Another night of clear skies and another frost this morning. The temperature should rise to 6° C today, thanks to strong sunshine all day (or so the forecast predicts). The temperature may not fall to zero tonight, and tomorrow should start at 2° C. There may be a few hours of full sunshine, but that will be followed by sunny spells until about 3pm. The temperature will continue to rise after the afternoon. The afternoon should see 8° C, but if the forecast for tomorrow actually portrays reality, it should be 9° C by midnight. Wednesday may even see 13° C, but it may be a rather wet day.

  Yesterday left a bit of a bad legacy, but it was really quite a good day - rather better than any for days or even weeks. The secret was sunshine ! It inspired me to do two things, and the best bit was that both could be done at the same time. It was all about exercise and an unusual shopping trip.

  As usual, yesterday started with writing yesterday's electronic diary, and I see it was a 2000 word piece. The writing style may be very sloppy, and I didn't proof read it before uploading it to here, but it only took a couple of hours. One oddity was that while writing it I did some preparation work for today's grand plan. That preparation was cleaning out/off the bathtub. Not just ordinary cleaning, but removing glue and silicone sealer from previous patches over the big crack in the bathtub. I did that work while taking a break or two from writing to go to the toilet.

  I did not finish the job, and getting the last bits of glue or sealant, plus other contaminants is going to be a really tedious job, but at least I made a start. Once I had finished writing I still had plenty of time for a rest before I had a flannel wash (the bathtub/shower is now out of commission until hopefully tomorrow). Once dried I started to get dressed, but I had at least another poo before I wanted to go out. After a day of constipation it was good....well, sort of good, to go for a poo at least 5 times yesterday morning.

  Once I felt comfortable I finished dressing, and wearing a coat I thought was thick enough (but wasn't), and with my rucksack on my back, I stepped out into the sunshine. It looked really good, but it still felt freezing outside. My loose plan was to go to Halford's, near one of the entrances to the Linear Park, buy some fibreglass kit, and then maybe take a short walk in the park. That short walk ended up longer than I thought it would.

  What I actually bought from Halfords was a complete kit for doing fibreglass repairs. It has the resin and hardener, a small beaker to mix them, some fibreglass, and a few other simple tools like a stirrer. I also bought a packet of what may be identical, or maybe coarser fibreglass matting. I want a very strong patch, and I think a base of coarse and a 2nd layer of fine may be the answer, but I have no previous experience of such things. Two other things I bought should be useful for this job, and for some future job. One was a packet of assorted strength emery paper, and the other was a rubber sanding block.

  I was quite pleased to find all the kit together in Halford's, and very pleased they actually had it all. I had feared that no one ever repaired anything, and they had stopped stocking it. Maybe that put me in an even better mood when I left Halford's. I was determined to do at least a short walk in the park. The problem with that is that the best views only happen once you are some way into the park. I set my target of going as far as what I still call "The Bridge Of Doom" on account of the very poor state it was in until repaired a few years ago.
  It was just over the other side of the bridge that I spotted a grey wagtail (it is grey despite it's bright yellow under carriage). I had taken a few boring pictures before this one, but I thought this one was worth showing - almost. It is not a very good picture, and I don't rate any of the pictures I took yesterday. I was using a slightly heavy pocket sized Canon Powershot SX210. I used to think it was very good, but it didn't seem to cover itself with glory yesterday.

  If I hadn't been wearing a rucksack for my shopping I would have brought a big camera - probably my Canon 600D with a 300mm zoom lens. The little Canon has a fair zoom lens, but not quite as good as a proper zoom lens. I could also have set the speed nice and fast to give clearer pictures. It is my belief, not that you can really be sure about such things, but I think the Canon 600D with 300mm zoom lens could have given a cracking picture of the wagtail.
  Even walking to the "Bridge Of Doom" was hard work, and I was not feeling good, but I wanted to do at least one more thing - walking along the riverbank.  I came close to having a minor accident by slipping on some mud as I walked on the riverbank. At worst I could have slipped into the river, although more possible is ending up sitting in the mud. My legs feel very stiff these days, but a burst of adrenaline got them moving fast enough to keep me on my feet.
   It was worth walking on the riverbank. The sound of the water, and birdsong is very nice. I very nearly managed to get a picture of a very bushy, very red looking fox. It was on the other side of the river, and I think it had been sunning itself. Unfortunately, even with a barrier like the river between us, it decided to slink into the undergrowth when it spotted me. It was soon after coming back to the main path that I noticed these crocuses flowering among the leaf litter in a space between two trees and the fence for the railway line.
   I was feeling I was pushing myself a bit too far, bearing in mind I had to walk back home, when I got as far as the big pond in the park. Standing on the viewing platform was this big Egyptian goose. It is very annoying that the very best picture I took of the bird - absolutely perfect focus, and with a nice background, was when the silly bird decided to look the wrong way !
  This is the big pond. For years I thought it was something to do with the ground remediation after the gas works, which occupied most of the land at this end of the park, was removed. The pond was just a sort of pit filled with stagnant, and as far as I could guess, contaminated water. That was not the case at all. It was just choked with vegetation. It was a year or three ago that the Friends OF The River Pool cleared the pond out, and made the little viewing platform, and added other furniture around it. It is now generally clean, and home to many birds, and it is supposed to have newts and frogs breeding in it.

