All the thick cloud that built up last night has resulted in a very horrible wet morning. I have no idea when it started raining, but I think I heard some rain at 5am when I got up for a pee. Both forecasters agree that from mid to late morning the sun will start burst through - first with some sunny spells, and then full sunshine until the end of the afternoon. All that sunshine is only expected to raise the temperature to 16° C. The clear skies will mean a very cold morning tomorrow, possibly less than 6° C. Despite being a very sunny day, the afternoon temperature may only rise to 14 or 15° C.
  Everything came together for a nice few hours out getting some exercise yesterday. One fact was my bowels were very stable yesterday. Another factor was my very high blood glucose and a very strong need to avoid any food for a lot of the day. Of course the final, and strongest thing, was the sunshine and blue sky.

  I wondered if yesterday could be another day for my Freedom Pass Quest to visit all the extremes that my Freedom Pass will take me to for free. I decided against that for two reasons, although you could say it was just the same reason - it was a Sunday ! That meant reduced services on most routes, and it also meant there was a lot of engineering work taking place. Trains from Catford Bridge were diverted to Victoria station because all the route to London Bridge were blocked. I saw a lot of other lines blocked during my travels.
  One of the first things I saw was this brand new defibrillator on platform 1 at Catford Bridge. At least I think it is brand new. I haven't noticed it before, and the two little text boxes in the bottom left corner haven't been filled in. They are supposed to say the number of the cabinet, and the postcode of where it is. The 999 service keeps a record of them, and reveals the key code to open the box to get the defibrillator out. Until that information is filled in you will die if you have a heart attack there !
  Yesterday I wasn't just spotting trains - I was also spotting planes ! I was at Earlsfield station, and the flight path to Heathrow passes almost overhead. Plus the planes are a lot lower as they approach the airport.
  I only had a 200mm zoom lens with me yesterday. That is plenty for snapping trains, but for these planes my 300mm zoom lens would give a better close up. My Nikon P500 bridge camera has an inbuilt zoom lens that I estimate to be equivalent to 600mm or better. Apart from the difficulties of setting some parameters, like I can on the DSLR cameras, it would be better if I really wanted to be a plane spotter - which I don't think I do.
  I noted several more class 701 trains in the yard at Clapham Junction. The thing about Clapham Junction is that the staff are so used to rail enthusiasts/train spotters that they are very relaxed about it. At Victoria station I blatantly used my camera in front of quite a few staff, but one jobsworth asked me to show my British Rail (I am sure she said British Rail) I.D. to take photos. Of course I didn't have one, although one day I might go to the office on Waterloo and enquire about getting one. The problem is that I often don't spend much time at places like Waterloo, and I doubt the pass/I.D. would be valid at, for instance, Victoria.

  It all feels much more friendly at Clapham Junction. I noticed a South Western Railway driver, and asked him if a class 701 train had ever carried a passenger. He was a bit startled at first, but once he got over the shock of not being asked about, or even pilloried about the rail strikes, he said no, he didn't think a single one of the new trains had ever gone into pubic service. He also ventured the opinion that it could be some time before one did.
  This is possibly the only good picture I have taken of a class 387 Gatwick Express train in service. They normally speed through stations, but yesterday I was in the right place, at the right time, plus I had my camera shutter speed set to 1/800th of a second, and that was just fast enough to freeze any motion blur.

  I think I managed to take about 15 or 16 pictures to add to my ever growing spreadsheet listing all the individual trains I have taken photographs of. The last picture I took, of a train I had not photographed before, was at Victoria station. The silly thing was that with the platforms on the Southern Train side of Victoria seeming so dim, I managed to very slightly over expose the picture !

  I put my camera away after that. There were two reasons. The first was I didn't want to bump into the jobsworth again, although she was only guarding the South Eastern side of the station. The second reason was that I was rushing to catch a train back to Catford Bridge. I must admit I didn't realise how close I was to missing it. I suppose I could have been a bit more relaxed about it, but with just 2 minutes to go before the train was due to depart as I went through the barriers, it felt tight - mainly because I still had a fair length of platform to walk down to get on the best part of the train.

  I felt slightly short of breath by the time I had got on the train, and sat down. It was notable that the train was almost empty. The Southern Trains over the other side of Victoria station all seemed to be close to packed ! It was nice to sit down and get my breath back. I guess I hadn't been out that long because it was only just gone 3.30pm when I got home, and I had left the house at 12:30. So about 3 hours in total.

  I hadn't eaten anything at all at that point, and before I did I checked my blood glucose. It had only come down to 9.6mmol/l - and that was a bit disappointing. I then faced a dilemma - Do I waste the Singapore rice from the previous night's takeaway, or do I say to hell with it, and eat it anyway. I felt hungry and ate it anyway. I then laid down on my bed, in my sun warmed room, and instead of quietly reading I had about an hours snooze.

  I woke up from that snooze feel rather cool, and that was a good impetus to get out to the cold bathroom to finish washing a towel that I had left soaking in detergent earlier on. I am not sure if I should describe it as a very big hand towel or a small bath towel. Thank goodness it was just the one item, because being a towel it seemed to need  a good five rinses before the fabric conditioner. I left it to dry in the front room with the fan on it. It was dry this morning.

  I then spent an awful long time going through all the pictures I took yesterday. I didn't really finish doing all the editing until gone 9pm after doing the last during commercial breaks on TV. I last track of time then, but I am fairly sure I was fast asleep by 10pm. I slept really solidly - I think. The first time I am aware of waking up (for a pee) was after 4 hours of non stop sleep. I then slept solidly for another three hours.

  With seven hours of seemingly good sleep, and also seemingly dreamless sleep, the rest of the time until I got up, featured several periods of wakefulness. It also featured some dreams. One dream was particularly tragic. It got off to a great start as a potentially very erotic dream. I think my love interest was someone I haven't seen for many, many years, maybe 30 years or more. I have no idea how she could have popped up in my mind. Anyway, things were going really well, and my bed was beckoning, but as we got to the bed I suddenly had agonising cramp in my right calf muscle.

  Sadly it was reality intruding into my imagination, and I had to leap out of bed to stop the pain. I am not sure when reality fully took over from fantasy, but it could have been as late as when my feet first touched the ground. Sometimes reality is no fun at all. Maybe that should be, most reality is no fun at all !

  This morning I feel sort of OK, but sadly my blood glucose is still higher than ideal, although at least it is under the red line at 9.2mmol/l. That is sort of OK, and not all that untypical, but still not ideal. It didn't stop me having one bowl of instant noodles for breakfast, but I feel I ought to be quite careful about what I eat today. That could be difficult for one particular reason.

  That reason is that I want to go to Tesco today. I want to get some bird seed, and some bottles of Diet Coke, but there will be other stuff on the shelves to tempt me. Maybe I'll just weigh down my shopping bag with cans of soup. Another thing I must do today is to phone the Lewisham Hospital foot clinic. The diabetes nurse referred me to them, and I was surprised that the letter I got didn't offer an appointment, but asked me to phone them to make an appointment. They sound very officious, and I am not sure I want to get involved with them.

  It seems to have stopped raining now, and is slightly brightening up a bit. The latest updates to the weather forecasts say the first rays of the sun may break through at around 11am. With the prospect of a very sunny, but still rather cool afternoon, I might be tempted to go out for a walk or something. On the other hand, with the sunshine doing a better job of warming my front rooms, than the outside air, I may be tempted to luxuriate in a warm room indoors.