It is nic e and bright right now, but the sky is already rather cloudy. According to The Met Office we can expect light rain for a couple of hours from 1pm. The BBC say the rain could start as early as 11am, and from 1pm there could be thunder and lightning for a few hours. Both forecasters agree that sunny spells, and maybe even full sunshine should resume from later afternoon/early evening. The Met Office say it should reach 26° C for a while this afternoon, the BBC say only 24° C. Tomorrow could be bright and wet, and rather cooler at just 22° C.

  My big, and possibly unlikely plan for yesterday came to a good conclusion. That was all in the evening. The day was slightly boring because I was saving it all up for the evening. One thing I did do was to finally finish washing the new double fitted bed sheet. I had it on the line to dry around midday (or was it earlier), and it was still dripping because I was relying on the hot sunshine to dry it. By 4pm it was hot and fully dry.

  Another use for all my spare time was to go shopping in Tesco. As their long winded refit comes to a close (reportedly by the the end of the month) it is now probably that most things are now in the final position, and it is time to learn where everything is. Yesterday it was a case of walking up nearly all the aisles looking for stuff I wanted. The first thing I had to search for was salad leaves. For some time they have been in new, slimmer, display shelves, but they have now moved.

  As well as the usual stuff there were a couple of things I had to search for, and one of them needed several walk up and down a couple of aisles. It took a long time to find Tesco branded, because it was less very expensive than the brand names, bio detergent. I found it eventually, and it was a lot cheaper than the Persil version next to it. I just hope that it smells better than the Aldi version - which I don't like. It is a sort of extra, extra strength "freshness" smell, and it almost triggers hay fever.

  I was also after something for my intended mid afternoon combined lunch and dinner. I thought I was going to have a shepherds pie ready meal. It looked like it had only a modest amount of sugar in it, but there was one thing I didn't consider. By the mid afternoon it was getting hot, and a big steaming shepherds pie didn't feel like a good idea. I did get as far as half cooking the shepherds pie, but I turned the oven off, and had a quiche instead.

  At 5pm I watched the usual three Star Trek episodes, but without eating any dinner. When Star Trek: Voyager finished I did my last preparations to go out. It felt quite strange walking to the bus stop at the time I would otherwise be going to bed, but maybe the fresh air helped a lot. It was quite windy too, and that made it feel a lot cooler. About 8.30pm is a time when bus usage seems to drop to a minimum, and my 320 bus got to Bromley quicker than expected.

  Getting to The Swan And Mitre pub early meant I had plenty of time to order a pint of Guinness, and have a chat to a few people. I couldn't get near Carrie though. She was surrounded by adoring fans/friends who rarely venture out of Bromley. I suspect they started a little late, maybe only 5 minutes, but it was soon time to get my camera out and start taking some pictures of the band.
  I didn't have the time or energy to do much when I got home, and I just quickly looked over some of the pictures I had taken of Hell On Tap, and thought this one of Carrie looked good. She had just done a "head bang", and her hair was still moving, but she had a very relaxed, non posing, look on her face. It is possibly the best picture of her I took last night, but I'll have to go through all of them before making that a final conclusion.

  I think I watched about half an hour of Hell On Tap, and it was starting to get a bit crowded in front of the band. If I could have put my camera down in a safe place, maybe with a fried guarding it, I might have stayed to watch another song or two, but it seemed to be time to wander down the road to see Chain in The Partridge.
  As I had hoped, with so many other popular bands playing in Bromley, The Partridge, which is usually very overcrowded when a good band is playing, was almost civilised. I think I spent more time there compared to The swan And Mitre. One of the good things about not seeing teh same band every week, as I used to (quite a few years ago now) is the pleasant surprise of hearing them do a new song or two.

  Once again, I only had the time and energy to prepare one picture of Chain when I got home last night. This was an easy selection. It was among the first pictures I took. I used a few tricks to make Jo stand out from the cluttered background. One effect is radial motion blur, but keeping the centre sharp. It is an effect I could be guilty of over using because it is so simple, and (in my own opinion) quite effective.

  One annoyance (among many) of Bromley is that there seem to be quite a few dead spots where the tracking of the 320 bus gets lost. It has no effect on the bus itself, but it messes with the countdown displays showing the expected arrival time of the bus. After I thought I had taken enough pictures of Chain (or I couldn't think of any interesting variations) I kept an eye on the arrival time of the next bus at the nearby bus stop using the Countdown app on my phone.

