There is certainly some sunshine this morning, and although it will soon just be sunny spells, it should still continue to midday according to the latest revision to the forecast. That revision has reduced the sunny spells in the afternoon to just 4pm, and 3pm is now shown as light rain ! There is a 50% chance of it, and so it will probably happen. Like yesterday, the afternoon temperature will peak at 17° C. Tomorrow may be a brighter day, but still the sun, or sunny spells will not extend far into the afternoon, but maybe it will stay dry. 17° C is shown as the maximum temperature, but only for a single hour, and 16° C seems more representative.

  I told the story of giving blood samples, and at the same time missing the postman with my new camera yesterday when I wrote a bit later than usual yesterday morning. From then on  not much happened until late afternoon. My excuse for being lazy for half the morning, and half the afternoon is that I was feeling a bit tired after a poor night's sleep. The odd thing is that I cannot recall having a snooze at any time.

  One thing I did do in the afternoon was to transfer more footage from old, analogue, camcorder tapes. I couldn't transfer the footage that I originally wanted because the tape was in very poor condition. Some experimentation showed that all the Sony branded camcorder tapes seem to be in the same poor condition. Other makes, like TDK, Maxell, Scotch, and maybe even Polaroid branded tapes seem to be generally OK.

  I have subsequently heard that many people have found old Sony tapes to be in extremely poor condition. One musician had loads of masters on Sony branded DAT tapes, and had to scrap the lot. Some commented that even ordinary cassette tapes made by Sony were the first to fail. It is weird how Sony can make such excellent video camera and recorders, and yet their tapes, which might have seemed OK, and maybe even good, when brand new, are so crap now.

  There is microscopic possibility of how that Sony tape problem might be cured for long enough to make a transfer. One problem that used to afflict a couple of makes of audio cassettes was too much friction on the tape spools. Back in the past I used to transfer the spools into the shell of a small sized, cheap cassette. It could be very effective. It is probably worth trying on a Sony Hi8 video cassette too.

  In the end I only transferred one tape, branded Maxell, to my PC. A lot of it was of little use - except to embarrass Jodie. There must be 20 minutes of her, and sometime her old boyfriend (and still friend) Mark recorded 20 years ago. The more useful bit, also featuring Jodie, is of a visit to see the Thames Barrier in August 2002. After heavy editing, including taking out scenes with Jodie, I reckon I could cut about 15 minutes of assorted shots to maybe 2 minutes of a fair look at the flood barrier, and some longer distance shots - including the Canary Wharf building standing alone before it was surrounded by many other high rise buildings.

  All that playing with camcorders and digitiser was just passing time before the main event. Chain were playing a very early evening gig in Chislehurst, and I (incorrectly) thought it would be easy to get there. I caught the 17:40 train from Catford station to St Mary Cray station. At St Mary Cray there was supposed to be a 273 bus arriving about 10 minutes after the train arrived. That seemed a fair connection.

  It was useful that the bus stop still had a working Countdown display, and I could see a 273 expected to arrive in about 12 minutes time. That was longer than expected, but still OK. Slowly it counted down to just 4 minutes to go, and the bus disappeared off the display, but another was shown as being 15 minutes away. So I waited, and waited, and waited until it eventually turned up.

  Before it arrived I quickly checked the timetable on the bus stop, and it seemed that after rush hour the service dropped to just a bus every half hour. That didn't look good for getting home again. The bus ride seemed a bit longer than I thought it would be, and with the hills involved I am glad I hadn't decided to try walking from St Mary Cray railway station. By the time I had got off the bus dusk was falling, and with high trees either side of the road it seemed quite gloomy. It was a 5 minute or so walk to the pub from the bus stop.
  It was a much larger pub than expected. I couldn't see any sign of the band through the front windows looking into quite a large bar area. When I went inside I could hear music, and I found Chain playing beyond a large, but empty dining area, in a back room. It was fairly narrow, and it was laid out with tables in front of the band. It seems they were still set up for Covid isolation.
  I was not thrilled by all those table so near the band. The only good thing is that few were sitting close to the band, and I felt almost comfortable going in for a few close up without pissing off too many people behind me. I guess I was happy that the very first picture I took, the one above, came out fairly good. It was a bit under exposed, but that was easily corrected. It still looks a bit bland though. It was quite dim in there, and I had to use my flash gun. For later pictures I turned the flash power up a bit. I haven't checked those pictures yet.

  I think I will take a pause in this writing, and will be back after I have been to the sorting office to collect my new camera.
10:29 BST: I'm back with my new camera, and I have spent at least 20 minutes playing with it !

  I guess I wasn't comfortable taking pictures at this gig. It was one (another ?) occasion where I wish I had taken a zoom lens with enough range to take pictures from the back of the room. I only stayed long enough for one pint of Guinness, and to hear maybe 5 songs before I slipped away into the night. My original plan was to get another 273 bus back to St Mary Cray station, but I had noted that getting a 160 bus back to Catford was a possibility.

