There was evidence of some light rain sometime in the early hours this morning, but I am very sure there was no heavy rain at 7am. So the forecast has got off to a bad start, although maybe 17° C was/is about right. The latest revision to the forecast say we are going to have one drop of rain and sunny spells - at least that is what the icon showing a raindrop and the sun peeping out from behind a cloud says to me. It seems most of today will be dull until after 6pm when there could be sunny spells until sunset. The afternoon temperature should reach 22° C today. As usual, the BBC forecast shows lots of sunny spells for today, but changes it's tune for tomorrow. It goes a bit further than The Met Office forecast of a dull day with occasional showers. The BBC throws in it's beloved thunderstorm (which very rarely actually happen). Both forecasters agree on 20° C tomorrow.

  Yesterday was a sort of exciting day. The highest priority thing was waiting for a parcel delivery - which turned out to be two parcels instead of the expected three. It was also a morning which started with a low blood glucose reading and I thought it would be OK to indulge in a big bowl of instant noodles instead of a medium sized bowl.

  Many tasks ran concurrently yesterday. Two I started in the morning was some laundry - just a single t-shirt, some underwear, and a pair of trouser things that are almost light enough to be pyjama bottoms, but I am sure I bought them as lounge pants. I didn't finish that job until almost mid afternoon after a few distractions. The first distraction being to select and edit the best(ish) pictures I took at Chain's gig in The Swan,West Wickham.
  Jo is less photogenic these days, but still provides a nice picture.
  I managed to get the whole band in one picture, and you can see all their faces - something not easily done when it got a bit busier.
  This picture uses a technique I can rarely use - an offset flash gun. It means having a place you hope is safe to leave the flash gun unattended, and controlled remotely. In this instance the flash gun is on the bar (to the left of the picture). It has lit up Chris' face nicely, cast a nice shadow of him, but his guitar in in the shadows. Ideally the flash gun should have been on the left. I did try this by just holding the flash gun at arms length. but the effect was not quite as good.
  On the left, doing the "Ahh Bisto" look is Chloe. She is Rob's new girlfriend. Her friend is Isobel, and I thought she looked quite cute, but I know no more about her. Maybe I would like to.
  Jo and her pet Sunflower. I'm never sure if these low angle shots work.....I think they do sometimes. They work best with electric guitarists, and more so if they pose or pull a "guitar face" (usually a look of agony or ecstasy). Looking stright up Jo's nose is less appealing.

  The big distraction of the day came at around midday. It was the delivery of a single box when I was expecting two boxes. Both originally had tracking numbers, but Fivercam, the company I was expecting stuff from must have stuffed them in the same box at the last minute. Inside the big box were two smaller boxes. One was a Sigma 12 - 24mm lens, and the other was a Nikon D610 camera.

  Getting a new camera is a terribly exciting thing, but after inspecting it for a bit I put it's battery on charge, and investigated the new lens. It is a wide angle lens, and should be very important for shots across the entire width of the stage, or at least enough to get the full band into one shot without having to stand too far back. I tried it out on my Nikon D300s camera, and my initial thought was that the pictures looked a bit soft.

  I am still not 100% convinced they are as sharp as i would hope or expect, but I did realise I was expecting too much. I was taking a picture indoors, without a lot of light, and then trying to zoom in on the picture to extreme amounts. Low light meant (relatively) long expose times, around 1/100th of a second, and so microscopic camera shake would blur the edges of stuff in the picture, but it is only seen when expanding the picture in a photo editor to an extent I would never want to do in practice. Using flash for a very much shortened exposure time (maybe a 1/1000th or less, did help stop motion blur).

  The real test will come when I take it to a gig. That nearly happened last night, but I was not in the right mood to go out. More about that later. After I stopped playing with the new lens I picked up the camera. The battery was still not charged, and I passed a bit of time threading on the official Nikon camera strap that came with the camera. It's my guess it had been put in a washing machine because it looked bright and clean for a 10 year old camera.

  Eventually the battery was charged, and I could power on the camera. I had already fitted 64GB SD memory cards in the two slots, and so I was ready to take pictures, but I needed a bit more playing. Setting the correct date and time was one thing, and also entering copyright and owner information was another small task. It was soon apparent that there were a few things I didn't like about the camera. Not being able to select the type of light source using a single button is my main complaint. It has to be set from within the main menu structure - although I may have discovered a short cut, but I didn't pursue it more yesterday.

  Once again the real proof of the pudding will be when I can takes some real pictures on it, but a few indoor test shots suggest it is rather good. It was at this point a major annoyance appeared. It was not with the camera, but with my PC. On my previous PC, using an earlier version of Linux Mint, possibly a 32 bit version of it, I was able to use a program that I thought was called DCRAW to view and part edit RAW files. These are files that have not been processed by the camera's internal processor, and can be processed on a PC to useful effect - mostly covering up poor settings when taking the picture. They take up a lot more space on the memory card, but can be worth it.

