My observations are that this morning started a little cooler than 10° C, and closer to 8° C thanks to clear sky. Today should be another great sunny day with the temperature peaking at 19° C - a whole degree warmer than yesterday. From mid afternoon there will only be sunny spells, and the cloud that causes it may bring a tiny chance of rain, but no bigger than a 21% chance. Tomorrow is shown as completely dry, but only sunny spells until almost late afternoon when non stop sunshine should continue until sunset. It should be another degree warmer tomorrow with 20° C predicted. It should feel like summer has returned.

   Yesterday turned out to be a very good day thanks to some inspired madness, or braveness, or something like that. After my normal morning writing (this electronic diary) I had my usual rest, and then went and washed my hair and had a shower. With that done, and my hair dried, I took some painkillers, got a camera ready, and ventured out into the sunshine.

  The camera was my Canon 650D, and I had fitted my new 800mm super zoom lens. I also took a spare 300mm Tamron lens. The initial idea was to walk to the footbridge over the railway in the middle of Ladywell Fields. The sun would be perfect for taking pictures down the railway line towards Ladywell station,,,or so I hoped. Unfortunately I had not figured in the deep shadows from overhanging trees. That spoiled matters a bit.

  I did my best to walk a bit slower than if I had something like an appointment at the hospital, but it was probably not that slow. It certainly seemed to feel OK even when I walked up to the top of the bridge....although I was happy to stop there to take my pictures.

  My timing was, purely by accident, rather good. I had just a few minutes wait until I saw a train pull in to Ladywell station from the Lewisham direction. As it pulled in I got my camera ready. I had already set it to the very fastest shutter speed to minimise any blurring from camera shake.

  When shrunk down to show here, the picture I took does not look completely awful, but it is ! For one thing, I thought the sun would be shining down the tracks, but it is obvious that the sun is off to the right, and the trees are causing deep shadows. Ideally I would have taken this snap just as the train reached the short sunny bit in front of it, but I was having a lot of trouble controlling the camera. I had to manually focus the camera while trying to keep it looking in the same direction. With such a huge amount of zoom it took very little movement to miss the train completely.

  One thing I learned about that zoom lens is that the minimum zoom, 420mm (according to the description) is still a lot of zoom. I tried to take a picture of this same train when it was a bit nearer, but by then it filled the whole frame, and so would have made a useless picture. I didn't have the patience to wait another 10 minutes for the next London bound train, which would have been on the left, and mostly out of the shadow of the trees.

  I decided I would walk further into the park. I had an insane idea that if I felt OK I might even try to walk as far as the top of Blythe Hill Fields. As the map above shows I did actually do that. The secret was that I stopped at least every 5 minutes to allow my slow moving blood through the blocked arteries to refresh the bits of my heart muscle that was started of oxygen - the cause of my angina pains.
  If there was something worth taking photos of it was easy to stop for a few minutes to rest. I saw this Magpie presenting a good profile picture, and managed to get this reasonable snap of it. It is probably one of the best pictures I have taken with the super zoom lens so far. I think it was not at full zoom, and that made it a bit less tricky, but I'm still not very good at manual focussing.
  Another stop was to try and get a snap of a plane going over. This picture is not bad, but not great either. It seemed hard to even find the plane through the viewfinder against a plain blue sky. At the same time I had to try and get it in focus - as it travelled across the sky at a fair speed, and I had to try and the exposure about right. I concluded it was a lot easier doing this in the park behind my old workplace where the planes fly very low as they approach Heathrow. I could have taken a picture as good as this, possibly better, using my latest phone (which of course I didn't have when I was working there).
  I was quite surprised I managed to make it to the top of Blythe Hill Fields. It was probably because as soon as I got any hint of angina coming on I would stop for a few minutes. This picture sums up why I wanted to try and get there - the terrific view of the skyscrapers around Canary Wharf, and also the skyscrapers around the city of London. Apart from the trouble of trying to keep the camera still, and in the best focus I could manage, there was one problem I hadn't anticipated - it was heat haze. A lot of the blurriness of this picture is because the sun was causing hot air to rise, and creating a sort of shimmering effect.
  When I took this picture I had changed lenses to a Tamron 300mm lens. I'll admit it is not a great lens, but particularly when you zoom in on the original you can see the lack of definition is the same problem - heat haze. It is why the trees in the foreground look a sharper, even though actually out of focus, than the building a few miles more distant.
  Just to round off the bad photos, I was in a panic to try and get this duck in flight after just taking off, low over the river. It is very slight over exposed so the white tail feathers lack detail. The duck is basically in focus....I think....

  The duck picture was taken when I had walked all the way down to river level, and it was a far quicker walk than going up the hill. I walked almost non stop to the river, and it was only when I got there that I felt the need to rest for a few minutes. It was then that I saw a couple of ducks that were flapping about, and occasionally flying 6 or 7 feet. I thought that with a bit more patience I could have got a better picture, but the ducks didn't allow it - they were making their way up the river, and out of a good sighting for my camera.

  The walk from where this bridge over the river is, to home included having to go over the bridge over the railway. That slowed me down a bit, and I had a brief rest at the top. After coming down from the bridge I may have got a bit cocky, and tried to walk too fast. By the time I reached the exit for the park my legs were feeling very tired more than anything else, and so once again I had a short rest.

  It was good to get home, and the first thing I did was to prepare my lunch.  It was another thing I had ordered with my takeaway the previous night. It was Deep Fried Spare Ribs. Once warmed up they were delicious. They were also quite a small lunch, but that was probably good. After that rather late lunch (it was gone 2.30pm) I felt the need to lie down, maybe read, and maybe snooze. I think I did both.