  For reasons known only to TFL, there was no live bus information for the bus stop where I would get the 273 bus from, although I didn't know that until I just missed a 273. With a gap of half an hour before the next one I didn't fancy waiting that long, and I decided to try the 160. It was a long wait (20 minutes or so) for the next 160, and with hindsight I should have gritted my teeth and waited for the next 273.

  After a long wait I finally got the 160 bus. I did think it was a stupid idea before I got on. The timetable on the bus stop said it would take 51 minutes to get to Catford Bridge ! On the other hand, Depending on the connection between bus and train, it could have taken that long if I had waited for the next 273 bus. The 160 bus takes a really convoluted route to get to Catford. Like too many modern bus routes it is send down loads of side roads that are barely big enough for a mini-bus, let alone a full sized double decker bus. I had to try and keep reminding myself that the people who lived in these backwaters were probably glad they had a bus stop near their insignificant little road.

  I don't know if my bus ride was even longer than shown in the timetable. I didn't dare measure it. What I do know is that roadworks along the South Circular road meant sitting in stationery traffic several times. It wasn't over after that - the last road into Catford is Sangley Road - a road barely wide enough for two Minis to pass, let along double decker buses, but TFL, in their wisdom, decided it needed a bus service more suited to a shop lined high street.

  I was glad to get home. I had been thinking about dinner, and thinking that maybe I would just have a can of soup rather than the slightly bland dinner I had pre-cooked. In the end I had the dinner I had pre-cooked, and it turned out to be delicious. It was a chicken, leek, and spinach stew. In a rare moment of sanity I didn't even flood it with chilli - although I would have added some chopped fresh chillies if Aldi had stocked any when I was in there the day before.

  That stew made me feel tired. I felt too tired to decant all the pictures I had taken to my PC, and I felt too tired to watch an episode of QI once I realised it didn't seem long ago that I last watched it. I head for bed, and I reckon I was fast asleep by 9.30pm. It seemed annoying when I woke up 2 hours later until I realised it was 2 hours. It felt more like 5 minutes. I am not even sure why I woke up unless I was feeling a little warm.

  I know I woke up sometime after 1am, and I couldn't work out if I was hot or cold. What was worse is that I didn't seem to be able to get back to sleep for as much as 90 minutes. I just didn't seem to feel sleepy at that point. It all seems a bit vague, but I think once I did get back to sleep I slept well again. Getting up at 5.30am didn't feel right, and I managed to get almost another hour of sleep before I woke up.

  It has been an eventful morning since then. One of the first things I did after going to the toilet, and washing any contaminants of my hands, paying particular attention to my finger tips, was to get a prick of blood, and check my blood glucose. I was sure that my dinner was very low sugar, and it was also quite a small portion.

  This morning my blood glucose was an excellent 6.7mmol/l. It was not often I can get a reading that low these days. I wondered if this morning was the morning to do something stupid and have a chunk of the Madeira cakes that remains unopened in the cupboard for at least a year. I decided no, not this morning, but I did have two bowls of instant noodles - a spicy one, and a tomato flavoured on.

  Once I had eaten I spent just long enough to copy all the pictures form last night from my camera to my PC, and edit the first two to show here. I then started writing until I noticed that it was close to 9am, and if the sorting office wasn't open at 8am it would definitely be at 9am. By the time I had had a shower, and got a bus there it was getting on for 10am.

There was only one person ahead of me in what can sometime be a long queue, in in a few minutes I had my parcel in my hands. I felt a bit peeved as I watched two buses go past, and then had to wait about 90 seconds for the next bus. Fifteen minutes later I was home unwrapping my parcel. Some of the contents are shown in the picture above. I was rather surprised to see my new Nikon D300S, semi-professional camera in it's original box. It was a "body only" sale, or in other words it didn't come with any lenses, but it did come with a battery and carrying strap.

  It is quite different to my other cameras, but I guess that might be expected for a semi professional camera. I am rather glad that it also came with the full user manual. I am fairly good at working out all the basic functions of all my cameras, but I think in this case a skim through the manual will be beneficial. One thing I know already is that it can be used with all my existing Nikon lenses. At Petts Wood Calling next year I am imagining having three cameras around my neck, each with a specific lens for a specific job.

  I also ordered a possible useful accessory with this camera. It is a camera grip with an extra battery in it, plus some useful extra controls - mainly for when using the camera in portrait mode instead of landscape mode. It is entirely possible it is one of those accessories that is very rarely used, but when it is, it is essential. I think I can now predict how a lot of today is going to go.

  First of all I have to go through all the pictures I took last night, and select and edit those to go into a photo album. Then I can spend as long as I need discovering how to use my new camera. It is possible I might even take it out somewhere to take some test snaps, but maybe only if, as in like right now, the sun is out after the last hour being rather dull. I note the latest revision to the forecast says sunny spells until 2pm now.