May has started with full sunshine, and what a month or so ago we might have described as warm - 12° C. Another day of full sunshine and it should push the temperature up to 28° C. There could be one tiny fly in the ointment - note the 6% chance of rain at 4pm. There could be a splash of rain today, but it is a very low chance, and warm rain would not be that bothersome anyway (or not if it is all over inside of one hour). Tomorrow could start even warmer this morning. The current version of the forecast says 16° C at 6am. It seems there may not be full sunshine all day - the afternoon could be mostly sunny spells. The afternoon temperature may only reach 26° C, but that is still very comfortable.

  Yesterday was another mostly good day. Some things were good because they were bad, and some things were bad because they were good. These paradoxes and enigmas may be explained somewhere in all the scribble I am about to write about my day.

  Yesterday morning was a pretty typical morning until I got ready to go out. I was heading for The Jolly Farmers, and so I had a shave, washed my hair and had a shower. Once dry I put on shorts and my orange Vans trainers. Those trainer have been collecting dust for years, and I may not have worn them since I was at work, and maybe then only a few times. I got them out the previous night, and it looked like they had hardly been worn at all.

That was a bit of mystery. I assumed it might have been because I found they were uncomfortable. I know I have seemingly identical pairs in other colours, and at least one was very uncomfortable. I only did a walk around the house the night before last, and they seemed like they would be very comfortable for what I knew was intended to be quite a long walk yesterday.

  That walk was indeed long, but it was split into two halves. As can be seen (in the wrong order) the first part of the walk was from home to the Jolly farmers, and it is longer than the return because I detoured via Ladywell station where I went to pick up a copy of The Metro. I actually picked up three copies - one for me, one for Ayse (may favourite barmaid) and the third by accident.

  One of the interesting thing about yesterday walks is that I seemed to have strengthened my legs and maybe also ankles, and suffered very little fatigue on the walks. The negative side of it was that it brought to the fore the other limit to my agility - angina pains. It is hard to put an exact figure on it, but it seems the angina pains (heart pains) started about one minute later than the fatigue pains I was getting before. I still had to stop every 5 to 10 minutes.

I didn't do a lot of photography yesterday. The park seemed to look almost the same, perhaps very slightly greener, than the day before, and even then there did not seem to be anything worth a photo. However, I did take a picture of a sticker on the self service ticket machine at Ladywell station. I had seen it before, probably at Catford Bridge, but yesterday was the first time I stopped to take a snap. I can't help but feeling that not accepting banknotes with the Kings head on them must be something close to treason, and that in times past our king would have ordered "Off with their heads !".

  The pub was a little busier than last week when I got there, but it was still fairly quiet. As usual it soon livens up after 1pm. To my annoyance, my favourite table was taken by the woman (with her friend this time) who sat next to me last week. The only real bother with that was that "my table" seems to have the brightest, but still a bit dim, lights above it. I had difficulty reading the paper, and particularly the crossword clues under that dim light. I was patient and bided my time because I knew she usually went back to work after about half an hour in the pub. I was back at my favourite table 15 or 20 minutes later.

  It was a fairly uneventful drink in the pub, although I did get my free pint from last week - earned as a reward for rescuing someone's tobacco pouch from the toilet where he had left it in the toilet roll dispenser. Luckily Ayse remembered it, and the post it note she had written was still stuck to the till. I must confess I had forgotten all about it until reminded. I stayed at the pub for my usual two pints, and then left.

  I was not sure if I would walk or get the train back to Catford Bridge (which only slightly reduces the distance walked). I think I was feeling good, and opted to walk. I could have taken a short cut through the hospital, but opted to go the full route by looping around the back of St Mary's church into the park. On the whole it felt OK, but I still had to stop a few times when I could feel my chest start to ache - I rested for a minute or so before the pain started to creep up to my neck, and then down my arms. It feels really awful if that happens.
  One slightly longer rest break was by the weir at the back of Lewisham Hospital. Once again I saw the grey wagtail flitting about on the far side of the river, and was once again unable to get a picture of it. One thing I did see was a couple of Egyptian Geese. It is not unusual to see them near the river, but I don't think I have captures a snap of one standing on the rocks of the weir. Yesterday I did.
  Another short rest break was an opportunity to take a picture showing my khaki shorts and bright orange Vans trainers. As hoped, those trainers were very comfortable - for now. I expect I'll wreck them if I use them too much, but I do have a couple of other pairs that might be OK, although I do remember one pair, and maybe it was the red pair, were really uncomfortable for no obvious reason. I must admit that I was wearing sticking plasters over the most sensitive bits of my feet.

