It took an hour or so after sunrise for the sun to make it through some lingering clouds, but the sun is shining as I write this. There is still some thin cloud around, and so the latest revision to the forecast is probably right when it says only sunny spells until 1pm when full sunshine is expected until almost sunset. Today will be a trifle cooler with a maximum of just 11° C in the early afternoon. Tomorrow sees a return to light rain, but is seems possible there could be some sunny spells between showers in the afternoon. The temperature will probably be about the same as today, 11° C.

   Yesterday did not get off to a great start. Everything was fine at first. I washed my hair, and had a shower, and seemed ready to go out. It was sort of typical these days that I realised I needed an extra poo before going out. That delayed me enough to make me miss the bus I intended to get.

  Fortunately I realised I had left it too late to get the next 320 bus before I left home. Had I got that bus the chances were that I would have reached my objective, Ye Olde Whyte Lyon pub in Locksbottom, in about an hour, and almost in time to see Jo start here solo performance in the pub at 2pm. Missing one bus was bad enough, but what really annoyed me is that the bus I aimed for never appeared.

  I was standing at the bus stop watching the Countdown info on my phone. It said the 320 will arrive in 5 minutes, then 2 minutes, then two minutes, then 2 minutes, and then it just disappeared. The 320 bus should have been running at 20 minute intervals. Missing one added a 20 minute delay. The next one not even running put me 40 minutes behind schedule. To make matters worse, although I had a raincoat on to keep me dry, it was only a thin one and I started to feel a bit cold as I waited for the next bus.

  With the bus before missing, my bus had to make extra, or longer stops to pickup people had been waiting a long time, plus the traffic to, and through Bromley seemed very slow moving. I thought on a Sunday it would be moderately quiet, but of course all the shops were open for Xmas shopping. Eventually we made it through Bromley, and a few stops later I got off the bus to wait for my next bus of my two bus ordeal.

  I guess it was only a 5 minute wait for a 61 bus to turn up. As I got on I asked the driver if the best stop for the pub was before or after the pub. He said he had never heard of the pub. It's only been there a couple of hundred years ! The bus said it was headed for Chislehurst, and that gave me hope that it would stopping at a stop I had used in the past while on the incredibly slow 366 bus. It did - which was a relief, because I knew exactly where I was.
  After crossing over the road, and going around the corner, there was the pub ! Once I got inside I saw many people I knew (even if I couldn't know, or be sure of their names), and I took the opportunity, after saying hello, to have a good moan about what must have been over 90 minutes door to door. After that I settled own and started to enjoy myself.
  Jo was on good form, but I can't say I liked everything she sang. At least one was boring, and maybe another one or two were a bit too Xmassy. One good thing was that there was plenty of light at first, even if the backlighting was a bit strong. The colour balance was tricky, and I think I had to correct most picture to give a correct flesh tone. Note how the daylight outside looks very blue compared to the pub lighting.
  It is sort of tricky to take a good variety of pictures of just one person, but I managed to get about 12 decent shots from different angles. The later pictures used flash because it had started getting dark outside, and the pub seemed to turn off some of indoor lights for some very weird reason beyond my comprehension. Fortunately there was still enough light that I only needed a weak flash just to lighten up some of the darker areas of the picture.
  For specially posed pictures, like this one of Chris, my mobile phone camera works really well in low light situations. It is almost, but not exactly, a long exposure. I think the software tracks any movement so you don't get too much motion blur, but it does pop up a message to say to keep your phone still when taking such pictures. This picture of Chris, taken on my phone camera, came out really crisp. Chris was there to give a bit of help for Jo setting stuff up, but mostly because Chrissy, his girlfriend runs the pub (which is how he met her).

  The plan was to meet Jodie in The Star And garter pub later in the afternoon. I had originally advised her that I would probably leave the pub after an hour, and so might get to The Star And Garter pub in Bromley at an estimated 3.30pm, but that assumed I would get to the pub around 2pm for the start of the gig. I didn't ! I ended up leaving the pub at about 3.45pm, and assumed I would get to Bromley as much as half an hour after Jodie.

 When I left the pub I went to the bus stop I had used in the past because it gave me a choice of two buses. One was the 61, the bus I used to get there. The other was the dreaded 366 - the bus that goes over every speed hump in London. At least that is what it feels like. The Countdown display was not displaying correctly at the bus stop, and showed something like "36" as the second bus to arrive. I assume it meant to say 366, and it wasn't the second bus, but the first. I got on it.

