We are now in the middle of the storm, or maybe not. The forecast from The Met Office, as shown above, and hardly changed in the last revision, does look rather grim. However, the BBC weather forecast shows much of the rain as just light rain. As I write this there may have been heavy rain much earlier in the morning (while I was sleeping), but the current rainfall is generally just drizzle at the moment. All the action could start in the afternoon when there are seven hours of strong winds forecasts. It is going to be a very cool day with possibly a brief, one hour peak of just 11° C, but most of the day will be just 9 or 10° C. The storm should finish tonight, and tomorrow should be a calmer day. Both forecasters say it will probably be dry, and both predict a scattering of sunny spells during daylight hours. It might even be less cold with 12° C predicted.

   Yesterday was one of those good and bad days, and on reflection it was mostly good, with some slightly bad mostly towards the end of the day.  Probably the best thing was that the weather was kinder than earlier forecasts predicted it might be.

  The main thing on the menu yesterday was to go to The Jolly Farmers for my usual 2 pints of Guinness, and doing the crosswords in The Metro. I seemed to take a long time to get myself ready to go out, mainly because I felt in a sort of lazy/relaxed mood. I had intended to wash my hair, but I didn't think I had time for that when I finally went for a shower. My hair wasn't too bad, and I would only have wanted it extra clean and shiny if I thought there was any chance greater than 0.02% of Angela turning up at the pub.

  There was another reason for not bothering to wash my hair. I was expecting it to be washed by rain as I made my way to and from the pub. As I left the house the rain seemed to have stopped, and it was starting to brighten up. I didn't bother wearing a hooded raincoat, but I did wear a coat I could easily do up to keep my chest dry, and a bit warmer. The coat was my slightly thinner leather-like jacket, but with hindsight maybe the slightly thicker one might have kept me a bit warmer.

  I was perfectly dry when I got to the pub, although as mentioned above, I didn't feel particularly warm on account of it being windy. It was very quiet in the pub when I got there, and I think there may have only been 2 other customers in there. With little banter going on, I settled down to do The Metro crosswords. A couple of the quick crossword clues gave me some trouble, but I got them after coming back to them at the end, and I made a good start on the Cryptic clues.
  The glass in the picture above was my second pint of Guinness, and I have taken just one mouthful. For reasons unknown I couldn't seem to solve another cryptic clue. It was very odd because until then I had done the whole quick crossword, plus what looks to be half the cryptic crossword before my brain obviously shrivelled up, and no more answers were forthcoming. I ended up having a third pint in case that loosened up a constipated brain cell.

  I decided against trying a couple of whiskies, and headed home after that third pint of Guinness. It felt oddly OK outside the pub. It was still dry (apart from an abundance of puddles), and again it felt like the sun could find a gap in the clouds at any moment. I can't seem to recall if the sun came out or not, but I am sure I remember it being out at some time that I was at home (unless I am confusing bit of the day before yesterday with yesterday).

  I don't know how I did it* but for maybe the 3rd or even 4th time in a row, I only arrived back at Ladywell station with less than a minute to spare before my train back to Catford Bridge arrived. There was no special reason to get the train back to Catford Bridge - I might even have enjoyed the walk through the park to home, but I am glad I did get the train because I bagged a new train number to add to my spreadsheet.

* I know exactly why I have almost missed a train for the last 3 or 4 weeks - it was because I haven't been checking the train time on my phone, and just leaving it to chance. I guess I am lucky that I didn't miss any of the trains, but a few weeks ago it came very close.
  This is the one train I added to my photo collection - 465016. I almost missed using it because I had photographed it in May 2004 when it was painted in the old Connex yellow and white livery. It hasn't happened many times because I was I photographed trains only on special occasions many years ago, but it gives a great feeling to get pictures of trains in old and new liveries.
  The rear of the train had unit 465003 on it. I already had a good picture of that, but I photographed the side of the rear carriage to show how some mental defective had tagged it, and made it look like a complete mess. I can only hope that they catch the bastards who did this pointless crap, and ideally lock them up for a year, plus probation for years after with the threat of more jail time if they are even suspected of doing more "tagging".
  On a happier note, I saw sweet pea in flower alongside the railway as I walked back home. I am sure they should not be flowering in November, but I expect all the vegetation alongside the railway, right up to, and often slightly beyond the chain link fence, gives a sort of micro climate, and some plants give it another go until maybe the next frost, which can't be long now we are in November, kills them off.
  Like the sweet peas, these blackberries are hanging on until the last minute as they trying and ripen in the dwindling sun. Maybe these blackberries, and the sweet peas, are an indication that so far we have had a mild, or almost mild, autumn. IF the long range forecast offered on the BBC website carries any credibility, then we might be waiting until close to December before we get any frosts.