  I, or maybe my legs, were starting to tire by the time I got home, but at least I was not feeling like my knees and ankles were about to crumble. I do wonder if it was the Vans trainers that could have been the reason for that. I hope not because I have money invested in other trainers like the pair I bought from Amazon a fortnight or less ago.

  I had a sort of plan about what I would eat after getting home. I used the warm sunshine as a great excuse to have some ice cream for lunch. I did, and it was very nice. In theory, and maybe partly in practice, having it early gave my body longer to process the sugar in it, and it would not leave much of a legacy when I checked my blood glucose this morning. It was my intention to have just a very light dinner of rice crackers with cheese for dinner. That never happened.

  I didn't feel the bad fatigue when I went through my pictures to select and edit the few I used here. That included the screenshot of the tracker app on my phone showing the two halves of my walk. Nor did it include doing the simple calculation to find the total distance. I could do that in my head, and it was 1.622 miles. That wasn't too bad, and gives me some confidence that with occasional breaks, I could do the three mile walk through the Linear Park with out too much trouble. I still don't think I am ready for any seaside trips just yet.

  After I had done the photographic stuff I laid on my bed,l and started reading. I didn't get very far before I put the book down and had a snooze. Once again I have no real idea how long that snooze was. maybe it was an hour, or maybe just 10 minutes. I find it hard to try and estimate it with no hard fact. I do know that it was not long before it was time to watch Star Trek, and an episode from the original Star Trek being shown on The Legend channel.

  It was not a good episode, and I found something else to watch, and I think it was a repeat of an episode of The Simpsons, and I didn't even watch all of that. As 6pm approached I thought it time for dinner. When it came to it I fancied something more substantial than rice crackers and cheese. I could have got something out of the freezer, but I went for simplicity and just had two cans of soup heated in the microwave for 3 minutes. Both were "chunky style" soups, and so were not very low sugar or calories. but they did the trick, and apart from a small chunk of cheese a bit later I didn't even want to eat any more.

  At 6pm I watched the BBC news. When that finished I changed channel to watch Star Trek: Voyager, and when that finished I had a flick through the electronic programme guide, and saw that an episode of The Avengers was about to start. Luckily it turned out to be one of the better episodes - it was almost a comedy from start to finish. That finished at 9pm, and I was going to watch an episode of QI. It was an old Stephen Fry edition, and that was good, but after watching the introductions to the guests I decided it was not an combination I liked and went to bed.

  I read in bed for some time, but by 10pm I think I was fast asleep. It was nice and warm last night, and I felt no need to use the heater until 3am when I woke up feeling just a bit cool unless I was fully under the duvet. I put the heater on low, and was soon very comfortable with the duvet mostly kicked aside. I seemed to get up for a pee about as often as usual, but curiously enough I don't even seem to remember dreaming at all.

  Sometimes it seemed that I was doing some quite big pees in the night, and this seemed to be confirmed as a fact when I came to weigh myself. This morning my weight was even lower than some of the times when I have come home dehydrated from walking in warm sunshine. Ignoring one fluke of very high weight, I looked for the otherwise highest weight this year. I found I was 3.6kg lighter, or in "old money" half a stone lighter. That is not exactly world breaking news, very far from it, but could enough to hopefully build on. It would be rather marvellous if I could end this month by losing another 3.6kg.

  I did wonder if all that peeing in the night would leave me dehydrated because that would make my blood glucose look a lot higher, and all the peeing suggested it might be high any way. In fact it was very slightly better than plain old "good". The Contour meter read 8.3mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter gave a better reading of 7.9mmol/l, and the Sinocare meter was better still with a reading of 7.7mmol/l. If it was the case that I was a bit dehydrated then these figures may have been even better.

  Today could be a bit like a busy day. Once I had had a rest and a shower, I need to rush to the pharmacy to collect my latest repeat prescription. I had intended to collect it on my way home from the pub yesterday, but I seemed to forget. Maybe it was a subconscious choice because I remembered that the last time it was a really arduous walk going home via the pharmacy. When I have got my drugs home I need to go out shopping in Tesco to get some food in. I must admit that not having much food in the house is a great way to reduce my calorie consumption, but on days like today a fair lunch would be a good idea.

  That semi substantial lunch, whatever it may be, would be a wise idea before an afternoon beer tasting session with Jodie. I wonder if Michael will be free to join us this afternoon, or if he is too depressed about some paperwork he is trying to do again - if that was the reason he didn't come last Thursday. Such paperwork should be second nature to him now because it is all about his wife being in care for bad dementia, but I get the impression he agonises over every crossed t and every full stop in case he fills the form in correctly and gets sent to jail for the rest of his life. (sometime when you hear him talk it does seem that he really does think that way).