At 1am this morning (I was having trouble sleeping) it definitely said a thunderstorm was due at about 4pm today. By 6am that threat had been lifted, but as can be seen above, some light rain was forecast for 2am. That was to be followed by several hours of no sunshine. The very latest revision of the forecast shows most of the day without any sunshine. That was the Met Office forecast. The BBC still gleefully show sunshine or sunny spells for the whole day, but they do admit a 10 to 29% chance of rain in the afternoon. The Met Office doesn't show any more than a 10% chance of rain for a lot of the day, and 10% usually, but not exclusively, means no rain. Both forecasters agree that today's high could be 29° C. Both forecasters agree that tomorrow will be hot again, 27° C, that there should be at least sunny spells, or better, for most of the day, but that rain, and even a thunderstorm will happen sometime during the day (with mid afternoon most likely for a thunderstorm).   Yesterday was rather a good day, and it wasn't just because it was hot and sunny ! I seemed to have quite a slow morning, and I was only just ready to go out at 2am when I intended (and did) get the bus to Angela's home to attend her barbecue. As well as my personal ablutions, I had to get some cans of Guinness in the fridge early, and also some cooler bag freezeblocks in the freezer. I had to select a camera, and top up it's battery, and eventually with a well loaded rucksack I headed for the bus stop where I met up with Michael who was also going.

  I did (very mildly) worry we had got there a bit unfashionably early of the "official" 2.30pm start, but we had been preceded by maybe half a dozen people, although of course Angela's children, and their spouses, were really part of the fixtures. We were both greeted very warmly, and I sort of felt at home in Angela's house despite not going there since 2017, and the presence of lover boy.
  I took my Nikon D3200 camera, but on reflection I could have taken most of the pictures using my mobile phone. In fact the phone might have been better because it's "artificial intelligence" could probably coped with the deep shadows and brilliant sunshine better. This is the first of a pair of pictures. In this picture Michael looks happy as he chats to Miranda.
  I called to Miranda to get a shot of her face, and Michael immediately started grimacing when he saw my camera - as he is prone to do. I sometimes think he does it to be funny, rather than malice. Of course it is possible he was annoyed because I ruined his long drawn out speech with Miranda.
  I took what I thought were loads of photos at the BBQ, but later, when doing the usual selecting and editing, I realised there were several I hadn't take clear pictures of. It was a sort of shyness on m,y part not wanting to stick a lens in a strangers face. This pictures covers most people who were there for the first hour or so, but a few arrived later.
  One picture that had to be taken - the first lot of meat cooking on a spit over charcoal. This was all chicken, but once it was cooked there was lamb, and also some burgers cooked on a grill over the charcoal. I took many more than these four pictures, but I think these represent the even well enough for my pages here.

  I took 6 cans of Chilled Guinness with me, and my plan was to maybe only drink two, and share the rest. It seems I was the only one drinking Guinness, and in the hot sunshine, while staying over twice as long as intended, I drank all 6 cans. Maybe it was the heat, but I didn't seem to feel more than very marginally drunk, but there were a few hints that suggest it may have been a bit more than marginal, but for one of them I seemed to be almost encouraged.

  When I said goodbye to most people, a little after 5pm, Angela escorted me to the front door, and gave me a hug. She was ever so happy that I had attended, and almost made it sound like me being there was essential. I think she was slightly sad I was leaving, but she knows me, and how I tend to like things in small quantities (most often leaving gigs after the firsts set for instance). We had more than the one hug, and in a daring move I held her face as gently as I could, and gave her a kiss on the lips - something I haven't done since we were more or less officially going out together in 2017.

