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Monday
28th November 2022
09:10
GMT
Yesterday was generally wet and
drizzly, but the sun did manage to squeeze a
few rays through the clouds in the morning.
It was almost a warm day, or perhaps warm
for the time of year day. The forecast
predicted 13° C, but according to my
thermometers the temperature almost touched
15° C (I saw 14.7° C). Even during mid
evening the temperature stayed up to about
11° C.
The sun is certainly
out now, but maybe it won't last a longer...or
will it ? I can see a lot of blue sky, and not
many clouds as I type this (but Sod's law has
demanded that a cloud pass in front of the sun
as I write this !). The latest revision to the
forecast has removed the sunny spells from
11am, and also removed the light rain at 5pm.
Unfortunately it has reduced the time it will
be 11° C, the maximum temperature today, from
three hours down to two hours. Tomorrow can
easily be described as grey, and it will also
be rather chilly. The highest temperature
according to the Met Office will be 9° C, or
just 8° C if you follow the more pessimistic
BBC forecast.
Yesterday was a very special day
- one that demanded a full shave, shampoo and
shower ! It was also a day that came close to
being a disaster. Every time I laid on my bed
to read and relax I would fall asleep. I
almost missed two important things. The first
was a brief shopping trip to Tesco to buy a
birthday card. Of course I bought other stuff
too, but not all that much of it.
My shopping trip to Tesco was notable
for one important thing - I found out where
they hide the wholemeal rolls. I had been
aware for some time that there was a another
place, in a different aisle, where they sold
bread like things, but I thought it was mainly
things like bagels. A closer look showed that
there was quite a variety of rolls there. They
were all sealed in plastic bags, unlike on the
main bread counter, and in among them were two
different wholemeal rolls. One had a much
higher sugar content than the other. The lower
one was significantly lower, and I bought a
pack of 4.
The most significant thing yesterday
was a birthday party. It was a 70th birthday
party, but it was no "Derby & Joan" event.
It was a full on music event. The birthday boy
was Brian Bath, guitarist with Kate Bush's
original band as she started to become famous,
and still playing guitar with The KT Bush Band
- a Kate Bush tribute band. Brian also
played guitar with The Life Of Brian, and Back
To The Fray. Both of the latter bands were
temporarily re- formed with original members
to bash out some tunes.
This is Brian
raising his glass of Guinness when he
spotted me across the pub.
Getting to The British Oak, on the
far side of Blackheath, and almost in
Charlton, is a bit of a tedious journey,
although I guess it doesn't take that
long. I think it was about 30 minutes on a
54 bus to Blackheath, Royal Standard, but
from there it is a 15 minute walk. That is
not long, but the walk is very slightly
uphill. You hardly notice you are going
uphill, but it is far more apparent going
home again. Walking down that slight hill
seems to take half the time walking up it
takes.
I'm sure it is not the case, but it
seems like the last time I did that walk
was while I was suffering from bad angina.
I stopped once or twice along the way, and
a good place to stop was where the road
crosses the motorway leading up to the
Blackwall Tunnel. I find it quite
fascinating looking down on the cars
whizzing by in both directions. I was
feeling the strain of the walk yesterday,
although it was not as severe as those
angina pains in 2013, and so I stopped on
the bridge, and did, or tried to do some
photography.
I wanted to try out the "Pro"
option on my new Huawei P30 Pro mobile
phone. In theory I could set a very low
ISO sensitivity, and a long shutter time.
The idea was to try and keep the road in
sharp focus while the cars were just
blurs. Using a DSLR camera I would be able
to close the aperture to just a tiny pin
prick to do a very long exposure, but the
mobile phone has no iris to shut down. In
practice that meant that even at the
lowest sensitivity I could use, the image
was so over exposed that the picture was
almost pure white. I guess the maximum
exposure time of something like 13 or more
seconds, could only be useful for taking
pictures under starlight. I did get one
picture that showed some detail using a
0.8 second exposure, but it looked like it
was taken on a bright sunny day instead of
in twilight.
When I got to the pub I wondered if
I had come to the right place. It seemed
like I didn't know anyone there, but soon
a few known faces came into view. One of
the first was Miranda, Angela's daughter.
She actually made a beeline for me, and
gave me a hug. That was, as far as I can
remember, a first. It was the start of
feeling like I was among family. Even
Angela's son, Larry, was very friendly. In
my wildest imagination/delusion it was
almost as if they wanted me to be part of
the family more than the man who will be
when Angela marries him next year.
Until the music started I was
looking for any photo opportunities to get
the feel of the light in the pub. It has
always been a dark pub that has made
photography challenging. This time I had
no hesitation to use my flash gun, and
some of the early shots I took were to try
and judge how much flash power I would
need. It is impossible to be discrete when
using flash, but I like to try and keep
the power down to a minimum, and to bounce
the light off the ceiling. This picture of
Miranda was originally a little dim, but
it was easy to brighten it up a bit.
