It is most certainly a very dull morning, and the chance of any sunshine today looks remote in the extreme, however the BBC forecast does show sunny spells from about 2pm. The BBC also forecasts 12° C while the Met Office goes for a rather cool 10° C. The Met Office also thinks there is a 10% chance of rain from this morning to early afternoon. 10% usually means dry, but on some occasions that one in ten chance comes up trumps ! So today doesn't look good, but tomorrow looks positively bad. The BBC say rain all day, and just 9° C while the Met Office says there should be a gap in otherwise all day rain for a couple of hours around midday, and a few random hours in the evening.
 
   There was one particular bad thing about yesterday, but I shall come to that later. Most of yesterday was not that bad, and the few disappointments were mostly trivial. At first I was thinking I would have a boring day indoors, but at 11.30am the sun burst through the clouds. I quickly went and had a shower so I could go out.

  My plan was to go to The Jolly Farmers. I was hoping that Ayse would be working behind the bar because that makes the place much more friendly. She wasn't, and it was the lady whose name I don't know. Prior to all that I had to get there. I had contemplated walking all the way, but I still wanted to pick up a copy of The Metro on the way, so I could amuse myself doing the crossword. I decided that seeing as I would be at the station, the only place to pick up a copy of the Metro, I may as well get the train.
  I see so few class 707 trains going through Catford Bridge these days that it was almost a novelty to see one arrive to take me the single stop to Ladywell. I think the picture turned out to be in soft focus because the exposure time was quite long, and that was because the sun had gone in at this time, and it was quite dull out. Notice the very feint shadows that are cast - but you'll have to look carefully to see them.
  This picture looks back along the train - several carriages away from where I got on it. One thing it was supposed to show was how dirty the floor looked, but it looks fine in this picture. Maybe it was just the carriage I first got on that had the dirty floor. It made the train look exceedingly well used. These trains are not new. They were hand-me-downs from Southwest Railway who tried them but didn't like them - mainly because of complaints of no onboard toilets. So not new, but potentially they still have 25 or more years of life left.
  It was looking like spring at the northern end of the park, in the little green area behind St Mary's church. There were far denser areas of snow drops, but this ragged picture also shows the bright yellow crucuses.
  Close up on the crocuses, with a bit of last autumns leaf litter in the foreground.
  There were only a few clumps of daffodils in bloom in the "Therapeutic Gardens" in the rear of St Mary's church. They are hardly the "host of golden daffodils" that are mentioned in a famous poem called something I can't remember, but someone famous whole name I also can't remember......err....it was, of course "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud" by William Wordsworth.
 
  As I mentioned above, I had hoped to see Ayshe behind the bar in The Jolly Farmers, but it seems my idea that she also worked on Monday's was wrong (unless it was Monday nights). Nevertheless, I had my usual two pints of Guinness, and got stuck into the crosswords. I guess I was not in form because it took me quite a time to finish the quick crossword, and I only managed 3 or 4 clues from the cryptic crossword.

  One thing that might have spurred me on was to have got some sort of response to another message I sent Angela. This time it was a very simple "Any news about your recovery yet ? I am worried about you.". I could see she had read/seen the message after an few minutes, but there was no response. That saddened me.

  After my two pints of Guinness I headed for home, but I decided to go via Poundland. That is, in effect a tiny bit more distant from the pub than home is, and of course then there is the distance from Poundland to home. I was wary about feeling assorted aches developing like they did last Wednesday (going directly home from the pub). I made a point of walking a bit slower than usual, although at time I did find myself speeding up.

  The cold wind did start to irritate my chest, and it seemed rather cold on my bare arms, but none of it was anywhere near as bad as last Wednesday. There was nothing in particular that I wanted to buy in Poundland except maybe some paper plates - which they didn't have. I mainly did my usual of wandering around and grabbing anything that seemed useful. A lot of it turned out to be food items.
  This is one item I didn't buy. I see a lot of things like this on social media and other places, but this time I saw it first ! Thanks to the sticker I read it as Jen's butt, and couldn't help thinking that Jen had a very nice bottom. Incidently, this is a first class example of how desperate Poundland are to make money, and how "Poundland" is now a misnomer. Once upon a time, mainly pre-covid, all the books they sold were just £1, and usually books from publishers remains stock - books that just can't be sold. Maybe the recommended retail price was £20, and it didn't sell. I have doubts it will sell few copies even for £3.