  Until now I only had one brief flirtation with them when I got my first DSLR camera - my Canon EOS 1220D, but I was put off by how quickly they filled a memory card - which was typically no more than 8GB in those days. My Nikon provides a useful feature where you can save the more compact jpg image files on one memory card, and the NEF (RAW) files on the second card. Both cards I fitted were 64GB, and so there is plenty of space. I thought it would be prudent to use this method of storing one version of the pictures on one card, and the other on the other card.

  The problem is that I can't get any plug-in for The Gimp image editor to enable it to work with RAW files. There seems to be one solution, and that is to install "Darktable" and alternative photo editor, that can handle RAW files. I have actually installed it now, but I have two things against it. One, and the most obvious, is that it means learning a whole new way to edit photos. The other thing against it, although until I try it I'll never know for sure, is that it wants to index and file my pictures in a way different to how I do it. I am going to make sure I have a complete backup of my pictures folder before I allow Darktable to run amok among my precious pictures.

  I did mention there was one other distraction/source of small excitement yesterday. About half an hour after my new camera arrived there was a ring at the doorbell, and it was the postman. He had my new Ransom band t-shirt that I only ordered near the beginning of the week. I haven't tried it on yet, but it should fit OK, although I am a little worried that it looks wider than it is long, but I am sure it will be fine. I just need to wait for long enough until I can get to a Ransom gig. If I am in the right mood on the day it could be 25th of this month in The Jolly Farmers, in Purley.

  The other big thing yesterday was finances.....err, no it wasn't, that was the day before ! I did delve into spending more on my credit card yesterday. As I am sure I mentioned yesterday, or maybe the day before. I wanted to order a spare battery for the new camera. In fact I ordered two, plus a charger. They are a cheap and cheerful Chinese made package that works out half the price of a single official Nikon battery. I am using batteries from the same source (Dura-Pro, via Amazon) in a couple of my cameras, and they seem to work well.

  I also ordered a new camera carrying case. Maybe it is just me, but it seems hard to find a large camera carrying case. They seem to jump from medium to HUGE ! There is one exception to this - Amazon do a good size, but they squeak. I have never found what it is, but every time I walk up the road with the case for my Nikon D300s it squeaks like it needs oiling. I avoided an Amazon branded case, and managed to find one that seems to be what I want, but until it gets here I can't be sure.

  At the same time I also ordered another 100 blood glucose test strips for my new blood glucose meter. The really stupid thing is that 100 test strips comes with 100 lancets for pricking your finger. I only change the lancet in the little gadget that jabs the finger every few months or even a lot longer. I am thinking of offering the boxes of lancets I am accumulating to the diabetic nurse - if I ever get to see her. Those test strips,, the camera bag, and the batteries are, to my amazement, due to be delivered today - and I am 75% sure I haven't accidently signed up to Amazon Prime.

  Another bit of wanton credit card spending was to order a takeaway dinner last night. It all started when I had this idea echoing around in my head that an Indian might be nice. I discounted that as being too dangerous to my blood glucose, and instead opted for the usual kebab. Of course I spoiled that otherwise good choice by ordering one doner (mystery meat) with chips - just a small/regular portion. It was not a low salt meal, and not exactly a low sugar meal, but I feel fairly sure it was fairly low fat - the doner meat had been cooked to the point it was almost crispy where all the fat had melted away.

  I spent a chunk of my evening watching "Concert For George" on Sky Arts. It was one of those things that was very good in parts, but sometimes a little tedious. On the plus side I can't seem to recall it being interrupted by commercial breaks, or if it was they were very far apart, and not too long. The other plus thing was that it was filmed by British cameramen, and produced by British producers. Therefore it's production values were far higher than typical American productions - except when some loony cameraman zoomed in on a few people pogoing around on stage. All you could see were sets of teeth bouncing up and down on the screen !

  I went to bed when it finished, and that was gone 10pm if I recall correctly. As soon as I laid down in the dark I could feel every single ache that I had felt, mostly individually, during the day, come back as a mass of aches and pains. After half an hour of those aches distracting me from feeling sleepy, I had to take a couple of Paracetamol tablets. They took nearly an hour to start to work, and I eventually got to sleep. Once I got to sleep I seemed to sleep well, although I had been drinking a lot of diet Coke in the evening because of the salt in the kebabs (and the lingering taste of the salad onions), and i had to get up for several large pees in the night.

  It was a night when I know I had dreams, but all details have no evaporated. This morning my blood glucose readings were interesting. The new meter said a perfectly fine 8.8mmol/l, but the new meter gave a rather annoyingly high 9.7mmol/l. I don't think I have seen such a big difference between the meters before. Based on what I ate, and also what my blood glucose was before I ate last night, I am going with the new meter being closer to my true blood glucose level.

  Two things should happen today. I intend to go to Tesco late this morning - assuming I am finally up, washed and dressed in time. This afternoon Jodie should be coming over for some more beer tasting. we may crack open a couple of very strong (small) bottles of beer from the Varvar. What will make it more interesting is that they were brewed a year apart according to the label - and they are hand brewed rather than brewed in a factory where the process is as tightly controlled as the British budget isn't.