  The phone said the next 320 would arrive in 9 minutes. That was more than enough time to wave a couple of goodbyes, and walk to the bus stop - which has a working Countdown display. It said that the next 320 would be in something like 24 minutes. I crossed my fingers, and anything else available and hoped it was a glitch in the Countdown system. I am happy to say it was, and within a minute or two the bus I was intending to get showed up as 1 minute away of the Countdown display, and little more than a minute later I was on my way back home.

  I got home at about 10.30pm, and I guess I was only out for 2 hours. It seemed quite long enough to me - particularly because on most other nights I could easily have been in bed and asleep for over half an hour by then. One thing I had decided not to do was to eat anything when I got home. Maybe it was because I had been thinking that way from before I had my lunch/dinner mid afternoon that I didn't seem to felt tempted to eat anything.

  before I went to bed I wanted to copy all the photos off my camera, onto my PC, and at least prepare a picture from each gig to show here - which I did. I then went to bed, and it was long at all until I was fast asleep. At first I was waking up very frequently, approx once an hour, and usually because I needed a pee. Well I did drink 2 pints of Guinness while I was out, and I seem to recall I only did a little pee before I went to bed.

  For some reason I had trouble trying to drink a lot of water through the night. I now have an unlikely, but possible reason for it that I'll mention later. It was a very warm night, but I don't think I sweated that much. My pillow was certainly dry this morning. There is a possibility that I was a little dehydrated when I got up this morning. Before getting up I had some rather odd dreams.

  I dreamed I was in a fairly small house, albeit bigger than mine. Sometimes it seemed it was my house, and at other times it was like I was staying with friends. I might have stayed there for as much as a week but in the dream I couldn't remember anything earlier than a few minutes earlier. The one significant thing is that there was lots of people crammed into the house. It felt quite friendly though.

  The dream finally deteriorated into a special form of nightmare. One thing I thought might help me understand how long I had been there was to get on a computer and check these very pages for the last time I had written anything. I was offered the use of the computer in a young woman's bedroom. I didn't seem to know if she was supposed to be a girlfriend, some other young woman, or even a sister (and I don't think she even had a name).

  The computer I was offered to use was running Windows 98, and only had an early version of Internet Explorer as a web browser. It had about 4 or 5 tool bars installed, and had every single thing that a dozen companies, including Microsoft, had recommended to use. You couldn't see any free space that wasn't covered with adverts, news feeds, and yet more suggestions of things to click on. Everytime I tried to clear the screen more junk popped up. I think I woke up out of shear frustration.

  I think I managed to get back to sleep again for possibly another couple of hours sleep, and it was near 8am when I finally got up and started the business of the day - which most importantly was checking my blood glucose. I was expecting a low reading after not having anything to eat later than about 4pm yesterday, but it was actually a high reading, 9.3mmol/l on the new meter, but only 9.0 on the old meter.

  I feel sure that these moderately high, but below the red line, readings were high because I was dehydrated. I think I was dehydrated because I jst couldn't seem top manage to gulp down enough water. I think that was possibly because my guts were in an unsettled condition. This morning it wasn't until almost an hour after getting up that I went to the toilet. I was rather surprised how much I produced, and the speed it came out. It was like I had a stomach upset. I wonder if I can blame that old scapegoat - a dirty glass in the pub ?

  I guess I feel almost, but only almost OK now. Today I have three thing almost definite things to do, and a possible thing tonight. The definite things include finishing washing the blood stained underpants (after my boil burst yesterday morning) that have been soaking in bio detergent for nearly 24 hours now. I also have the rest of my photos to go through, and select the best for processing. An optional, but probably essential thing to do this afternoon is to eat the half cooked shepherds pie (once it is fully cooked). I may eat it during the thunderstorm - if it happens.

  Tonight I have the option of seeing two more bands, but this time it will be one headlining, and one support. Obviously timing will be important if I want to see both. They are playing in The Lord Holmesdale pub. It is not my favourite pub because it is generally far too crowded in front of the band, and also because the only way to get there is the dreaded 336  bus. I now know, having done it the last time I went there, that the best way is to get a 320 (or 208) direct to Bromley, rather than the long and winding route, passing over every speed bump in the boroughs of Lewisham and Bromley that the 336 bus uses, and change to the 336 by Bromley South station for the last half dozen stops to the pubs. If my guts, which are still slightly troubling me now, behave themselves, I might even make it out for a second night, tonight !