It was rather marvellous to open the curtains this morning and see sunshine. At the moment the sky looks rather cloudy, and we may have to wait for a bit if the sky is to clear to allow full sunshine for the rest of the day - if it happens. All that sunshine may only raise the temperature by two degrees to 11° C. Clear skies mean tomorrow may start at just 7° C, but there should be just enough sunshine to warm it up to 11° C again, although the afternoon may actually be dull after sunny spells and sunshine in the morning.

  Yesterday included a sad disaster, a lot of waiting, some unusually careful eating, and some good-ish news. One thing it didn't start with was a shower. With the admittedly highly unlikely possibility of Amazon delivering my parcel early, and also definite news that Jodie would not be drinking with me, I just never got around to showering.

  I suppose the first thing to comment on about yesterday was my lunch. I could not seem to resist the idea of opening the second can of Greek beans I bought the day before yesterday. The main difference to the other can I had the day before was that it allegedly had rissoles in it. I am unsure of the exact definition of rissole, but I think "lumps of meat with the texture of corned beef" was nearer the mark. I quickly heated them in the microwave, and ate them as there were rather than on toast (for instance).

  The afternoon was a long time of waiting, although it could have been a lot, lot longer. My Amazon delivery was at 4pm, and I guess it the grand scheme of things that was not too bad. The "before 9pm" could have been more literally true, and if it had come at 8.55pm I would  have been well pissed off. Although nothing that was delivered was actually essential, it was all interesting.

  It was not all that long before the delivery that I had a snack. It was pretty safe for my blood glucose, although maybe less so for my weight. It was nothing more than 12 rice crackers with slices of cheese on them. Half had a "Stratford Blue" cheese, and the other half had a Turkish or Rumanian cheese on them. That latter cheese was a bit like it may have followed the recipe for cheddar, but was altered near the end of the process.
  One of the things that was delivered was a pack of two new batteries plus a USB powered charger. As can be seen in the picture above, the charger is for Canon BP511A batteries (as printed on label I stuck on the charger). When I took the picture there was one new battery, and an older battery. I think the charger with two new batteries was only £24, and that seems very cheap to me.

  In fact it was so cheap that I forgive myself for a momentary lapse of reason. What I actually wanted to order was a spare battery for a Nikon camera that uses a very similar looking battery. The new batteries only fit my old Canon 300D camera, and that is a rather old camera that I bought in a second hand shop for a very low price. The reason for the very low price was that it appeared to have a fault. What I found, albeit after putting up with it for a short while, was that the backup battery, a small lithium coin cell, was flat, and that is why it lost every single setting, including the date, every time you changed the battery.
  Just to prove to myself that such an old camera was worth keeping in working order I took a few test snaps. It was well after dark by then, and that old camera can't hack dim indoor lighting, and so I had to use the internal flash gun. The picture taken of the spare bedroom is not fantastic, and I guess my mobile phone would probably do better.
  This picture of the dining room shows the same little design fault of the camera that is visible in the picture of the spare bedroom. Note the dark area in the middle of the bottom of the picture. It is actually the shadow of the top of the lens hood on the wide angle lens I was using. Using the "standard" lens with no lens hood and there would be no problem.
  This picture of the beer fridges in the dining room shows the same dark shadow at the bottom of the picture (although in this picture it shows as more like a brown stain). Had I realised what was happening before I looked at the picture on my bog PC screen, I would have used a big and powerful external flash gun, and probably bounced the light off the ceiling to give a less concentrated flash  (a technique that works well at gigs if the ceiling isn't painted black !).

  Now I have 4 batteries for my Canon 300D camera, possibly with one of them seeming to be near the end of it's life, I really ought to get more use out of it. I'm not sure if I have tried taking pictures of trains with it before, but I have taken it on walks in the park with good results. I may take it with me when I go to the pub on Wednesday to try it out on a few trains, and a few squirrels. This assumes that the weather forecast saying it should be bright on Wednesday turns out to be something like reality. I don't think dull daylight would be good enough for that camera.
  The thing I was most looking forward to getting was a USB adapter for M2 solid state hard drives. It is pictured above with a 500GB solid state hard drive fitted in it. I have two PCs that can use these M2 solid state drives, and one should be an upgrade on the PC I am currently using. I am not in any rush, but sooner or later I will make the swap. I am not sure if my plan is to clone the "system" hard drive on my current PC, or to do a fresh install on to the solid state drive. Having the USB adapter will make cloning the existing disk a lot simpler. I expect I will do whatever the deed is on a very boring Sunday.

