It is possible that there was a shower at 6am, but I didn't see it. It seems we can expect rain from about 3pm, and some of it could be heavy. Until then it might be bright-ish, but with probably no sign of the sun. It will be another cold day with the temperature only expected to rise to 10° C. Tomorrow may start sunny, but the afternoon may be cloudy. It should stay dry. Once again the temperature is nothing to get excited about, although it could be a degree higher than today at 11° C.
 
   Yesterday was almost good, but a couple of disappointments took the shine off it. On the other hand there were a couple of unexpected good points about the day. The core of the day revolved around Chain doing a matinee gig starting at 3pm in The Shortlands Tavern. It was billed as a St Georges day gig, but unless I missed any references to it, it seemed like a normal Chain gig - except for the early start.

  The first fly in the ointment was that trains between Catford and Shortlands stations were only once an hour because of engineering work near Blackfriars station. The trains were using Victoria as their London terminus, but paths through the network only allowed that one train per hour. I can believe that for a weekday, but Sunday is generally a lot less busy, and I would have thought they could have squeezed two trains an hour even if they were not evenly spaced around the clock.

  There were a few things to do, most importantly having a shave, shampoo and shower before going out, but generally it was a rather boring wait until it was time to go out to get the 15:06 train. Another problem with only one train per hour, beyond how terrible it would be to just miss a train, was that I had a choice of either getting to the pub at least 40 minutes early, or getting there 20 minutes late. I opted to get there late, and so caught the 15:06 train.
  This was the 15:06 train arriving at Catford. To my later amazement, it was one I had never photographed before. This picture has now been added to my big spreadsheet listing all the trains I have photographs of. I must admit I thought I had photographed nearly all the 10 car class 700 train, and all the gap were in the 12 car trains that run down to Brighton.

  When I walked to Catford station there was some very light rain - so light that I didn't bother to do my coat up. At Shortlands the rain had completely stopped, and it was brightening up, but there was ample evidence of earlier, probably heavy, rain. I guess the walk to the station warmed me up a bit, and it felt warm on the train. By the time I had walked to the pub, and then upstairs to where Chain were playing, I had broken out in a mild sweat - most on my forehead - the most annoying place.
   I was not too happy with my photography yesterday. I was hoping to take some really excellent pictures to show off my latest camera, the Nikon D300s, and to secure my back stage pass at Petts Wood Calling in August. I must admit I sort of relied on taking "normal" pictures, but that window, and there is another off the right hand side of the picture, added so much back lighting that my exposures were all wrong. Fortunately I could correct some pictures, and later ones, taken with my flash gun were a bit better.
  Now this picture is really bad, but my excuse was it was a split second decision to take a snap of Alan and Jodie while looking towards the camera. I had suggested to Jodie that she could join me at The Shortlands Tavern because I wouldn't be at home for our usual Sunday beer tasting session. She and Alan did indeed go, but probably because of Alan's missing leg he decided not to attempt to climb the narrow twisty staircase up to where Chain were playing.
  I suddenly realise that most of the pictures I prepared to show here were all taken with natural light. Later ones, of which I think I have one or two examples, were taken using flash. There is a lot wrong with the picture above, but catching Jo's smile makes it right ! I can't remember, but I am guessing Chris played an unexpected note or something.
  This picture is brighter, but still not taken with flash. Notice how the window is now heavily over exposed, and half of Chris' head is bleached out. As much as I like close ups, I did try and do more wide pictures featuring more of the band at the same time.
  This picture was taken with just the right amount of flash to light up Jo's face. It could have been a great picture, but I seem to have caught Jo as she changes expression, or something like that. Maybe half a second earlier, or later, she might have been smiling.
  Trying to get the whole band together in one shot was like herding cats. They kept disappearing ! Finally, just before they started their second set I got them lined up, and took a couple of snaps - neither of which was perfect. This one is good, but Chris seems to be adopting a slightly camp pose. The other one had him looking normal with a bit of smile, but Jo had dropped her nice smile. I could possibly have stitched the two halves of the picture together to make one perfect shot, but it would have taken a lot of effort, and may not have even been possible, plus I was feeling pretty tired while working on these pictures last night.

  I could have stayed later, but I didn't fancy staying a whole hour later, and so opted to get the 17:01 train from Shortlands back to Catford. I guess I had been at the gig for only about 90 minutes, but there were no more photos to take that would be particularly different to the ones I had already taken. On the other hand, I had just about got the hang of the lighting and suchlike, and later photos may have been a bit better.

