As I write this, somewhat earlier than recently, I am not sure if the rain has stopped. It is definitely very grey and miserable looking, but I suppose I should allow for the fact that sunrise is still 7 minutes away ! The latest revision to the forecast says that sunny spells could start as early as 9am, and from 10am there could be full sunshine until sunset. The downside is that it will probably be no more than 11° C today, and as little as 7° C by 11pm. Tomorrow morning is currently show as featuring heavy rain, but then, with a bit of luck, the afternoon may be dry and bright. Much of tomorrow will be just 9° C, but there could be a brief blip up to 10° C.

   Once again I allowed the dull and miserable weather to suck any enthusiasm out of me. My possible adventure on the trains, most to have a look at The Cart And Horses pub in Stratford, came to nothing. However I did go out to the little supermarket on Catford Bridge where I bought everything I expected to buy.

  The top of my shopping list was to buy a selection of Polish or East European flavour instant noodles. Second on the lost was some big oranges, and I added a couple of conference pears to them. Maybe third on my list was some Turkish Delight. I bought two flavours, but there were some exotic flavours that I couldn't buy because I am not sure I could wash the icing sugar off them to make them generally safe for me to eat.

  I can't make up my mind about how to describe my walk to the shop and back again. I didn't enjoy it, although I can't say it stressed me in any way. It was probably because it felt a bit colder than I was expecting for 13° C. I thought I would be very comfortable in my hooded raincoat, but that coat has almost no insulation, and I felt rather cool. The occasional light sprinkle of rain (mainly going there), and the dull grey sky killed any happy thoughts.

  When I got home I treated myself to a can of beans and smoky bacon meat that I had bought in the shop. It is an East European recipe, and I am sure that it uses much less sugar than anything similar made by Heinz, plus the meat tastes like real meat. It was nice, but maybe a small amount of guilt took the edge off it. I followed those beans by a Conference pear. It was probably about perfect - just starting to get slightly soft, and not too tart, and not too sweet.

  After that I went into very lazy mode. I've already said it twice, and once more rubs it in, the cold grey light sucked any enthusiasm out of me, and it also dropped my guard a bit. Only a few more hours passed before I made a cheese sandwich using a couple of slices of Polish sour dough bread that I also bought from the shop. I only stirred after that, and maybe before that, to do a little cooking.

  One other little, albeit expensive, treat that I bought was some Polish, ready to eat, smoked pork belly. Although it says ready to eat it looks a little underdone to me, and so I put it in the oven to cook some more. Unfortunately the timer stuck just before the end, and I went down to the kitchen to get my dinner together to find that pork was almost caramelised. I must admit that the centre of it was very nice, but the skin had turned to glassy like crackling, and the opposite edge was rather dried out and tough.

  I ate that pork with quite a few miniature potatoes, and a lot of leek. Maybe the leek was not such a good idea. I suspect that being essentially a root vegetable, it had a lot of sugar in it. Despite a few drawbacks it was an nice dinner. I followed it with a juicy orange as a dessert. While I had been cooking dinner I was also preparing, and part cooking, tonight's dinner. At the moment it is just stewed diced beef with mushrooms, and I'll be adding some vegetables before I finish cooking it today.

  There was not a lot of TV last night, and so once again I had an early night. At least I went to bed early, but I was probably reading in bed for as much as an hour. The only problem is that while I was reading I didn't pull the duvet over myself. When I put the book down I realised I was feeling rather cold. I think it was only last night that I realised what was going on when I experienced something I have experienced a lot before. When I pulled the duvet over me I felt far too warm even though I could feel that my flesh was actually cold to the touch. I think it is a milder form of what happens when you suffer from Hypothermia - you get a desire to shed clothes rather than put more on. It can be fatal. I think my situation was rather milder than hypothermia, but it did take some willpower to keep covered enough to start warming up.

  I don't think I can think of much to say about my sleep. I sort of remember having a few brief periods of insomnia, or at least I didn't fall asleep again very quickly after the few visits to the toilet in the night, but I guess I probably slept very well overall. I woke up around 5.30am feeling like it was probably time to get up, but I managed to force myself to sleep for another hour.

  Since then I have read some stuff on the internet, and I have had a large bowl of instant noodles for breakfast. After eating big packets of Asian style/flavour noodles I thought one packet of Polish, tomato flavour, noodles looked quite small, and I added a second to the bowl before I poured on the boiling water. Before that I checked my blood glucose, and the result said I really should have stuck to a single packet of instant noodles. The reading was not that terrible, but 9.1mmol/l crosses my personal preference to try and keep it down to 8 or less.

  There are now signs that sunny spells could be possible today. Maybe today I will finally get on a train to go and find The Cart And Horses pub. There are many cancellations from Catford Bridge due to a signalling problem at Lewisham, but that doesn't affect trains from Catford station. The basic plan is a train from Catford station to Blackfriars station, and then, because there are no through trains from Catford at the times I will be travelling, changing at Blackfriars for a train through to Farringdon station where I can change to the Elizabeth line for a direct train to Maryland station. From there it should (hopefully) be a short walk to the pub. I might even call in for a quick Guinness.

  Of course the idea of writing out my journey in full, as in the last paragraph, is to try and convince myself just how simple it could be. The main fly in the ointment is walking to Catford station. As I have mentioned many times in the past, it is the worst part of the journey - even when such a journey ends up as a long, or even very long coastal walk, and I am out for much of the day. Just that little, if 10 minutes in little, walk to the station can be a deal breaker !