  I stayed on that bus until the next stop past Oakley Road - the road towards Keston, and the road the 320 bus comes down. I don't think I waited more than 60 seconds before I was getting on a 320 bus. It all fell into place nicely. had I got the 61 bus it would mean a bit of a walk from Bromley North station, but the 320 would, and did drop me off a hundred feet or so from The Star And Garter.

  That pub has changed a lot since I was last there. They still have 5 or 6 working hand pumps, and well over a dozen keg beer taps. What they don't seem to have is any well known cask ales. All their beers are weird stuff, and i now see why Jodie likes the place so much. I thought I would start off with just a half of Advance "What Dreams Are made Of". It was a cloudy and slightly sour beer, which isn't quite to my taste, but it did have some fruity undertones which were pleasant. Unfortunately it seemed to be insanely expensive. I was charged £6.20 for a half. I think that was the price per pint, and I think the barman realised it later because the next time I was at the bar, buying a round, it seemed strangely cheap.

  Jodie and Alan arrived about 15 or 20 minutes after I got there. The original plan was for a beer or two, and then back to my place for more beers from Jodie's advent calendar beer box. I suggested that wasn't a great idea because it seemed to be getting late to me, and there was no heating on at home, and the iMac was not working, and so there was no music. We agreed to have a few more halves before I would go home alone.

  It might have been 4 more halves of beer, and the last three were particularly good. The weakest was an oatmeal stout from the Starsky brewery. It had quite an odd, but pleasant taste. The other two were quite strong chocolate based stouts (or dark beers). Both were very delicious, although on first taste one of them did seem to have unfortunate hints of coffee. I did wonder how drunk I might be getting after not eating anything since breakfast.

  When I left the pub I had a choice of a 208 or 320 bus. Fortunately the 208 came first, and although usually slightly slower than the 320, despite following the exact same route as the 320 until reaching Catford, it had the advantage of stopping opposite the Wetherspoons pub, which next but one to the kebab shop. I got off the bus that one stop early, and went and ordered myself a large donor kebab for my dinner.

  Probably the longest walk I did yesterday was from the kebab shop to home. Of course that last walk was buffered by booze, but throughout the whole day I didn't seem to suffer from any unusual aches, or indeed any of the common one. I guess that is what happens when the temperature goes above 10° C. It was still good to get indoors, and tuck into the kebab while the heater struggled to get my bedroom nice and war,

  Of course a donor kebab is not as healthy as a shish, but the good thing is there is usually no waiting around for a donor kebab. I enjoyed it immensely, and it seemed to perk me up a lot. I was almost ready for bed, but I found I had enough energy to do all the selecting and photo editing of the pictures I took before going to bed. After that I still felt OK to read for 20 minutes in bed.

  I have no real idea what time I fell asleep. I know it seemed to be ages before I fell asleep, and it seemed to be hard to stay asleep. I almost wonder if some of my dreams were about having insomnia during the night. It did seem as if I was awake a lot in the night, but when I tried to get extra sleep after I had turned the heater up full, at about 5am, I barely seemed to sleep at all. it was as if I just didn't need any more sleep.

  Some blame may fall on the donor kebab, but I think most blame falls on a couple of the beers I had early yesterday evening. Two of them seemed very sweet - the sort of sweetness that lingers on the lips as a sticky layer. On the other hand, my blood glucose readings were actually very average - or the old average as try and think of it. Not only that, but the three meters broadly agreed with each other for a change.

  The Contour meter read 8.6mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read the same. This time it was the Sino Care meter that read lowest instead of highest. It said just 8.1mmol/l. These figures were neither high nor low by usual averages, but I have been getting lower averages for several weeks now. It would maybe have helped tomorrows readings if i hadn't had a double portion of instant noodles for breakfast this morning.

  It would definitely help if I pulled my finer out today, and make sure I prepare and cook a nice healthy dinner....but there is a catch. The probably ingredients for tonight's dinner is lamb and leeks. It was a mistake to buy leeks because being a root vegetable they do add to the sugar load of my eating. On the other hand, all that plant fibre should keep me "regular"!

  I am uncertain of how today will plan out. It is possible that Jodie and Alan will turn up today. I know Alan wants to pick up something he has bought on Ebay in Catford either today or tomorrow. Jodie may well hitch a lift from him. So I don't if Alan will just drop Jodie off if he comes this way today or tomorrow, and whether he will come here as well. He may well do because he says he has a more modern Mac computer to not so much give me, but dump on me ! Oh well, the more the merrier.

  So today I have to do some cooking, and I needed to try and get the iMac working. Apart from that I could have enough spare time to go for a walk in the sunshine if I knew that Jodie was not coming over. I hope they give me lots of early warning so I can plan my day better - if indeed it is ever planned these days.