Once again I feel cheated. The latest revision of the forecast looks quite nasty compared with the early version in the screenshot above. It is bright and sunny as I type this, but 11am and midday will only feature sunny spells, and rain will start at 1pm. I guess that is actually a tiny bit better than the early forecast, but then it gets worse. 2 and 3pm may be dry, but cloudy. After that the clouds change from white to grey at 4pm when the rain starts again. At 5pm the clouds will be a much darker grey, and heavy rain will fall. At 6pm there could be a sunny spells, and 7pm could see some light rain and maybe more sunny spells. The maximum temperature today may be just 11° C, but that, like everything else in the forecast will probably be revised to match what is actually happening - which is not really a forecast !  Tomorrow will probably be grey and very damp, and it may be a degree colder than today !
 
  Yesterday had a lot in common with Wednesday of last week. That meant a peak in the middle of the day, and a slow decline in the afternoon. Of course yesterday had one feature that last Wednesday didn't have - foul weather, although having said that the weather probably wasn't too different during the morning. It was the afternoon when things were very different.

  Nothing of note happened yesterday morning beyond getting ready to go out to the pub. That meant the usual shave, shampoo and shower. I left in plenty of time to get to the station to photograph the front and back of the 12:29 train to Hayes, but I bumped into my next door neighbour and got delayed listening to the latest gossip. I walked to the station as fast as I could, which was not that fast, in time to only see the back of the Hayes bound train as it left the station.

  It had been bright, with even a few brief sunny spells until then, but they seemed to be among the very last for the day. I think there may have been a very short sunny spell while I was on the 12:34 train armed with two copies of The Metro - one for me, and one for Ayse our favourite barmaid. It was fairly dull as I walked from Ladywell station to the pub. If it was a little brighter the one picture I took while walking through the park might have been more vibrant.
  These two Mandarin ducks were in the same place I saw one male and one female last week. These two are male. They were in the river not far from the footbridge across the river by the rear of St Mary's church. I am wondering if the chicks have any nice plumage. I would guess not because they need to be hard to see until they can care for them selves. I guess I probably won't be spending time trying to get a snap of the chicks when they hatch - probably sometime in the next month or two.

  It was another very entertaining session in the pub. I didn't often take part because I was trying to concentrate on doing the two crosswords in the Metro, but it was all enjoyable, and I even had to stay for three pints again to try and solve more clues in those crosswords. I managed all but a couple in the quick crossword (which was disappointing) and maybe half, maybe a bit more, of the cryptic crossword, which was about average.

  One other thing I did while in the pub was to send Angela a message. I said how good it was to see the picture of her standing up in the park. I then said that now she was at least partly mobile I would like to buy her lunch early next week (when it might possibly be warm and sunny). I suggested the pub that is only about 5 minutes walk from Angela's home, or anywhere she felt comfortable to get to.
  I also said that Ayse sends her best wishes, and hope to see her back in the pub before too long. I sent this picture along with the last bit of the message. It was only when I saw the picture on a big screen that I realised what an awful picture I had taken. Ayse looks like she is 100 years old, and scowling. She is much younger, and normally has a radiant smile. It took Angela almost half an hour to reply, but she did say she would try and sort something out for next week. That gives a modicum of hope, but I would not be surprised if nothing happens.

  As I was nearing the bottom of my third pint of Guinness I checked the times of the trains. I had considered not getting a train back to Catford Bridge, and walking direct to home. Maybe I would have done except for two things. One was that I wanted to take a few more train pictures on the way home, and the fact that it was pouring with rain when I left the pub made up my mind to get the train.

  This was my train home from Ladywell, and as I discovered when I got home, 465934 is a train I did not have a photograph of. I seem to be very lucky that nearly every time I go to the pub, and then to home on a train, I seem to get a picture of a train I have never photographed before. It is a shame that the number on the front is slightly blurry while the rest of the picture is sharp (and quite dull looking in the rain).

  Apart from a brief 15 second pause on the footbridge to see if the Mandarin ducks were still there (one was) I almost raced to the station. It was one of my more spirited walks. It is amazing what pouring rain will do ! I also kept up an unusually fast pace walking from Catford Bridge station to home. The rain had stopped at that point, but I feared it could start again at any moment.

