After a fairly miserable summer the weather is doing it's best to make up for it now, and there may be another five days of high summer like weather. Once again the day didn't start clear, but once the sun had risen a bit higher the sky turned blue, and hot sunshine poured down. Today the temperature may reach 31° C! The only flaw in a perfect day is at 4pm. Originally shown as just sunny spells  for that hour, it has now been degraded to a cloudy hour with no sun. I think that translates to "we see a cloud heading your way, but we don't really know where it will cast it's shadow. Tomorrow's headline figure is 30° C, but no hour is shown as hotter than 29° C tomorrow despite there being full sunshine for all the daylight hours predicted/

   Yesterday was a fairly relaxed day. I had a pretty good idea what I might do, and I knew there was no special rush to do anything, and although there was extra photo editing I could do, I could do the essentials at a fairly relaxed pace, and take several breaks, or have a snooze.

  There were tow things on my morning agenda, and the first was to complete the laundry I had left soaking overnight. It was only four items, and two of them were underpants and thus very easy to wash, rinse and wring out. The third item was a hand towel, and that was easy enough to work with. The fourth item was a pair of shorts. That needed a lot more manhandling - mostly when it came to wringing them out. I didn't bother to hang them on the washing line, but put them on the clothes horse in the hot, sun drenched front room to dry out with a fan on them. By 5 or 6pm everything was bone dry.

  After a shower I went to Tesco to buy stuff for a few dinners, but oddly enough, not for last night. One thing I bought out of curiosity was a pack of (and I am describing this from memory, and so I might describe it incorrectly) pizza style waffle chips. They were like chips made from mashed potato and "squidged" in a waffle iron. 20 minutes in the mini oven/grill and they crisped up nicely, although I had to do the whole pack in two sessions. A lot of them were just air (because of all the holes in them) and the whole pack was no bigger than a mere snack. The nutritional panel gave a sugar content of just 0.2gm, but I didn't stop to look at the unit size).

  I bought two lots of meat, and some vegetables for more casseroles, probably with pasta. I bought some of my favoured low calorie/sugar ice cream, and I bought 8 litres of fizzy drinks. The latter, in my rucksack, did make my walk home home from Tesco feel a lot harder than a casual walk in the park. The other thing that took up a lot of my shopping bag was many packs of instant noodles. It seems that finally Tesco has managed to put nearly all, but still not all, instant noodles in the same place now.

  I was feeling quite hot and sticky when I got home. The first thing I did after putting my shopping away was to start the pizza style waffle chips in the oven to cook. While they were cooking I ate a tub of my favoured low calorie/sugar ice cream. It went down very nicely. It was another 5 minutes or so before I tasted my first "pizza style waffle chips". They did have a mild herby flavour that reminded me of some pizza. When I had the second lot I sprinkled some salt on them, and that improved the flavour. If I seem them on the reduced price shelf I could be tempted to buy more, but I wouldn't pay full price for them.

