This morning is bright and sunny, and it was also very cold - about 2.5° C at 8am. That chilly temperature can be attributed to clear skies. Those same clear skies are forecast to give sunshine all day, and that might raise the afternoon temperature to 9° C - which could feel warm in direct sunshine if there is not too much wind. Today's sunshine is just a one day special offer. Tomorrow it's back to the gloomy skies, although the temperature may still hit 9° C again.
 
   Yesterday's very dull start could easily have been the cause of another depressing day, but at least I had a plan for yesterday, and at least the plan turned out to be very enjoyable even if the rest of the day featured some very negative things.
  I took this picture at 10:14am according to the timestamp from my mobile phone. It shows one of several blue patches of sky that let in a brief bit of sunshine. Unfortunately all those blue areas of sky were soon filled in by grey clouds as can be seen just above the horizon of this picture.

  When I think back, I now think there were two short periods of sunshine quite close to each other. I was having a shower during the second period of sunshine. The bathroom faces north, and as well as the shower curtain there is also frosted glass in the window. All I saw was the outline of the window suddenly very bright on the shower curtain. Even that was enough to raise my spirits.

  It was dull and grey again when I walked to the station. I guess it is lazy taking the rain instead of walking through the park, but I wanted to go to the station to pick up two copies of The Metro - one for me, and one for Ayse the barmaid. While I was there it would be silly to ignore the next train to Ladywell. Maybe it is not that lazy. I think the walk from home to the London bound platform is approx 0.5 miles, and the walk from Ladywell station to the pub must be at least 0.2 miles. The two add up to 0.7 miles, and that is the approximate distance of The Ladywell Road entrance of Ladywell Fields to home.
  I had two pints of Guinness in the pub, and even with some banter between me, Ayse and a couple of other locals, I had finished the quick crossword before I finished my first pint. I then started on the cryptic crossword, and it was a very hard one ! At 1.50m, and just a few mouthfuls of Guinness let, I only managed to get 5 of the cryptic clues. I had been keeping an eye on the train times, and I finished my pint in time to leave myself 6 minutes to get to Ladywell station.
  I had been taking pictures of the front and back of all the trains I saw, and this one, 465004, was one I had not previously taken a photo of according to my big spreadsheet of train photos. It is now entered into the spreadsheet. I don't normally get the train back from the pub, although I have done at least once before. On this occasion I had a plan, and so i had been keeping an eye on the train times so I wouldn't have to wait too long.

  My plan was to go to the little supermarket of Catford Bridge, sometimes known as the Turkish shop, although much of their stuff is either Greek, Polish, Estonian, or even Vietnamese ! I was specifically after some strong(ish) Polish beer, but as usual, I ended up with a bag of stuff that included some Polish (I think) cream cheese, some turkish sliced salami, and a loaf of Polish sourdough sliced bread. I also bought a sort of bread thing that had Feta cheese and parsley baked in it.

  That feta and parsley bread turned out to be be a big disappointment. I could barely taste the filling, and closer inspection showed it was no more than a thin film of it inside. On top of that, it seemed quite stodgy. I had it for lunch, plus one Tesco "ancient seeds" granary roll with the Polish cream cheese and some of the sliced salami. I thought I had better leave it as just one as a taster, because as well as the stodgy bread thing I also had two small tubs of Bulgar wheat and red bean salad. It was quite a bit, and filling lunch !

  After lunch my bedroom was warm enough to lay down for some quiet reading and a snooze. I had left all the heating off for the almost 2 hours I was out, and it was chilly when I first got home, but he fan heater on full blast got it comfortable again while I prepared, and ate my lunch. I didn't really do much more until it was TV time, and an hour later when it was dinner time.

  I think I resisted eating any more between lunch and dinner, but I still tried to keep dinner fairly safe. It was a chicken stew with just the last few baby potatoes in the bag, plus a heap of Savoy cabbage. I didn't even bother to thicken it with any gravy granules. The chicken was actually from a pack of reduced price ready roasted drumsticks. After cooking them in stock for 20 minutes it was easy to pull the meat off the bones. Before that it looked to be quite a lot of chicken, but I think the bone was almost half of it.

  I washed dinner down with a can of Zubr, a 6% Polish beer, and followed that with a can of Tyskie, another Polish beer, but this one was only about 5.6%. I had bought 4 cans, but for some reason just 2 cans felt about right. Maybe it was because I was starting to feel tired. I did mention yesterday that I did not have a good night's sleep, and by 9pm I decied to try for sleep instead of tuning the TV back on again.

  Once again I didn't have a good sleep because I started the night with a sort of nightmare. It wasn't exactly scary, but was dammed irritating. I dreamed that my (probable) ex-mate Lee had rung my door bell at 2am, but when I git up and answered the door he seemed to be at the end of the road. I thought he had given up, and went back to bed. A few minutes later he was banging on my door. I got up and went back down to answer it. This time he came in, but somehow the dream flipped to somewhere that wasn't home.

   I kept telling Lee to go because I was tired, and had nothing to say to him, and nor did I intend to lend him money, or give him booze (he became a severe alcoholic in the last year or two that I was in contact with him. Some time seem to pass where I can't remember if anything happened, but eventually I told him if he didn't go I would punch him in the bollocks. He just laughed, and so I gave him a medium punch in the bollocks as promised. He was sitting on the stairs facing me, and that made the action so easy to do. He gave a sharp intake of breath, but didn't react more. I think he left then, or maybe I woke up.

  I think I was awake for about an hour thinking about that dream, and that is the real reason why I said I had a poor night's sleep. After getting back to sleep he appeared in another dream, but I can't seem to recall any more about that dream. I had one more big dream in the last hours of sleep. That was a sort of flashback to the days when I had a radio studio in my bedroom.

  In the dream my bedroom was on the corner of a house, and so I had large windows on two sides of the room. That gave it a nice bright ambience. I don't remember much about the dream beyond a few sights. One was of my old and huge reel to reel tape recorder. It was like looking at a photo except it was sort of in 3D. After some time where little action seemed to take place, I woke up.

  I should have got up then because it was about 6.30am, but after a pee I went back to bed for one of those "just 5 minutes" that turn out to be a whole hour. As usual I checked my blood glucose with great trepidation. This time it was warranted. My reading had gone right up to 9.3mmol/l. Fortunately that is still some way from the red line (10.0mmol/l), but it did signal that I should take some care today.

  Taking care could be easier said than done. Today should be a Thursday beer tasting session this afternoon. Getting drunk may be pleasurable, but makes it hard to control eating. This morning I had two of the remaining three of the four pack of Tesco "ancient grains" rolls. That has reduced temptation a bit, but I still have a whole loaf of Polish Sourdough bread. That bread is usually fairly safe, but maybe I'll try not to start using it until tomorrow. Tonight's dinner will probably be just diced beef with heaps of red cabbage, and apart from a stock cube or two, little else.