Thursday 4th May 2023

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Thursday 4th May 2023

08:37 BST

Yesterday didn't always seem to be very warm, and, indeed, not even warm some of the time, but it was bright and sunny for most of the day - albeit as mostly sunny spells/periods. The maximum temperature was a disappointing 13 or 14° C.

The latest revision to the forecast has the sunny spells finishing an hour earlier than above, at midday. After that the next sunny spell may not be until 8pm - unless you believe the BBC forecast which shows sunny spells and whole hours of sunshine lasting through the whole day. I know what I want to believe ! It should still reach 18° C today, or 19° C according to the BBC. Tomorrow may reach 17° C, but it is going to be wet, or even very wet. Both forecasters agree on that, and the Met Office has even thrown in a thundery shower ! I expect it could turn out differently tomorrow, although some rain would be good to water the bulbs I planted in my last bit of gardening.

It could be said that there was a seismic shift in the events of yesterday. It was nothing like I thought, or indeed planned it would be. It started to go wrong when I heard from Angela that she was going out later in the day, and so would not be coming to the pub. I did wonder if she was going to the open mic at The Partridge pub in Bromley during the evening.

One other thing happened that changed the course of history. Before heading to the pub by myself I checked the delivery time for an Amazon delivery. It was originally predicted to be delivered tomorrow or Saturday, but I had a feeling that maybe it might arrive today. Upon checking I found it was going to be delivered yesterday, and that it had left the depot soon after 11am. That meant it could be delivered early in the afternoon....possibly.

Amazon provide a very useful online shop, but as a courier company they leave much to desire. The first visit to their tracking page gave the usual useless "by 9pm". The next time I checked it said 3:15pm to 7:15pm. At the earliest it could have been cutting it fine if I had gone to the pub, and more so if I ended up having three pints of Guinness. As 4pm approached I checked again, and this time it gave the really stupid estimate of 1pm to 4pm. Needless to say nothing had arrived by 4pm. Another check, and hour or two later and the estimate had reverted to "Still Arriving by 9pm". My packet actually arrived at about 6:50pm.

These are what I was waiting for: Two boxes of Nexus blood glucose test strips. After all the frustration yesterday I wondered if it might have been easier to go and hassle the pharmacy again. I am sure they would have got new supplies by now.

While I was waiting, with little to do, but with the sun shining, I decided I might as well wash another double duvet cover. What I pulled out the wash bag was a double fitted sheet. I didn't realise there was one there, but it was a nicer thing to hand wash than a heavy duvet cover. I had finished it, and hung it on the washing line to dry by about 4pm. We seemed lose the best of the sunny spells by about 7pm, and I brought the sheet in, almost dry, to finish drying overnight on a clothes horse.

Much earlier in the afternoon I grabbed one of my old cameras because I had an idea it could be used as a webcam. I wanted to use it to keep a watch out the front for the Amazon van to pull up. In reality I noticed it first out the corner of my eye while I wasn't even displaying the web cam on my TV screen. I think I bought the camera in Tesco around 15 years ago.

This was the camera I was using. It is branded Praktica, and although it is possible the spelling* was different, my first proper camera was a Praktica Super TL SLR camera. That old camera was very good, and because of the name I assumed that the little digital camera would be good too. It was and it wasn't. With good lighting it gave some nice pictures, but had one very bad problem. The shutter speed was fairly quick, and so motion blur, and medium speeds was not too bad, but while the shutter speed was fast, the picture was taken line by line at a fairly slow speed, and moving the camera too fast would result in weird bent pictures.

* I just checked the spelling, and it is the same spelling as the old SLR camera I had, and so maybe my hope that the digital camera would be better than some others of a similar vintage had some validity, but my Olympus camera was far superior and a bit older.

Last night I wondered how the 3.1 Megapixel sensor would stack up against newer cameras. The thing to remember is that Mega Pixels numbering is not as straight forward as it seems. For instance to double the resolution you need four times the amount of pixels because you want double the amount across the picture, and double the amount down the picture. So double the resolution would come out to something like 12 mega pixels, and that is about how many my Nikon D300s camera has. That produces much better pictures, but that is more to do with a more sensitive sensor, and better electronic processing of the pictures.

