The latest revision to the forecast brings even less joy (which is none at all) than the earlier forecast shown above. The only positive thing is that as I type this there appears to be a lull in the rain that seems like it has been falling since 9 or 10pm last night. The thick cloud has kept the temperature up a bit, but starting at 11° C is far from warm, and sadly it seems the temperature won't change until 7pm when it will start to go down. The other change in the latest revision is that rain is now also forecast to fall at 1 and 2pm. The thick cloud above us may finally dissipate in the early hours of tomorrow morning. This will mean two things. By 6am the temperature may have dropped to just a chilly 8° C, and from 8am until sunset there could be bright sunshine. That should raise the temperature to 12° C - which may not feel too bad in the sunshine.

  Some of yesterday was quite good, but it ended bad. One of the good things was that I got myself ready to go out shopping earlier than expected. I was in Tesco by 11am buying mostly essentials, and one frivolous, and dangerous thing. More about that later. After getting back I had about 45 minutes to waste before the main mission of the day.

  That main mission was to go to the pub where I would usually see Angela, but the chances of Angela appearing there was close to zero, and it did indeed turn out to be zero ! I decided to go the lazy way by getting a train from Catford Bridge to Ladywell station. I really must measure that route some time because I am not sure if it involves that less walking. The more important thing is that it allows me to pick up a copy of The Metro at the station, and to do a little bit of rail photography.
  This train was just arriving at Catford Bridge when I got there. I took a snap in case I needed a photograph of it, and it turned out I did. My great spreadsheet recording pictures of every uniquely numbered train I had taken has photos of about 90% of the very common class 465 trains that run through Catford Bridge, and all over the South East network every day. Getting a photo of a new one is getting hard, but I got this one.....
  Class 466 trains are the two car version of the four car class 465 train as in the top picture. It turned out I needed a picture of 466003 as well. It is just a shame that the light was a bit dim when I took this picture, and that meant a longer exposure, and that lead to some motion blur because I didn't remember to hold the camera as steady as I should have done. When I get a better picture of this train I will replace it in my great spreadsheet.

  One of the things I intended to do while walking between Ladywell station and the pub, was to feed some squirrels, and try to get some good pictures of them. I had taken a handful of almonds with me, but unfortunately pigeons will eat almonds whole, and they will mob any squirrel that tries to get one. I threw out a few almonds, and I think one squirrel got one, but the bloody pigeons took the rest. I just could not isolate any squirrels away from the pigeons.

Talking of pigeons...here's another video of starving pigeons on my bird table that I shot before going out yesterday lunchtime. I put out a couple of cupfuls of both peanuts and bird seed, and within minutes at least a third of it had been knocked off the bird table. A couple of minutes later every last thing had probably been gobbled up !

 
  I arrived at the pub at about 12:40, and ordered myself a Guinness. Asia, the barmaid asked after Angela, and I told her that I was being punished for not being enthusiastic to attend Angela's wedding next June, and that Angela would not be going to the pub "for some time". I did say it might be possible that Angela might go there on a different day instead. Asia also asked if I had seen Angela's injury, the cut above her eye that kept her out the pub last week because she was getting it stitched in A&E. I said I had seen a picture where Angela has brushed her hair down to cover the top of her eye, but I could see there was a bit of sticking plaster beneath the hair.

  It is hardly comparable, but I still had a sort of good time in the pub without Angela, and I will probably carry on the tradition of going there on Wednesday lunchtimes. For one thing it was nice to feel comfortable in just a t-shirt. The heating is never that warm in the pub, but it was a lot warmer than at home. There is always some interesting banter going on in the pub, and with sometimes no more than 3 or 4 people in there it is easy to add the occasional comment.

  Any less interesting time is easily passed provided I have the crosswords in the paper to do while drinking my Guinness. I think I finished the entire "Quick Crossword" before I left, but there was one clue that I had a lot of trouble with. On the other hand I did manage a lot more of the cryptic crossword yesterday. That wasn't too hard because last week I only managed a few clues. I think I managed almost half the crossword this time.

  I was almost tempted to stay for a third pint, but thought better of it. Once again I decided to get the train home, and once again I faced a long wait. One day I will check to be sure, but I think 2pm is when the timetable gets a glitch during the build up to rush hour - which starts as early as 3:30pm these days. It wasn't such a long wait as the week before, and this time I stuck it out, and got the train back to Catford Bridge. Like the week before, it would actually have been quicker to just walk from the pub - particularly if I had checked the train times before leaving the pub, and walk in the best direction first.

  I was feeling peckish after my two pints of Guinness, and I considered other sorts of food, maybe even "fast food" I could get on my way home from the station, but I managed to stop myself being stupid then because I had another form of stupidity when I got home. While shopping in Tesco I had a yearning to get more oven chips. Those I bought the week before, and which I had in two small portions, seemed to be safe to eat when I checked my blood glucose the next day.

