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Saturday 14th June 2025
 07:38 BST

  Yesterday was a very warm day with plenty of sunshine, mostly strong sunshine, although a few hours only had sunny spells. The temperature reached 28° C, and it was very humid. That was enough to trigger a few thunderstorms around midnight. There had been rain from as early as 8 or 9pm. Most of it light rain, but a patch of cloud crossed over us that produced heavy rain, and the thunderstorms. I saw quite a few bright flashes, but the thunder only arrived many seconds, perhaps 10 or even 20 seconds later. Somewhere in London was getting the full force of it, but there seemed nothing local to me.
  BBC_weather forecast  
  There are no sunny spells so far this morning, and from how the sky looks it could be some time before we see the sun. We have even had a splattering of rain, and it looks like we are having another as I write this. With one of my outside temperature sensors saying the humidity is 84%, it would not surprise me if I heard more thunder in the distance. Eventually the sun will break through, and although the maximum temperature may only be the forecast 23° C, it could still feel like a hot and sticky day.  Tonight may feel much fresher, and tomorrow may start as low as 14° C, but it could start with just 2 hours of full sunshine. After that there will be mostly sunny spells until 8pm when full sunshine could return for an hour and a bit before the sun sets. Midday could see some heavy cloud and a shower or two. Tomorrow's warmest hours could be just 22° C starting at 3pm for a few hours.

   I had plans and ideas for yesterday, but they came to nothing because I was not feeling too good after the many visits to the toilet late in the night before. I felt only just a bit tender, but worse was that it felt like it was still not fully over. With hindsight I cans say that it was. I ended up doing something completely different.

  I really was hoping that I would end up frolicking in the hot sunshine yesterday, and I sort of did, but not how I imagined it. At a minimum I hoped for as simple a walk as from home to Ladywell and back, but I was thinking that I could attempt something longer. I had hoped that after I had had my lie down after writing yesterday's piece, I might feel up to that longer walk. I even had fantasies about going on train and tram rides.

  So I had my usual lie down, and at the end of it I went to the toilet for a pee, but thought there was going to be more - more than just some wind ! There was definitely some wind, but that was all. I still wouldn't want to be doing that on a train, and that was one limitation for me. I washed my hair and had a shower, and felt better for it, but not in the way |I wanted to feel.

  One thing about yesterday's shower, and hair washing, was that I fed all the water through the shower head. Usually I have to allow a fast dribble out of the wash basin hot tap to allow enough water to flow to trigger the water heater to heat the water to maximum. With only the shower head on the heater only heated to water to slightly more than lukewarm, and that was far more pleasant to shower under. Even cooler may have been nicer - particularly several hours later.

  I have absolutely no idea when I started, but I think it was not long after midday when I went out into the garden armed with my cordless strimmer. The garden path was almost inaccessible again, and the nettles around the old bird feeder were almost chest high. Also the tree I had cut back to a bare stump, albeit about 3 ft high, had sprouted new branches, and a few were fairly thick. All these things needed to be tackled with the strimmer, or loppers for the tree.

  I wore an old pair of walking boots, without socks, and for this work they seemed comfortable. I also wore my gardening trousers - a pair of old jeans that were too big and baggy for me, and needing a good belt to hold them up. Other than that I was working topless in the hot sunshine, and it felt great ! It was very sweaty work, but the sweat didn't seem to bother my like it might have. Somehow it mostly kept out of my eyes.

  I am very certain I was working for over one hours, but although slightly possible, I don't think I worked for more than 2 hours. By the time I was finished I was feeling tired but good. I can't recall at any time feeling even the tiniest hint that I might need the toilet. As such I could have gone for a walk safely, but it is easy to say that with hindsight. When I say safely I expect I mostly, but perhaps not exclusively, mean comfortably.

  When I came indoor again I stripped off my gardening clothes, and had a plain and cool shower to rinse off the sweat and bits of vegetation clinging to my wet skin. I felt relaxed after the shower, but also rather good. I sort of wish I had taken a before picture because taking a picture of my hard work without anything to compare it with would have shown nothing, although literally nothing would really be the absence of stuff. It is not knowing what was there before that would make an after picture pointless, but at least I know what I achieved.

