Yesterday's weather included a
scattering of sunny spells, with most being
in the afternoon, and at other times it was
still bright cloud. The temperature reached
23° C, and for some reason I can't give a
rational explanation for, I think it might
have been a degree or two higher.
There are some thin clouds around
that occasionally make the sunshine a
little hazy, but it seems too have been
sunny since I woke up, and it remains so
now. The latest revision to the forecast
shows full sunshine from midday to sunset,
with just 6pm shown as sunny spells. It
would seem that 25° C is a concrete
prediction. Tomorrow is also predicted to
feature almost pure sunshine form morning
to sunset. Both forecasters agree on this,
and both predict a high of 27° C. It
seems summer is back for about a week,
with 29° C possible for next Wednesday.
Yesterday was nothing like I
expected. I was still feeling tired, or at
least I thought I did, but maybe it was
just a reaction against all the photo
selecting and editing I had to do. A week
after taking the pictures they were
feeling sort of stale, plus I had some
trouble with getting the exposure right on
many photographs.
Even though I felt sort of, but
maybe not really, tired and weak, I forced
myself to do other things instead of photo
editing. Doing a (half full) sink of
washing up had to be done anyway, but it
was one of the first distractions of the
day. It allowed me to start preparing my
dinner in the slow cooker. This time I did
it right, and added the pasta in the last
hour of slow cooking. It was cooked to
perfection when I later had dinner.
The next two distractions had a
large gap between them. They were hand
washing another couple of t-shirts, plus
five pairs of underpants. It reduced my
pile of laundry a lot, and a second lot of
hand laundry reduced it to maybe one more
load left, perhaps for today, but there is
less importance than these two. That
second lot was a pair of shorts, a t-shirt
used for messy job, and never worn in
public, plus one more pair of underpants.
I had to dry everything indoors, but I
think it is all dry this morning.
There were a few other things I did
before I started my photo editing. One was
to eat, and eat more than I should have,
but I felt a powerful urge to eat. The
cheese and tomato sandwiches weren't too
bad, but the whole big bag of corn puffs
were a bit mad. Fortunately corn puffs are
mostly air, and although I didn't dare
check, they may have had quite a low sugar
content.
I also read for a while, and had an
afternoon snooze. Although I didn't finish
the book I have been reading at this
point, I was very close to the end, and
wondering what to eat next. By coincidence
I discovered the Matt Fielder, lead singer
of the band Ransom, who I have had the
pleasure of seeing, and photographing
twice, had written a book, and it was
available from Amazon. I think it tells
the story of the previous band he was in,
and I also seem to think that band was
about to be signed when they broke up. Of
course this is pure conjecture based on
very scant information. I ordered the
book, and apparently it will be delivered
today, and before long I will be able to
comment about it with more authority.
It was probably gone 3pm before I
started back on all my photos. I was
having a lot of trouble with the exposure
of the photos. Last Sunday, at Chatt Fest
there was a lot of very bright sunshine,
but inside the shade of the stage it was a
lot dimmer. I was not paying enough
attention to the settings on my camera,
and quite a lot of photos were just scrap.
Some were just fine, and some were
recoverable to some extent.
I don't know if other photographers
have the same problem as me with regard to
patching up bad photos. I guess they don't
take them in the first place.....or do
they ? While editing my pictures I knew
every flaw, and every bodge i had done to
correct them. I really wondered if I would
get away with some of the pictures. This
morning I looked at them with fresh eyes,
and to my surprise only a couple looked
less than
perfect good
OK.
This picture of Angela, who I
barely talked to last Sunday, was very
slightly over exposed (see how her hands
are almost bleached out where they are
catching the sun), but I managed to get
the picture looking presentable.
The group shot of The Coyles had
about the right exposure, but on the left
hand side there was the drummer for the
next band fiddling with the drum kit. I
painted him out, but I feel it is a bit of
a messy piece of work, but I guess if I
hadn't drawn your eye to it you might
never have noticed anything.
This is the band The Assorted. The
original picture was under exposed, but it
seemed to brighten up OK, and looks good
enough to use for a publicity
shot...maybe.
This picture
of Crosstown Revival is a bit of a mess.
They were the last band on, and finished
after sunset. There was no natural
lighting, and there was only the bright
white stage lights off to the left. The
man on the left is mostly in shadow,
while the man on the right, the man
Angela is due to marry on the 23rd of
this month, is catching the full force
of the light and has lost all his
features due to over exposure. I should
have lined them up across the width of
the stage so they were all lit up from
the same angle. Oh well, another thing
to remember next time.
There was next to nothing on TV
last night, and so apart from stopping
to eat, I continued working until I had
just two bands left to do. For a time I
thought it was just one band to go, but
there was one band I had forgotten
about. The last thing I did was to go to
the end of each set of photographs so I
could work on the group photos I have
shown here. I actually worked from back
to front for the last full band I did.
having done the group photo at the end
first I decided to keep working to the
front. For some reason it felt better
that way. Maybe ity was just s bit of
novelty to lighten the work.
My dinner, as mentioned further
up the page, contained quite a lot of
pasta. It started out as a slow cooked
beef, green bean, bell pepper, and a lot
of dried chilli flakes, casserole. I
added the pasta in the last hour of slow
cooking, and I added rather more than I
might have, but there was not much left
in the packet when I added what I
thought might be the best amount, and
decided to just tip the whole lot in.
It was quite a nice dinner, but I
did worry about what so much pasta would
do to me. One thing it did do was to
make the casserole a lot larger than it
would otherwise have been. So much so
that I had my usual two bowlfuls, and
there is still enough left for tonight.
It is possible i might take to using
pasta more often, but in my own recipes
rather than traditional pasta dishes.
It was almost early when I headed
to bed, and I think I was asleep by 9pm.
At 9.36pm I was definitely asleep when
my phone chirruped to signal an incoming
message. It was a useful bit of info,
and I was probably asleep again in 10 or
15 minutes. I was awoken again at just
gone midnight when another message came
through. It was from giffgaff, my mobile
phone service provider to say my "goody
bag" had just expired, and that I would
be paying an arm and a leg for mobile
data. One of the first things I did this
morning was to buy another 4GB for £8
for my next months service.
My sleep was uninterrupted after
that except for waking up for a pee at
around 4am. I did have a series of
interlinked dreams last night, and I do
remember some details about them, but I
don't think I'll recount them. Simply
put they were of a sexual nature, but I
was thwarted at every move except the
last, but I woke up before I found if my
dream had come true.
All my worries about eating too
much, and all the pasta I had in my
dinner, came to nothing - well, nothing
in terms of my blood glucose. Maybe the
calories count was not good for me. This
morning my new blood glucose meter read
a rather nice 7.9mmol/l, and the old
meter read just slightly higher, but
still very good 8.2mmol/l. My blood
pressure is pretty good this morning
too. It read 113/49 which I think puts
it into the "ideal" region.
Today will be very warm and
sunny. It sounds like a good day for a
walk, or maybe an expedition somewhere
with a camera, but I ought to knuckle
down and do the photos of the last two
bands on at Chatt Fest last Sunday. It
is also a good day to dry washing on the
line, and I may do the last few items in
my laundry basket. However I may dry
them inside, and was a sheet or duvet
cover to dry outside. There is also the
distraction of my new book being
delivered today, and I need to be in to
receive it. I'll almost certainly use up
several hours reading some of it. Maybe
tomorrow, when it may be even hotter and
sunnier, will be a better day to go out,
and I wonder if I can feel good enough
to maybe go to the seaside for the first
time in a couple of years (probably
since before Covid and lockdown).
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