  Although I was pushing myself quite hard I didn't seem to suffer in any way, although I did feel what I can only describe as slightly shaky when I got home. Maybe it was just exhilaration or something. The first thing I did when I got home was to open a letter from EDF Energy that I found on my doormat. To my surprise it was actually good news, even if extremely light good news. It seems that from the start of this month, having gouged us for as much money as possible during the coldest months, they are going to very slightly reduce their prices in the hope that we might praise them - No chance !

  I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast when I got home, and I was feeling rather peckish after three pints of Guinness. I quickly made up 4 rice cakes with garlic sausage on them. It was not a very nice lunch, or not as nice as hoped for, and maybe an hour later I had another 4 rice cakes with ham and mustard. They were nicer. I think I had that second lot after I had had a long snooze. I woke up feeling awful with a hangover. I didn't think I was drunk before snoozing, but evidently I must have been.

  It may have been the hangover that triggered it, but I felt quite miserable, even depressed for the rest of the day.  The three different Star Treks I saw, The New Generation, Enterprise and Voyager all seemed rather flat episodes, and only eating my slow cooked chicken, cabbage, potato and leek stew was uplifting. I think I am getting the hang of that slow cooker now, although in a way I am also getting a little bored of stew for dinner. Oh well, maybe by the end of the month cold salads will be attractive again.
  Yesterday I sort of complained that Dave was stopped having any predictable programme schedule, and last night they really went over the top. I could have watched four usually decent programmes in a row, and got to bed very late. The first QI, at 20:20 I declined to watch because I thought I recognised it as one I had probably seen fairly recently. I turned the TV back on at 9pm to watch Have I Got News For You. That finished at 10pm and that seemed late enough for me. To be sure I did check the programme guide and the guest list for the following programme, QIXL, failed to excite me (but might have annoyed me).

  I was in bed very soon after 10pm, and I only read for maybe 20 minutes before trying to get to sleep. As far as I can remember I fell asleep very quickly. I was not so luck after getting up for a pee sometime after 1am. I must admit the details are so hazy that it might have been a dream, but it seemed like I might have had half an hour or more of insomnia then. Most of my sleep seemed good, but there were a few times when I felt cold. I turned the heater up full at about 3.30am, and by morning I felt comfortable, but not hot.

  Last night was another night when I remember having a lot of dream, and some were unsettling. All details have faded away now apart from one bit of dream that was particularly unsettling. That dream was set in my bedroom. It was a bit like my real bedroom, but it was a lot longer - maybe completely square. During the dream it was raining (possibly for real in the real world) and it was sometime foggy. In my dream I had water falling through the ceiling.

  There were three or four spots near the front on my bedroom where water was pouring through small holes, but with the intensity of an opened tap. I knew the source could not be the cold water tank, or any of it's pipework because that was at the rear of the house. It was a complete mystery where all this water was coming from. To add to the mystery some points would stop, and another start up - and at one time the new flow was from the opposite side of the room.

  I was glad to wake up from that dream. I can't say I felt good when I woke up. For one thing I woke up with hiccups, and my lower right leg was just about to go into cramp. A few bits of my ached, and one place in particular. I think I may have pulled a muscle in my upper chest some days ago because this ache started a few days ago. It only happens when making certain poses, and is a thin feeling pain almost behind my left man boob. It lays dormant for long periods of time, until I make a certain, but unpredictable movement, and then it is like pulling on a only partly healed scar.

  I think I am going to have to leave off adding potatoes to my stews. This morning my blood glucose reading was down to a fairly typical reading, but when I consider everything else I ate, besides those potatoes, I would have expected my blood glucose reading to be less than 8.7mmol/l. Oh well, it is good enough for now, and no need for any panic.

  Apart from a bit of light housework, including cleaning and polishing the beer glasses, I don't predict I will do much today until this afternoon when I thing Jodie and Michael will be joining me for a beer tasting session. Today I have more lager style beers for Michael to try, although to my surprise, Jodie wants to reacquaint her self with a few that I didn't think she would be interested in.