Another change in the weather ! This morning it is cloudy, but the clouds are not too dark, but by midday the clouds could turn almost black and heavy rain may fall. That will be followed by lighter rain (except maybe for 4pm), and with luck, the clouds will turn white again at 9pm - except, of course, by then the sun will have long set, and the sky will look dark anyway. It is looking like it will be a very cool day. Both the BBC and Met Office predict it will be no more than 15° C until very late tonight when the temperature might actually rise to 16° C. There seems to be a choice of weather for tomorrow. The BBC say the day may start with some rain, but the afternoon will be sunny. The Met Office say the day will start with dark clouds, but no rain, and the afternoon will be very dull.....or sunny (depending on which forecast you believe). It should also be a bit warmer with 21, or 22° C expected.

   Yesterday was almost a good day, and maybe it was a good day in many respects. One very positive thing is that it didn't rain.  Less good was that once again I ended up doing lots of photo editing. Washing my hair, and having a shower felt good - washing my hair particularly so.

  Being a Wednesday, and as I said I would do yesterday morning, I went to the pub at lunchtime for a couple of pints of Guinness. It would have been very nice to see Angela, but I wasn't expecting her. I was also not expecting to see a heron standing in the river that runs through the park near the back of the pub.
  Herons are usually thought of as fish eating birds, but I know their diet is a bit more varied. I saw this heron plunge it's head in the water, and expected it to come up with a fish, but I squeak, and after a small disturbance in the water I saw a small rat, or possibly a vole, go scurrying up the river bank into the vegetation. It was a year or two ago that I saw a heron, maybe even the same one, with a rat firmly held in it's beak. I was in a bit of a rush and I didn't see what happened next.
  It was pleasant, but not terribly exciting in the pub. I finished the quick crossword before I had drunk half of my first pint of Guinness. With just over an inch of Guinness left in my second pint of Guinness I knew that I was never going to do any more of the cryptic crossword than the nine clues I had managed to solve. Sometimes after getting 4 or 5  clues it feels like you have got into the mindset of the person who compiles the crossword puzzle, but not this time.

  Each clue was a struggle, and I quickly began to think that a third pint of Guinness would not help. Once the second pint was finished, and I had gone for a pee, I left to get the train home. I almost had some bad luck with the train on the way home. As I entered the platform at Ladywell station a train came in, and I had to rush to get on it near the back (I prefer to be near the front where the exits are at Catford Bridge.
  In one sense I was also lucky because the unit on the back of the train, 466021, was one I had never photographed before. That was another number and picture to add to my spreadsheet. I seem to be doing things out of order at this point because the train I got from Catford to Ladywell was also one I had never photographed before.
  There were only 40 of these class 707 trains made, and some are still in service with South Western Railway who originally ordered them. They don't like them, and their customers complain that they have no onboard toilets. They still have some in service, but the sold over half of them to SouthEastern Trains. With this latest picture I have just three more to "spot" and photograph.....although once South Western Railway sell the last one I will want to go photographs of them in their new livery.

  I was feeling quite tired when I started walking home, but I still detoured to go home via the little supermarket on Catford Bridge. I don't know why, but I fancied getting some very low sugar Polish bread, but also some other stuff while I was in there. In the end I bought a Roumanian loaf which also boasted a very low sugar content. I also bought some sliced "continental" meats, and a few big tomatoes.

  Once I got home I couldn't wait to make a sandwich of the new bread. In fact I made two sandwiches of salami and tomato. The bread seemed a bit bland, and not so nice as the Polish sourdough bread I was going to buy, and the tomato, grown in Holland (probably force grown in a gigantic greenhouse) also seemed a bit bland. Maybe the latter was a good thing because a properly grown and ripened tomato would contain a lot of sugar.

  I felt mildly guilty about eating two sandwiches, but that didn't stop me eating a third one, but that was a cheese sandwich. That almost sated me. It seems the fresh air in the park, and the two pints of Guinness, had given me a raging hunger. Later on I did munch on a handful of peanuts, but I think that was after I had had a long snooze. After that snooze I resumed selecting and editing photos I had taken last Saturday.

  Before Patricia came back from her third day out with her sister and son in law, I had finally finished all of last Saturday's photos. I still have all the photos I took last Sunday to do, and I had seen all the seven bands that played on the Sunday, and so I have an even huger pile of photos to wade through.

  Sometime while I was watching one or the other of the evening Star Treks I got a message from Patricia saying not to worry about any dinner for her last night because she had eaten quite well enough while she was out being a tourist. The message actually came through 55 seconds after I had put the spaghetti carbonara ready meal in the microwave to heat up. I turned the microwave off at that point and left the ready in it with the door closed. Hopefully it will be OK tonight !

  Patricia arrived after 9pm - a lot later than expected, and mostly due to a drunk causing trouble on the bus she was on. It stood still for nearly 20 minutes until the drunk got off (possibly after seeing the police getting near the bus). We chatted for nearly an hour before going up to our beds. I must admit I was feeling rather tired by then. I read a couple of pages before turning out the light, and was soon fast asleep

  I remember having one dream that I was going to describe, but I have had many distractions while writing this, and all details of the dream have now evaporated. On the whole I had a good night's sleep - better than many, maybe. Despite getting to sleep fairly late, I was still up at just gone 6am. I had a pleasant surprise when I checked by blood glucose this morning. The bread was certainly low sugar, and I think the artificially ripened tomato was very low in sugars. Not having an evening meal must have helped a lot because both my blood glucose meters gave identical, very low readings of just 7.2mmol/l. That was enough to take my average for the month down to 8.4mmol/l. That is the lowest end of month average so far this year, and lower than the average for the end of the previous two years. The old meter's end of month average was 8.67mmol/l, and that can only be described as an average average !

  I am still unsure of what Patricia's exact plans are for today. I know she is going to the Greenwich observatory, and now planeterium, with her sister and son in law, but I think it is going to be a shorter afternoon than the previous three. I think she is coming back here for dinner, and then will be heading to a cheap hotel in Croydon so she can get a train in the early hours of tomorrow morning for her flight back to Italy.

   Regardless of what Patricia does, except when she is here, I will be spending most of my time photo editing. By all accounts/forecasts it is going to be a rotten afternoon, and I'll not be wanting to go out, or maybe  even look out the windows ! I'll be to busy for anything anyway, although I might pop out briefly to get some shopping if I am ready in time to get out before the midday downpour.