  There were a few letters on my door mat when I got home, and one was from The Department Of Work And Pensions to tell me my pension was going up - possibly even enough to partly cover the extra their brothers in Customs And Excise were going to gouge from me with my decreased personal tax allowance. Nevertheless, I thought the news might cheer Angela up. We were discussing the probable rise in our pensions the last time I saw her before her accident. I took a picture of the page, and sent it to Angela. It was some time before I saw she had seen it, but once again there was no response. Does she really want me to go to her wedding in June ?

  I did one thing I threatened to do when I got home - I made some toast using Aldi sourdough bread. Unlike last Wednesday, when it might have been the reason for a high a blood glucose reading the next morning, I didn't have melted cheese on the two slices, but I had had spreadable cheese instead - including the garlic and herb I refrained from open on Sunday in case it offended Jodie (who didn't turn up anyway).

  As well as the two slices of toast I also had a new type/make of instant noodles I found in Poundland (and I think they were £1 even if they were not worth it). They come in a tub that you make the noodles up in. I noted they were 85gm, or a similar amount to the smaller Polish/Vietnamese instant noodles I like. They did seem rather nice, but now I wonder if it was the effect of eating them after the toast.

  After a fairly late, but fairly big lunch I laid down and had a snooze. The temperature in my bedroom was very marginal. It had obviously been slightly warmed by the sunny spells, and I didn't bother to turn the heating on. Maybe that was a mistake because after a half hour snooze I felt almost shivery when I woke up. I soon warmed up a bit once I got moving, and even more after turning the heating on.

  Once I was comfortable I went down to the kitchen to finish preparing my dinner, and giving it it's finally cooking. It was diced beef I had cooked on Saturday, and sealed in a vacuum container. I added some green chillies, sprouts and runner beans. It turned out to be quite a small dinner, but after my big lunch that was fine. While eating, and also afterward, I watched some of my usual TV before going to bed.

  As usual I read for a while, but it didn't seem to be long before I felt quite tired. After turning out the light I think I may have been asleep soon after 10pm. I don't know why, but at around 2am I woke up for a pee. As I had that pee I was thinking that those first 4 hours of sleep were not good sleep, but for the life of me I couldn't remember why I thought that. My memory for the time was a total blank.

  It wasn't until the last hour or two of sleep that I seemed to be getting poor sleep, but that was only on account of seeming to have some very intensive dreaming. The very little I remember of those dreams seemed to be about applying to become a TV engineer while actually being a TV engineer. It seemed very confusing. My memory of it is fading fast, but I get the impression the thing that made it like a bad dream was that I seemed to be flitting from scene to scene before I could even work out what was happening.

  Although confusing, nothing was threatening, or anything similar, but maybe it was the sense of stability that made it feel so good to wake up. I had reasons to think that maybe my blood glucose would be up this morning. There was the possible effect of the Aldi sourdough bread, the extra bowl of instant noodles for lunch, and not forgetting two small packets of crisps that I neglected to mention earlier. In fact my blood glucose reading had gone down to 8.4mmol/l this morning - or just slightly under my typical rolling average for many months.

  I can't say I feel any better for that lower blood glucose reading. Maybe it is lower because I am no longer fighting my recent cold. The thing is, I feel pretty rough this morning. It is probably easy to say that I blame it on the weather turning. It is not fully awful outside at the moment, but merely ordinary awful. It is not terribly dull, but it is a cold and grey light instead of golden sunshine.

  I had thought that maybe I might go out today. That was originally on the deluded idea that maybe today would not be completely grey, and also on the idea that tomorrow may be a truly awful wet and soggy day. It is possible I might still go out in the rain to the Jolly Farmers tomorrow, but it feels unlikely I will go out today. I suppose if I really forced myself I could get on a train, and then do some exploring on the Underground where it is always warm and these days, mostly brightly lit. The latter is a shame because it was the dim yellow light that used to light deep tube stations that gave them some of their charm.