. I think we finally arrived in
Catford about 10 minutes late, at sometime not
too long after 10pm. Maybe it was fortunate
the wind was blowing the smell of the fried
chicken shop away from more, but even if it
hadn't I may have been able to resist the
temptation.
When I got home I resisted the
temptation to even go into the kitchen. Once I
had taken off my outdoor clothes I gave my
hands a scrub, and checked my blood glucose. I
wondered if it ight still be high, but at
least I know I was not dehydrated because I
had a single pint of Guinness in the pub. I
was rather pleased to see my blood glucose had
dropped from 10.1 in the morning to just
7.3mmol/l as 11pm came near.
I didn't feel particularly tired, and
decided to make a start on the photos I had
taken. I shot 109 of them in all, but many
were burst shots so I could select from 3 or 4
almost identical shots for the one with the
best look. I was using flash to take the
photos, and so most of them were usable in
terms of sharpness and exposure (although I
deliberately slight under exposed almost all
of them to avoid any highlights from the
flash). Once I started I continued until I had
gone through all of the photos. Most only
required some very simple work, and before I
knew it, I had done them all, and it was still
not midnight !
I went to bed, and even after reading a
couple of pages from a book, I think I was
asleep before midnight (maybe only be mere
seconds !). I seemed to sleep really well for
most of the time. There was one period around
3 or 4am when laying on my right was feeling
uncomfortable, but if I turned over I started
getting a pain like sciatica in my left thigh.
That was a novelty. I have never had a pain
there before. It went away later, or at least
I managed to find a position comfortable
enough to get to sleep, and the pain never
returned. If there was anything wrong with my
sleep it was that I woke up too early at about
6.30am, and couldn't get back to sleep again
despite feeling I should be able to.
Considering I hadn't eaten anything
since about 2.30pm yesterday, it was hard to
see why my blood glucose had gone
up
during the night. It was 7.3mmol/l sometime
around 11pm last night, and this morning it
was up to 8.0mmol/l. That is still a perfectly
acceptable reading, but I still can't
understand where the extra sugar came from. It
make me suspicious that the current test
strips I am using on my meter, and which I
bought via Amazon, might be something like
Chinese knockoffs, and that their accuracy is
not that great. Oh well, the doctors and nurse
tell me that meter is only supposed to be a
guideline, and they they only work from a lab
tested blood sample.
Today could be a lot like yesterday. I
have more laundry to do, and get hanging on
the line to dry this morning. I may succeed in
forcing myself to do more weeding, or even
getting the strimmer out to cut the grass. I
hope I can keep my eating to a minimum again,
and tonight I hope to go out - to see Angela,
and a band who I may not like. Angela's
official lover is drumming for a band called
Crosstown Revival. They would seem to play a
mix of rock and roll and soul music - probably
in the same way that there was a big crossover
between those genres in the 1960s. I will
effectively going just to keep Angela company,
and I hope it is another cuddly occasion like
last time when we saw Whitestar in The Lord
Holmesdale pub. On that occasion her official
lover was standing in as drummer and was
safely tucked away behind his drums (and his
view of us was often blocked by the bass
player). There is even a very tiny possibility
that we might meet somewhere else for a drink
together !
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