It would seem the weather has slipped back to mid spring or mid autumn again. It was a bit brighter, almost, but not quite sunny, at 7am, but now it is very dull as the clouds build up for another rainy day. Most of the rain may be light rain (The BBC say the first couple of hours will be just drizzle). The first rain will probably start around 10am, and while not every hour will feature rain, most will until 5pm, although the BBC, in their usual pessimistic manner, say it will last, almost non stop, until 10pm ! It is another cold morning. My thermometers agreed that it was just 12° C at 7am. The best we can hope for this afternoon is 17 or maybe 18° C. Tomorrow could see a big change - a mostly sunny day, and the temperature rising to 23° C.

  Like the previous couple of days, yesterday was a bit like being back at work again, or in some respects worse than being back at work - long hours of having to be focussed on doing stuff. On Saturday it was taking hundreds of pictures over a rough total of eight and a half hours (including travelling time). I guess Sunday was a half day because I was boozing late in the afternoon, but I still spent a lot of time in my "digital darkroom" selecting and editing picture.

  Yesterday also involved a lot of slaving over a hot PC selecting and editing pictures, but I did do a couple of other things. One was to go shopping in Tesco where I bought some ingredients for very healthy stews, but also some stuff I regret buying. One other thing I did, that was in some way related to last Saturday's picture taking, was to hand wash my Petts Wood Calling, Crew, t-shirt (and a few other things). I had to dry it indoors, but this morning it should be ready to be put away for next year.
  My main job through the day was selecting and editing pictures I had taken at Petts Wood Calling. Before I started that I had some lunch, and it was a very bad choice for lunch. While in Tesco I had this crazy idea that some fish would be nice for lunch. The easiest thing, although a slightly expensive option was two pieces of cod in crispy breadcrumbs. I could just pop them into the mini oven/grill, set the timer, and eat them when ready.

  The great problem was that the fish was not as nice as I hoped. There was nothing wrong with it, and it was probably just me. It just somehow failed to excite me. Maybe it was some, at the time, unrealised guilt that spoiled the experience. What I had forgotten about is that the crispy breadcrumb coating would seem to contain a lot of sugar, and  what was really a double helping, really busted my sugar ration for the day. I would probably have done better to have had just one piece and had some oven cooked chips with it.

  I think I did three photo albums of three bands yesterday. It was all the bands I least liked, but it seems I still managed to get some good shots to share with the Petts Wood Calling photo pages. I suppose it could be called professional pride to still take good pictures of bands I have no liking for - except I am no professional, and do all this as a hobby out of control. Plus I have to justify all the money I have spent buying cameras, and lenses plus other accessories.
  This is Jo Prosser from The Dirty Perks. They are a very good, and very polished band, but I can't say I am much of a fan of them.
  This picture is of particular interest. It is of Kristian Baker who leads the band of the same name. A lot of their stuff is old soul/Tamla Motown covers sug with a very powerful voice. I find them good for a song or two, but then I get bored and want something else. Kristian is a big guy with a hairless head. He works up quite a sweat on stage, and if you look carefully you cans ee his head actually steaming !
  This is the guitarist from the band Burning Chrome. As I probably mentioned yesterday, or the day before, I was particularly looking forward to hearing them. Last year I only caught their last song, and a bit of the song before, because I was late getting to Chattfest. On that occasion I think they finished with a Motorhead cover, and I wanted to hear more of that sort of stuff, but I found them a bit lack lustre at Petts Wood Calling.

  Their guitarist looks the part with a fancy guitar, and a denim waistcoat covered in patched, but appears to be a "weekend warrior*", and is possibly a physics teacher during the week. The bass guitarist does little to disguise himself, and my theory is that he is a geology teacher during the week !