   She didn't recoil, and told me she loved me. That is always very nice to hear. I told her the same. It's sort of funny how easy it is to say "I love you" when you really mean it. It seemed notable that Angela stood on her doorstep watching me go until I had walked out of sight behind the vegetation in her next doors garden. Now I am not sure how much intoxication had to do with what I did next, or whether it was just bravado, or even something else, but I decided to walk home. I think I did it because I thought I could - which I could.
  I was of course on very familiar territory - walking through the River Pool Linear Park. It was a glorious day for walking, and of course that was the one big attraction. There were two things that made it less than perfect. One was that the red Converse trainers I was wearing were not the most comfortable shoes to wear. I guess I have funny feet because others seem to find them very comfortable. The other downside was that I could feel the need for a pee developing, and as I remarked the last time I was walking in the park, many paths are no so choked with nettles that finding a secluded spot for a pee while wearing shorts was not really possible.
  I seem to have more pictures to show here than I had for the BBQ, but maybe more things catch my eye in the park than a garden full of people. This, what I think is a dog rose, had this one solitary flower poking out from a dense collection of assorted leaves. A bit further along the path there were many more similar flowers.
  Apart from showing a shopping trolley in the river, this shot shows the huge contrast between shaded areas and those areas drenched with strong sunshine. To the human eye all details are easily seen, but the camera shows no detail beyond the shopping trolley because half the river was in deep shade from the trees along the river bank. The little bit of grass at the bottom of the picture is almost bleached out by the strong sunlight.
  I guess daisies come in all shapes and sizes (well, mostly sizes). the picture does not give enough reference to show these daisies had surprisingly big flowers. Maybe almost 2 inches across.
  I must admit I was almost tempted to sit down at this picnic table, but I didn't want to disturb those by the river. One of them seemed to be on a motorised wheelchair/ fat persons shopping scooter, and one maybe on an ordinary wheelchair. I didn't get a close enough look, but I came away with the idea they may have been fishing.
  I couldn't decide if this spiky thing was a growing to be a thistle or a teasel. One thing I didn't see, when constantly scanning all I could see, was any hops growing. Maybe it is too early for them, but they are in there somewhere.
One unexpected bonus was taking this snap of a train. I had just arrived at Catford Bridge station when I became aware of an approaching train. I still had my camera out, and so I naturally took a snap of it. Later on I found it was one I had never photographed before, and so it became another entry in my ever growing spreadsheet of all trains photographed (although usually only one example of each individual train number - 465034 in this case).

  My entire walk was 1.62 miles according to the Simply Walking app on my phone. I have to admit it was a hard slog, and I was most glad to get home and put my feet up - after a long needed pee ! What the map doesn't show (unless you zoom in on the much bigger original, and know what to look for) is that I interrupted my journey home. After resisting all the temptations of the delicious looking BBQ food earlier, plus Angel's delicious Greek style salads, I gave into temptation when passing the fried chicken shop. I resisted any chips, but I did have some very unhealthy fried chicken for my dinner.

  I felt very tired when I got home, but there was no time to rest. First I stuffed my mouth with fried chicken, and then I started doing the slow bit of photography - selecting the photos I wanted to use, and then doing any modifications to them - mostly a bit of straightening up, cropping and reducing in size. For the BBQ photos I also tried to equalize some of the darker/shaded bit of the photos. That was a bit tricky, and there were probably several different ways to do it. In at least one case I actually made a shady background darker to emphasise the main character.

  With the photos done I was very happy to retire to my bed, or at least I thought I was. It must have been around sunset, or approximately 9pm when I went to bed, and I read in bed until it was almost dark. Then I tried for sleep. I expected to go out like a light, but I felt so hot and sticky I could not get to sleep. I tossed and turned until gone midnight. At about 1am I got up and checked the weather forecast for something to do. It was then that they were forecasting a thunderstorm for about 4pm today. That threat disappeared later, but I notice it is back in the latest revision where it is now forecast to happen at 2pm. (The BBC say nothing will interrupt their forecast of sunshine or sunny spells for the whole day).

  I also went for a small pee while I was out of bed. It was after I got back onto (not into !) my bed that I suddenly realised I must have had a short sleep before I got up at 1am because I had a vague recollection of having a dream. That sort of enthused me to try harder to get to sleep. Maybe I tried too hard because it was probably gone 2am when I started to sleep almost properly. I am sure I woke up at least once and probably twice before waking up at 6am.

  I would have usually got up then, but I felt cheated of sleep, and tried for more. I initially thought it wouldn't happen because I was feeling almost, but not quite cold. My indoor thermometer said it was plenty warm enough to sleep uncovered, and that was what happened. It was around 8am when I woke up, and that seemed like a better time to get up. As usual, one of the first things I did after going to the toilet, was to check my blood glucose level. I didn't consider I ate much yesterday, but I knew that eating fried chicken in the evening could have some bad effects on my blood glucose. Even so I didn't expect it to be quite so high, and I definitely didn't expect it to be 9.3mmol/l for the fourth day running. That is just uncanny, and sure indicates something unusual is going on. Maybe my internal blood glucose detecting "thermostat" has been reset, and my control is working really well, but at the wrong level.

  I did have a mad plan for today where I was going for another try at getting to Acton Town tube station for another chance of getting a snap or two of the "heritage" red tube train running to celebrate 160 years of The London Underground. Then sanity took over. There is no way I can do other stuff I need to do (like washing my nice white t-shirt I spilt Guinness on yesterday - I put it in to soak as soon as I got home), and go all the way to Acton Town, and be back in time for a beer session with Jodie later this afternoon. So I stay in, and relax - which doesn't sound a bad idea !