It was starting to get a bit grey outside by the time I took the above test shots. The top test shot looks rather dull, but includes quite a lot of detail, and even more at the original size. I have brightened up the lower picture, and I admit it does look a bit forced, but I think both pictures give some idea that the camera, under good conditions, can take some pretty fair pictures. To get the lower shot I climbed into the bath to take the picture through the open window. Unfortunately.....

I was wearing shoes when I got into the bath. I got in the bath OK, but when it came to getting out I tried to come out backwards. I usually face along the length of the bath when I have a shower, and step out sideways. I was almost OK getting out backwards, and I had one foot firmly on the floor. Unfortunately I misjudged the extra inch or so wearing shoes adds to the length of my foot, and my second foot caught the edge of the bath instead of going over it. Things were complicated by keeping a firm grip on the camera, and I ended up banging the top of my shin against the rim of the bath. Like when I fell over in the rain a month or two ago, the friction between skin and trouser leg skimmed off the top of my skin. It stung a lot, but there was no other damage, and this morning it is hardly even sore, but still looks bad.

I did have a plan to go to an open mic night in The Partridge pub last night. I really don't like the place when there is a proper gig there because it gets rammed full, but the open mic nights used to be OK. I haven't been to one on a Wednesday night for ages and ages. Apart from Covid lockdown getting in the way, I feel I have had enough booze drinking with Angela on a Wednesday lunchtime.

I didn't go to the pub at lunchtime, and so I could, in theory, have gone to the pub in the evening. The problem was that I had been on high alert waiting for my Amazon delivery, and wanted to relax instead of going out. That was also why I ended up playing with the old Praktica camera - it was sort of relaxing except when I banged my leg getting out of the bath!

It was a mix of boredom, and frustration, that made me feel hungrier than I probably was. I really felt a hunger for something meaty, and several times I came close to opening a can of Tesco Irish stew, but I resisted that. I had a bite to eat of four rice cakes with cream cheese on them at what I suppose was tea time. By 7pm I reverted to wanting something meaty, and I suddenly remembered I had some bacon in the fridge hidden under a pack of minced lamb. I grilled that bacon, and it became my dinner. Sadly, although allegedly a premium Aldi product, I didn't think much of it.

I watched the usual Star Treks, and then a bit later an edition of QI, and finally an edition of Have I Got News For You. That took me until 10pm, and time for bed. It seemed to be getting quite cool last night, and I left the heater on low when I turned the light out. I seemed to fall asleep with no difficulty, and I seemed to sleep well. I had a short period, maybe 15 to 20 minutes, of insomnia at about 4am, and I turned the heater up full.

I could have got up at just gone 6am, but my bedroom still seemed to feel a bit cool. It was just below 8° C outside at the time. I had no hope that I might get back to sleep again, but I tucked myself in tight, and the next thing I knew was that it was about 7.20am. Even then I still felt sort of tired. I could have blamed it on high blood glucose, but this morning it was a fairly typical 8.6mmol/l. I say fairly typical, but it does feel like it is steadily getting higher by tiny amounts every year, or even months now. Maybe I will end up on Insulin, or maybe summer will finally bloom and I will feel inclined to do all the exercise I should be doing.

Today should include an afternoon beer tasting session with Jodie and Michael. When I was in Aldi last Saturday I bought some Coronation themed beers. As I said at the time they are probably going to be awful, but they have to be tried - even though they are probably a beer we had have had several times before with different names for different occasions. I suspect they will be the exact same recipes as the "special" beers Aldi commissioned for the Rugby games months ago.

I wonder if Tesco have any special coronation beers ? I think I need to visit Tesco this morning. I need sausages, lots of sausages - probably one pack of fresh, and one pack of frozen. I am sure I will buy a lot of other stuff too.