The BBC got off to a bad start by saying there should be sunny spells as I write this. The Met Office more correctly said the morning could be very dull - which it is, but I can see some thin bits of cloud where the sun could burn through later - maybe by 11am when they say sunny spells, and even full sunshine could start. It is still going to be an even colder day today with a high of just 8° C, and down to a very shivery 4° C by the end of the day.  The BBC shows a very savage forecast for tomorrow - starting and finishing at 1° C, and peak of just 6° C - and that after a day of strong sunshine. The Met Office say a start and finish of 3° C, and some of the daylight hours being sunny spells rather than full sunshine.

   I'm not sure why, but yesterday was one of those days when I seemed to have very little get up and go. Eventually it did turn into a good day, but it was very slow to get there. About the only thing I did prior to going out at 3.30pm was to finish the laundry that had been soaking in detergent for almost 24 hours.

  The first stage of getting the items of laundry, three t-shirts and three pairs of underpants, out of that nasty cold soapy water was pretty unpleasant, but the three rinses were done in hot water, and was the final, fabric conditioner stage. I can't remember when I started to finish that laundry, but I remember being very lazy beforehand, and I slumped back into laziness after I had hung it all up to dry on the clothes horse.

  It was getting on for 1pm before I even had a shower. I wanted to wash my hair, but I thought the shower water might be too hot for that. It was quite a shock to my cold body when I first started to shower, but it wasn't long before it just felt hot, but nice. I am reluctant to try and turn the temperature down because it is such a fine adjustment that it would be easy to overshoot back to where it was when it had started to feel too tepid. With some even colder days approaching the water temperature will drop by itself.

  It must have been around midday when Jodie called in sick. She said she couldn't come over for the afternoon beer tasting because she had snot poring out everywhere ! It seemed like a good reason to ask Michael if he fancied getting a couple of pints in at The Catford Bridge Tavern. He said yes, and we arranged to meet up outside my house, and proceed to the pub from there.
  In the pub I found these two beers on hand pump. The Autumn Red is quite a thin beer with a very light taste. It wasn't exactly enjoyable, but it slipped down with ease ! The Resonance Citra Golden Pale was predictably not that nice. I am not keen on Citra hops - they can impart of sour grapefruit sort of taste. However, it wasn't too bad, and I could have tried another if there were nothing else to choose from.
  I asked for, and got a small taster of this Smoky Horyzon beer. I have tasted a few German Rauchbiers, and some were not too bad, but it seems modern craft brewers want take old recipes to extremes, and so ruin what could be good beers. Interesting enough, the wikipedia article I linked to does not mention another traditional way of making smoky beers. It is to heat rocks up in a smoky wood fire, and then toss the hot sooty rocks into the beer. Oh, and almost forgetting to say that one small taster was quite enough for me.
  Another beer that I was dubious about. Sussex Haze, as the name implies, is a slightly cloudy beer, but in this case it was only very slightly cloudy. The fact that I can't remember if it was good and bad suggests it was pleasant without being exciting.
  This was my fourth pint, and I was at the stage where I would only remember if it was horrible or amazingly great. It seemed to slip down easily enough, and if I had wanted another pint I would have no qualms about another, but four pints was more than the three I thought I should have. However, fate was on our side. it was during this final pint that we learned that there would be a band playing in the pub this very night (Friday 24th). They are called Weird Moon Rising. If you click on their name you'll go to a page with their bio, and a showreel.

  After the fourth pint we exited the pub to walk home. I suddenly realised, that after a wait of 50 odd years, I was finally in the position to get home first after a pub session. Michael had another 2 minutes walk after I said goodbye outside my house. In the past, and it is many, many years ago since I regularly walked home some of the way with a friend, it was always me who had the extra distance to go.

  It was after dark when I got home, but it was not long after 5pm, and although I missed some of the first Star Trek, I watched most of three different episodes. I had precooked my dinner, and just had to warm it up in the microwave before eating it while watching TV. It was a diced beef stew with pak choi and onion. It seemed to go down well after beers, and a walk home in the cold and dark. It would later have an "interesting effect".

