I didn't see any rain at 7am, and I reckon the temperature was closer to 15° C. The latest revision to the forecast shows light rain at 9 and 10am, but it looks pretty certain that the real rain will fall this afternoon. This is agreed by both the Met Office and The BBC, although the BBC say that there could be a lot of thunder and lightning this afternoon. Thunder or not, it is looking like a pretty grim afternoon, and it will continue through the night to 2am tomorrow morning. It is going to be a cool day with both forecasters agreeing on a high of just 17° C. Tomorrow could see a mix of a few isolated showers between sunny spells, and an afternoon temperature of 20° C.

  I think this time I can describe yesterday as a good day. The day got off to a bad start with a couple of very productive visits to the toilet. It was a sort of act of faith that no more would happen, and it would be safe to go out, and indeed I did go out. I did have some fantasies about going a lot further than I did, but it was soon obvious that I didn't have the stamina for that.
My fantasy plan was to walk as far as Kent House, and maybe Clock House stations. The latter did mean I could cheat and get the train home, and if I had walked directly to Clock House station, and got the train home it might have been a shorter walk. Errrr.....no ! I've just checked and that is what I did on the 17th April this year, and it worked out to 4.44 miles. Yesterday's walk was only 3.138 miles.

  Yesterday's walk was the well worn path of home to the Bowstring Bridge (also known as a tied arch bridge) across the river in The River Pool Linear Park. I feel I did pretty well to get that far. After the first mile, with another half mile to the halfway point (on the Bowstring Bridge itself) I was feeling some discomfort from my left knee (which is unusual - it is usually the right knee) and also my left ankle. Less bothersome was some general muscle fatigue in both legs.

  I hoped none of these things would get worse as I continued to walk. In fact, for a time, they did seem to lessen for a while, but never went completely away. The muscle fatigue would come back a bit stronger in the last mile and a bit to home. By the time I got home I was more than convinced that I was badly out of practice. Such a walk could have been enjoyable instead of a slog.

  Maybe describing it as a slog is a bit harsh, but the further I walked the less I enjoyed it. It did remind me a lot of when I was building up to some of those very long walks I was doing quite regularly during Lockdown. Some sadist said "there's no gain without pain" and the bastard is right. I need to try and do a lot more of this, and soon if I am ever going to enjoy long walks exploring places I have never been to before, or in some cases, revisiting places I want to see a bit more of.
  I didn't have to go far to take my first picture. This Michaelmas Daisy flower was in my front garden. It is the very fist to open this year, and I seem to think it has opened quite early. I had an idea these flowers were mainly a late summer and autumn flower. Maybe it got confused after summer seemed to end almost a week ago, and we are now getting autumn weather.
  I didn't use any trains yesterday, but I did see this one in the station as I passed it on my way to the park. By pure luck it was one I had not photographed before, and so it is now logged on my huge spreadsheet of train photos.
  It is always a treat to see an Egret on the river. An Egret is a Heron, but it seems birdwatchers get quite twitchy about anyone calling one that looks like this a Heron.
  It is even more of a treat to see two Egrets in the park. This one has not got the long feathers sticking out of it's head, and so I called it a heron, but someone who may know better said "nope, it's an egret !" This one is not in the river, but in the newly cleaned and landscaped pond - the one that used to stink every summer. Like the picture of the other egret, I had to use full zoom to take this picture. I wasn't wearing my long distance glasses (I very rarely do these days), and so I can't be sure, but I think I saw it get some sort of dinner out of the pond. In theory it couldn't be a fish because the sign by the pond says there are no fish in it because they eat things like frog, newt and toad eggs, and the idea is that the pond will be a breeding ground for these things. Maybe the egret ate a frog !
  On the way home I noticed that The Catford Bridge Tavern now has a new pub sign hanging outside. I had heard or read rumours that the pub had been taken over by a new brewery, and it seems to be true. The pub is now run by The Portobello Brewery, and they will be making changes according to a notice on the outside of the pub. It may not happen until the start of autumn, but they say they will re-introduce proper cask beers, and things like live music may return as well.
  A quick word about the camera I used before I finish with a pictures. I used this Canon Powershot SX240 camera for all these pictures - except for the camera itself. I took that picture with my mobile phone. I was surprised when I saw the pictures I had taken on the big screen of my computer. Most of them looked far better than I had expected. I knew the camera was capable of good pictures in more controlled circumstances, but I thought the picture taken out in the field may have been rubbish.

