08:41 BST

 
  Yesterday was probably one of the best days for some time. That is not to say it was all good. The morning was a time of great indecision, and also a time of some resting, and even snoozing, but eventually I had a nice shower, and got ready to go out.

  One of my targets for yesterday, and I guess most days really, was to try and be very careful about what I ate - when I had an easy choice - dinner was preset the day before. My breakfast was just a single small packet of instant noodles. I was going to skip lunch entirely, but I did have two very small, 15gm, bags of puffed, beef flavoured, Hula Hoops. They are really insubstantial. and just crumble to a tiny bit of dust when chewed.

  One little trick I tried may have actually worked. It was to make the folder/directory on my PC for pictures to be taken at the gig I was thinking I ought to try to go to. Whether that helped to get me out if completely unknown. After all, with a click of the mouse I could have deleted it. The fact is that I did go out. I aimed to get the 14:40 Sevenoaks train from Catford station to Shortlands station.

  I allowed almost 20 minutes to get to the station, but I had a 10 minute wait when I got there. A 10 minute walk was about my usual time when I was feeling fit and healthy, and it seems I could still get very close to that when suffering from the possibility of angina and aching legs. I did have to stop for about 20 seconds when I got as far as Catford Bridge station, but I seemed OK after that to walk to the lift up to the platform at Catford station. The lifts at Catford station are really useful because the long walk up the steps would most probably put me into angina territory.
  I don't usually use my big Nikon D610, plus big lens, for train photography, but I had it with me anyway, and couldn't resist snapping any passing trains. 700025 was a train I didn't have in my collection. It was heading towards Blackfriars while I was waiting for my train going towards Sevenoaks.
  I got lucky when I got to my destination, Shortlands station. It is always a great place to change trains for one going to Petts Wood and Orpington, because it arrives a few minutes after the trains to Sevenoaks. That following train was 465913, and I didn't realise when I snapped it that I wanted the picture for my collection for an unusual reason. I did have a picture of it taken years ago when it had yellow doors. It was then decided that yellow doors in a white body were not contrasty enough for those with poor sight. All doors on the class 465 fleet were then painted light blue. I realise it can't be seen, but this photo of 465913 was with blue doors. The early shot had yellow doors.
  I had never even heard of the band that was playing in the garden of The Shortlands Tavern, and the brief description I read was a bit light on details. I read that the band was basically two guitarists, one electric, and the other acoustic, named Dave Bassey and Colin Bradford - and I am unsure who was who. Playing in the garden meant daylight photography, and that usually* makes photography easy. They were also supposed to start at 3pm, and that was an attraction too. They were an hour late, and didn't start until just a few minutes before 4pm !

* The stage in the pub garden is inside an open fronted shed type structure, and it is very shady under it. Any long shots included bright sky, and even the occasional ray of weak sunshine. Getting the balance right was not easy, and I scrapped many photos where the exposure was completely wrong.
  Getting both guitarists in the same frame, and close together was handy because mostly they were at opposite ends of the stage. I think what we are seeing here is a "not like that, like this" situation.  I have to say that both guitarists were good, but didn't always work together well. Like the very late arrival, much of it was made up as they went along. It was lucky that who I think was Dave Bassey had brought a spare acoustic guitar, because the first on he tried did not work !
   The vague description of the gig said Dave Bassey and friends, or at least one version did. One friend was obviously Colin Bradford. I did hear that they used to be in a band (unnamed) in their youth, and like to get together for an occasional gig still. The other friends were a pair of ladies, one of whom is in the picture above. I think her name was Sally. She did do some lead vocals, but together with the other young lady they did more harmonies than lead vocals.

  I stayed for about an hour. By then I thought I had taken enough snaps of them. I shot a total of 99 snaps, of which 12 seemed good enough to go into a full photo album. I don't think any of the band were particularly photogenic, although provided I caught her at the right angle, Sally (if that is her name, above) could like quite good. I chose this picture of an example because from this angle, but no other processing, she seems a lot younger than she is in reality.

  It was about 5pm when I said or waved my goodbyes, and walked to the station. One thing was very noticeable about that walk. It seemed no worse than how it was when I was moderately fit. I expected the stairs up to the platform to knacker me, and I must admit they did slow me down a bit. That was nothing new. Stopping at the top to check the departure display was also nothing unusual, although maybe i read it for a more than the quick glance I used to do. I then walked to the far end of the platform. That did knacker me, although there was no more than the slightest hint of an angina pains starting.

  It was not a long wait for my train, and I did pass a little bit of time taking snaps of any passing train (just one if I remember correctly). I was feeling quite keen to get home because I knew it would be late enough to have dinner, and dinner was rather special - the last part of my takeaway order from the previous night. I also wanted to stop in the little supermarket on Catford Bridge to top up my instant noodle store.
  The very last picture I took was of the train that was following my train to Catford station. It was about 3 minutes behind, and was one of the semi fast trains from the coast going to Victoria station. I was using a nice fast shutter speed because it was moderately fast as it went through the station. It was one train that helped fill in a small gap in my spreadsheet recording all my train photos. A nice end to a day out, or an almost end....

  My walk home was split in two of possibly equal parts, and each was not long enough to trigger any angina. Oddly enough, although I have had some very mild angina pains...well maybe aches describes them better than pains, for then last few weeks, maybe even more, but either I have learned to regulate my walking better, or the anti-angina tablets are helping more than at first. I really must explore this a bit more with some longer walks.