  It was shortly before getting my parcel that I ate a large orange that I had bought from the Metro Food Centre when I was in there on Saturday. As hoped, it was rather nice - fairly easy to peel, and a nice taste. I mention this now because it turned out to be my dinner. I don't know why, maybe it was all the excitement of the new "toys", but I didn't seem to feel hungry at dinner time, nor for the rest of the evening.

  One other thing I must mention before I forget it again, is the great tragedy (as mentioned near the top of this page). I think it was just before or after I washed the bog orange that I washed up the single thing that was in the sink. It was one of my two blue bowls, with lids that I use to make up my instant noodles. Both once came with noodles in them under the trade name of Blue Dragon (if I recall correctly). I had wondered a couple of times why I seemed to be almost scalded when picking up one of the bowls. The answer turned out to be that the one I was washing up had a small crack in the bottom, and when the bottom flexed it was just wide enough for boiling water to seep through. A future task will be to go to the little supermarket on Catford Bridge in the hope that they still have at least one Blue Dragon Thai instant noodles in another of those nice blue bowls.

  I watched a lot of TV last night. I watched some stuff about underground stuff below big cities. It wasn't a bad documentary series. It was quite factual, and only slightly sensational in a few places. After that I watched maybe the last half of a documentary about the life of comedian Ronnie Barker. It was only spoiled by occasional appearance of he annoying little Ronnie Corbet. After that there was an hour of a repeat showing of an edition of Have I Got News For You from a few years ago.

  Finally it was time for bed (10pm) and after not eating any dinner, let alone anything very spicy, I did not anticipate any difficulty getting to sleep. I was wrong, I still got some mild chest pans when lying down. I'm sure it could not be indigestion, but it was a bit like that. I took some antacid tablets and a couple of Ibuprofen tablets in case it was just my old operation scar tissue playing up.

  I don't know what actually cured it, but after half an hour or more of sitting in front of my PC I felt good enough to try for sleep again. I got in bed, turned the lights off and turned on my side. I didn't feel any pain, and I also didn't feel like I would get to sleep. As is frequently the case I fell asleep while still cursing that I couldn't fall asleep. I guess I slept fairly well. With hindsight, one annoyance is that I was waking up about every two hours out of habit. usually I would need a pee. On each occasion last night I did have a pee, but it was often so small I don't know why I couldn't have saved it all up for just one or two big pees in the night.

  This morning is another morning when I can remember I had some dreams, and I think some may have been enjoyable, but I can't seem to find a trace of any memory of what those dreams were about. I guess I must have slept quite well because I woke up at just gone 6am, and it felt like it was time to get up. As usual I had another pee after getting up, but once again it was a small one. I then weighed myself and found I had apparently put on 400gm. That was odd considering I had not eaten a lot yesterday. I suspect a lot of that weight gain was due to retained water after not peeing much, and also not having a poo.

  The lack of peeing suggested low blood glucose, but usually that is wrong. This morning it turned out to be right. The Contour meter read a fairly nice 7.9mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter was a lot better . It read just 6.8mmol/l. It has been a long time since I have had such a nice low reading. Even the Exactive meter gave a good reading of 7.7mmol/l. Until this morning I didn't even realise it could read that low. It seemed to prefer very high readings.

  My blood pressure was very slightly high yesterday evening, and this morning it is again just very slightly higher than my average, but unless there is a trend of it continuing to rise it is no bother. I could easily be back down again this evening, although I have noticed it depends a lot of when I actually measure it, and what and when I have eaten.


  My first plan for today is to wash my hair and have a shower. After missing doing it yesterday, it is even more important today. Their is a special reason for it being very important today. It is because I go to give some blood samples at 8.35am, and I'll really only have time for a just a quick shower before I go out to see the vampires under the eaves of the group practice to give two tubefulls of blood. It may also mean I may not start writing until I get back home again.

  My second plan for today features a couple of options. I feel I will be going out for a walk in the sunshine, and it will be just a walk and not a day playing on the trains. I have the option of the local park, or the linear park without going to far. I feel I would like to walk in the Linear Park, and to see if I can get myself to do the full 3 miles walk - even if it takes 3 hours to do it.

  The second options are with regard to what camera I should take with me. It could be the Canon 300D with it's brand new batteries, and in the sunshine it could take some excellent pictures - or at least it would if there were any really good scenes. I think it might make a more interesting test of the "other" Tamron lens, the one of the two that I think is the far better lens, fitted on a Nikon camera. Of course the real challenge is getting out the door in the first place !