Today may feel a bit hot. The forecast predicts 33° C today, and maybe the amber warning is deserved. I think that a yellow warning would have been good enough for yesterday ! Tomorrow may be the last day of "extreme heat", but only 32° C is predicted. From Monday we can look forward to a sprinkle of rain - maybe on Monday, but more likely on Tuesday or Wednesday.

   I very nearly didn't get out yesterday. It was one of those morning when I didn't seem to stop making visits to the toilet every 30 to 90 minutes to pass yet more poo. I didn't feel confident until I had just missed the train I wanted to get from Catford Bridge to Lewisham. Rather than wait half an hour for the next train that called at Lewisham I opted to get a bus to Lewisham.

  At Lewisham I caught a DLR train as planned, and went as far as Limehouse station for a simple connection to C2C National Rail services. I arrived there at 12:49pm, and that was about what I wanted, although apart from the train times from Catford Bridge, I hadn't done any forward planning. All I had done was to make sure the trains were running smoothly where I wanted to go. The first train I got at Limehouse was a Southend train, but before the train pulled away from the station I noticed that the following train was a Grays train, and that was just what I needed to get to Rainham (Essex) station.
  I had gotten off that first train at West Ham station, and waited on the platform for 3 or 4 minutes until the Grays bound train arrived. It would take me to Rainham station - one three station to visit as part of my quest to visit all the extremes of validity of my Freedom Pass. I have to say it felt like it was a long way out of London.
  I had never seen the outside of Rainham station before, although I had stopped at the station on a rail tour many years ago. Maybe it was 2003. At that time the station was small red brick building with a straight through ticket hall. The platforms were only long enough for 4 or maybe 6 car trains, and it was a passing point because a section of the line towards Grays was only single track. The track seems to be double track as far as I could see from the level crossing.
  This picture was taken on the far side of the level crossing. The new, rather tacky, station building is less than a minutes walk to the left.  The rebuilt station can now accommodate at least 10 car trains. The passenger rail service is probably just two trains per hour, but a lot of people use the service, and many were probably locals rather then those visiting the nearby Rainham Marshes nature reserve (apparently a very nice place to visit).

 The station has a lot of passing freight traffic coming from Tilbury Docks. I say "a lot" based upon seeing two very long freight trains pass while I waited for a train back to Barking station where I would change trains for a train to Barking Riverside.
  This station does not appear on the Freedom Pass map because it is too new. It only opened on 22nd July this year (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barking_Riverside_railway_station for more info). However, all London Overground station, as this one is, accept the Freedom Pass. The station building is very big, and must have been ludicrously expensive to build, but looks impressive. It will look a whole lot more impressive when not surrounded by a gigantic building site.
  I did take a bit of a wander while I was at Barking Riverside. Initially I needed to so I could get a long shot over the building site that included the big station name on the side of the station. From this perspective the path to the entrance is an alley to the right between two building sites with solid fencing panels either side, but when the building/landscaping work is done I think the main path to the entrance will be from the left.

  One thing I particularly want to see was Barking Riverside Pier. Maybe prior to the site being redeveloped, the maps said that there was an open footpath onto the pier. According to a site security man from a different site, and who I thought was probably someone with local knowledge, the pier is now only accessible at certain times, and my even require a boat ticket to go on it. It seems it might belong to Uber-Boats now - the same law and regulation busting company that runs Uber taxis.
  Not only is Barking Riverside station a brand new station, but it has brand new trains ! This outing was the first time I had seen these bright orange class 710 trains. The charm of the ride to Gospel Oak station, the ultimate destination of this train, was the diesel trains, even more so for the old slam door diesel trains. The best you can say about these new trains is that when there are few passengers adding their heat, and leaving doors open at stations, is they have a really chilly air conditioner. After a 20 minute walk to the riverside and general look around in the fierce sunshine, it did feel good to travel the single stop back to Barking for another change of trains.

  The trains from Rainham, and from Barking Riverside use the same platforms at Barking, but for my next destination, Upminster, I had to go down the urine soaked (or so it always smells) subway to get to the right platform for a Southend train which stopped at Upminster - as I think all but a few rush hours trains do). Instead of the subway I could have used the stairs up to the ticket concourse to get to the right platform, but I got off the train right by the slope down to the subway.
  It doesn't take much more than 5 minutes, or maybe 10, to get from barking to Upminster. I have always found it a sort of strange place. I guess if you know the area it is conveniently situated for lots of things, but there never seems to be much to see from outside the station - probably because the station is built on a bridge. However, it is a sort of transport hub. It has a taxi rank outside. It is where the Underground District line ends in the east, and where the shuttle train to Romford (another London Overground service) starts.
  I suppose another indicator of it's importance is that it does have some fairly clean and maintained toilets on platform 1 - the main London bound platform for National Rail services. I have to confess I took advantage of them for a quick pee.
I must admit that I was saddened to see another class 710 train being used on the small single track line to Romford, with it's single intermediate station at Emmerson Park.
The last time I travelled on the line they were using ex-Standsted Express class 317 train on it. They were in very good condition, and gave an almost luxury ride. Apart from the air conditioning, the class 710 trains are very uncomfortable with their horrible longitudinal seating. Wikipedia has a lot more information, plus interior pictures of the call 710, and how there are three variants of it for use on different lines - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_710

   After paying my respects to Upminster I caught a semi fast train back to Limehouse. It was on Limehouse where I had my first disappointment. As I was doing at all stops and changes, I was taking pictures of trains for my ever growing spreadsheet catalogue of all the trains I have photographed. I stood back to allow the few passengers who go off the same train as me to leave the platform. The platform was then completely deserted except for me, and a yellow high visibilty jacket - an outside hired security man.