  I thought that because even with the LCD viewfinder screen turned up to almost it's brightest setting I had a lot of difficulty seeing it in the bright daylight yesterday. I was finding I was having to put it very close to my face to see anything sometimes, and like that it all looked badly out of focus. On top of that it operates quite slowly. There was no way I could get a picture of any of hundreds of different coloured butterflies I saw yesterday. The next time I walk through the park I think I just have to take one of my DSLR cameras with a big lens and a very fast shutter speed.

  As soon as I got home from the walk I had a pee, and then stripped down to my underpants and weighed myself. I haven't seem a figure that low for a year or two ! Of course a lot of it was dehydration....and yet although I was mildly sweaty, I don't think I was particularly dehydrated. Drinking water was not the first thing on my mind. First thing on my mind, once I had put some shorts on instead of wandering around in my underpants, was to demolish a tub of ice cream.

  I deliberately chose to get rid of the worst ice cream in the fridge. It does seem that though the Oppo double chocolate ice cream is low calorie, and low(ish) sugar compared to most ice creams, it does still have a fair amount of sugar in it. I had it for my lunch. (I had started out before 11am, and was home by 1pm). I then didn't eat anything until dinner time. I did two more things in the afternoon, and they were to "process" the photos I had taken, and to have what I think seemed to be a long snooze (but it may have just been 5 minutes - I have no idea when it started or ended).

  Early evening was the usual three Star Treks and dinner. I think, or thought (because I haven't checked) that the last salad leaves in my fridge are past their best, and even if still good, I found myself wanting something nicer than a very simple salad. I wanted a couple of kebabs. It took a bit of trouble finding out their phone number, but I managed to order a couple of kebabs direct from a favourite restaurant instead of ordering by Just Eat. I save a whole £1 by doing so. I was hoping for more than that.

  My kebab dinner was very nice, and known to have very little effect on my blood glucose. That made it doubly enjoyable, although the high price of kebabs is making them rather a luxury item that I can't afford to eat very often despite they apparently being very good for me.  So dinner was finished, and at the end of the third Star trek (Voyager) so was TV. There was little more to do except go to bed.

  I didn't go straight to bed. I checked a few things out on the internet, including some details of a gig I might go to next Sunday - except now I think of it, it will probably clash with Jodie's return to the beer tasting. By 9pm, with it still daylight outside for at least 20 minutes, I closed the curtains, turned out the lights, and I was probably asleep 15 or 20 minutes later - under the duvet in the middle of summer !

  Like the previous night I had a short period of insomnia after about 1am. The night before it was because I was having negative thoughts, but not last night, although thinking "I can't seem to get back to sleep" could be described as negative. Once I was back sleeping I seemed to be OK to about 5am (not counting getting up to pee once or twice). I could have probably gotten up at 5am, but I forced myself to have a few more short sleeps until about 6.15am.

  Once I was up it was time to see if the chocolate ice cream for lunch was too devasting, and whether the double shish kebab had worked any magic. The answer was yes and no ! My new blood glucose meter said 8.6mmol/l - slightly down on yesterday's 8.7mmol/l. The old meter said 9.3mmol/l - slightly up on yesterday's 9.2mmol/l. I think the new meter is probably right, and the old meter (or as I have suspected, the test strips for it) is back to it's old tricks and over reading.

  There is some sort of proof emerging that the old meter (or it's test strips) are faulty. I feel sure it has been because i have been trying so hard to keep my reading down on the old meter that I have actually lost weight doing so. I have mentioned several hints about this for a while now, and the latest was actually my weight yesterday afternoon. Dehydration may have helped it de so low (comparatively) low, but there was a stronger test. Late yesterday afternoon, before dinner, I tried on my rarely worn red jeans.

  The thing about those red jeans is that I have only been able to wear them after deliberately dieting for a long time, and even then they have usually been only just comfortable. One pair, and in some ways the best pair, has always been tighter than the other. Yesterday I could do both pairs up with almost no struggle. They were still rather tight, and I wouldn't care to try and wear them in warm weather, but maybe, in the unlikely even I am not on a healthy trend, I may be able to wear them comfortably in the autumn.