  Then it was time to tackle going through all the photos I had taken, and try to salvage the usable, and discard the completely crap. It turned out to be just 6 snaps out of 53 taken - and most of the crap ones were taken with my new lens. Some were unusable because by the time I clicked the shutter the plane (usually) had had flown out of the viewfinder (actually it was my aim that had slipped).

  I had just about finished at about dinner time at 6pm. It was what I had been looking forward to since the day before - a big serving of Singapore Fried Noodles. They were great, but I was a bit miffed that they were not hot and spicy. One good thing is that they didn't seem to give me any heartburn, although it was several hours after eating that I went to bed because I was watching a repeat of a documentary about Cream.
  I did one more new, super zoom lens test last night. When I first saw it I thought the moon was full, but it was obviously only about 3/4 full. It took quite a few attempts to get this pictures. It shows quite at lot of detail, but less that the naked eye cans see. It could have been even better if I had a really sturdy tripod. I do have several tripods, but I am not sure any could hold the image through that 800mm lens for very long. I'm not really dedicated enough to spend endless hours experimenting with that lens, but I think I am starting to learn its pros and cons.

  One other important thing happened last night. I rather stupidly tried to increase the temperature of the water from my multi-point heater. Normally I control it by throttling the gas supply, but the narrower pipe to my new tap in the kitchen makes the water run a bit cool. The heater does have a thermostat, and I remembered too late that the reason I don't use it is because the caulking on the spindle leaks. It was many years ago when I replaced the diaphragm that controls the gas in the heater,

  After putting everything back together, and turning on the water there was a bad drip from that thermostat control. The gland that should control the caulking was seized solid. I had to put a bucket under it to catch the drips. After a while, and a while could be a month or two, the leak was sealed up by limescale. I hope that it will stop dripping sooner or later, but at the moment I am worried that it will fill the bucket while I am in bed !

  Despite the worry of a slow flood in the kitchen, I seemed to get to sleep quite easily last night, but it was not a good night. The trouble was the old story of my bedroom being just warm enough, thanks to the warm sunshine through the day, for it to feel too hot and sweaty under the duvet, and too cold without it. At about 3am I woke up damp all over from sweat. I couldn't stay under the duvet, but until that sweat evaporated it felt almost icy cold. I turned on the heater, just on low, to warm my bedroom a bit, and after quite some time I managed to get back to sleep with one arm and one leg under the duvet.

  In between sweating and shivering, going for several pees, I had plenty of dreams, and one in particular was very strange. It was set in something like a small dormitory attached to some sort of work place. I think the first bit of dream I remember was waking up in a bed, and finding a note for me on a sort of bench top that seemed to on my bed. In fact it was two notes. One was to say I had won third prize in a Xmas draw, and the other note was a £10 note that I had won.

  The dream continued. By my bed was a bedside cabinet that was remarkably similar to some cabinets in use by P.O.Telecommunications for small tools, and as a small work surface. I opened the top drawer and found some sandwiches that I had put in there - apparently after a xmas dinner. They were tasty sausage sandwiches. Despite being in the drawer at least overnight, and only in a paper bag, they seemed to be still moist and delicious.

  At 5am I got up to pee, and I could not resist nipping down to the kitchen where I expected the bucket (actually a washing up bowl) to be overflowing after catching the drips from the water heater overnight. I was very happy to see that the bowl was barely a third full. It may have been because the water pressure is reduced in the night. It seems the drip is a bit faster now. It is probably wishful thinking, but I can almost imagine it might be slowing down a bit as some new limescale forms to help block the seepage around the sealing gland.

  I suppose I felt relaxed after that, and once back in bed I slept solidly until 6.30am. I am not sure why I woke then, but maybe my body/brain thought I had had enough sleep by then. The first thing I did was to go for a pee, and hoped that I would poo as well - I didn't. I still have some semi good news when I got on the scales. Thanks to yesterday's walk, and not eating that much, I seemed to have lost half a kilogram since yesterday morning. That was good, but I still have some way to go before I reach my lowest weight this month.

  My blodd glucose measurements were not bad, but as usual, not as good as I hope for....well one was. The Contour meter gave a reading of just 7.6mmol/l, or just 0.1 over my target. Both the GlucoRX and Sinocare meters agreed that the reading should be 8.1mmol/l. That is not actually that bad, and only 0.2 above getting in the light green zone (readings starting with a 7) like the Contour meter. I really look forward to the day when I can get three readings in the light green, and even more to one or more readings in the dark green (readings starting with a 6).

  My blood pressure continues to be good this morning. With no more than a couple of deep breaths to relax, the first, and only reading I took was just 111/46 - well inside the "Optimum" area. I did consider the unlikely possibilities of yesterday's walk altering my blood pressure - maybe up, or maybe down, but no change was more likely than up or down. I guess I must be moderately healthy this morning.

  Today there is the usual Sunday service at Catford Bridge station -  a train every half an hour in each direction. This means this afternoon should be another beer tasting session with Jodie. That won't be until about 3pm at the earliest, and I have been having thoughts about fitting in another walk today. There are more cons than pros for it to happen. The cons are the obvious few after effects of yesterday's walk - the odd bit of ache and stiffness. Another con is that I have still not had a poo, and it feels like one is on the way. So far all attempts to go have just been wind.

   If I do finally go in time, then just maybe I might grit my teeth, and force myself outside. I guess I probably burst a brain cell yesterday because I am thinking that I could tackle Blythe Hill Fields again, but by a different route, and with a different camera and far better lens (a 300mm Sigma lens) - all of which could be a waste of time if there is the same heat haze that spoiled yesterday's photos. Maybe I should have been out at 8am before the sun started to warm things up, and generate heat haze.