  That did rather rely on eating them earlier in the day - like lunchtime. I looked all over Tesco and all I could find were huge bags of oven chips. The small box, apparently a single portion, that I saw and bought last week was nowhere to be seen. I had no choice but to buy a big bag. Fortunately I had just enough room in the freezer to squeeze it in. My slightly late lunch yesterday was two small portions of oven chips, and they were very nice !

  It is probably fortunate that I can only cook a small portion at a time in my mini oven/grill. Otherwise I could have ended up eating far more of them. That could be very bad because I am not so sure they were as innocent as I hoped. I almost wonder if they don't include sugar to help them brown. With plenty more portions still in the bag I will try and remember to check the bag for more information some time.

  After the excitement of the chips the day sort of went flat. It was cold and miserable, and it became boring. I couldn't raise the enthusiasm to do anything except to do some reading. At least the new book I am reading is rather more entertaining than the last book, but it is still hard to get deep into it while thinking that the longer I lay still the colder it is going to feel. I couldn't wait for dinner time to arrive.

  One problem with being cold, lazy, and bored was that I didn't even seem to have any enthusiasm to prepare and cook the dinner I had bought some of the ingredient for in the morning. I decided that safest thing to eat after that lunch of chips was some nice soup. The only trouble was that when it came time to heat the soup up I decided not to have soup, but a can of Irish Stew, although that is actually like a chunky soup. I followed that with a can of Polish beans and pork.

   There are two different versions of Polish beans and pork that I know of (many more probably exist), and the can I had last night was the worst one - partly because it uses smaller beans, and strange sort of meat, and worst of all seems like it might have a far higher sugar content.  The cans that use big beans, and chunks of fatty bacon, are far better, and possibly safer as well.

  I watched most of my usual TV programmes last night, except for the 9pm showing of QI. I thought I felt a bit tired, and I definitely was feeling cold. The idea of getting under the duvet was very appealing.  I read for a while before turning out the light. After that things seem very vague. I am sure I had trouble getting to sleep, but I think I did get to sleep eventually, but maybe only half an hour or so.

  I have no idea how much sleep I got between then and 3am, and possibly later. I seemed to go through a long period of insomnia. It was probably around midnight that I got up and spent some time reading stuff on the internet. With hindsight that was stupid because I just got colder, and one of the reasons I had trouble sleep was because I ached - and getting colder just made the aches worse !

  I went back to bed thinking I felt tired, but I still couldn't sleep, or at least that is how it felt. I must have dropped off for a short while because I do remember waking up with my whole left arm outside the duvet. It felt very cold, and for the first time my left elbow was hurting as badly as my right one often does. The big difference is that as soon as I tucked the elft arm under the duvet, and it warmed up, the pain just melted away.

  I probably got 2 hours of sleep that was good enough for dreaming from about 4am. The trouble then was that I did not enjoy my dreams. One series of related dreamlets featured someone who I didn't like, and I have managed to not see him for 20 years now. It was annoying that he should turn up in a dream. The series of dreams were set in an old factory that initially seemed to be derelict, but was gradually being used more and more. In the first dreams we, and there were several of us at this point, we found some old abandoned stores that still had some useful stuff in them.

   In the last bit of dream I remember, the building had been refurbished, and was being used my many small firms. One firm had left some stuff outside their rooms, presumably prior to despatch. My "friend" decided to nick it. I was not exactly happy about that, and considerably unhappy when it turned out what he had nicked was a very, very expensive professional communications receiver. It was probably worth the price of a small car. I was sure there was CCTV in the building, and that we would both end up arrested. It seemed a good idea to wake up at that point.

  I did try to get to sleep again, but despite that lack of sleep in the night I could get back to sleep. I felt cold and rotten. I suppose the cold part was only when I allowed any bit of body out from under the duvet. Unfortunately I just had to get up to go to the toilet. The cold brought on a few extra aches until I could get into thick winter clothing, and once dressed like that I couldn't go back to bed.

  What I wanted was some hot food, but first I had to check my blood glucose. It might have been the beans, or it might have been the chips, but this morning my blood glucose was back up to 9.5mmol/l. The only good thing about that is that it is 0.1 lower than the morning before yesterday. It is doubly annoying considering yesterday started with such a low reading. It didn't stop me having a warming bowl of spicy kimchi flavoured noodles for breakfast. It probably won't stop me having more oven chips today either.

  This morning I have given in, and turned the fan heater on. It is only on one "bar" (1kw), but it is warming my bedroom up slowly. The current temperature in here has risen from about 19° C to 21° C. Once it reaches about 22.5° C it should be comfortable to relax in, and 23° C should be good enough to snooze in. It would be nice to snooze a lot today because there is little else to do. It is hard to even look outside because it is so cold, grey and wet, and I have even less desire to go out in it.

  I won't be seeing Jodie today for out usual Thursday afternoon beer tasting. She is elsewhere in the country for a gig. I won't be seeing her Sunday either because of another gig. I guess it is possible that Michael might drop by for a couple of beers, and so I suppose I had better have a wash today, but otherwise I think I will be having a very lazy, probably boring, very unproductive day.