  I don't know why, but as soon as I stepped out of the pub I became that my legs, ankles and knees seemed stiff. It was moderately hard work walking up along to the station, and up to the far end of platform 1. It was odd how my ankles were complaining. They don't usually, but I was wearing an old pair of trainers, my purple Converse All Stars, and they did feel a bit odd.

  It was nice to sit down in the train, in the first class seating area (which isn't first class when the trains are south of London). Just over ten minutes later I was back at Catford, and then walking home. My legs felt really awful on the way home, and I couldn't wait to get home. By comparison, my legs felt far worse than when I did my 4.4 mile walk last Monday.  I concluded it was something to do with the previous (and later) wet weather.

  It seems to be a family trait for us to suffer in wet weather. I don't think my dad was old enough before he died to be particularly affected by it, but my mum, in later years was definitely afflicted by it, as were both grandmothers. It looks like I have inherited it, but yesterday was the first time it has hit so hard. Ultimately it was more than my legs. Later on in the evening, and more so when I went to bed, I found other bits, mostly arms and shoulder seemed stiff and aching. Even one of my ankles was aching while in bed.

  I couldn't wait for a bit to eat when I got in. I ended up having two pints of Guinness at the gig. The first I bought for myself after facing a long queue at the bar downstairs because the upstairs bar only had canned and bottled drinks. The second pint was on the house. The band evidently had been offered a few free drinks (although most drunk water or soft drinks). Evidently having a professional camera, and chatting to the band made me important enough for a free Guinness !

  The first thing I ate when I got home was a couple of packets of crisps - not the healthiest option, but briefly very enjoyable. I waited until 7pm when I had my slow cooker cooked dinner of chicken thighs with shredded cabbage and leek. I don't know if it was because I felt very hungry, but it was very enjoyable. Once I had eaten it I did a little bit of washing up, but not the slow cooker. I added more stock cubes, more water, and three chicken thighs to the remainder of the gravy, and started it cooking. After a couple of hours I turned it low, and let it simmer overnight.

  I did try and watch some TV last night, but I mostly just listened to it while going through the 145 photos I had taken to select what ended up as the best 16 shots for a photo album. For some reason I felt quite relaxed about the job, and spent a fair bit of time playing with photo effects in my photo editor. The most used effect was also the simplest - making the background a bit darker to bring the people to greater prominence. When done well, and I think I mostly did a fair job of it, it is not noticeable unless you compare it to the unedited picture.

  When I had finally finished all the photo editing and any TV worth watching had finished, I went to bed to read for a while. It was possibly close to 11pm when I turned the light out and tried to sleep. It took some time to get to sleep, and I had great difficulties staying asleep, and getting back to sleep when I woke up. I think I thrashed around so much that I triggered my funny ribs or sternum, and as well as some assorted joint pain, I also had chest pain.  I haven't had it like that for ages, and I couldn't help wondering if it was just the well known annoyance or if this time it was heart trouble.

  It seems it was the usual annoyance from ribs or sternum, and/or assorted ligaments and scar tissue. I say that on the basis that I am still alive this morning. It was not long after 3am when I gave up trying to sleep under the duvet, and turned the heater up full. With the duvet kicked aside it seems that I could spread out a bit more I tried to find a comfortable sleeping position. It did seemed to be the case that I could easily find positions where everything but one random thing would hurt/ache, but one thing was enough to interfere with getting, and staying asleep.

  This morning I was up before 6am because I just could not sleep comfortably. One thing surprised me, and with hindsight it could have been the cause of one discomfort that I didn't seem aware of at the time, and it was the amount passed when I went for a poo soon after getting up. It was a lot. It was as if my whole dinner raced through my system overnight because I was sure I was fairly empty before I went to the gig.

  Anyway, the best thing out of all this was that my blood glucose was a nice low 8.0mmol/l. That is not as good as yesterday's unexpected 7.3mmol/l, but still low enough to give some hope of my end of month average coming down to a fairly typical value (a few very high reading this month meant the average was not looking good). In the unlikely event I can have a bit of discipline about what I eat today, I could get a similar blood glucose figure tomorrow morning.

  There is only one thing I definitely need to do today, and that is to order my next repeat prescription from the pharmacy. Ideally I will do it by phone, but I may end up taking a walk there. Other than that, I don't think I have any plans, and after my poor night's sleep I am sort of looking forward to a lazy day.