Before I refreshed the Met Office forecast for today it was still showing yesterday's prediction for this morning. It predicted lots of rain, even some heavy rain for most of this morning and beyond. The very latest revision says the rain won't start until 4pm, but it does agree that this morning will be dull and cloudy. There will be three hours of rain from 4pm, and it will follow the same pattern as the early forecast shown above, but one hour later. The best temperature today will probably be no more than 20° C. Meanwhile, the BBC has gone back to alarmist mode, and says 6pm will feature a thunderstorm ! (They are usually wrong with their thunderstorm predictions.) Tomorrow could be a little warmer with the temperature peaking at 23° C, but it will be a generally dull day with a slight possibility of rain.

  Most of yesterday was good, but it ended with a minor disaster - which is better than the major disaster I thought it would be ! I even did a little work yesterday, but most of the day was pleasure. Even shaving, shampooing and showering was a sort of pleasure, or at least the finished product made me feel good.

  The cleaning up was because I was going out. As I predicted, i nave had enough to to go shopping in Aldi, and I was behind schedule just enough to miss the train I was going to get by about a minute. If I hadn't wanted to stop and pick up two copies of The Metro, and take a picture of the back of the train as it was leaving the station, I might possibly have still caught that train.

  "Going out" in this context was going to Catford Bridge station to pick up those two copies of The Metro newspaper, and then go one stop to Ladywell for a short walk across the park to The Jolly Farmers for a few pints of Guinness. I was on my own, but in such a friendly pub I was hardly on my own. I participated in some banter while I tackled the crosswords in the paper. I had finished the quick crossword by the time I was halfway through my first pint of Guinness.

  The cryptic crossword beat me again, but I did managed about a third of it. To do that I had to stay for a third pint of Guinness - again ! Three pints of Guinness reduced my chances of going to Aldi from unlikely to definitely not. I had sort of prepared for it by having a strong carrier bag in my trouser pocket (I was wearing my cargo shorts so I had a selection of pockets to choose from).
  While waiting for a train back to Catford Bridge a train to Charing Cross called at the opposite platform. As usual, I had my pocket sized Nikon S6300 camera with me, and took snaps of all the trains I saw. The one above, 466032, was one I had never photographed before, and so this picture is recorded in my huge spreadsheet of train pictures. I need just 8 to complete the set of the 43 class 466 trains that were made.

  The reason I had a strong carrier bag with me because I had already decided I would go home via the little supermarket on Catford Bridge. Top of my shopping list was some bread. I was going to get another loaf of the dark brown bread that I ate recently, but they didn't seem to have any of that, but they did have loaves of Polish sourdough bread. Past experiments show that to be very benign on my blood glucose level.

  I also bough three large, on the vine, tomatoes, some cheeses and some spicy, sliced meats.  I thought I had sufficient instant noodles until I saw a flavour I didn't recognise. It was chicken with some sort of herb (whose name I have forgotten). I also bought a few other bits and pieces including two cans of sugar free fizzy soft drinks made by Barrs. The pineapple flavour was was remarkably close to disgusting, and the raspberry flavour was not very nice, but perctly drinkable.

  Once I got home, had a pee, and changed my clothes, I made a couple of sandwiches. They used the new loaf of sliced bread, slices of tomato, and one had spicy meat, and the other a smoky cheese. I didn't realise until I had opened the smoky cheese that it was "non diary". I dread to think what it was made of. It was not very nice. It was a nice little feast, and soon after I had finished both sandwiches I lay on my bed to read, but dropped off to sleep instead.

  I'm guessing it was not that long after 4pm when I fell asleep, and I didn't wake up until gone 5pm. I turned on the TV and watched a fair episode of Star Trek: The New Generation. As 6pm approached I started to think about dinner. I had eaten those sandwiches so late that I could probably have called them dinner, and eaten no more, but maybe I had the sort of hangover that wants a bacon sandwich.

  If I was patient I could have grilled some bacon for a sandwich, but I had some more of the spicy sliced meat in a sandwich. I followed that with a double helping of the new instant noodles I had bought. They seemed small packets, and both just about fitted in the usual bowls I make the noodles in. That took me over the top and I felt bloated and uncomfortable. It was made worse by the fact I had not had a poo all day, although to be fair I did pass enough the night before yesterday to last 24 hours.

  I went to bed just after 10pm (after watching QI), and although intending to sleep, I was soon asleep. That was surprising because I was feeling so uncomfortable. Even more surprising is that I don't think I woke up again until almost 3am (at least I think it was around then). It was a little after 4am before I got back to sleep because of the feeling of bloat and some actual gut pains.

  It was in the next couple of hours before I got up that I had more dreams from the "being back at work" series. The one bit of dream I remember had a twist to it. I was back repairing TVs, but the ones lined up for me to repair were all vintage TVs. One in particular was a 9 inch tube set in a Bakelite cabinet. It belonged to the senior engineer, and I felt proud to be repairing his TV.

  I made the assumption that all the bread I ate, plus the evening double dose of instant noodles, would be disastrous for my blood glucose reading this morning. It was most definitely not good, but not a disaster. The new meter said 9.7mmol/l, but the old meter said just 9.0mmol/l. The former is very close to disaster, but the latter is very undesirable, but sort of OK. As I write this I still have not had a poo, and I still feel fat and bloated. That didn't stop me having a single portion of spicy instant noodles. Hot instant noodles are sometimes a trigger for a much needed poo.

  My plan for today is to finally go shopping in Aldi - hopefully this morning. This afternoon Jodie is going to a beer festival in Beckenham. I don't fancy a heavy session doing that, but if Michael is around I expect we'll have a few beers together here. I am supposed to officially taking everything easy in preparation for a very arduous weekend - two long days of music and photography at Chattfest  in the garden of The Chatterton Arms pub (if it doesn't pour with rain - the BBC predict a thunderstorm on Saturday so the sun is bound to shine !)