Here we are, almost halfway through August, and today feels like it is going to be the second day of summer. I know we have had a scattering of very warm, even a bit hot, days, but they felt like the exception to the rule. Today the temperature, after loads of sunshine, might touch 26° C, but 25° C is currently the forecast high. The latest revision to the forecast has changed a few of the hours of sunshine to just sunny spells. Tomorrow could be similar, temperature wise, but the morning may start off a bit grey, and at the moment a single light shower is predicted for 1pm. Tomorrow morning it could be missing from the forecast, or be joined by more showers. It still might be a reasonable sort of day.

  The most remarkable thing about yesterday was that I finally felt warm and comfortable. By the evening my bedroom was feeling very comfortably warm - about 25° C. Like so many days, it was both a good and bad day yesterday. The good was not all that good, maybe 7 out of 10. The bad was also not that bad - maybe 3 out of 10. I'll explain both further down the page.
  The best thing about yesterday was undoubtedly the weather. The hot, bright sunshine, and a lovely blue sky, could put a positive slant on anything. This view was looking (approx) west while in the park on my way to the pub.
  Outside the pub, and looking towards the centre of Lewisham. More blue sky. While out and about I did see several people still wearing a coat as if they didn't believe what their own eyes could see.

  Just before I left to go to the station, to pick up two copies of The Metro, and get the train one stop to Ladywell, I sent a message to Angela to let her know I would be in the pub. I didn't really expect a reply, but I did get one. Angela said she was still not back at work, but would be next Tuesday (15th August). It seems every time I think I knew the date when she would be back at work, her sick leave has been extended. i know it was serious injury, but it seems like she has been fit and getting around easily now for a good couple of months.

  it was a shame that Angela could not make it to the pub. It was one of those rare occasions when it was a tiny bit boring being there on my own. It was made worse by the cryptic crossword in The Metro completely bamboozled me. I think I only managed to solve a couple of clues. There was even one quick crossword clue that I couldn't answer.  I only fancied staying for 2 pints of Guinness yesterday.

  One thing made it all worse. As usual I took pictures of all the trains I saw, front and back, while using the trains to and from Ladywell. When I got home I checked all the train number against my spreadsheet recording every train number I have photographed over the years, and there wasn't a single one that I had not already photographed before. Usually I am lucky and get at least one new number.

  In theory the afternoon should have been good. I had finished all the pictures (except for possible 2nd photo album of the band Ransom) from Petts Wood calling, and so I could relax. I had decided in the morning that when I got home from the pub I would probably be feeling hot from the sunshine, and that my lunch should be a tub of my favourite, and usually safe, low calorie/sugar ice cream. It was a delight to eat that, and then lay on my bed to rest my eyes. I didn't time it, but I think I had an hours snooze.

  There was one more job to do, and it was the pictures for the landlady of The Daylight Inn. I had only taken about 18 shots, and I knew that as many as 6 were completely ruined by rain on the camera lens. I did some of the work during commercial breaks while watching the usual three early even Star Treks. Some of my pictures were fairly good, but ....
  Now shrunk down to fit on this page, this picture of the front of the pub does not look very sharp. Of course the obvious problem with it is that I had to use my fish eye lens to get it all in. I couldn't stand further back to get a long shot because there is a marquee behind me. I will be re-doing some of these pictures again when my new wide angle, but not fisheye, lens is delivered. It is possible the marquee may not be there if it is not raining.
  I've heavily cropped this photo to get rid of most of the distortion on the edges of the picture, but I am still not happy with it.  One problem is that I had the flash pointing up, and it would have been better with more light by pointing the flash gun pointing in the same direction of the camera lens.
 Apart from the curvature added to the bar by the fish eye lens, I was reasonably happy of this snap of the bar staff.
  I think I might have already mentioned that the beer dispensers seemed to be made out of toilet plumbing. It is supposed to be a "chic" look or something. The actual beer is most probably fed through a plastic pipe threaded through the iron plumbing. I took this picture on my big Nikon using a non fisheye lens. It was one view where I could stand far enough back to get all the dispensers on this part of the band in view.

  I sent these, and another 4 or 5 pictures to the landlady last night, and to my surprise she said they were brilliant ! I did say that I will be back with my new wide angle lens to try and make a better job of it sometime, probably, next week. She told me they open at midday during the week, and it is my aim to be outside when they open up so I can use my flash gun on full blast without disturbing too many drinkers.

  I think it sometime in the afternoon that I began to feel mildly depressed. There were many reasons not to feel that way. The sunshine was quite uplifting, and so was finishing all the photos from Petts Wood Calling, but oddly enough they were both reasons to be depressing as well. The sunshine was wonderful, but the knowledge that it may be only a few short spells of sunny days - Sunday could be quite dull, and possibly involve rain too.

  Finishing the Petts Wood Calling photos was good because it was getting a bit tedious going through so many photos. (I selected and used 115 photos in the end - and that is only if my quick mental arithmetic is correct). However, it was enjoyable to take the photos, and enjoyable to see the finished product, but it is like coming down from a drug. When is the next high ? It could be tomorrow night when I am caught between two good options - both pub gigs. The next real high could be Chislehurst Rocks the weekend after the coming one. That could be good - or very bad. I am not too happy that new rules mean the entire festival will be enclosed with just one access point where bags checks will take place, and all liquids forbidden. Ideally I would go in with a back stage pass where the bands go in, but I don't know who to ask. As it is, it feels like I will be entering a concentration camp or something.

  All the negativity and mild depression, made me feel hungry, and spoiled my careful eating. I had an early starter for my dinner of about 6 or 7 little rice crackers with cheese on them (each one was easily a single mouthful). Dinner was actually 5 mini oven/grilled sausages, but after that I wanted a sweet. I had four rice cakes with peppered  salami slices on them. Most of all I have listed should have been fairly safe except for the salami slices. I have a suspicion that like some things based on dried meat, they use sugar as part of the drying process.

  I think I was in bed, and asleep by 10pm last night. I seemed to sleep really well until about 4am. Waking up at 4am, and then not being able to get back to sleep again, is becoming a bad habit recently. This morning I probably kept myself away thinking every negative thought I could think of about Chislehurst Rocks. I think I even had a dream about it, but as I write this I cannot recall anything about any dreams I had.

  There is bad news this morning. My blood glucose has gone up into the annoying, but still safe area.....although maybe only safe when it is rare rather than common as it is recently. My new meter read 9.0mmol/l. If it was just 0.1 lower I would hardly remark about it. My old meter read 9.2mmol/l. I guess I am really teed off about these readings ruining my monthly running average more than any potential health problem.

  Today I can, and to some extent I will do some extra resting, or being lazy as others may describe it. Jodie, and probably Michael, should be over for some beer tasting this afternoon. In some spare time I might have a look at all the unsused pictures of pictures I took of the band Ransom at Petts Wood Calling. They really knew how to use the big stage (which is a bit unusual for a pub band), and so I did take a lot of pictures of them, plus I really enjoyed listening to them. Maybe I'll be making a photo album two of them.