I don't think the forecast started off quite right. There may have been some mist at 7am, before the sunrise, but it was clear by 8am. Also, the temperature was lower than 3° C because there was frost this morning. There is some high haze at the moment making the clear blue sky look a sort of pale grey sort of blue. With luck the sun will be out all day, and today we can hope for 12° C. Tomorrow will probably be the last of these nice days. The rot sets in just before sunset when only sunny spells are forecast. However, it is possible that tomorrow could see 13° C in the afternoon.
 
   Yesterday was dominated by a walk in the sun I did, and it's later consequences. As I said yesterday morning, I was not initially feeling comfortable about going for a walk, but fortunately my main concern was answered by another productive visit to the toilet. Even after that I had a few doubts, but after having a shower I got dressed, and headed to the station.
  My outing did not get off to a great start ! With my train to Blackfriars officially due in just over a minute, the display said it was still 16 minutes away. It was a bit of a tedious wait, but once the train arrived it was a smooth journey to Blackfriars station.
  One of the first things I saw when I left Blackfriars station on the south side was a flock (?) of swans. This was just one that was posing nicely for me.
  There was plenty of river traffic to take snaps of like this "Thames Rocket" passing Blackfriars Pier, and heading upstream fairly fast.
  It is remarkable how The Thames has been cleaned up. Once it was a bit of a stinky river, and only a few hardy gulls could be seen on it, but as well as swans there were quite a few geese to be seen sedately swimming in the river.
  The most obvious landmark just beyond the north bank of The Thames is St Pauls cathedral.
   This is an interesting craft, and it would look more interesting if seen from the other side. It is a multi purpose marine craft than can do loads of things. It is all best explained, along with pictures showing it's full size, here https://cpbsmarineservices.co.uk/ShakeDogMulticat
  Fortunately not in use, RNLI inshore lifeboat "Hurly Burly".
  I didn't actually plan a definite route before I went out, but I did check a map for possibilities. One such possibility was to cross the Thames on Southwark Bridge. As far as I am aware, I have never crossed Southwark Bridge before on foot, or in any motorised transport.  I can't say it was terribly exciting, but it does hint at future inner London walks - to visit more of the Thames bridges.

  To get from the river path to the footpath on the bridge meant going up quite a flight of stairs. I have to admit I hadn't considered that possibility, and maybe it is lucky I didn't or I might never have done it. It wasn't so bad that I had to stop, but I found it very taxing. Taking this picture, near the top of the stairs, was a great way of spending a minute getting my breath back.
  This is the view looking upstream from Southwark Bridge. The sun was about at it's highest when I took this shot, but it was still fairly low in the sky. That gave very long shadows, and everything on the left of the picture is in shadow. Only the north bank, on the right, is well lit.
  These two street names were in the gloom under Cannon Bridge. I thought it was a novelty to see the two signs side by side. I was a bit confused about Cannon Bridge. The name appears on the side of the bridge as the road goes under the railway lines of Cannon Street station. As far as I can gather, where it crosses the road is considered all part of the bridge whose most obvious structure crosses the river.
  Like at Southwark Bridge, there is a long flight of stairs to get up to the top of the bridge from where it crosses the road underneath. Once again I was thankful that I could stop to take a quick snap while I got my breath back.
  Downstream from London Bridge is the Port Of London - the furthest up the river that big boats can reach. The biggest boat is the permanently moored HMS Belfast. It is no longer in active duty, and is indeed a tourist attraction, but it is full maintained, and presumably could be returned to active duty if St Lucia sent an invasion force.
  Here's another look at HMS Belfast taken from "The Queens Walkway" . I didn't walk much further than this because I was starting to feel some discomforts. The most significant of which was a very mild desire to visit a toilet. I did indeed follow a sign to toilets, but all I found were a couple of those automatically cleaned toilets, and I don't think they were free. More than that, there was a queue. I passed on them, walked a little bit further, but than looped back a bit to go to London Bridge station. It was closer than I thought - and so was my train home !

