It should be raining heavily as I write this, but the first rain has yet to fall (although a few damp patches suggest there was a shower sometime in the early hours. Both the BBC and Met Office agree that rain is going to fall for most of today, and that some it is is going to be very heavy. At the moment the sky is moderately bright and the forecast think black clouds have yet to materialise. I guess it can't be long before the deluge starts ! Not only is it going to get very wet, it is also going to be cold as judged by how July should be. Just 19° C is forecast for early evening, although the consensus of my outdoor thermometers says it is almost 21° C as I write this - the forecast says just 16° C.  The main feature tomorrow is some very gusty wind in the afternoon. From late morning to early afternoon there could be some light rain, but before and after there could be sunny spells. Tomorrow temperature could reach 19 or 20° C.

  Yesterday was moderately pleasant, and some bit were very pleasant. On the other hand, I was stuck doing a lot of photo editing, and that was rather tedious at times. One problem was the setting, and the other was that few people in the pictures were very dynamic.

  The pictures I was selecting and editing were from the pictures I took on Wednesday night at the Whitestar open mic in The Partridge pub. Unfortunately the pub does not provide a very good background for pictures - particularly while it is bright daylight outside. After dark can be better, although that does depend on whatever stage lights the bands use, and how they were set up. Whitestar usually set up their lights modestly well, but the whole "stage" is just a narrow strip, and the lights are often behind people - lighting up their backs instead of faces.
  This picture seemed to come out OK. There is some daylight to give the background some detail, and my flash gun, set on a low setting, provided just enough front illumination. The guitarist/singer is called Sanjee, and he claims he was only out for a drink with his mate, who also played guitar, and didn't realise there was an open mic going on. He was quite good, but would have sounded better with some backing from drums and a bass player. His mate was not so good. He had no mic training/practice and it sounded like he was mumbling.
  I tried to get some full band shots, but my lens just didn't have a wide enough view. I did have my wide angle/fisheye lens with me, but for some reason I couldn't be bothered to change lenses. In this shot I managed to get everyone in - just ! I had to guess the right angle as I took the picture with my back to the bar, and the camera held above and slightly behind my head. The things we photographers go through to try to get a good shot ! Unfortunately I don't really like this picture - the lighting is all wrong, and there is no eye contact with anyone, plus the background is too distracting.
  This picture worked, although I did have to do a fair bit of work in the photo editor. The main bit of "secret sauce" was to slightly darken the background to make Barry stand out more. He evidently like it because he is now using it as his profile picture on social media.
  This last example was taken with no flash after the batteries went flat in my flash gun. It proves there was enough light to not need flash, but it was very rare that the subjects stood in a position where the stage lights fell on them, and also while they were not bright green, or red lights.

  Incidently, that last picture was edited after I had had some booze. I seemed to spend hours at my photo editor from late morning until very early afternoon, and apart from having as shower I did little more. It all had to stop when the Thursday afternoon beer tasting and drinking session started with Jodie and Michael.

  Michael was complaining that he was getting too drunk, and that he has to drive his wife to Brighton this morning. In fact we had very little to drink yesterday afternoon. I estimate my entire consumption was a little less than three pints. it has to be remembered that in many cases we were splitting a small 330ml can three ways - and it takes a lot of cans to get to the equivalent of a few pints.

  At the end of the drink I felt almost completely sober - which was fairly unusual. One potential reason was that I was sure a few of the beers seemed very sweet, and I declined to drink too much of them. I now think that one in particular, which wasn't really a beer, had as much sugar in it as a fizzy soft drink.  It had it's consequences.

  My lunch was a very simple meal that I could leave cooking in the mini oven/grill while I continued to work. It was four cheap and nasty beef burgers, although I pepped them up with some ground pepper, both white and black, plus some chilli flakes. They left me feeling slightly sweaty all afternoon. My dinner was more substantial. Having paid off my credit card, and it being quite a small amount, I decided I would go for the safe and tasty option of a couple of shish kebabs.

  I ate them, and thoroughly enjoyed them while watching Star Trek: Enterprise (having missed the first Star Trek of the evening). I then watched Star Trek: Voyager. When that finished there seemed to be nothing else to see on TV, and I went back to finishing the last few pictures of Wednesday nights photography. After that I read in bed for a while, and was probably fast asleep by 10pm, and maybe earlier.

  On the whole I slept well last night, and the only thing wrong with it was that I seemed to wake up too early. I was up, albeit briefly, before 6am, but I did manage about 30 minutes more sleep after that. I was just about to start describing my dream(s) but I suddenly realised I could barely remember a thing about them. I am sure I remember having quite a long dream (or more likely a series of linked dreams), but I cannot recall a thing about them.

  Maybe I have forgotten because of the big shock I had this morning. As far as I was aware I should have got another very low, or even lower blood glucose reading based up what I ate, but my readings this morning were very high. I feel sure it was some of the beer (or beer-like) drinks I had yesterday. My new blood glucose meter said 9.5mmol/l. That is higher than desirable, but almost acceptable as a one off. The old meter gave a reading of 10.1mmol/l. That crosses the red line into the danger area.

  The problem now is that on a wet and deeply gloomy day, when I am going to suffer from "the nibbles" badly, I really ought to be taking super care with my eating. I have had a normal breakfast of spicy instant noodles, but that was about three hours ago, and thinking about it all make me feel hungry !

  It has taken it's time getting started, but it is now raining, and it suddenly looks very wet outside. It is so depressing to think this, in the middle of what should be a hot, dry and sunny month, is going to go on  all day. I feel sure I won't be doing any outdoor activities today. I won't even step outside the front door to put yesterday's bottles and cans into the recycling bin.

  I think there is one thing I ought to do today, and that is some laundry. I am going to have to dry it indoors, but if I choose just a couple of t-shirts and maybe three pairs of underpants, it will reduce the backlog, and they should dry indoors Ok with the help of a desk fan to blow some air over them. Apart from that, I think my aim for today is just to read and snooze as much as I can.