Between writing yesterday morning, and going out, I had a rest, and then I had a shower. My final preparation was to take 2 paracetamol tablets, and also one 30gm aspirin tablet dissolved in water. The intention of the drugs was to stave off assorted pains for as long, and as strongly as possible. I feel sure they definitely helped, but I didn't expect them to be a complete cure. I might have mentioned yesterday that I was thinking of getting a train to either Lower Sydenham, or New Beckenham station, and walk home from there with the sun always at my back - and so better for photography. In the end I decided not to get a train.
  The painkillers were almost working, although my legs were still very creaky, but they did seem to ease up a bit after I had walked maybe 3/4 of a mile. I was getting strong hints of angina pain starting still, and my secret weapon was my camera. I had taken my Canon 600D camera with me. It is a fairly light camera, and a had a fairly light zoom lens on it. Frequent stops to take pictures like the above, of a brilliantly white egret allowed a minute or two rest, and the developing angina pain would go away.

  Incidently, the lens I was using was a cheap, but usually very good, Tamron lens. I had an identical lens, but with a fitting for Nikon cameras, and on the Nikon I always thought it gave a very soft, like slightly not properly focussed picture. The Canon version always seemed to give nice sharp results, but this picture of the egret seems "soft", and yet fine details can be seen. Maybe it is just the typical over exposure those stunning bright white feathers give - particularly in sunshine !
  I was told twice yesterday what species of butterfly it is. If I recall correctly it is a "Speckled Wood" butterfly - just checked, it is the speckled wood butterfly - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speckled_wood_(butterfly)
  This photo was more chance than skill. The duck was flying almost towards me, and I just raised the camera, pointed it in what I hoped was the right direction, and left the camera to work it all out. The camera seems to have focussed on the background trees, but the duck was close enough to them, and the duck is almost in focus. In fact it might just be some motion blur that softens it's outline. The camera was set to 1/1000th of a second so motion blur would be very much reduced. It is very rare that I manage to capture a bird in flight - my reactions are just not fast enough. Maybe I should take a chance like this time more often.
  From this angle coots and moorhens look very similar - the difference is most obvious in the colour of beak and legs.  For the sake of comedy I shall say these are cootlings (a word that I have probably made up). It would have been a far better picture if I was on the other side of the pond, and they were all swimming towards me. It would have helped if they had a tighter grouping. Unfortunately the position of the sun made using a lot of zoom from the wrong side of the pond.
  Egyptian geese are not that common around here, but I occasionally see a few near the river. This one appeared to be on it's own, but might have had a mate, possibly guarding eggs somewhere in the bushes. What this picture doesn't really show is any scale. These are quite big birds, and you could probably get a good Xmas dinner for a family of 10 out of it.

  At this point I had walked all the way to the bowstring bridge, and was on my way home. Maybe until now I had had several angina like twinges, but my legs seemed to have loosened up a bit. From here my legs started to aches again, and as far as I can remember, the angina pains had stopped. Maybe it was simply that my legs got so stiff that I was walking so slowly that it didn't stress my heart enough.
  We usually think of Robins as a winter bird, for some even a Xmas bird, but this one posed in all it's red finery for me.
  I was lucky to get this one poor picture of a butterfly I don't think I have seen before. It looks like a leaf when it folds it's wings when on a flower. When flying it looks very big, and is easy to see, but not identify from a distance. It is a shame that the dandelion flower is over exposed, and the focal point looks to be an inch or two behind the butterfly. The butterfly is (I hope) a common brimstone. I always have difficulty making a positive identification if the picture I am comparing it with it taken form a slightly different angle, and under different lighting conditions. More here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonepteryx_rhamni

   I did take more pictures than those shown here, but these are probably the more interesting even if not the very finest from the art of photography. Some photographic shots were just excuses to rest for a minute when I seemed to be aching a bit more than I was happy with. For about the last mile nothing would help the growing ache/fatigue of my legs. As I neared home it seemed harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other.

  It was a joy to reach home, but I still had to go up the stairs to me bedroom where I could change into simpler, lighter, and drier clothes. (My t-shirt was slightly damp with sweat after being out under the hot sun). oddly enough, walking up the stairs seemed no harder than walking, and maybe even easier. I guess it was different muscles in use.  Two things I did before I did anything else was to weigh myself, and to check my blood glucose.

