The best thing to say about this morning was that by my reckoning it was close to 13° C at 7am, and hopefully will rise higher than the forecast 14° C this afternoon. There was a red sky at 5am this morning, and that signals bad weather ahead. Perhaps the first casualty was the predicted sunny spells this morning. There have been a few hazy shafts of sunshine, but not amounting to much. At 11am the sky may turn black and the first of the rain will fall. In the latest revision it is now shown as only light rain. 1 to 4pm could be dry, but at 5pm the rain starts up again, but once again it is now only shown as light rain except for possibly 9pm when heavier rain could fall. Tomorrow could be brighter, and warmer too. 18° C is forecast, but there is a 30 to 40% chance of mostly light rain for most of the afternoon.
 
  Fine weather yesterday, particularly in the afternoon, but not so much in the morning, meant most of the aches and pains from the previous day just evaporated away, and generally I was pain free. That lead to a fairly active day, or perhaps active afternoon would be more accurate.

  I must admit I was quite lazy during the morning, even to the extent of having a short snooze before I shaved, shampooed and showered. That was my main preparation, after checking my camera, prior to going out to watch a matinee gig from G Force whose gig started at 2pm. It felt like a red shoe sort of day.
  The only trouble is that these red Converse All Stars were a bit tight. They need a lot more breaking in, although having said that, maybe it was just a different sort of feeling that seemed uncomfortable. Maybe after an hour my feet had gone numb, or something, but I was hardly aware of any discomfort for most of the time.
  The gig was not the first live music I saw/heard yesterday. In what I think could be called the "circulating area" of Lewisham station is a piano. The chap playing it was sounding a bit hesitant in the few seconds I had to spare to listen, but he was managing to find a tune. Maybe he was just warming up, and did better after a while, but I'll never know. I had got a train to Lewisham to change to a Sevenoaks train which I would take as far as Chelsfield station. Trains from Catford station also go to Sevenoaks, but they take an alternate route, and that is why I had to travel north before I travelled south.
  The band I had gone to see was a three piece called G Force. They are usually low on my list of priorities, but I must admit they were sounding really good yesterday. They were breaking in a new drummer, Martin Gamby, and occasionally he needed the odd prompt by Geoff Paice (on the right, playing bass guitar).
  Geoff Paice is probably the sort of owner of the name G Force. It is one of his many side bands. As I mentioned they had a new drummer yesterday, and I am not sure if Michael Crump is always their guitarist.
  One surprise attendee was Sue Wiser. Following a very long stay in hospital with ultra bad Sepsis, she was discharged a month or so ago, and made it to the gig with the aid of a couple of helpers. She was confined to a wheelchair because her feet are in a terrible condition as she waits to see if her toes fall off - literally ! Pictures I have seen of her scabby toes, with big black areas of skin, do seem to show there is still blood getting to at least some toes, and by my reckoning, and I have a feeling her doctors may feel the same way, that there is a chance at least some of them may recover, but she has been told to expect to eventually lose them all.

  I wish I had taken more pictures yesterday. I initially started taking pictures without using flash, but the band were next to a window, and the light coming through it was very bright. In the case of Michael, the guitar player, it meant that either I could get the correct exposure for he face, and leave his guitar in deep shadow, or I could get the exposure of his guitar right, and his face almost bleached out. I persevered for may 10 or 15 snaps before I got my flash gun out.

  It seemed to take a fair bit of experimentation to get the strength, and the angle of the flash right for better pictures, and now, with hindsight, I wish I had mentally written off the early pictures, and concentrated on one good set. There is definitely an art in getting the flash power right to just fill in the shadows, and I can only do it by experiment. I guess for good photographers they can do it without thinking about it - or do they ??? We only (usually) see the pictures they think are best. I do sometimes wonder what the ones we don't see are like.

  I originally intended to leave after the first set, but I had to stay an extra 30 minutes after than because I couldn't get to the station in one minute and 30 seconds. During that half hour I was bought another pint of Guinness, and I had ample opportunity to take a few more photos. I eventually got the 3:47 train after only spending just under two hours at the pub. It was a longer journey to and from there than I thought it would be. I had forgotten the stops between Grove Park and Petts Wood stations. Those stops were Elmstead Woods and Chislehurst.

  It was quite cloudy, albeit with slowly expanding areas of blue sky on my way to the gig, but on the way home there was strong sunshine from an almost cloudless sky. It really felt like summer, and if it wasn't for the fact that I knew I would soon be needing a pee, I could have been tempted to get off the rain at somewhere like Orpington for a bit of train spotting. I wasn't desperate for a pee because I did stop on the way home to buy a few provisions. I did have a pee 25 seconds after getting through my front door !

  The provisions I bought were partly for a sort of squidged together lunch and dinner. I had some cheese and parsley bread with some turkey and beef salami in it. I also had a little pot of falafel - mainly to see is if was as awful as expected - it was ! (no wonder some Arabs are so grumpy !). The two other little "salad" pots, one being spicy chick peas, and the other couscous based, were nice with a splash of hit chilli sauce on them. The special Coronation edition minted lamb flavour crisps were not very good - I thought they may have been better or different to ones I had had in the past. I still ate the whole medium sized packet, but I don't know why when I wasn't really enjoying them.

  I feel sure there was something else I ate, but I can't seem to recall what it was. Overall it felt like I had not eaten that much for the whole day, but results this morning were not good. At least I was feeling OK yesterday. After eating I was going to either relax, and maybe see if there was anything on TV, or I was going to edit some video I shot yesterday. I did neither because my phone rang, and it was Sue. That was rather unexpected.

  I am not sure of the point of her call. The last time we spoke prior to her long stay in hospital I think she hung up on me after I said something not to her liking. Maybe she just wanted to chat to wind down after the gig. One thing she told me is that she had three pints of Lager at the pub, and I am guessing she had more booze, almost certainly Carling lager, when she got home because she sounded really drunk. Of course it is possible that it could have been the effect of some strong medication she is on. It got to 10pm, and I terminated the call before it went on and on into the night (and morning) !

  I had no trouble getting to sleep last night, and I seemed to sleep really well. I only seem to recall getting up for a pee two, but maybe three times in the night, and on at least one occasions I wondered why I had bothered. I started to think that my blood glucose might have possibly been quite low because of the lack of night urine. That wasn't the case. Once again I remember dreaming, but the dreams must have been so bland that I cannot remember a thing about them.

  This morning I found out the awful truth that my combined lunch and dinner sent my blood glucose up near the danger line, but thankfully not over it. It was 9.8mmol/l. I have actually taken to the first steps in cooking a safe (I hope) dinner for tonight in the slow cooker. It will be mostly beef and cabbage, but I might throw in a few green beans too. My breakfast was a large portion of tomato flavoured instant noodles.

  Today is sort of pre mapped out for me. This morning I need to go to Tesco to get some bottles of Diet Coke, and probably some meat for further dinners like tonight's - it partly depends on what might be on the reduced price shelf, If today had been as good as yesterday I would have been buying lettuce and other salad ingredients. I am quite looking forward to the change that "salad days" will bring - until I get fed up with them after a few weeks !

  This afternoon Jodie should be coming over for a beer tasting session. I bought one beer yesterday, on my way home, that might both interest and disgust her. It is a brewed in the UK version of Bangla beer. One beer I am not expecting her to even look at is Banana Bread Beer from the Eagle Brewery. I have had it before, and I think I liked it, but Jodie just hates bananas !