  I think it was fast approaching 3pm when I had dried myself off, and laid down to rest. By then I was definitely feeling hungry, but I resisted the temptation to have any food. One of the original reasons for going out on a longer walk was as a distractions from food. I still had a couple of hours to pass before I would consider dinner, but the hunger pains could have busted through my resolve.

  I was helped by a new distraction from eating by a phone call from my friend Kieth. Sometimes a call from him can be quite tedious. He has some strange hobbies, like spotting cell phone towers, and remembering all the news of mergers and changes in the mobile phone world. The call did end up like that, but before it, he had a serious question, and I guess many people would not know what I thought was very obvious.

  He had been asked to send a copy of a letter than confirmed he had paid a bill, but every time he tried to send a photo of the letter his email was rejected for being too big. He is used to social media websites accepting any pictures, and then resizing them as needed. He did not know that that does not happen when sending emails with pictures as attachements. He was wailing that there was something wrong with his phone or his email app.

  He thought he might have to buy a special app to send big pictures through email. It seems he had never knew it was possible to edit the pictures he had taken. I patiently got him to take another picture of the letter, but this time to not zoom in, and leave lots of blank space around the border of the letter. I then talked him through noticing the edit button, which was in plain sight once he looked for it, and then to drag the edges of the frame in to meet the edges of the letter. After that he could save it over the the original picture, or save the cropped version as a new pictures.

  The new copy was about a quarter of the size of the picture he was trying to send, and it was easily accepted to send as email from and too a google email address. Prior to this he thought he knew everything about mobile phones, this proved he didn't. He also admitted his ignorance when he claimed crappy Samsung phones were the best of all, and he had spent a fortune to buy his current one. I suspect my new phone, the Honor 200 Smart, that is still in testing before I transfer the sim card from my current phone, could match his in all but one feature. He had bought the one with the highest storage space. My Honor phone only has half the storage space, but to me it is a lot, and cost approximately on tenth the price he paid !

  The end of that phone call took me nicely to dinner time. I had about 20 minutes to prepare my dinner ready to eat while watching the 6 O'clock News. In fact my preparation time was a lot less because I had a ready made "basic side salad" that I had bought from Aldi, and it was high time I used it (although it might have had another day before the best before date). All I had to do was to fish out the bits of cucumber, add some slices of corned beef, and a big spoonful of coleslaw.

  It was quite a nice dinner, and it seemed semi filling, but not filling enough to stop eating for the day. I had an apple, a small "easy peeler" orange and two Sharon fruit for a dessert. I wish I had not bought that Sharon fruit. It is very sweet usually, and the three pack I bought had three almost over ripe fruit in it. I had two of them because I knew they could not last much longer. I am unsure if it was purely because they were so soft and over ripe, or if it was some sort of guilt because they were so sweet, but in the end I did not enjoy them.

  After the 6 O'clock news I started to watch Star Trek: Voyager, but it was not a very exciting story, and I ended up reading through some of the backlog of technology news items in https://www.theregister.com/. When Star Trek: Deep Space Nine started, or maybe it was before it started, when I realised I was in the wrong mood for more TV. It was only 8pm, but I found I preferred to get ready for bed, and spend maybe an hour reading in bed.

  In fact it was less than an hour before I had finished reading the first Red Dwarf book. That book was a double book and it also had the second book, but I had read that previously as a separate book. There was some additional stuff, including the very first script for a preview/test version for the TV series, and that was a little bit interesting, and I read that, but I thought I could probably go to sleep straight afterwards.

  I turned out the light, turned over, and tried to sleep. That didn't work. It was obviously too early even if after my hard work in the garden made me feel like an early night would be nice. That hard work in the garden did leave a fairly mild legacy of aches, and while they would be easily ignorable if I was very tired, they helped me keep awake. And then there was the fact that it was a very sweaty and sticky night.

