The forecast has already been revised to more match this morning. It now says it ought to be misty (it isn't) and that there will be some drizzle at 8am. The BBC says light rain after the drizzle, but the Met Office says it will be dry until midnight. Much of the day could be various shades of grey, but there is still a chance of a sunny spells or two early this afternoon.  12° C is forecast for today. Tomorrow could start with light rain, and 11° C, but the sky will quickly clear to give full sunshine for the rest of the day, but it will have cooled a lot down to just 9° C by midday. Late in the evening just 4° C is expected.

    Yesterday was a generally good day, but it had it's moments..... The main thing on the menu was my usual Wednesday lunchtime drink in The Jolly Farmers pub. I had done the shave and shampoo but the day before, and all I had to do was to shower and get dressed before going out.

  Of course it wasn't quite as quick as that. After spending almost 2 hours writing (at least I think it might have taken that long) I needed a rest before doing anything else. I only got dressed about half an hour before I went out. During that half hour I texted Michael with the same offer as the previous week, to say I would be in the pub if he needed a break from his hospital vigil. Once again he said he couldn't leave the hospital, and when pushed for an answer he he did admit that he sometimes slept on a chair, and sometimes went home to sleep at night.

  I can't fault Michael's devotion to duty, but I continue to worry that he is harming himself, and in doing so making him less good at helping his wife through her difficulty (possibly senile dementia). After leaving to walk to the station I saw the first casualty I had seen of storm Isha.
  This blown down fence, and gate, was just at the end of my road. I do remember that the fence was leaning a bit well before any recent storms, and it was a wonder it hadn't fallen down earlier. The house was renovated, and possibly converted into two or more flats a couple of years ago, and I think that was when the steel gate was let into the fence. It was likely other damage was done by the builders.
  I guess I won't be going anywhere by rail on Tuesday the 30th January !
  As you cross the river to come out of the park by St Mary's church (with the pub just around the corner) there is a small bit of park bordered by two paths and the river. It is sheltered there, and it is where the first of the spring flowers pop up. Yesterday it was just snowdrops, but it probably won't be long before some crocuses appear.
  A robin did a nice pose for me as I passed the shrub in the background. The light was a bit dim, and the slightly greenish brown background didn't make the robin stand out very well, but at least it held it's pose for long enough for a moderately long exposure.....unlike a certain dog !
  There are loads of squirrels at the Ladywell end of the park, and around the grounds of St Mary's church. It was easy to find one doing a fairly good pose for me.
  This is Stella, a very well behaved, and friendly dog who I have seen in the pub quite a lot recently. She will do a lot of things on demand, but just can't seem to pose for my camera. Even if most of her is still, there is always some bit moving. In this picture the tip of tail is blurred as she wagged it. I did get a picture of her when she was laying down, and it could have been good. It was all nicely in focus, but once again, because it is dim in the pub, it was a long-ish exposre, and she moved her head and ruined the picture.

  I had a good time in the pub yesterday. Playing ball with Stella was a pleasant diversion a few times, but there was a lot of great banter as well. Once again I managed to do all but one clue in the quick crossword, but I was too distracted to manage more than two, or maybe three, clues in the cryptic crossword. I was enjoying myself enough to want to stay for a third pint, and I was about to go at the end of that third pint.

  Before I left I went for a pee, but the toilet was busy, and I opted for another half pint of Guinness. While at the bar there was a conversation about Turkish food going on. Ayse, my favourite barmaid who is of Turkish decent, was saying that the best Turkish restaurants were in North London. I asked if she recommended any place that does deliveries to Catford, and she said that The Levante restaurant was her favourite. She wrote the name on a post-it-note for me, and after having my pee, I thanked all for a great afternoon, and headed home.
  This rather bad photo was taken on my mobile phone. It did it's best, but the result looks a bit "plasticky". On the left is regular, Sid, and on the right is Stells. Beneath Sid's foot is Stellas red ball - that thankfully has been de-squeaked !

  While walking to the station where I picked up two copies of The Metro (one for me, and one for Ayse), and caught the train the single stop to Ladywell, I was getting some mild, but annoying, and worrying chest pains. It does seem the time will soon come when I will have to try and mention it to my doctor. I had been hoping it might have just been a cold weather thing, and indeed that does make it worse, but it was mild yesterday, and it suggests that another artery needs a rebore or something.