  I was mostly just after exotic instant noodles that the little supermarket on the bridge usually has many to choose from, and indeed I did buy a couple of large packs (one a 4 pack and the other a 5 pack) plus a dozen of more individual packets. I also checked their biscuits shelf to see if they had any sugar free biscuits in. They did, and it was a big pack (24 biscuits maybe) of no added sugar cookies with sugar free choc chips.
  I have had these before, and apart from the biscuit having a strange, but pleasant texture because there is no sugar to caramelise and "glue" the grains together, they are quite nice. What I had never done before was to check the nutritional panel on the back. First of all it says the entire pack weighs 400gm. It lists the sugar content of 0.2gm per 100gm. That means I could scoff the entire pack and only eat .8gm of sugar, which is as good as nothing. As such, I think these maybe safer than other alleged "sugar free" biscuits, and very much safer than other "no added sugar" biscuits.

  Before I went upstairs to change to indoor clothes I put my dinner in the microwave. After changing, and checking what might be on TV, I went downstairs again to fetch my now hot dinner.  Sky Arts were showing another showing of The Pinkn Floyd story. It had only about 20 to 30 minutes to run, but that was still good watching as I ate my dinner. It was, as mentioned earlier, the last bit of my takeaway from the previous night.

  It was Singapore noodles. I have had Singapore rice many times, but I can't recall having Singapore noodles before. I never knew what I was missing. It was a very big portion, and it was very delicious. It is possible it was also fairly low calorie and low sugar too. I really enjoyed it. Although big enough for an entire meal, I wanted to, and did, have some ofn the sugar free choc chip cookies I had bought earlier. I had 6 of them, and it was a nice end to a great meal.

  Once the Pink Floyd story had finished there was nothing more to watch on TV last night. It was time to transfer my pctures from camera to PC where I could spend another hour or so selecting and editing the best. I also checked my spreadsheet to see if any of the train pictures were wanted, and the three I've shown above ended up on the spreadsheet. It is amazing how quickly time can slip by when you are not bored.

  After dealing with the photos I spent some time looking at stuff, and reading stuff on the internet. before I knew it, it was almost 9pm, and time for bed. I read in bed for maybe half an hour before trying for sleep. I soon realised that I had some mild indigestion, but enough to stop me relaxing enough for sleep. I took a couple of antacid tablets, but I think just the action of taking them did more good than actually taking them, and I was soon fast asleep.

  I thought I slept well last night, but I am not so sure because I woke up late, and might have had 9 hours sleep last night. I can't remember any periods of being awake lasting more than the time it takes to walk to the toilet, have a pee, and walk back again. I think I only did it twice, but maybe it was three times. I do remember some dreams, but the details seem hazy, or maybe the action kept changing every few moments.

  In one dream I was outside a Telephone exchange somewhere, and I could have reported there for duty, but I decided I would go to another exchange, but I didn't know the way. The next thing I new I was in something more like a TV repair workshop, and had grabbed a scrap circuit board that had a GPS unit and display on it. I soldered on a pair of wire to a battery, and it came on.

  The only problem was that it showed me where I was, but there were no controls to change the view to where I wanted to go. I then suddenly found myself in another workshop, and it seemed to be entirely staffed by Japanese, or maybe Chinese staff. It seemed to be where the unit was originally made, and a young Japanese lady was trying to find me the case which had the controls on it. I think there was more like that, but it is very hazy now, and suddenly I woke up at just gone 7am - rather later than usual unless I had woken up earlier, and was determined to get extra sleep. This morning I wasn't.

  There is good news this morning. After a first-thing-in-the-morning-pee I weighed myself, and despite that great heap of Singapore noodles, plus the sugar free choc chip cookies, I had lost most of the small peak of weight I gained recently. Having said that, it was still 400gm above the average for the whole of last month. Maybe if, and when I have a poo this morning (which could be soon now) that could take care of at least a 100gm, and maybe 200gms.

  There was almost good news about my blood glucose measurements this morning. The really good news is that I expected them to be a lot higher. The Contour meter reading 8.8mmol/l is not particularly good, but I was sure that last nights great big Singapore noodles would be awful for me. The GlucoRX meter read a rather better, and actually  slightly good 8.2mmol/l. The Sinocare meter often seems to be a bit pessimistic, but this morning it excelled itself with a very good 7.9mmol/l. I never expected that !

  My blood pressure is not quite as wonderful as some days, but 107/46 is well inside the "optimum" area, and what is more, probably for the first time ever, a second reading read exactly the same figures even down to my pulse rate (53 ppm). Sometimes it seems I am actually healthier than I feel. I must admit that I don't feel awful this morning, but I definitely don't feel like running around the block for fun....or even walking around the block !

  This morning I had two medium sized (85gm) packets of instant noodles squeezed into one bowl. They were a tint bit dry because of that, but not dry enough to no have softened all the noodles. The where Ko-Lee brand Korean style instant noodles, and are described as "spicy", although my personal description would be "peppery", and quite hot pepper at that. I fond them rather nice. The most interesting thing is that that the nutritional information does say that there is sugar as an ingredient inn the soup base (the little packet of flavouring), but if they are playing by the rules, it is such a tiny amount that it is officially described as zero % sugar.

  Today, hopefully before the morning is over I need to go shopping. If it were not for having to wait until a member of staff opens a staffed checkout, and the variability of their stocks of Diet Coke, I would go shopping in Iceland. I think it will be safer, and maybe more pleasant to shop in Tesco this morning. If I have time, and the energy, I might be tempted to go out again to Poundstretcher.

  The main course for today might, or might not, be a beer tasting session with Jodie this afternoon. The trains are running from Elmers End to Catford, and so that is a plus point, but there is some doubt about whether she will be going off to some beer or music festival this afternoon. I hope I'll get a yay or nay confirmation in time to make other arrangements. It is a shame it is not next Sunday when there is some doubt because next Sunday there is an afternoon gig I think I would like to go to.