It is very dull as I write this, and the forecast says we should be seeing the first sunny spell right now. Hopefully today will be like yesterday when it took a few hours before the clouds broke up. Assuming that happens, the temperature could rise to an even warmer 17° C. Not a single drip of rain is forecast, and some sunny spells should be long enough to be called just "sunshine". It could be almost like a summers day. Tomorrow is forecast to be very dull, but it should stay dry until maybe 8pm. The temperature may rise to 16° C without a single ray of sunshine to help it get there.

   Yesterday featured a great, but very tiring day out (well, actually it was no more than 4 hours away from home). I enjoyed the warmth, and I ended up making up an even better route to, and from my intended target of Stanmore tube station.

  I had grave doubts about the weather during the start of the morning. It seemed very dull, although I could see the sun trying to burn through the clouds. While I was showering (in tepid water again) the first sunny spells happened. By midday, when I was just leaving home, it was starting to look very sunny. I didn't have to walk far until I took my first photo.
  I had decided to try a new route to the station, or specifically platform 1, the London bound platform. Instead of walking down the slope to the entrance to platform 2, and than have to go over the footbridge, I walked uphill a little bit more, and walked over the road bridge - past the Catford Bridge Tavern where I saw this self explanatory poster on the wall of the pub. From the brow of the road bridge it was downhill all the way to platform 1 where I just missed a train.
  It was only about a 15 minute wait for the next train, and during that time I got a couple of snaps of the Hayes (Kent) bound train on platform 2. I later found it was a train I already had pictures of, but as soon as I got to London bridge I started to see trains I had never photographed before like 700105 above,
  This is the train I eventually caught at London Bridge, 700042 - another new train for my collection. I took it as far as West Hampstead Thameslink station, and that is where I took this picture. West Hampstead is a curious place that has three stations all within a few minutes walk from each other.
   I don't think I can remember a thing about the old West Hampstead Thameslink station, but the new one, in the modern style is fairly impressive - although a well looked after brick and stone building with nice chimneys would look more impressive. From here it was little more than two minutes walk to the next station.
  A lot of money has been spent on West Hampstead London Overground station. I remember it as a grubby little, probably unstaffed, entrance between two shops. It was once the inglorious North London Line which had a sparse unreliable service of old train serving run down and grubby stations. Now run as The London Overground it has trains evert 10 minutes or so, and carries many time more passengers per train, and probably many thousands more over the course of a day.
  The whole platform area has been rebuilt, and the length of the platforms lengthened to take 5 car trains - the old National Rail service mostly used 2 car trains. I have never seen it at night, but I expect it is brightly lit to deter ne'er-do-wells.
  One of the frustrations of photographing the latest London Overground trains is that the don't have their train numbers on the front. The numbers are written under the sill of the drivers door, and you have to remember to quickly get a snap of it as the train goes past. I did so with this one, and I think it was 378322.
  Just one stop from West Hampstead is Brondesbury station. At platform level is is not quite as nice as West Hampstead, but not significantly different. The outside however, is very different, It has a very grubby exterior, and I doubt it looks very different to how it was in National Rail days.
  Once again it is only a couple of minutes walk from Brondesbury to Kilburn station. Once upon a time it also offered Metropolitan line services, but they now roar past, and just Jubilee Line services are offered. I know it was just a short walk to get there, but I was glad there was a lift to the platform because the staircase seemed to go on for ever !
  On the platforms of Kilburn tube station there are two (and maybe others) planters filled with plants, and in this picture maybe a small fruit tree. This planter was on the theme of foraging. If that is a small fruit tree it becomes more self explanatory. I would image that a bit earlier in the year there may have been other fruits or berries that could be picked and eaten (if you were brave).
  The other planter I photographed was on the theme of herbs. There was nothing I particularly recognised, but I am sure I detect a faint smell of aniseed, or something similar. The mosaics around the outside were a nice touch.
  There are several things wrong with Stanmore station, although at platform level it looks bright and clean. Between platform 1 and 2, either side of an island platform, there are some old buildings, and there is a gents toilet in it. It stinks !! and to make matters worse, the single cubical was either in use by someone who didn't answer me, or is locked out of use. I was not desperate, but I did hope I might go in there.