  Now the odd thing is that when going home my chest was no bother at all. Maybe I was walking slightly slower, maybe 3.5 pints of Guinness helped. Who knows ? What I do know is that on the way home my legs were aching, and my right knee in particular. Perhaps that slowed me down enough to stop the chest pains, on the other hand, I don't think I let it slow me down that much.

  My overall feeling once I got home was one of hunger. There were several things I could have had, including a plate of chips, which was what I had originally planned, but I tried to keep things light because I knew I was going to cave in, and try the restaurant Ayse recommended to me. I had some rice crackers with cream cheese, and they almost worked.

 A bit later on I had a little tub of lentil salad. That was after transferring all the pictures I have used here, and a similar amount that I didn't use, before doing the usual selection and editing process. By the end of that my hangover was kicking in. It was only mild, but I still wanted to lie down and have a snooze. I thought the lentil salad might perk me up, but it just made things worse, and I did lie down and snoozed for maybe half an hour.

  I woke up in time to miss the first 15 minutes of Star Trek. While I watched the rest I found out that The Levante Turkish restaurant had it's own web sire where food could be ordered to be delivered. As expected it was a bit expensive, but I ordered enough to qualify for free delivery, and there was a 10% discount code offered. After using that it was still expensive, but not terribly so for what I thought was supposed to be great food.
  I made no attempt to lay it all out on a plate, and just ate straight from the containers it came in. On the left is what to my mind is a single, albeit slightly large, serving of salad. I ordered three items that came with salad, but I just got this single container. I will admit it was quite a tasty salad. On the right is lamb shish served on a bed of couscous, and smothered with both little containers of chilli sauce.

  The couscous was unwanted, but there was no option to have the lamb shish with nothing but salad. I opted for couscous over the other two options that were rice or chips. The meat was nice, but I have had nicer, and it was a moderately big portion, but it should have been for the price charged. I also ordered a chicken shish to see how that compared with other places. I guess I can only say it was average, or typical.

  I ordered the chicken shish with chips. I didn't eat them last night, but intend to have them as ballast before drinking today. The other thing I ordered was a Lahmacun - a sort of very thin pizza. When the little supermarket on Catford Bridge was the Turkish supermarket they used to sell Lahmacun there. It was dressed with lemon, and green coriander. It was delicious. The base was very thin, but still soft and flexible.

  The Lahmacun I had last night was cooked so much that the base because very brittle, and the edges were charred. It was not dressed with lemon juice, or fresh green coriander. It was not nice, and a great disappointment. I am glad I tried The Levante restaurant, but I feel I won't be using it again, the prices and minor disappointments add up to a feeling of "never again". Shame really, because it was very good in parts.

  I quietly read for a while to miss out on a tedious looking QI, but went back to the TV to watch an episode of QIXL. That was followed by Have I Got News For You. I think it was 11pm before I went to bed. I felt almost painfully stuffed after wanting to test every thing in my Turkish meal last night. Fortunately it didn't seem to stop me getting to sleep quite quickly/ I also seemed to sleep quite well. I did get up to pee several times, but had no problem getting back to sleep again.

  Once again I had one or more dreams that I think may have been inspired by the book I am reading, but I find I can't remember a thing about them. So on to the usual report on my blood glucose readings this morning. Two readings were not good but were still OK. The Contour meter read 8.6mmol/l, and the GlucoRX meter read a slightly lower 8.5mmol/l. As often seems to happen (but not yesterday) the Viva Chek meter went out on a limb and read 9.2mmol/l. That was on the second attempt with definitely fresh blood from a different finger after the first reading was terribly high, but 9.2mmol/l is still very much undesirably high.

  Any minute now, in real time as I write this, I could be getting a delivery of beer from beermerchants.com. It is being delivered by DPD and I have always found them to be pretty good - even to the extent that they sometimes come 5 or more minutes early. It is now 9.52, and my delivery slot is supposed to be between 9.54 and 10.54. At this point I looked out the window, and the van had just arrived - 2 minutes early !

  I now have some new beers in the beer fridges, and hopefully some will amuse Jodie when she comes over for this afternoon's beer tasting session. The silly thing is that  despite me selecting and ordering the beers, there are definitely some that I very much doubt I will like, or even want to have any more than the briefest taste ! They are sour and cloudy fruit beers that are far too tart for my tastes, and yet Jodie likes them....or might do !

  Thanks to an early start writing all this, and the early delivery of the beers, I think I might have time to go shopping, and eat my pre-beer chips before Jodie arrives today.