The BBC weather forecast started out better than the Met Office forecast in the screenshot above. The BBC said there would be sunny spells, and there were. The sun is now quite dim, but still able to cast a feint shadow. The BBC says sunny intervals (rather than sunny periods) for about half of today, while the Met Office paints a much duller looking forecast. Both agree it will be 21° C this afternoon. For tomorrow the Met Office remain more pessimistic than the BBC. The BBC say some sunny intervals, and the Met Office say it will be dull all day, but both say the temperature will be 22° C.


  After my very late night on Saturday I felt rather tired yesterday, but I still achieved two of the things I wanted to do yesterday. One of which was to go to Tesco where I bought quite a lot of stuff, and none of it was bird food this time !

   One of the things I bought from Tesco was a packet of Marmite Flatbreads, as pictured on the left. I can't recall seeing them before. Fortunately they were near the Marmite Rice Cakes, and I spotted them from the corner of my eye. They don't seem to have a strong Marmite taste, but they are still very nice - maybe too nice because while I didn't eat the whole packet yesterday, I did come close to it.

  I also bought a whole, but small, ready cooked chicken. I had this idea I wanted to get my teeth into...or something like that. After microwaving it for the suggested time, to warm it up, I made myself a nice, and possibly healthy, chicken and mixed salad leaves salad. It was nice, but somehow not wonderful. I guess it could have done with a few other salad ingredients.

  It wasn't a big lunch, but it seemed to be enough to make me feel sleepy. I don't think I did have a snooze, but I certainly laid on my bed to read for a while. What I should have been doing was to go through the photos I had taken the previous night, and select the best for editing. I was having a hard time raising the enthusiasm for that because I had taken a quick peek at the pictures, and didn't like what I saw.

  There were two problems with these photos. The first was that I was a bit reticent of turning up the power on my flashgun. That was mostly to avoid annoying anyone, but also to try and not bleach out the led lit guitar outline behind the band. It looked sort of good, and I hoped to keep it looking that way. Ultimately that proved impossible.
  I had to do a lot of brightening, and also some colour correction to all the photos. The other problem was the grey background made for rather dull looking photos even if I got peoples faces reasonably bright.
  Even the traditional picture of a close up of Chris' guitar looks a bit wishy washy. Once again it the grey background that seems to suck out any contrast to the picture. I think I could have produced better picture if the band alcove had been painted black or even white, although white may have suited something like a country music band better.
  This high angle shot worked better in terms of more contrast, but it just looks wonky, and so I don't like it.
  Oddly enough this was probably one of the shots I am slightly happier with. I had to squat on the floor to take this low angle shot of Chris playing slide guitar using a metal tube rather than the traditional broken bottle neck. The latter is frowned upon now because a bloody slashed finger makes too much of a mess on the neck of the guitar !

  I think I almost like the Jolly Farmers in Purley. It is a bit of a journey to get there and back - around 70 minutes door to door, but it is straightforward. The Guinness was only £4.50 a pint, which although it seems a lot, is still cheaper than many places. Like some other places, it starts off quiet enough that I am not impeded from getting good positions to take photos in the first hour, but after that more and more people gather around the stage. I still hate that grey background though.

  I had to take frequent breaks when going through the 101 pictures I took at the gig. It was partly because I felt tired, and partly because I felt I needed to try and keep my eyes fresh when doing a lot of work on some pictures to make them look less like muddy looking pictures taken on a mobile phone, and more like pictures taken on an expensive DSLR camera (my Canon EOS 1200D on this case).

  I ended up fortifying myself with too many Marmite Flatbreads, and also too many tots of whisky. The latter was not enough to get drunk, or not much, but it had it's consequences. One consequence is that instead of saving the rest of the ready cooked chicken for today, I ended up eating the rest for my dinner. I gave it a good grilling in my mini oven after sprinkling spices and peppers on it. it made for a tasty dinner, although I will admit that eating it without any vegetable matter was very unhealthy.

  It was a consequence of the whisky, and the chicken, that when 7pm rolled around I just didn't feel like going out. It was originally only a "possible" that I might go to The Lewisham Tavern (called "One" until recently, and it had an even older name that I can't remember without looking it up). The reason for going was because it is easy to get to with at least 4 or 5 buses going that way (although some stop closer than others), and because Duo L&K were playing there from 8pm.

  I am not a great fan of Duo L&K, but it would be both a photo opportunity, and a reason to visit a pub I have never been in before. It may have been the first gig in there in recent time (maybe ever), and I did hear that the governor of the pub was very pleased with it, and has booked the Duo for another appearance later on. I just felt too tired/lazy/uncomfortable to go, but maybe next time.

  I should have gone to bed early last night, but I started watching some stuff on Sky Arts about The Who. That was sort of interesting. That lead on to watching an episode of QI at 8pm, and that lead on to an episode of Have I Got News For You which finished at 10pm. I had thought I might be asleep by 9pm, but in the end it was closer to 11pm. I seemed to have a good night's sleep, and even managed a short lay in. I had what seemed like some nice dreams, but all I can remember was one involved a bottle of Green Label Johnny Walker whisky !

  This morning I feel reasonably OK. My blood glucose, after eating stuff yesterday that was probably not advisable, is exactly the same this morning as it was yesterday - a fair, but not good 8.9mmol/l. Now I have to think what I will be doing today. I think that once I have had a shower I will wash a few clothes. It is not going to be very sunny today, but there could be some. More importantly it should be dry, and it sort of feels like clothes should dry fairly quickly on the washing line.

  I probably should go out for some exercise today, and maybe I will get a bit, but not a long walk. Today is August bank holiday, and engineering work continues to block trains going beyond London Bridge today. Trains from Catford Bridge station are being diverted to Blackfriars again, and trains from Catford station are going to Blackfriars as normal. I think today I need to do the novelty journey of Catford Bridge to Catford station via Blackfriars.