There is currently some nice sunshine as I write this, but the forecasts says it will be back to light grey in another 15 or 20 minutes. The sunny spells shown for 3pm above may be joined by another at 2pm according to the latest revision to the forecast, but most of today will be light grey except for a couple of hours that may be a darker grey. The maximum temperature today could be 12° C. Tomorrow could start at 8° C, and slowly cool until it may be just 3 or 4° C by the end of a day that could be a bit like today - mostly grey with a few random sunny spells.

   Yesterday was good, but it was also bad. That contradiction will be explained with a lot of pictures, as I gradually explain my day yesterday. One good thing was a hot shower. Yesterday I decided to turn up the gas to the water heater because the hot water was getting very tepid as the outside continues to cool as we plunge into winter.

  I was not sure I had not made the water too hot. I suspect it would be a bit uncomfortable to wash my hair with the water that hot, but it did feel good to wash the rest of my body. Straight after my shower I put in some laundry to soak in hot detergentey (new word - just invented !) water, and it is still there this morning, but now freezing cold. I'll have to deal with it before I take a shower today.
 The main thing on the menu yesterday was a lunchtime visit to The Jolly Farmers. I knew it to be quite cold outside, and so before I left I put on my second warmest winter coat (the warmest also has a hood to keep my ears and head warm and dry). Subsequently I was very glad that I put that coat on. When I got to the pub I found their heating had failed, and although I toughed it out for my first pint, I wore my coat while I drank my second pint of Guinness.
  I was on my own in the pub, and because of the cold there were few customers there. I guess that made it easier to concentrate on the quick crossword. I managed to finish that before I had finished more than half of my first pint. Maybe the cold was starting to get to me, and as I mentioned above, I put my coat on for the second pint, but my brain was already frozen, and I only managed to solve 3 or 4 of the cryptic crossword clues.
  I finished my second pint, and left the pub a little earlier than usual, and after a slow walk to the station I was in time to take a very poor snap of 707010. I was shooting almost straight into the sun, and the resulting photo is a bit crap, but the train number can be read, and it was one I was after. It is one of the class 707 trains that I now have pictures of it in red when running on South West Trains, and now in blue for Southeastern.
  On the back of 707010 was 707019, and this too was a train I have a photograph off when in red livery, but I wanted one in it's Southeastern blue livery. The sun was almost behind me for this photo, but still causing trouble. There was a lot of light reflecting off the back of the train, and the sky behind the train is well over exposed.
  I hit the jackpot yesterday - three wanted trains snapped on one short train ride ! I am only missing pictures of 3 class 466 trains now, and also 3 class 707 trains. The latter is slightly more complex because I hope to get pictures of these trains in both their red and blue livery, although the chances of getting more in red livery is low to zero now. I think, albeit really only a guess, that South West Railway have dumped all their class 707 trains onto Southeastern now.
  Talking of red livery..... There are many new trees planted along the raod from Catford Bridge station, and many of them are part of the maple family. There are two of them close together putting on a great autumn show of bright red leaves. There is another a bit further down the road that looks a bit straggly, but once these trees have (hopefully) matured more, maybe in another 4 or 5 years, it is going to be like walking down a road of flame in autumn.

  Despite my winter coat, I was not all that warm when I got home. One of the first things I did was to put some chips in the mini oven/grill for a nice hot lunch. I am not sure why I did it when a can or two of hot soup would have only taken a couple of minutes to heat, and would have been better for me - probably. The chips took at least 45 minutes, and I was too impatient to wait that long, and had some cold rice crackers and cheese to take my mind off the chips, and so to stop me drooling !

  I spent my first hour or more at home copying photos from my phone, and photos from my little Nikon S6300 pocket camera, to my PC, and selecting and editing them. I took a lot more than shown here, and maybe I might show a few of the others, mainly flowers and squirrels, tomorrow. After the photos and eating the chips, I felt bone weary, and with my bedroom warmed up enough to be comfortable, I laid on my bed, read for a bit, and then had a snooze.