Another candid shot. I don't think
George was aware I took this shot, and yet
he has struck this quite nice pose. I
don't think he was the original bass
player, but he was the first I saw playing
with The Life Of Brian when I saw them for
the first time. I don't think I have ever
known his surname, and after all the years
gone by, I must admit I am not 100% sure
his name is George !
I took
several videos of Miranda
singing with the band, and so
far this is the only one I have
edited. It is not a great
performance. For some reason
Miranda's guitar wasn't coming
through the PA, and than caused
some confusion, but her voice is
great. My performance as a
cameraman was pretty awful. I
guess I had drunk enough
Guinness to not realise that I
was tilting the mobile phone
camera. It is an easy thing to
correct in a still photo, but
not so easy with video. It will
never get played on Top Of The
Pops, but it's still a nice
keepsake of a great gig.
Yesterday
was another of those occasions like at
the Liz Vass memorial gig - I went for
just an hour, and stayed until
the end (or very close to the end). As
I said further up the page, it was
like being with family - maybe a
family I never had. I used to find
family occasions to be boring. Maybe
it was because nobody in my family
played guitar ! I had arrived at the
pub 5 or 10 minutes past 4pm, and left
again at approx 8.15pm. Unlike the
walk up the hill, the walk down was
free and easy. Unfortunately I just
missed a 54 bus back to Catford.
It seemed a long time, but in
reality it was less than a 10 minute
wait for a 202 bus. It may be my
imagination, but despite it feeling
like it goes the long way round, it
seemed to be a quick journey back to
Catford. Even so, it was getting on
for 9pm, and I hadn't eaten since my
double portion of instant noodles
early in the morning. I felt justified
in stopping off for a takeaway of
chicken and chips on my way home.
As a quick aside...as
I sit here typing it is 10.30am, and
hot sunshine is pouring through my
bedroom window, and warming the room
up a treat !
It was just after 9pm when I
arrived home, and sat down to eat my
takeaway. It was probably foolish on
all sorts of levels, particularly for
my blood glucose reading this morning,
but after so long without food, and
coming in from the cold night, it was
like nectar from the Gods. It was also
a bigger meal than expected. After I
had placed my order for two bits of
chicken, a port of fries, and 6 spicy
wings, another customer made an order.
Unlike me she didn't say please or
thank you.
She barely mumbled her
order of wings which had to be legs
(or that is what it sounded like she
mumbled) while still yacking into her
phone that initially seemed to be
glues to her ear. When it came to
paying she paid using some app on her
phone - which meant a lot of faffing
around. When her two of whatever bits
she got were put on the counter in
front of her she just grabbed them and
went out of the door. Maybe there was
currency in me smiling, saying good
evening, please and thank you. When I
got home I found I didn't have 6 spicy
wings, as ordered, but 8 !
Before I went to bed I
transferred the videos I had taken on
my phone to my PC for a quick preview.
I then spent a a short while doing the
quick and dirty edit of the video I
have included here for the few who may
be able to play it. With that done I
went to bed. I had lost track of time,
but I read in bed for maybe 20 minutes
before turning out the light, and
almost instantly falling asleep.
One surprising thing about my
sleep is that I can only remember
getting up a few times for a pee after
drinking so much Guinness in the
afternoon/evening. At about half past
3am I woke up feeling hot. It felt
really uncomfortable under the duvet,
but almost shivery without it,
although having said that, I did get
back to sleep half uncovered. At
something like 5am I woke up feeling
cold, and pulling the duvet back over
me felt good again.
I think I finally got up around
6.30am. I was initially feeling pretty
rough. My right elbow was really sore.
That was probably from letting it get
cold during the night, although some
milder aches and pains were the result
of coming home with my coat undone -
and it was only a light coat. For a
while I feared a repeat of how awful I
felt the next day after the Liz Vass
memorial gig. Today I seem to have got
off lightly for the same exposure, and
a couple of Paracetamol seems to have
damped down most of the aches.
Despite eating nothing for most
of yesterday, piling in the food so
late at night has left me with a
dangerously high blood glucose
reading. It was 10.3mmol/l - well into
the red. Fortunately I know exactly
why it is so high, and I am not
worried about it. It is mainly because
of a backlog of washing up in the
kitchen that I didn't have my usual
instant noodles, but instead I had two
wholemeal rolls with Haslet in them.
That bread, despite being moderately
low sugar, will have made that high
reading even higher. Hopefully I can
be sensible enough to get it a lot
lower by tomorrow morning.
I know exactly what I ought to
be doing today - and it is an awful
lot. I doubt I will do the most
satisfying thing - selecting and
editing the photos I took yesterday. I
took 270 of them, but I doubt there
will be more than a tenth that amount
that will be good enough to use, and
my "official" photo album could be as
little as 15 to 20 photographs. Before
all that I need to finish washing a
hand towel plus two face flannels that
I left soaking yesterday morning
before I can have a shower.
This afternoon Jodie should be
coming over for a delayed Sunday beer
tasting session. Before that I have
not only all the glasses to wash up,
but also other stuff that I will need
to try and cook a healthy meal for
tonight. If I have any time left I
will get on with those photos.
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