  Reaching the pond seemed like it should be a good point to turn around - until I checked the tracker on my phone. It said It was only a few hundred feet (or maybe yards) until I hit exactly 1.5 miles. Had I followed the exact same route home it would have made it a 3 mile walk, and that was the length of many of my typical walks before I almost stopped walking when I started suffering from Angina again. One thing I knew from experience, and that has been confirmed by not only my postman, who had a heart bypass operation last year, but also by the Wikipedia article I linked to about Angina, is that it becomes worse in cold weather. Now there are hints of warmer weather on the way, I hope to get more, and less uncomfortable exercise in.

  I walked until my phone said I had walked exactly 1.5 miles (although it was actually 1.503 miles), and then I turned around. I walked for about 5 minutes and as usual, I began to feel uncomfortable. It was not actually Angina at that time, and as far as I can recall, I had very few actual angina pains on this walk. There were many reasons for it. One was that in the early stages of the walk I would start to feel mildly short of breath.

  There is a possible reason for that shortage of breath, and one clue may be how quickly I recover from it - literally just 10 or 15 seconds. My last appointment with the Cardiologist was ages ago, and I won't be seeing him again until next October! What he, and his senior colleague think is that I have restrictions in some minor blood vessels to the heart. When I had the NRM scan last spring it showed that some bits of my heart were being starved of oxygen. It was suggested this was not a lethal issue, although it could, and is painful. It makes me feel short of breath in a very hard way to explain, but certainly different to usual shortage of breath. That slows me up before the worst pain starts.

  The other thing that was slowing me up, and made me glad to have so many rest breaks, was just being out of condition so much. My legs were not very happy with doing things that have not practised for a long while. My last walk of a similar length was back in May 2024. One curious thing is that my left knee seemed to be getting a bit sore again. It is the second time I have noticed it recently. It was always my right knee that uses to give trouble and some hints that maybe I might need a new kneecap. Maybe now it will be the left knee. On the other hand, if I can do more exercise it might wear in the stiff "bearings".

  I expected the walk home could be horrendous, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. It was still quite uncomfortable, but stopping for a brief rest seemed to help all the different problems. I was obviously very glad when I got home. Not only did it give me a chance to rest my legs, but I was needing a pee as well. Fortunately the desire for a pee was not quite as strong as the desire to make some lunch.

  Lunch was two crusty breakfast rolls with corned beef, horseradish and sliced pickled gherkins. I was going to add some salad leaves, but I didn't. Having made them up I took them up to my PC, and then had my pee, and stripped off my outdoor clothes. Before I took a single bite I weighed myself. I know that most of it was dehydration. In the cold air I was not sweating as such, but the front of my t-shirt was very slightly damp. It seems that in the time between weighing myself after getting up and going to the toilet, and getting home form my walk, I had lost 600gm. That seemed rather a lot, but I think it is true.

  One of the odd things, and it was the same as the last time I did a much shorter walk, is that while I definitely felt tired once I could relax, but not that tired. After eating I transferred all the pictures I had taken (plus the screenshot of my walk and information about it), and I then selected what I would use, and edit them ready to show here. I could have had a rest then, but I did a lot more scraping of glue and other residues from my old patch on the cracked bathtub.

