Today might be a "lite" replay of yesterday. There is enough clear sky for the sun to come through once it is a bit higher, and then, fingers crossed, there could be sunshine or sunny spells lasting into the afternoon. The latest revision to the forecast still insists that 3pm will be dull, and that 4pm will now only be sunny spells, but there is a fair chance reality may be different, and better. Once again the afternoon temperature should be 17° C. Tomorrow should also see some sunny spells, and it should be a tiny bit warmer at 18° C, but there is a 30% chance of rain for midday and 1pm.

  The fine weather just about made it imperative that I went out to feel some sun on my face. It didn't actually start like that. The evening before yesterday I had fantasies about going out at the crack of dawn to see if I could spot where the tree had fallen on the railway line on Sunday night. I couldn't raise the enthusiasm for that, but much later in the morning, in fact a few minutes after the morning had ended, and after a quick wash, I ventured forth into the sunshine.


  I started out keeping a close eye on the side of the railway to see if I could spot anything suspicious. I did see an old buddleia bush that seemed to have one large fallen section hanging over the fence on the road side, but a closer looks suggested it was nothing to do with the railway. My theory was that it was just a small branch that could be pushed aside by one man once the third rail power had been turned off. Once upon a time the train driver would just hop out of his cab, and deal with anything small himself.....but 'elf and safety now rules the land.

  As I walked I felt good and bad. My chest felt a bit odd at first, but that didn't stop me doing a fairly fast ascent of the curly-wurly footbridge over the rail so I could look up and down the line from that vantage point. It definitely left me feeling a little bit wheezy....although I am not sure if wheezy is really the word I am looking for.

  Initially I slowed my pace, but I decided to press on and make it a longer walk than intended. I picked up the pace as I approached the incline that takes you up to the Ladywell Road entrance to the park. That definitely got my heart racing, and my breathing deeper. It was soon after that when I had some symptoms that were a bit like angina, but not in any way I had experienced it before. It was muscles in my neck that seemed to be aching, and not my arms.

 I also had two other "aches". For a while it felt like it would be good to go to the toilet. That seemed to mostly be wind, and the desire for a pee seemed to just fade away after a while. The walk down Malyons Road from Ladywell is a bit boring, and it was walking down there when I felt worst. Once I re-entered the park, at the end of Malyons Road, most pains seemed to fade away except for one that started up. That was rather more minor in the grand scheme of things. It felt like an ingrowing toenail on my right big toe, but it wasn't that - it just felt like it.
  I must admit I slowed my pace a little in the park. I was keeping an eye out for photo opportunities, and I was walking in the full glare of the sun. It was making me feel very warm - enough for a light sheen of sweat. I could have walked that bit of the park in just a t-shirt as if it were summer, and indeed as this pictures shows, it did look a lot like summer, but I had a warm coat on - a too warm coat !
  As I approached this tree the sun was blacked by a bit of cloud. Fortunately it was only a brief blip, and by the time I had passed the tree the sun came out, and lit up all the red leaves on the tree.

  Having travelled the entire length of the park I could have taken the shortest route home, but I decided to slightly lengthen the walk by diverting to go in the little super market on Catford Bridge. I ended up buying quite a bit of stuff in there. Some of it was vegetables. I bought some green bell peppers plus some mild (I think) red chilies, and some fierce green chillies. I bought 5 little pots of what are described as salad, but are mostly different pulses or couscous/bulgar wheat. I also grabbed a lot of instant noodles, and a couple of cans of Polish bacon and beans.

  It made for quite a heavy bag to carry the last bit to home. I was quite glad to be home when I got there. I was probably slightly surprised that I had covered 2.2 miles in total. Considering I have really been on a long walk for ages now I think I did OK. There was one other item I almost forgot that I bought on the way home, but I suddenly remember it now because it was part of the lunch I had soon after I got home.

  It was a little tub of finely diced vegetables in some sort of mayonnaise like substance. It reminded me of "Sandwich Spread" we used get when I was a kid (and maybe is still sold to this day), but the vegetables were much more finely chopped in that. The was no English on the package, and so I had no idea how much sugar it might have in it. I suspect it wasn't that innocent. I had it on some sliced cheese on rice cakes. It wasn't as nice as I hoped, but not bad.