  I knew it was dehydration more than burning off much fat, but at the end of the walk I was about 0.7kg lighter than before. The dehydration was such that my blood glucose measurement was higher than what it was in the morning. I had expected that, and ignored it. However I did not give in to eating anything. I did have several glasses of sugar free cola. Once I could relax I started copying photos from my Canon, and mobile phone camera, to my PC, and made a start on the selection and editing process. I only got as far as the first two pictures I took before I laid on my bed, and quietly read for an hour or two. I think I managed a snooze as well.

  Time seemed to be a bit variable from then on....or I didn't seem to be paying any attention to any clocks. I think it was getting near 6pm when I went down to the kitchen where I did a little bit of washing up, and prepared some baby potatoes for boiling. I found standing at the sink, washing up, and then gently scraping potatoes to clean them, gave me moderately bad lower back pain for some reason.

  I set the potatoes cooking in the microwave, on timer for about 12 minutes, and went back to my photos. Just before 6.30pm I had finished all but the last photo I used here (the very last one, the Common Brimstone butterfly, I actually edited this morning). I then checked my blood glucose, and it was OK, good, and good. The Contour meter, using a test strip from a brand new, freshly opened canister, read 8.4mmol/l. That was OK, but more than I hoped for.  The GlucoRX and Sinocare meters read closer to what I hoped for, 7.1 and 7.6mmol/l.

  My diner was very simple. It was boiled potatoes with ham, and some mustard and some low sugar ketchup. As such it should have been not terribly healthy (no green stuff), but should have had a low sugar content. I will admit I had a sort of starter meal of some plains salted tortilla chips (crisps) and cream cheese. The main downside is that for the second or third time running, the potatoes and ham didn't taste as good as I hoped. I think I make have been looking back in time, through rose tinted spectacles, of what I one ate at scot camp back in 1966 - freshly boiled ham, thickly cut, and served still hot, with potatoes, and possibly peas.

  I felt satisfied, or felt I had eaten enough, even if I didn't enjoy it at the level I imagined I would. I had done almost all my photo post production, but I still had a few pictures taken at a rest stop at Catford Bridge station. They were of trains, and I checked to see if I needed any of them for my spreadsheet of trains that I have photographed. I didn't, and so with the great chance of nothing on TV I went to bed to read for little more than half an hour.

  It was possible I was asleep before 9pm, but I still was paying little attention to the time. I think I was asleep 10 or 15 minutes after my head hit the pillow. That is not particularly fast, but typical for me when there are no obvious reasons not to fall asleep earlier. It felt like I would sleep like a log again, but last night there was a problem. My bedroom had been nicely warmed by the sun during the day, and I only had to run the heater a few times after dark to keep it nice and comfortable.

  Unfortunately it left my bedroom temperature at a very awkward level. It seemed to be just a tiny bit too warm to sleep well wrapped in the duvet, and at least 2 or maybe even 3 times I woke up to find I had kicked the duvet off, and woke up feeling cold. When that happened at about 4am I decided to turn the heater on low so the next time I woke up it would be just about warm enough to feel OK when uncovered.

  Maybe waking up cold was enough to spoil my sleep, or maybe I needed extra after my walk, but at just gone 6am I turned over, and went back to sleep again. That is habit I must get out of because next Tuesday, the day of my MRI scan, I will need to be pooed, washed and dressed, ready to get a train around 8am ! The last thing about my sleep - dreams. I seemed to have a lot of them, but all I seem to remember is like a lot of freeze frames with no explainable comments to make about them.

  This morning my legs don't feel too bad, but obviously they are not perfect. The rest of me is not so good. I may have slept awkwardly because my neck feels a bit sore, and so does my right shoulder. My chest seems to feel a bit like my scar tissue is complaining. On top of everything else I do still feel like I could lie down and have a snooze with little effort. It is going to be hard, but I want to fight these things later.

  One good thing is my blood glucose readings.....well, nearly good.  This morning's readings reflect the readings I got last night before dinner. The GlucoRX meter read 7.6mmol/l, and the Sinocare meter 7.9mmol/l. The latter two readings are closer to what I might wish for, but once again the Contour meter seems to be reading high. The best before date on the test strips say they should be OK until 30th August, and so they are in-date. Tomorrow morning, or maybe before dinner tonight, I will take the readings in a different order so the Contour meter get older (by a few tens of seconds) blood.

  My basic plan for today is to try and skip lunch again in favour of another walk in the afternoon warmth. I think I may only see today as a top up walk, and just maybe do no more than a walk to Ladywell and back - just under half, depending on the exact route I take, than yesterday's walk. Dinner tonight will be a chicken casserole with just some cauliflower. If I have any other things to eat today it might just be a few pieces of fruit - apples and/or oranges.