  Earlier in the morning I had done a bit of washing up, and started a dice beef stew for dinner last night, but as dinner time approached I had not prepared and added any vegetables. More than that was a growing idea that I fancied something nicer. I decided I would order a kebab. I feel that ordering ready made food it a bit frivolous, but when I pad my phone bill a day or two earlier, I noted my bank balance is still very healthy, and indeed healthier than I was expecting when I embarked on my retirement 5 or 6 years ago.

  Of course I could more usefully spend some of that money on house repairs, but it would not go very far doing that. So, as I watched Star Trek I stuffed my face with rather more than felt ideal. It was a bit crazy ordering a lamb donor kebab. I feel sure it is far unhealthier than a shish kebab, but just to make sure I had one of each. I also had some piri piri wings. I didn't need to buy them because the donor and shish kebab met the minimum for a 15% discount, but having seen them I got curious. I suspect the glaze on them had some sugar content.

  I didn't watch the usual three Star Treks last night. At 6pm when I would usually watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine I changed channel to watch Star Trek: Enterprise. Deep Space Nine was another annoying story about Bajor and it's blood prophets. Star Trek: Enterprise was one of the very best episodes of the entire series. It concerned a story, that only we as viewers knew to be true (in the Star Trek universe) of when a group of stranded Vulcans lived on Earth for many months in the 1950s. It was most enjoyable, and many times more so than another crappy Star Trek: Voyager episode.

  Sometime in the last week or two I mentioned I had been watching some old recordings of The Avengers (the real British Avengers, and not the Disney characters or whatever crap they are), and had complained that some were poorly recorded as mp4 files. I said that they were good after being re-transcoded using Handbrake. Yesterday I discovered what I thought I had all the time, as more complete set of Avengers from the beginning to the end of the series (albeit with only three episodes from the firsts series).

  It was all a rather stupid thing. I had the bad lot filed under "Avengers", but further down the screen I noticed "The Avengers", and there were all the good recordings. I watched two episodes yesterday, and one of them was after Star Trek: Voyaher. I got to bed later than usual last night, and maybe that was a good thing because I was awake for less time before, once again, falling asleep at around midnight.

  Once again my sleep was imperfect, but still getting better. I seemed to spend very little time awake during the night, and as far as I can remember I only had to go for a pee a couple of times.....but each time I did have a very full bladder ! It hinted that maybe my blood glucose was still low-ish. I am very certain I had many dreams last night, and maybe I had too many because in trying to remember all, I seem to have forgotten all except a few vague snap shots.

  This morning my blood glucose is good, medium and bad. The bad was the reading on the Sino Care meter. It said 9.3mmol/l, and that is just about safe, but still very bad. The GlucoRX meter said 8.6mmol/l, and that is slightly higher than ideal, but not that much above average. The Contour meter read just 8.2mmol/l, and I classify that as good. The average of all three was 8.7mmol/l, and that seems good enough after all I ate yesterday.

  There was one special thing on the agenda for today, and it was for the delivery of a box of beers ordered by Jodie, and directed to be delivered here. it was slightly annoying to have this dumped on me with not more details than "today", and that DHL was the carrier. I guess I must blame myself for not getting Jodie to send me the package number so I could have attempted to track it, and get some idea of when it would be delivered. Fortunately it was delivered at 8.40am to a man who put on a t-shirt back to front in his haste to answer the doorbell !

  If I can finish doing the laundry, that is sitting in freezing cold detergent as I write this, and get it hanging up to dry early enough, I should have time for a shopping trip to Aldi.....although, when I think about it, there is nothing desperate I need, and maybe tomorrow morning would be a better time. This afternoon should be a beer tasting session with Jodie and Michael. I should have put the vegetables in my diced beef stew before then, and it will just need heating up at dinner time tonight.