  It was getting too late to think about actually starting on the fibreglass patch last night, but from time to time I did a bit more preparation, including finding some tools I would use.  I was having some very mixed feelings about the job. The obvious was whether it would work - which with no previous experience was hard one to answer. Not only no experience of a similar job, but zero experience of working with fibreglass and resin before. It is going to be quite scary the first time, and I have no idea if I can actually do it as well as I imagine I will do it. I can't wait to try, and yet I also rather wish I didn't have to do it.
  It didn't seem long before dinner came around, although I must confess that I did have a little lie down, and a short snooze before dinner. Dinner was supposed to be just fruit (as pictured above) but there was more to it. I think it included two 25gm packets of Hula Hoops, and a measure 45gm of mixed nuts. The latter was definitely a dessert. All the fruit was rather ripe and quite sweet. I thought it would all end up as a disaster, but I actually seemed to do quite well.

  Last night was a typical TV until 9pm, and then straight to bed to read for a while. Like the night before, I may have only read for perhaps 20 minutes before I put the book down, and turned out the light. Unlike the day before, last night I did fall into quite deep seeming sleep very quickly. All that fresh air and exercise seemed to make me sleep very well, although it was not perfect.

  I still woke between 2 and 3 hours all through the night to go for a pee. As far as I can estimate, each pee was about an average amount. Maybe all that fresh air and exercise gave me a very scary dream, although I can't make any connection between the two. The dream was about being in a foreign country, probably France, and not being able to pay for a ticket home.

  In the dream I had escorted Jodie to the foreign country. Although there was no memory of it in the dream, it seemed like we had flown there. After Jodie nhad gone to wherever she was going (probably a gig) I was going to make my way home on a train (presumably through the Channel Tunnel). I obviously had some money or a credit card with me at one point because I was drinking a pint of Lager. I think it was probably something like 8am in the morning, and my friend Kevin, who I somehow bumped into, commented it was a bit early to start drinking.

  Kevin wandered off, and I think still clutching my glass of lager, I went to the ticket office to buy a ticket back to Catford. I was very wary that the ticket clerks might not speak English, but they actually sounded like authentic Londoners. I fumbled around trying to fine my credit card. My wallet seemed to be more like a collection of old cards - bank cards, telephone calling cards, and even some possible comedy cards offering a free half hour in a brothel (at least I think it was a comedy card), but I could not find any of my working credit or debit cards. Fortunately I woke up before I got too stressed.

  After getting out of bed I went straight to the toilet. I had a decent enough pee, but once again when I thought I would poo I only let out gas (although I suppose that is a poo in itself !). To my surprise my weight was exactly the same as what I saw when I got home from the walk - I was still 600gm less than yesterday morning. That puts me back to where I was before a few weight disasters recently. Hopefully I can build even more on that loss.

  I was not convinced my blood glucose could have gone down after all the sweet fruit I ate last night. The plum I ate was so sweet it was almost like a sweet raisin. The nectarine (which looks like an apple in my picture) was similarly at the point between over ripe, and second from going rotten. It too tasted really sweet. Despite all my fears I didn't do too badly.

  The Contour meter read a very good 7.7mmol/l, although that was a second reading because the first said over 9mmol/l, and that was a lot higher than the other two. The GolucoRX meter read an even better, almost perfect 7.6mmol/l (7.5mmol/l is my current target). The Sinocare read a bit higher, and 8.8mmol/l is only just acceptable. I suspect there was some sort of contamination on my fingers despite washing them, because all the readings seems a bit dodgy.

  One thing that is not better this morning is my blood pressure. It may be because I can't stop thinking about all I have to do later. The final figure, or a second attempt, was 119/49, and in reality that is not high, and my blood pressure meter still classifies it as "Optimum". Well I guess that is all very good then.

  Once I have finished writing this, and had my usual rest, then the hard bit starts. I want to finish preparing the surface of the bathtub for the glass fibre patch, and put the first layer down before doing the next thing. The next thing is to go shopping, and this time I will be going to Aldi. After getting back, and having some lunch, I hope the first lot of resin has set enough, but not completely, and I can put a second, and probably final layer of fibreglass and resin down. I hope that it will not only be waterproof, but will set hard enough to support my weight without cracking. I hope it will attain that state by tomorrow morning so I can have a shower and wash my hair. Later on I will do some cosmetic work on it. I will sand it down so it is smooth, and maybe I can find a can of spray paint that comes close to matching the "Pampas" colour of the bathtub.

  I am really looking forward to putting my feet up tonight with the bathtub repair job done well enough to use it tomorrow. Whether that actually happens is in the lap of the Goddesses ! The only trouble is that having written so much this morning it is now almost midday, and it feels like I am running out of hours far too quickly.