  I was not even sure I could get up the long escalators to platform level in time to get the next train, but I did it with about a minute to spare. It was handy that the train was a fast train - first stop Ladywell, next stop Catford Bridge. Although my mild desire to use a toilet had gone up a small notch, I was still OK to hang back for a while to take a few train pictures - one of which was a new picture for my giant spreadsheet of train pictures.

  Once I got home I still did not rush, but I also didn't waste time going for a pee (which was not the toilet function I had worried about needing when I first set out. Once I was comfortable I made some lunch. It was the left over chips from my dinner two nights previously. I smothered them in cheddar cheese, and microwaved them until the cheese had been bubbling for a short while. It converted nasty warmed up chips to almost edible warmed up chips.

   Although I had kept them in a vacuum sealed container, I did worry that the small bits of fish among the chips might have gone off in the two days since they were fresh, and indeed I did taste something odd in just one mouthful. If anything had happened, like throwing up, I would have blamed it on all the cheesy grease. With hindsight I should have just used those chips to feed the birds.

  After eating my lunch I had a snooze. It was the first time since going down with my recent cold that I have managed to have a good snooze. Prior to that I would start to cough as soon as I laid down and started to doze. I guess it was the fresh air and sunshine that allowed my to fall asleep almost instantly. I think I woke up again half an hour later - coughing ! One problem with that walk, and perhaps some of the more energetic things like walking up flights of stairs, is that it seemed to shake up all the mucus down in my lungs (or wherever).

  I had several coughing sessions on the train home, and each lasted for what seemed like a long time as I tried to dislodge a bit of mucus in my airway. I did more coughing at I edited the photos, and more when watching a bit of TV. I stopped while I had my wrong way round dinner. I started dinner with a couple of medium sized oranges. the main course was a couple of seeded rolls with ham, tomato and basil. I thought it was a fairly light dinner after the earlier, very heavy, chips and cheese.

  All that coughing was mildly annoying, and it was all because I was trying to cough up blobs of tickling mucus. Once the mucus came up the cough stopped instantly. It became much more annoying when trying to sleep. I was in bed fairly early after deciding I didn't care to watch QI in Dave last night. During a lull in coughing I went to sleep quite quickly. I am unsure when that was, but I know I didn't read much in bed, and so it was probably some time before 9pm.

  It might have been around 1pm when I had my first period of insomnia, and it was all to do with coughing. It wasn't long before I turned to my secret weapon, and officially prescribed asthma inhaler. A couple of squirts of that, followed by some careful breathing, and I did one big cough that dislodged a big glob of mucus. Maybe 10 minutes later I was asleep again. I had another period of insomnia starting at around 4am. I'm not sure that was because it was not because of coughing, although I was doing that.

  4am seemed like a good time to turn the heater up. I had managed to sleep most of the night under the duvet - which made a change. Once my bedroom was nice and warm I could push the duvet aside, and get to sleep easier. I didn't sleep for much longer though, and this morning I got up quite early, but I guess that is fair if I was asleep a lot earlier than recently.

  My blood glucose was a bit higher this morning - up to 9.1mmol/l. I really must try and get it down soon because while occasional readings like this are nothing to be worried about, prolonged periods at this level are potentially damaging. Tonight's dinner should be safe provided I follow the plan for it to be meat ball and mostly white cabbage stew. Lunch should be something very light - possibly cheese on rice cakes.

  Some exercise would be good too, and yesterday I did have fanciful plans to get out again today while the sun shines. It would be very good to get back into the swing of lots of exercise again - like in lockdown. On the other hand I feel wary about it if it is going to stir up more mucus from my lungs. On the other hand, there can only be so much mucus down there after 2 or 3 days of a runny nose..... Maybe I could do some light exercise like a walk in the park, or even lighter like a walk to the shops. All these things will be decided, one way or another, in due course.