The ground is already wet from some earlier rain that I don't think appeared in earlier weather forecasts. The latest revision to the forecast is adamant that the only rain will be at 2pm, but with a 10% or even 20% chance of rain at other hours, some drizzle would come as no surprise. The wind today is not shown as being very strong, but still strong enough to make the predicted high of 7° C feel closer to 3 or 4° C. Tomorrow morning may start at 3° C, but a sunny afternoon may raise the temperature to 9° C.
 
   The crappy weather yesterday soon had me feeling very miserable. I don't think I could have been more miserable if it were pouring with rain, or maybe I would because I did do one semi important thing yesterday. I went to get some shopping from Tesco.

  I put on my warmest, not hooded, winter coat, and didn't undo the front until I took it off when I got back home. As walks go it was generally pleasant if judged on how well my legs and stuff were working as I walked there and back. Even so, I could still feel the weight of those heavy grey clouds pressing down on the pleasure centres of my brain (or something like that), and I did make two unwise purchases.

  One unwise purchase was a reduced price 6 pack of sausage rolls. I thought I would have half of them for lunch, but because they needed some cooking to make the pastry look less anaemic, I ended up cooking the whole lot. I had three of them, and thought they would benefit from tomato sauce, but they were still not nice. I then tried the second three with just salt and pepper, and suddenly they were almost nice !

  After that big stodgy lunch I only had an occasional nibble until dinner time. My dinner was a rather more healthy lamb stew with baby potatoes and a lot of Savoy Cabbage - although it didn't seem a lot once it had wilted during cooking. It seemed a very pleasant dinner, and after that I just had a chunk of cheese to nibble as a sort of delayed dessert. In between lunch and dinner I did very little except for a bit more 35mm film post production.
  I took this picture in March 1995. It was one of those occasions when I was in the right place at the right time, purely by luck. I snapped this 1959 tube stock train at Woodside Park on the Northern Line. The train had been specially re-pained, and refurbished inside to commemorate the 100th birthday of the Northern Line. It was also run as the "Starlight Express" to promote the play of the same name on one of the West End stages. Other plays were also promoted, but the nickname Starlight Express was attached to the train. I believe three of the four carriages are preserved in working order at the LT Museum.
  This historic view was probably also taken in 1995. It is the view from possibly the Dockland Light Railway platform at Stratford (London) station. The left half of the picture shows the new terminal Jubilee Line platforms being built. The North London Line towards North Woolwich is under the blue footbridge. Some years later North Woolwich was closed, and the line from Richmond truncated at a high level platform at Stratford. New platforms were built, and the track rebuilt for the the other Docklands service going through to Stratford International station.
  This is not a historic photo - I took this snap just last night. It is of the beers that brought some desperately needed cheer to the evening. The Signature Brew was 13%, and the Overtone, Death By Stereo, was 12.5%. The other two were weaker - in the 7% range. Drinking these made for a complete storm of emotions.

  On the one hand they were all very nice and tasty beers - some in the extreme. That felt really good, but some of that good feeling was subtracted by a sort of guilt or the foreknowledge of a potential hangover. There was definitely some sort of negative energy going on because at the end of the four beers I hardly felt drunk at all, but maybe that was good. I don't actually like feeling drunk to the extent of feeling out of control.

  While I thought I felt almost sober, those beers seemed to have a strong influence on my sleep. I suppose most of it was that too hot or two cold dilemma I suffered from a lot in the last few years. I think I woke up twice in the night feeling cold because I had kicked the duvet off. One of those times was at about 2am, and although I suspect I did drop off to sleep a couple of times for short periods, it seemed like I was awake for about an hour.

  By 5am I had the heater on full, and by 6am I was feeling very comfortable. At just gone 7am I woke up feeling like I could have done with a few more hours sleep, but also feeling like I would not be able to get to sleep again. So I got up. After the usual visit to the toilet I checked my blood glucose. After eating those six stodgy sausage rolls at lunchtime, plus drinking the beers, a couple of which tasted quite sweet and syrupy, I was expecting a very bad blood glucose reading. It was actually 8.9mmol/l. That is moderately high, but still in the range where I can just note and ignore it.

  I do not feel all that good this morning, and I guess my bad sleep takes almost all the blame for it. Now I've been up for a couple of hours, and have had a hot breakfast of spicy instant noodles, I am beginning to feel a bit better. I hope that after a hot shower, I will feel OK to put on a hooded coat, I will feel like a trip to the pub for my traditional Wednesday lunchtime drink. I am not expecting Angela to be there. So far there has been no hint that she has returned back to work after her accident. I would hope that she is fairly mobile now despite possibly wearing a cast on her broken leg, and with the aid of a crutch, but not maybe not mobile enough for work or pubbing.

  The only metric I have for these things is a workmate who shattered part of his leg, and was off work for about a month. When he came back to work he still had bolts through his leg, and stuff like that. The bolts were keeping in place some sort of titanium plate inside his leg. It was maybe another month before all the external metalwork was removed. I have no idea how bad Angela's break was, but I doubt it was as bad as my workmates. I can't remember if it was a skiing, or motorbike accident, but it was something far more dynamic than falling down the carpeted stairs.