Today is the first day of a run of 4 days where the temperature will rise to above 30° C, although only by a degree or two, and not as hot as the few very hot days we had in June (or was it July ?) when we almost reached 38° C. There was a little bit of hazy early this morning, but now it is full on sunshine for the next couple of days. This coming Sunday will be the changeover point when the sun will be mostly hidden by cloud, and the temperature starts to drop. Monday 15th August might even feature some rain, or a lot of rain, with thunderstorms if the BBC forecast turns out to be correct.

   Most of yesterday seems to be a blur. I washed yet more clothes, and hung them out on the line, in hot sunshine, to dry. I brought them in feeling hot to the touch 5 or so hours later. Of course there was a highlight to the day when I met Angela in the pub during her lunchbreak. Maybe it is because it was hot, or maybe something else, but just recently we don't seem to be so close. There is no magic spark, but it was still very good to see her, and have a couple of pints of refreshing Guinness.
  There is talk of a hosepipe ban starting soon after almost no rain for much of the summer. Maybe this is why Ladywell Sports Arena had at least 5 sprinklers going in the middle of the sports field. It does seem to be rather a big waste of water when I'm sure that athletes sweat enough to keep it all well watered. I took the picture above while walking through the park to get to the pub, and Angela.

  I didn't have any breakfast yesterday morning, and so my Guinness was poured into an empty stomach. It didn't seem to make much difference, although maybe I felt a little more sleepy when I got home again. Once at home I had a packet of instant noodles. After I ate them I definitely felt sleepy. I lay on my bed, and read a page or two before falling asleep for maybe as long as an hour.

  After my sleep it was back to my PC to get back to editing photos. I was finally selecting and editing pictures of the last band I saw - Glamstar. I don't know why, but I find all that glam rock glitter, huge sparkling boots, and similar, to be creepy in some way. Although all the songs they cover were catchy pop songs in their time, I preferred more serious rock music. The funny thing is that Glamstar have an alter-ego as Run For Cover, and I really like the serious rock music covers they do - including a few extremely well covered Pink Floyd songs.
  Here's one of my pictures of Glamstar. I made a tragic mistake taking these pictures, that actually started during the previous band, Jamie And The Jets. I didn't compensate for the day starting to dim as the sun dropped too low behind the trees behind the stage. Many pictures were under exposed. In my defence I would say the lighting was a bit tricky. It was a sort of half way thing where once it got darker still the stage lighting would start to light up the faces of the band. At this time it was a bit of both.

  I had to pull out all the stops to force some reasonable pictures from the 92 I took of Glamstar (I think I said 67 yesterday). I did a lot more smoothing to cover the grain, and then a lot of sharpening to make the picture look a bit crisper. I obviously made the picture as light as I dared, and also fiddled with the colour. At the end of that a few pictures started to look a bit like John Bull's photo - the very successful photographer who inspires many of my efforts. The curious thing is that as my pictures started to look a bit like his the less I liked them. I think I prefer the more natural look.

  Finishing the Glamstar photos was not the end of my photography last night. I noticed a big bright, and probably full moon (or if not full, only a few hours from it) as I was getting ready to go to bed. I was still dressed enough that with the addition of a t-shirt I was able to go out into the road for a better view - except it wasn't ! The moon was so low it was half hidden by the roofs of the houses in that direction. I ended up being just about able to get a picture in from my bedroom window.
  I tried my Nikon D80 camera because I have a nice 300mm zoom lens for it, but being a fairly low resolution camera the pictures looked a bit ragged. Next I tried my Canon 1200D camera, also with a 300mm zoom lens. That was a big improvement. I also tried my Nikon P500 "bridge" camera, and that was rubbish for this task. The picture above was taken with my now rarely used Canon SX420 "bridge" camera. It adjusted the exposure all by itself (the moon is a lot brighter than you think), and it's built in zoom lens seems as if it could be equivalent to a 400 or even 500mm lens on a DSLR camera.

  I slept really well until about 4am this morning. Prior to that I had some interesting, or entertaining dreams - at least that is how I think I remember them, although most of the details have now faded away. I woke up sometime very soon after 4am to a horrible sewer like smell. I didn't think it was my own gaseous emissions, and wondered if it had been blown in from where ever the source of the hot air coming our way.

  I realised what it was 5 or 10 minutes later when I heard the sound and smells of a diesel engine. It was the dustmen, or waste collection operatives, or whatever. They usually start quite early, but with a scorching day approaching I can't blame them for starting extra early so they can spend the afternoon in a shaded beer garden with copious amounts of ice cold beer.

  From the time I was woken up until the time I got up, which was later than usual, I slept in fits and starts. I can't really say the last 3 hours of sleep were good, but the previous hours did seem good. This morning I seem to feel fairly good. Enough bits ache to prove I am still alive, but nothing aches that much. I can look forward to great day, except it won't be that great. I still have a lot of pictures taken at Petts Wood Calling to go through. They are not pictures of the bands, or at least not while on the stage, but just general shots of anything that seemed like a possible good photo. This afternoon it seems definite that Jodie will be coming for a beer tasting session.