  When I got home I had a minor disaster. I tried to pair my phone with my new Apple iMac (running Linux). Pairing kept seeming to fail for some reason. I would get the message saying the phone was trying to pair with the computer, and did I want to proceed. Everytime I pressed "Yes" Bluetooth died on the computer.  Eventually, after a lot of fiddling about I managed to kill all bluetooth, and Wifi support, and as I write this I don't know how, or how I can repair it.

  I then took my phone, and my Nikon S6300 pocket camera up to my main PC, and transferred all the pictures I have used here, plus a few I didn't use, to my main PC. With that done I had a snack. It was just rice crackers with some cheese slices and some slices of salami. It seemed almost like quite a lot, but the whole lot could have been piled onto a saucer. It was certainly not enough to kill my feeling of hunger.

  As the afternoon came to an end, and in half an hour the first Star Trek came on TV (an another annoying episode that I only watched maybe a quarter of), I started to feel really starving. Now unfortunately, while in the pub, Ayse, my favourite barmaid was going on about a Chinese meal she had the previous day. That planted a seed in my mind, a very naughty seed. I ended up ordering a Chinese takeaway knowing full well it would be a disaster.

  I limited my order to just three items, or just enough to qualify for a 10% discount. The first, and only dish I ate was a House Special with egg fried rice. It was very nice, and didn't give any impression of sweetness, and yet I felt sure it would raise my blood glucose a lot. I was probably fretting about that enough that I declined to eat any of the other two dishes - one of which is Singapore Fried Rice - nice and spicy (I hope), but that rice could easily be the source of a lot of sugar after it is digested. The other dish was a Chicken Chow Mein which I hope has a lot of bean sprouts in it - they are usually very safe.

  I was in bed around 9pm, and asleep not too long afterwards. I seemed to sleep very soundly, and only woke up a few times. One time was around 3am when I was woken up by what sounded like a strong wind, and hail hitting my window. It seemed to die away quite soon after waking me. I think I probably woke for a pee around midnight, but my memory of that is so vague it could have been a dream. My overall impression was that I only needed a couple of pees in the night, and that seemed like a good omen - it wasn't !

  Unless going for a pee was a dream, I can't seem to remember dreaming at all last night....well, maybe I sort of remember that I did dream, but not a single memory of any detail has remained. So, on with the bad news. My blood glucose readings were as expected - rather high. Once again, despite taking the measurements in a different order, my newest blood glucose meter, the apparently Chinese knock-off, gave a very bad reading of 10.4mmol/l. That is in the danger area. The other two meters almost agreed on a lower reading of 9.4 and 9.3mmol/l. Both are not quite in the danger zone, and both are very undesirable.

  I would have weighed myself this morning because it feels like I didn't eat all that much yesterday - just the wrong thing. Unfortunately I seem to be constipated this morning, although after breakfast of just a single packet of generally safe instant noodles, I may be starting to feel like something is on the move. it is too late now though, and besides, it is often better to weigh yourself less frequently to allow some time for the ups and downs to (hopefully) even out (in a downward direction).

  I don't think I need to go shopping today - particularly not with two Chinese meals in the fridge ! I just hope that Michael does his usual on a Thursday, and gets me 4 bottles of Diet Coke while shopping with car and supermarkt trolley. This afternoon, unless the stormy weather puts people off, should be a beer drinking session with Jodie and Michael. I just hope Jodie wasn't on a bender last night, and doesn't shy away from some of the stronger beers that are accumulating in the fridges !