  I had a little snooze, and did some reading before I started off on the other important job of the day - processing the pictures I had taken on my outing on Monday. I have quite a lot to show here, and it will take the narrative through to early evening.
  This was the Elizabeth Line train that took me from Stratford to Shenfield. It is at it's final destination, Shenfield, and waits there for 5 or 10 minutes before going back towards it's final destination of Paddington. What is notable about the Elizabeth Line, and particularly the section from Stratford, is how busy it is. I had to stand (or squeeze in next to someone) for part of the 35 minute journey. Before the service was run by the Elizabeth line there was a half hourly service with often just a 4 carriage train. The Elizabeth line runs ever 5 to 8 minutes for much of the day, and the trains are 9 carriages long !
  One annoyance for me is that the new fleets of trains run by Greater Anglia all look so very similar. Instead of the usual 6 digit number they just show a 3 digit number on the front. It would be the first three digits that show the class of train, and without it you really have to know your trains well if you want to identify them. I don't seem them very often, and while I remember a few subtle differences, I don't know them well enough to use those differences to identify the whole train number for my spreadsheet of my train pictures. This train is (I hope) a class 755 train that is dual power - 25kv overhead, or built in diesels for line which don't have power.
  This train was the train I used to get to Southend Victoria. It looks so similar to the train above, but the stand out difference is the grill on the front. That marks it as a class 720 train.
  This is about the best picture i could get of Southend Victoria station. Much of must have been a big, rather grand station is now in use as a Nisa supermarket. With, as I think I mentioned yesterday, a huge new building blocking the view of the station from the high street, it's status has been reduced to just a sleepy little station that probably served millions of passengers per week in holiday seasons many years ago.
  I always find the glass walled observation platform around the lifts that take you down to the front, rather scary, but it is great place to take pictures like this one of the pier. I aim for the steel handrail, and once i have touched it for reassurance I can look down the 40 of 50ft to the road with no trouble, and of course look out to views like this, or this....
  I have never been on this bit of beach, and I am not sure if it actually features sand, or like most of the coast out of the estuary, just mud and shingle. From this distance it does look like sand, but looks can be deceptive. Note how busy it is, and how many people are paddling or swimming among the turds coming out of the sewage outfall pipes marked by the poles with the green "hat" on them.
  It was before Covid, and maybe a few years even earlier than that when I did have a single ride on the Cliff Lift. It had just opened after a very sympathetic restoration. Unfortunately it does not have enough volunteer operators to run more than a few hours of service in the afternoon. It was closed when I passed it as I walked along the road at the top of the cliffs. I might have been tempted for a quick ride had it been open, but it was not part of my plan to do so.
  This red plaque condenses the history down to a very quick read.
  In a certain trade this would be referred to as "the money shot" - or the whole purpose of the work. Getting this picture of a seagull perched on Queen Victoria's head was enough to make my trip worthwhile...although I have seen this so many time now that the humour is starting to wear a bit thin, but there is still a bit of wear in it yet !
  This is the view of Queen Victoria from the front (and without seagull). She is pointing out to see, and possibly towards London, but with the way the river twists and turns, it could equally be towards the isle of Grain.
 I walked past this pretty looking little park. The entrance has a stopped clock above it, and for some inside, time has stopped for them too. My camera shot was not wide enough to show loads of oldies, some in wheelchairs, sitting on, or by benches that go around most the fountain area.
  Normally I like walking on or near the beach when I visit the seaside, but taking a very slightly inland route, mostly along the top of the cliffs, revealed lots of things I wouldn't normally see (and I expect few visitors see these things as well). This is a war memorial.
  This is an "unknown soldier" who stands guarding the base of the memorial night and day through all weathers. I had to over brighten the picture to show some of the details of this brass casting.
  As I mentioned yesterday, I guessed that my total walk in Southend was just 1.5 miles, or maybe a bit more when all the little detours I made, such as crossing roads, and walking back a small way for a better view for my camera. The last bit of the walk did involves a couple of very hilly bits, and so I was quite happy to reach Westcliff station to catch a train in the homeward direction.

  I was unlucky in that the first train to arrive, after only a fairly short wait, was one that took the scenic route, and took about 15 minutes longer than the most direct route. I could have saved that 15 minutes extra if I had waited about 15 minutes for the next train - for a gain, or loss of a couple of minutes. The train took me to Limehouse station where I changed to a DLR train to Lewisham after a 5 minute wait. At Lewisham I had a 7 or 8 minute wait for a train to Catford Bridge.

  I think I had prepared all these pictures in time to relax to some Star Treks. I watched the usual three, but most were not that gripping, and I caught up on other things during the commercial breaks, and if I was reading something interesting i wouldn't return to watching TV until I had finished that reading. It was between Star Trek: The Original Series, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, that I got my dinner from the kitchen, and then ate it watching TV.

  My dinner was a special recipe that was part to use up some ready cooked, BBQ flavoured chicken breast slices that were past their use by date, and part to make sure I could cook pasta in the microwave. I added some sliced bell peppers, and apart from a dash of olive oil, and a couple of chicken stock cubes, that was all it was. It actually added up to a very big portion that slipped down surprisingly easy, and there was still some easily suppressed temptation to eat more.

  After TV ended, at 9pm, I went to bed to finish reading the last two chapters of Matt Fielding's book "You Know You Love It". Matt if the front man for the band Ransom who I've taken a liking to since seeing them rock the big stage at Pettswood Calling. I found it a very enjoyable book, and I can really relate to much of what he writes about despite never have being in a band, or lived in a bedsit (or series of bedsits).

  It was hot last night, and that made getting to sleep difficult. Putting the big desk fan on helped at first, but later it made things feel a bit cool. On the whole I seemed to sleep well once I got to sleep. I seem to think I had quite a few dreams that were almost re-enactments of things I had read in Matt's book. One exception, although it could almost have happened in his book, was a photography session where I was joined by a lady photographer who preferred to work topless. The really peculiar thing is that I am not sure I actually saw her even though I know I was definitely working alongside her.

  This morning I knew that my blood glucose readings would be higher because I had eaten more during the day, and at least one thing was not known to be safe. However, 8.5mmol/l on the new meter, and 8.8mmol/l on the old meter were more like typical than particularly high. Maybe I have become greedy after a some days of unusually low readings.  The only health thing I was going to complain about was possible constipation, but although late, I "went" two paragraphs ago.

  I think I feel comfortable enough to go to, and enjoy at least a two pints of Guinness session in the pub at lunch time. When I get home I have a nice Tesco "Finest" Scotch Egg for lunch. I then have a cunning plan for dinner. I intend to have no more than a tub of low calorie/sugar ice cream for dinner. I would not be surprised if I had more, but only time will tell.