  It was because I was mildly drunk that I decided to have a sort of dessert after my, until then, healthy dinner. I had about 5 "no added sugar" oat biscuits with some ready sliced cheese on them. The trouble is that "no added sugar" is not quite the same as "sugar free", and the effect was noticeable this morning. After the third Star trek I tidied up a few things and went to bed. It was at 8.20pm, and although it was to bed last night, tonight that is about when I shall be going out to the gig in The Catford Bridge Tavern !

  My initial idea was that I was going to read for maybe half an hour before trying for sleep, but I seemed to feel quite tired, and something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. The first clues came 5 minutes after laying down in the form of some ominous rumbling from my stomach. After another 5 minutes I let get a rather large, and very sulphurous fart. Several more farts followed, and I knew that sooner or later I would be needing the toilet.

  For what might have been the next hour I was back and fourth between bed and bog. Finally the gas turned solid....well actually it was more like thin brown mud ! I seemed to sit on the toilet for maybe 15 minutes before I felt confident to go back to my bedroom. I knew it was not all over, and so rather than go back to bed, I sat at my PC and read some news and stuff. Sure enough, 10 minutes later I felt a little twitch, and hurried back to the toilet. After another 15 or so sitting in the cold toilet it seemed like I was finally empty, and this time I went back to bed.

  I am unsure when it was I went back to bed. It felt very late, but I am guessing it was really only about 10pm. It didn't seem to take very long to fall asleep, and from then on I seemed to sleep OK with only a couple of interruptions. It may have been 2am when I woke up from a seemingly long and complex dream, but I can't remember a thing about that dream. At about 5am I turned the heater on full after having the heater on half for about half the night.

  It was possibly after the room warmed up enough to sleep half uncovered, that I was relaxed enough to have another dream. I can't describe as a nightmare, but it was halfway there. I dreamed I was in France with Angela. We did some forgettable sight seeing until we got to a small village. I somehow lost Angela after seeing her going in a bar, and talking to a couple of women. I looked everywhere for her. I searched every room in the bar I could get into, and just could not find her. That was bad enough in itself, but just to add to my discomfort, Angela had my rail and ferry tickets, and possibly spending money too.

  I guess it was nice to wake up from that dream ! I wondered if I would have another nightmare when I checked my blood glucose readings. They weren't good, but they weren't bad either. In fact they were very ordinary, but after a short run of better readings they did seem to be a bit high. The Sino Care was worst at 8.9mmol/l. Next was the Contour meter at 8.7mmol/l and best was the GlucoRX meter at 8.6mmol/l. That is an unusually tight set of readings.

  I was going to have another go at shopping in Aldi today, but I am thinking that maybe there is nothing I need urgently, and with my weight seeming have gone up by a whole kilogram this morning, eating less would be wise. Some of that weight gain may be to do with my "digestive upset". Yesterday morning I was constipated until about 11am when I did an absolute minimum. Last night I was the exact opposite of constipated, and with bells on !!  I haven't been yet, this morning, but I ave a feeling that sooner or later a lot more will be forthcoming !

  With no shopping planned for today I can be as lazy as I want, and in fact a long afternoon sleep might be beneficial to psyching me up so I can feel very slightly more natural about going out to the pub when I would otherwise be going to bed. I am not expecting to stay out late tonight. I may spend no longer than an hour in the pub getting a selection of photos of the band. Maybe if there was anyone there I knew I might stay longer, but considering I have a hectic day tomorrow, and hour seems plenty. Tomorrow I want to spend the afternoon taking pictures of three bands of the live stage for the Petts Wood Xmas lights turning on ceremony. In the evening I shall be taking more pictures of the rare treat of a band in The Black Cat pub.
  Yesterday I promised to show a few more pictures taken on my way to and from the pub. Here's a tree showing some good reds and golds before it's leaves finally fall off.
  There were lots of squirrels in and around the St Mary's Therapeutic Garden. This one was posing on a old grave.
  Another squirrel on another old grave. I'm guessing that extra bit of height gives them a clearer view of approaching danger when the nearest tree is 20 to 30 ft away.
  I was most pleased this action shot came out as well as it did. I had to use a lot of zoom, on a quite murky day. There is a tint bit of camera shake making the grass look less than sharp, but the squirrel is quite well defined.