The forecast for today has already changed a fair bit. Once the morning rain has finished we might have to wait until 11am before we see the sun, but it should still continue until 2pm. The last hour may be a full hour of non stop sunshine. Of course these things could change a lot more in the next revisions. Once again it will be a cold day with the temperature now shown as being no more than 10° C (not the 11° C shown in the early version).  Apart from the morning rain, it should be a dry day. Tomorrow is currently looking very grim. There will be no sign of the sun, and it may rain from 10am to 4pm. The temperature may briefly hit 9° C after from a 5° C start, but most of the day will be just 7 or 8° C.

  Yesterday was a good day, but it had it's consequences. After a shave and shower, followed by things like camera preparation I set out to get the 12:20pm train from Catford station - except I had made a huge blunder ! The train was actually at 20 minutes to 1pm, but my brain seemed to get stuck on the idea of 20 minutes, and I thought it was 20 past, and not 20 to ! I had rather long wait for my train to arrive.

  It was very handy that engineering works meant all Thameslink trains to Sevenoaks were diverted, and terminating at Orpington. That meant I could get a direct train to Petts Wood (the station before Orpington). It took about 18 minutes to get there, and I arrived with a few minutes to rush to The Daylight Inn where the Elizabeth Vass memorial gig was taking place for the select few - maybe a little over 100 people - most of whom I didn't know (Elizabeth was a very active member of her church).

  I must admit I wasn't really looking back over the life of Elizabeth, but more looking forward to seeing people I hadn't seen for a long time, and in the case of a few, a very long time. It was also the first time I would be using my new Nikon D300S camera for real. I had taken test shots and stuff at home, but it was a first time at a gig, and where I had to have it set up to use flash. I somehow had to take excellent pictures because I was in friendly competition with John Bull, and close to professional photographer whose work is often chosen by some of the fairly big bands.
  This photo arrived in my inbox this morning. It was taken by John, and I regard my image as hardly flattering, and yet I am sort of proud I can still get down like this to take picture from a low level. It is interesting that John had chosen to use black and white. He was using a flash gun, and so could have taken full colour pictures in the dim lighting. I am wondering if he thought that the background was so uninspiring that black and white would bring the subject of his photography forward. I still have a ton of my own photos to go through, and I may play with black and white for some of them.
  This, the very first picture I took when I got to the gig, came out really well, and probably far better than the many pictures being taken on mobile phones. I only had the time or patience to go through only about a dozen of the 270 snaps I took yesterday, and most of the early ones were very poor compared to this. This picture was of Sue and Dave Cane. Dave Cane was Elizabeth's lead guitarist in two of the bands she fronted.
  This was the first picture I took of Chain, who did the opening set. I had the flash set low enough to let some of the coloured lights show, but there is still some flairing of the highlights, and somehow it looks rather a bland picture.
  A little less flash, and a lot more post processing, but I am still not happy with this picture. Some of the problem is the background - well it is a general function room, rather than a rock stage, but even so there is still a problem with the balance of the picture.
  Some people faces tend to look very red when photographed, and it didn't help that the side of Chris' face was splashed with purple light from one of the "stage" foot lights. I deliberately reduced the colour saturation of Chris' face so it didn't looks such an unhealthy colour. I also probably over did the contrast a bit. It increases the impact, but any detail in Chris' coat is lost.
  There is some slight distortion visible on this picture, and that is because I used my fisheye lens for it. It is heavily cropped to show just the band. The real distortion has been cropped off. It was also one of the pictures I took while squatting down so I could take it from a low angle. This was the last picture I worked on last night, and I was fairly happy with it. It gave hope that later pictures may not be too bad.

  I believe a couple of people were taking pretend bets on how long I would stay at the gig - most know that if it is a single band I often leave after an hour or less. Yesterday, after arriving at more or less exactly 1pm, I left 5 hours and six minutes later.  I allowed a generous 10 minutes to get the 18:16 train back to Catford. I had had about 5 pints of Guinness (and went for a pee twice I think) and I was feeling quite good as I made my way home.

  I didn't bother to do up my coat. The booze was keeping my warm....or so I thought. Having only had a single bowl of instant noodles for breakfast, I was feeling a bit hungry when I was on the train home. I was considering a takeaway of some sort, but I didn't fancy the expense of ordering via Just Eat, but I had another option - a very unhealthy one - chicken and chips from the Southern Fried Chicken shop. Three pieces of chicken and a portion of fries cost just over £5 if I recall correctly - I certainly had change from a £10 note.

  I must admit I think I liked the fries more than last bit of chicken. That is odd because generally I think American style "fries" are a pretty poor substitute for real chips. I think 3 pieces of chicken were more than I wanted. I must be getting picky in my old age.....or something. After I had degreased my fingers I transferred the pictures from the camera to my PC, and then I made a start at editing the few seen here.

  I might have done more, but I was feeling really tired, and also really cold. The heating had been off all day, and just putting my heater on low didn't really warm my room up. It seems I saved the final picture I edited at 8.06pm, and then I went to bed to warm up under the duvet while I read for half an hour. I had turned the heater off when I went to bed, and when I tried for sleep I seemed to feel warm enough under the duvet, but.....

  Maybe I must have kicked the duvet aside while sleeping, but I woke up just before 11pm feeling frozen. I did the same again, and when I woke up just after 1am I first put the heater on low. I was not sleeping well by then. I had many aches because of the cold, and that included my chest. That probably had it's genesis while I was going home with my coat not done up. That scar tissue from my heart bypass operation can get really inflamed when cold, and it is easy to think you are about to suffer from a heart attack, but there are subtle differences, and I didn't rush off to A&E. One useful indicator is that Ibuprofen calms the inflammation down after a while - it would not calm a heart attack down.....or at least I don't think it would.

  I slept quite badly, with several periods of insomnia during the last 3 or 4 hours in bed. If there was any upside to it, it would be that I seemed to have several erotic dreams during that time. I'll also add that at 3am (I think) I turned the heater up full, and I was eventually able to kick off as much duvet as I cared and still be almost warm. It still did nothing for my aches and pains. I have been out of bed now for almost 3 hours, and various bits still ache. The ache from my chest has subtly changed, and now feels a lot like after I got caught in cold rain and my t-shirt got soaked.

  To add to my misery my blood glucose is very high this morning (9.3mmol/l). It is not surprising after my chicken and fries supper. It is just possible that before eating it my blood glucose could have dropped well below the 7.8mmol/l that I started the day with. In theory I am going out again today, although I have strong doubts about it at the moment. If I do I will try and remember to check my blood glucose before I eat tonight. I predict it would be quite a low reading, and this morning's high reading is just a blip after eating a naughty supper so late before bedtime.

  In theory I am going to go out to photograph some of the bands on the two live stages that are set up in Orpington High Street for their turning on the xmas lights celebration. I really only sort of know two of the bands who will be appearing, and one is a reggae band whose base heavy music I find painful. If I go I may rush off a few snaps of them before rushing off to get a bus. I won't be stopping to see the fireworks.

  With all my aches and pains I am not sure I want to go out today, but I have several hours to consider it, and maybe some painkillers will help. Another thing that puts me off is that there are no trains to Orpington station today. I will have to get a train to St Mary Cray station, and a R1 bus from outside the station. I don't know the frequency of those buses, but on a Sunday they could be as much as every 30 minutes. There is also a possible problem of the bus being diverted because of the celebrations. Hmm, I seem to be talking myself out of this.....