  I ignored him, and took a picture of the back of the train I had just got off, and the front and back of train using the opposite platform. I then walked towards him, and the exit direct onto the DLR platform. He stopped me and gave the usual spiel that is the opposite of what The British Transport Police say, that for security and safety reasons I was not supposed to take photos there. The transport police say that provided photographers do not cause an obstruction they welcome extra eyes, and possible photographic evidence of any security problems. (This only applies to personal photographs - commercial photographers have special rules). I could not be bothered to argue with this jobsworth, and just told him not to worry because I would be the DKLs problem in the next minute.

  I went through the automatic ticket barriers from the National Rail platform to The Docklands Light Railway platform without giving a thought to who "owned" them. I didn't stop to look at any signs or notices, but I later realised that I should have "touched in" with my Freedom Pass at the card reader on the platform. The very first train that was arriving as I went onto the platform was for Abbey Wood, but I only had a 3 minute wait for the Lewisham train.

  It seemed like they were running a very intensive service to Lewisham, maybe every 4 minutes, and despite it being just about rush hour, the train was maybe only 2/3rd full instead of the 4/3rds full as I expected. I can't say it was a pleasant journey, but I did have a seat to myself, and there were other nearby empty seats, but like mine, they all faced backwards. I do like to see where I am going rather than where I have been.

  The main let down of the day was at Lewisham where I had a 20 minute wait for a train back to Catford Bridge. I must admit it did give me the opportunity to do some more "train spotting" with my camera. For some of the time I was standing almost next to a member of the platform staff, an employee of Southeastern trains. He would have observed me taking time to not obstruct anybody, and he said nothing at all about my terrible sin of using a camera on rail property !

  It was within a few minutes of 5pm when I got home. My feet ached a bit, and I felt rather peckish, but otherwise I felt good enough to only stop for a few rice cakes with salad leaves and cheese before I started work on the pictures I have shown today. I also checked all the trains I had photographed against my train catalogue spreadsheet. There were another 25 trains to be entered in it. I entered the principle information as I went along, but one job today will be to edit the relevant photos to the right size and shape to be linked to in the spreadsheet.

  It was 8pm before I had my dinner, and it was bigger than it should have been. It felt right at the time, but even as I ate the 4 fish burger patties with a heap of mixed salad leaves I realises that two fish burger patties would have been sufficient. After dinner I began to feel really tired. I watched maybe just a quarter of an episode of QI before I went to bed. I had felt mostly OK through the whole day, but it did feel very hot and sticky as I lay on my bed.

  It is hard to say when I went to sleep, and if I slept fairly well. It seemed to take some time before I fell asleep, and it is only a guess that it might have been close to 9pm. I woke quite a few times in the night, but I have a suspicion that I was only awake for little more than a minute. At one time I was awake only long enough to get up to move the fan around a bit. Maybe I didn't sleep all that well because despite probably getting to sleep quite early last night, I didn't get up until gone 7pm - later than usual.

  This morning I am hoping I hadn't rehydrated myself properly, and didn't leave it long enough after starting to drink chilled water, when I checked my blood glucose. It said 10.0mmol/l - which is right on the red line. That was surprising. I was expecting it to be a fair bit lower. There are a few reasons why it might be higher than expected. One is that the oriental noodles I had for breakfast contain a lot more sugar than the Polish noodles I like. The other is that those fish patties contain more sugar than expected. I am sure I have had just two in the past, and it has barely affected my average readings. Another factor that shouldn't, but does make a difference, is that I ate an hour later than usual, and so there was less time to "process" the food.

  On the stupid assumption that my blood glucose reading was wrong, I had a bowl of creamy shrimp (or something like that) Yum Tum (tiddle I po) spicy noodles for breakfast. I feel sure they were no good for me, but they were very tasty, but now I shouldn't eat for a fortnight. That might not be easy because one thing I will probably do today is to go shopping in Aldi. I need some of their blue coloured fabric conditioner among other things.

  Another thing I want to do today is some laundry. I'll start that once I have had a shower, and I might finish is before or after going to Aldi. One final thing is to edit the photos for inclusion in my train pictures spreadsheet. That could be a simple-ish job because all the pictures were taken on my Canon 600D DSLR camera in mostly bright sunshine, although there may be a few taken in shadow that need a bit of enhancement. Other than that, I fancy being very lazy, and laying on my bed reading and snoozing during the hottest hours. It is not impossible, although unlikely, that I could go to a gig tonight. It is Chain playing in Blackheath - which is good because it is not in Bromley !