   A second part of lunch was one of the little salad pots. With hindsight it was foolish to even buy it. It was sun dried tomatoes with feta cheese plus some herbs. The thing is, tomatoes contain a lot of sugar, and sun drying tomatoes just concentrates it. There must have been the equivalent of 4 or 5 large tomatoes, sliced and dried, in that little pot. The most annoying thing is that they didn't taste that nice. I remember them as being delicious. Whether it was just a bad batch, or if my tastes have changed is unknown.

  I felt really tired after lunch. I decided to go through all the photos I took, and edit a selection of them before laying on my bed to read, and ultimately have a snooze. At that time the sun had moved around enough that only a little bit of sunshine was entering my room at an oblique angle, but my bedroom was still nice and warm from the earlier, more direct sun. I may have snoozed for as long as an hour. I woke up feeling a bit cool.


  Before doing anything else I added the last ingredients to the pork stew I had prepared earlier, and gave it another 15 minutes in the microwave. It was too early for dinner at that time, and I watched some Star Trek on the Pick channel. Just before 7pm, when The Simpsons were due to start I was going to have that dinner I had cooked, but I decided something a bit lighter might be a good idea. I had two more "salad pots". I think one was lentils, and the other was bulgar wheat, but with a few odd bits of vegetables.

  I washed my dinner down with some beer, and had a couple more after dinner. The first beer was actually a lager called "Lost In Guava". I expected it to be rubbish, but it was actually very nice. I'm not sure what the reference to guava was. It didn't really have any fruity under or overtones. It was mostly like a good German or Netherlands lager beer. The other two beers were in smaller 330ml cans, and were both more beers from Brewdog. One was quite nice, and the less so (but not horrible).

 I was going to watch the 9pm showing of QI on Dave last night, but I was feeling a bit tired. I don't think the extra lay in I had in the morning compensated for the poor sleep earlier in the night. I was in bed mere minutes after 9pm, but I chose to read for at least half an hour before attempting sleep.

  Once again I didn't seem to sleep that well, or at least not all the time. A lot of the problem was that old fight between feeling to hot under the duvet, and far too cold without it. That kept me awake several times in the night, but maybe not for long. The other problem sounds bizzare - it was that I was having bad dreams that I have almost no recollection of.

  I do have a mere hint of a memory that I had dreams about what is easiest to describe as an old ex-girlfriend by the name of Sue. One of Sue's problems is that she had terrible teeth, and was always getting abscesses under teeth. She would suffer terrible agonies rather than seeing a dentist. Sometimes she would cure the problem with prescribed antibiotics, and sometime with antibiotics scrounged from friends who had decided, against all advice, to finish the dose to the last pill no matter how well they might feel.

  I and many others pleaded with Sue to see a dentist, and warned her of the problem of sepsis. The last I heard was that she did finally see a dentist who said her teeth were too far gone for treatment, and gave her a recommendation for a dental hospital where she could have the whole lot out under a general anaesthetic. That was the last I heard until a week ago when it was reported that she was seriously ill in hospital. Yesterday I heard that she had succumbed to sepsis in the worst possible way (apart from when it attacks the brain and turns you into a vegetable). It had attacked her feet, and I saw pictures of her laying in a hospital bed with black toes and black areas on the rest of her feet. Apparently she will have to have her feet amputated. If that didn't feed into some bad dreams last night then I will be very surprised.

  This morning I was up at something like my usual time - about 6am. It was probably earlier than ideal, but I was not feeling comfortable in bed. It was just a selection of aches that all faded away once I was out of bed. As I explained further up the page, there were several things I ate during the day that might not ave been ideal for my blood glucose level. It was probably a good thing not to have the full dinner I was going to have last night. If I had eaten it I can't imagine my blood glucose reading would have been as low as 8.5mmol/l. Of course that isn't actually low, and is about average.

  Once again I can't predict what I will be doing today. All the pulses and stuff I ate yesterday is just starting to cause some "intestinal whoopee" at the moment, but on the assumption that will be over with a bang before the morning is over, I guess I could end up going out. More sunny spells, such as the first one to actually warm my back as I write this, would suggest a day for photography. I fell I ought to do a bit more walking because yesterday's walk proved I was definitely out of condition, but I might take the easy way out and do some railway photography.