The forecast may not have shown it, but it looked very damp outside this morning. I think there must have been some rain in the early hours of this morning. The forecast has now been revised, and the screenshot above is now wrong in at least one respect. Light rain is now shown from 10am to midday, and the sunny spells shown above for midday to 2pm, have been replaced by light cloud - much like the rest of today. The temperature is now expected to only rise to 21° C. Tomorrow should be quite a sunny day with an expected high of 23° C.

  I'm not sure how to describe yesterday. It had it's moments, but a lot of it was a bit dull, mainly because I was unexpectedly doing a lot of work. It was all to do with the shock announcement that Chris Mayer would be quitting Chain at the end of the year. One person made a photo album of Chris playing his guitar at Chain gigs, but it didn't go very far into the past. I made a photo album that started from when I first saw Chain (then known as The Bluesiscians) in 2010.

  In some ways it was rather tedious going back through 13 years of photographs looking for good pictures. Most of my early pictures were pretty poor, but using skills I have gradually learned, I was able to make a few of those old pictures look almost better than they originally were. Another part of the task was to look out for all the different guitars Chris has played. There were a couple that slipped the net, or the pictures were just unusable.

  One novelty fact is that in 2015 Chris partly retired the red Gibson 335 guitar he had used on all but one gig I went to, and went on to play Fender guitars. It was at the same time I bought my first DSLR camera, a Canon EOS 1200D. I would say that my pictures improved tremendously on that day, but my first attempt at using the camera was a part disaster ! However, from then on my pictures did start to improve a lot.

  My first major break from seeking out pictures of Chris, and editing them, came when the man from Amazon arrived bringing my latest order. Two items from the order were just what I wanted. One was a box of test strips for my Sino-Care blood glucose meter. As expected, 100 test strips came with 100 lances. I've only used 2 or 3 lances from the 100 that came with the meter itself. I may have mentioned this yesterday, but I shall offer three, still sealed, boxes to the diabetic nurse if I ever see her.

  The other correct item was a pack of two new batteries, plus a charger, for my new Nikon D610 camera. I have charged them using the new charger (which is powered by a USB-C lead). As yet I have not tried them, but other batteries from the same maker seem to be perfect. The third item was not ideal. It was a carrying case for my new Nikon camera. The quoted dimensions suggested it might be a bit of tight fit, but it should have been adequate. The reality is that it is too small. I have now allocated it to my Canon EOS 600D camera. I tend to use that camera for trainspotting and other outdoor occasions. As such I usually only use one lens on it, and it all fits in the new case with just about enough room to cram in a bottle of water (I think - but I haven't tried it).

  The next break was when Jodie came over for a beer tastings session. Once again she had a skinful the previous night, and wasn't looking forward to a proper session. I'm not even sure why she bothered to come, although we did have a few interesting beers, including a very strong beer (but as usual we spilt a small can in two - half each). I think yesterday was one rare occasion when I felt 100% sober when we finished drinking.

  Once Jodie had left to get a train to Clock House, where she would be meeting Alan for more beers in The Three Hounds, I could start on my dinner. I finally got to eat the stew I had been nurturing for a couple of days. It was a beef and red cabbage stew with added flavouring from the jar of Guinness Cooking Paste, and some Habenero chilli flakes. I am not sure if the Guinness cooking paste added much to the flavour, but those chilli flakes did !

  After eating, which I did while watching a documentary about The Hollies on Sky Arts, I got back to my searching for pictures I'd taken of Chris. I was getting to the last 5 years or so, and most, but not all the photos I had taken were of good quality. I guess I finished the whole photo album, or 30 pictures, sometime after 9pm. by the time I had uploaded them it was around 10pm, and I went to bed to read for a while.

  I'm not sure when I put the book down, turned out the light, and fell asleep quite quickly. The curious thing is that I was going to say I slept really well last night because I thought I had, but I do seem to feel sleepy this morning. I can't remember any period during the night when I was awake for any longer than 10 minutes. I also can't remember any dreams, although I am sure I had some, but their memory feels just out of reach.

  As intended, my beef and cabbage stew was very low sugar, and I had eaten very little during the day that would affect my blood glucose in any significant way. It was no real surprise, but still a little surprise that my blood glucose readings this morning were very good. The new meter read an excellent 7.7mmol/l, and the old meter read 8.2mmol/l - still good, but not excellent good.

  I was about to write that I don't know what I am doing today, but there are two things I have to do this morning (if possible). The first is to try and call the pharmacy to order my next repeat prescription for pickup towards the end of the week. Getting through on the phone can be very tricky, and I might have to take a walk there. The other thing I need to do is to go shopping in Tesco. I wouldn't starve if I didn't go, but I do prefer to get safer ingredients than stuff in my cupboard to make more super safe stews like last night's.

  It is after those two things that I don't know what I will do. What I am considering all depends on the weather. it is to go out, possibly for a train ride, with my new camera. I need to get the feel of it before I use it for the first time for real on Saturday at Chislehurst Rocks.