* I've linked to the lyrics for the Iron Maiden song, because I know it best, but Weekend Warriors is also the title track to a Ted Nugent album which I don't think I have ever heard before.
 There is a story behind this picture of Jo Woodstock, organiser of Petts Wood Calling. I had ventured into the crowd to get a long shot of the stage. I hadn't noticed Jo was in front of me - she had her back to me. I noticed her as soon as she turned around, and sort of jokingly pointed the camera at her and clicked. I held the shutter button done and the camera took two shots. This is the second one taken about a tenth of a second later. In that tenth of a second the camera automatically got the shot in perfect focus - which rather surprised, and pleased me. I don't think she was quite as startled as she looks.
  I haven't started on a photo album of The Ferrets yet. It is one I'll be tackling today. This picture was taken in the green room (backstage). I'm not sure why, but I thought it might look better in black and white. In the cold light of day I am having second thoughts about it, and may revisit it when I start on their photo album. I really loved their set of old punk rock covers, and I took hundreds of pictures of them - literally - and it is going to take some time to find the best 20 pictures (or some similar number).

  By 5pm, and Star Trek(s) time I had made good progress in my photo editing, but I slowed down watch the first iof the three Star Treks. I still did a bit of photo editing during the commercial breaks. As 6pm approached it felt like time for dinner. It was then I made another bad mistake, although the root of the mistake happened while I was shopping in Tesco. I had this crazy idea I might like some Indian food for dinner. I noticed I could get three Rogan Josh curries, with rice, for £7, and I was suckered into buying three.

  When I came to heat the first one up I realised just how small they were. I would expect double the quantity of rice from a restaurant, and maybe three times the amount of curry. I knew they were not exactly low sugar, but I thought that maybe I would eat two portions of curry, but only one portion of rice. They seemed so small and insubstantial that I ate both rices and curries. I must admit that double portion was just slightly filling.

  I completed my last photo album of the day before QI was due on Dave. I could sort of relax watching it, although it was rather too familiar as a repeat to really enjoy it. I think I was in bed very soon after 10pm. I read a couple of pages from the book I am reading, but felt so tired that I turned out the light and quickly fell asleep - at least I think I did. Once asleep I definitely slept well until about 4am when, once again, I had an hour of insomnia.

  I had quite a good selection of dreams, although as is often the case, I can only remember a few fragments of those dreams. One was set on a railway station where I was getting "The International Train". I think that it was probably inspired by the boat trains that used to connect Victoria with Folkstone and/or Dover. It was certainly a slam door train, but I can't remember the livery of it.

  Another dream was like a hybrid between being at work, and being at school. I can remember sitting in a class room, and it may have been the end of term, and nothing was going on. Someone suggested I was going to sneak out, and so I did. As I passed the playground I think reality intruded. The dream was happening just after sunrise, and I think I could hear some magpies making a racket outside. That sound leaked into the dream, and I was telling the magpies to shut up. As I did so a woman came along with a pram. Her face was painted to look like a crow, and she told me off for waking the babies.

  It was all very weird, and although it was not a scary dream, it did seem a bit tedious, and waking up seemed like a good idea - except it was about an hour earlier than I would have chosen. I did managed to get back to sleep, and had maye an extra hour of sleep. I then had to face checking my blood glucose reading. Everything pointed to it being not as bad as I thought. If anything I got up to pee a lot less than usual, and somehow I felt quite good.

  The terrible reality was that I was in a very bad state. My new blood glucose meter said a truly appalling 11.3mmol/l - well over the red line. The old meter was nearly as bad at 11.1mmol/l.  Basically this means I need to do a lot of fasting today. It is not a good morning for it. I feel hungry and I feel cold. A hot bowl of instant noodles would go down well about now. My only hope is that I was dehydrated again when I checked my blood glucose, and that when I check it again near lunch time I will have deliberately drunk enough to re-hydrate myself, and the blood glucose reading will be a lot less dangerous.

  I just noticed that we have had the first shower. It looks like it was very light rain, and hopefully the rest of the rain today will not be too bad. On the other hand, I am not expecting to go out today, and so the rain doesn't really matter. It just destroys all my beliefs of what August should be like. Once I've uploaded this to my web server it will be back to the "digital darkroom" for, hopefully, my last day of photo editing.