  I got up again, and took a couple of Ibuprofen tablets to ease some of the aches. While they did their stuff I read more news items from The Register. Eventually I started to feel tired - as I should have done anyway at just after 9pm. I went back to bed, and although it probably took as much as 20 minutes, I did finally get back to sleep, but it was quite a disturbed sleep.

  One annoyance was that I woke up thinking I could here a mouse nibbling at something, but I later realised it was rain hitting the window. The first flash of lightning, and the almost long wait for the the thunder was a big clue it was raining outside. I got up to go for a pee, and I saw and heard a few more flashes and distant peals of thunder before I was back in bed. It seemed like I had only managed to get to sleep after a fair wait when my new phone woke me up.

  It announced there was an operating system software update. I could have and should have waited for the morning to deal with it, but decided I may as well get it over and done with. I was awake for at least another half hour. After that I did seem to almost sleep OK, but I had another period of insomnia at around 5am. Maybe it was because it was light by then - albeit an overcast sort of light.

  I managed a bit more sleep, but not enough to make up for the 2 or 3 hours of sleep I felt I had missed in the night. I may pay for that later. It was obvious I would probably not be able to fall asleep again, and got up. It was about the time I would have got up if I had had a perfect night's sleep. I went for a pee (but no poo), and like much of the night's pees, it was quite small, but I was fairly pleased to see that I had managed to lose 400gm since yesterday. I must admit that after no lunch, and a very healthy (or so I deluded myself) dinner, I had hoped for more.

  The seeming lack of peeing suggested a low blood glucose, but it never seems to work how the text books say it should. The Contour meter said my blood glucose was 8.4mmol/l. That is fined but I had hoped for lower. The GlucoRX meter read 8.8mmol/l, and I thought that a bit high. The Sinocare meter went bonkers and said my blood glucose level was well into the danger zone with a reading of 10.2mmol/l. That is unbelievably high compared to the other two, and there must be more going on than meets the eye.

  Today has finally brightened up, and although it may be a little cooler, and a little less sunny than yesterday, it still seems like it should be well good enough to revive my plans of yesterday - but with some modification. I am still unsure how far I can walk. Maybe about three quarters of a mile is my maximum without several minutes of rest - standing up rest ! I have come up with a plan that could make for at least a 3 mile walk, but done in small stages.

  The plan is very flexible. I will start by walking through the River Pool Linear Park. If I walk to the bow string bridge over the river, and then return it is about a 3 mile walk. My plan starts with walking as far as the bow string bridge, and if all is well after a couple of short rest periods, I will continue as far as Lower Sydenham station. The walk home from there is about 4 miles, but I have doubts I could manage that without a few good rests. I could get the train back to Catford Bridge, but I am thinking of getting the train to Elmers End. That would give me about 5 minutes of sitting down rest.

  At Elmers End I could take a few tram pictures and then get the train back to Catford Bridge. If I was feeling a lot better than I could imagine I could walk to Arena Tram stop. I could also get a tram from Elmers End, but once on the tram network I could take lots of short tram rides and take more pictures of trams. With luck I would get to ride on one of the newer 12 trams of the total of 34 trams that are running. I could probably fill in a lot of the blanks of my Trams spreadsheet if I did this.

  As I write this I am not totally sure I will be going out at all. I can feel my lost sleep catching up with me, and I feel like I might have a long snooze during my post writing rest. After that I can consider if I am going out, and maybe how far I dare try to travel or walk. I definitely want to skip lunch again today, and being out of the house would make that very easy.

  On the subject of eating, I am conducting a very dangerous experiment this morning. Instead of my usual instant noodles I have had two halves of a, heading towards stale, Pannini roll toasted with melted cheese on both halves. I have also had a small pot noodle. I think it was an Aldi special, and I am sure I thought the other of the pair I bought was rubbish, but this one, apart from being small (possibly just 60gm or less) was a bit nice. I also had 4 blocks/segments from a bar of a mint Aero bar. That did involve quite a bit of sugar, and that would seem to be unwise, but..... in the past it has seemed that an occasion burst of sugar would seem to wake my pancreas up, and my my blood glucose to actually drop the next day. Doing that today may be foolhardy, but maybe it might work again.
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