  The next bad thing is that it has no lifts, and there is quite staircase to go up to get out to the road. I believe there is a way through from the car park, but it is listed as a 110 metre extra walk, and involves some steep slopes - not ideal for wheechair users.

  The worst thing from my point of view was that the main entrance was behind a load of clutter. Off to the left of this picture is a double decker bus waiting to depart from a bus stop. To the right were several street signs to get in the way. Then there were also people and cars blocking a clear view of the entrance unless you time it right. I was aiming for a photograph showing a picture twice as wide as this one, but all I could manage was this cramped view.

  I decided on a slightly different route home. I caught the first tube from Stanmore, but got off, and crossed the platform at Wembley Park so I could get a Metropolitan line train to Farringdon station, but I found the train I was on  terminated at Baker Street. At Finchley Road station I got off the train, and waited 5  or so minutes for the next one which would take me as far as Farringdon station.

  At Farringdon station I changed to a Thameslink station. This did involve going over the footbridge to change platforms, but after sitting in the train, resting for 10 or 15 minutes, it didn't seem too hard. I think there were lifts if I bothered to look for them, but it is only after a 5 or more minute walk that a lift is a Godsend. During the rush hour there are a few trains that go right through to Catford station, but I was a bit early for that, and got the first train to London Bridge.

  The onboard passenger information screen insisted the first, or next station was Deptford, but happily it did stop at London Bridge as all the platform indicators said it would. At London Bridge I had to change platforms, but with escalators that was no problem, and I had about 10 minutes before my train back to Catford Bridge, so no need to rush.

  While at London Bridge for the second time yesterday, I got another small pile of photos of trains. As yet I am not sure if I managed to get any new trains. I also took a lot of pictures of tube trains. It does seem the 96 stock (I think), Jubilee line trains, do have very easy to see and photograph train numbers, maybe I should start collecting those as well. Depending on what I end up doing today, I may show a lot of yesterday's train pictures tomorrow, but of I go out and get new pictures I won't.

  The walk from Catford Bridge station to home was very tiring, but I don't recall it being painful apart from some discomfort from my right knee, and some from both ankles. When I got home, and almost to the time I went to bed, I felt exhausted. Just thinking about it makes me feel very tired as I write this, and it doesn't put me in the right frame of mind to want to do something similar today - even if the sun has finally found a few gaps in the clouds as I write this.

  Apart from undressing, and going for a pee, the first thing I did when I got home was to weigh myself. I knew it was really only dehydration after some light sweating in the sunshine, and not drinking anything for the four hours I was out, but my weight was nice and low (compared to recently). Somehow I made an almost unconscious decision to be very careful with my eating for the rest of the day.

  Once I had my indoor clothes on, I went back down to the kitchen, and sliced some Red Leicester cheese to go on 12 rice crackers. I did sprinkle on some hot chilli sauce to spice them up a bit. I ate those while catching up on some internet stuff. At the end I tried to take my late afternoon drugs and vitamins. I don't know how I managed it, but I choked on those pills, and it was as if one or two had half stuck in my windpipe. I coughed them out so vigorously that it was almost like a very mild bit of vomiting. Some went down OK, but the others I coughed up in a pool of liquid I threw away.

  It took a little time for the irritation on my throat to go away, and I helped myself to ignore it by starting to go through all the pictures I had taken on my day out. There were quite a lot of them, and thanks to my rather brilliant Nikon P500 "bridge" camera, almost all were usuable. The ones that weren't were of fast(ish) moving trains, That camera's one failure is that it could not use a fast enough shutter speed, to freeze the motion, and get a bright enough exposure.

  At about 6.30pm I stopped for dinner. It was a simple dinner in the extreme. It was just 3 Bratwurst sausages, cooked for much longer than last time so they were brown instead of pale. I added some English mustard, and that was the extent of my dinner....almost. Just a little bit later I gave in to having three bitter orange chocolate biscuits. I knew that a couple of them eaten earlier in the day seemed to have no bad effect on my blood glucose, but three of them late at night....

  Selecting and editing the pictures I have used so far was, or seemed like, very hard work. Mainly it was just that I was very tired, but a few pictures, taken with the sun in not the ideal place, needed parts of the photo that were in shadow, and needed brightening up. On the whole I was happy with the results, although on one picture there is evidence of the process if you know where to look. I couldn't wait until I felt I had done enough.

  I had in fact only done just slightly over half the pictures I had taken. The second half featured a lot of Underground trains, and they are probably less interesting than pictures of stations and stuff. It seemed like a great time to shut it all down, and with Star Trek: Voyager long finished, going straight to bed to read for a while. When I tried to turn over and sleep I did get some very mild heartburn, and so I got up to take a couple of Rennies. They did the trick. I was fast asleep between 10 and 11pm as far as I can recall.

  I seemed to sleep well, and I can't recall waking up many times in the night, although I know I got up to pee at least twice, and it would not surprise me if it was four times. I remember some of a strange dream that seemed a crossover between several recent dream themes.

  In my dream I was in something like a cross between college and the old BT training school. What made it novel was that I had gone there for something to do after officially retiring. One member of staff reminded me that once I had officially retired they had stopped paying my PAYE income tax, but were paying me on a weekly ad hoc basis for the work I was doing. I don't actually remember doing any work in the dream, but I do remember coming across a store room that had cleaning rags in it, and tins of shoe polish. I was wearing leather shoes, and decided it would be nice to polish them. As I did this a storeman came along with a big Nikon DSLR camera and took pictures - just so he could charge me correctly for items used.

  I don't know if I felt good or bad when I got up at about 6.45am. I seemed to have some after effects from my day out out, but it is hard to define what they were. Maybe I just felt a few years older and creakier. I went and had a pee straight after getting up, and then a second one a few minutes later. When I got on the scales I found I was about 900gm lighter than yesterday morning, and that was quite a low weight (for me - compared to a year ago).

  I have a suspicion it might be continued dehydration, although I didn't seem to feel particularly thirsty. There was still a clue that it was dehydration based on how different the readings I got from my blood glucose meters. The Contour meter gave a lovely reading of 7.9mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter was higher at an OK 8.5mmol/l. The Sinocare meter gave a horrible reading of 9.2mmol/l, and I checked it again and still no different. I can only conclude that the Sinocare meter is very sensitive to water content of blood, and maybe the GlucoRX meter is less sensitive. I am at a loss to know which reading was closest to the truth.

  My blood pressure was surprisingly low this morning, and I have no idea why. It was just 97/43. That might be low enough to cause kidney problems, but judging from my urine output they would seem to be working fine. I must admit I do feel quite tired at the moment - not sleepy, but weary sort of tired.

  I feel some guilt that I am probably going to waste the last warm and sunny days for who knows how long, by not going out like yesterday. Yet I think I will take some lessons from yesterday, and do more than one walk to the shops today. I can think of two walks I could do. It is definitely time I topped up a few supplies from Savers - assorted pills, and stuff like spare hand wash and toothpaste. After that I am sure I can find plenty to buy in Poundstretcher, although that is just across the pedestrian way, and so it will all be done in one walk.

  Later on I have an idea that I might go to the Poundshop even though I seem to find very little in there these days. However, just a few shops along the road is the Noodle House, and I feel I want to buy a couple of portions of Singapore fried noodles from there at shop price. I think I will probably save at least £5, and possibly more, by going to the restaurant and buying from there. I don't fancy the walk in the gloom of the early evening, but assuming they are open, and serving, there should be no problem going later in the afternoon, and warming the first portion up a few hours later at dinner time. The second portion would, or should be, tomorrow dinner.

  Apart from some reading and snoozing, which could happen quite soon now, I can spend a fair bit of time going through the rest of my pictures from yesterday. Prepare to see lots of pictures of trains, including underground trains tomorrow !!