Today

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Sunday 10th May 2026

08:57 BST

Yesterday was bright and sunny, and it was warm with an afternoon temperature of 19° C. It was a perfectly dry day, but somehow it didn't always seem as bright and sunny as the forecast predicted. Maybe it was just an occasional small cloud would block the sun for a few minutes, or maybe I just imagined that.

I'm sure we had a sunny spell recently, but the forecast says the only sunny spell today will be at 8pm - just before the sun sets. I can see a few tiny patches of blue to the north, but none to the south. Maybe we might get another sunny spell at some random time. A few hours show a low chance of rain, and midday has a 28% chance. It will still probably be dry. It is also going to be cool compared to recent days. This afternoon may see just 15° C . By midnight it could be down to 7° C, and still falling. Tomorrow may start at a chilly 6° C, but it will be sunny for a few hours, but by 11am it could start to rain, and continue to 3pm. The rain will hold the temperature down to 11° C, but when the rain stops it could rise to 12° C.

Yesterday Could have been good, and good because it was also bad. That will be explained later with the aid of some pictures. The most significant thing is that I went out for a walk, but it was shorter than intended, and that was a good thing !

As I mentioned in my closing paragraphs yesterday, the weather seemed demand that I go for a walk. The obvious walk was through the park to The Jolly Farmers, but I had walked nowhere else for ages, and with Ayse probably caring for her husband/partner, it felt like I would be wasting my time. That left either a walk through the River Pool Linear Park, or just a trip to the local shops. I knew it could be painful, and I was not sure I could do it, but I decided to try for a 3 mile walk through The River Pool Linear Park.
a walk in the park

With my Nikon D3200 camera, and choice of two lenses - a semi wide angle zoom lens, and a normal zoom lens, I boldly (well, sort of) stepped out and started walking toward the River Pool Linear Park. My first stop was Catford Bridge station, although I did make two very brief stops to take photos before then. Walking down the stairs to the platform was very taxing. My knees, particularly my right knee, did not want to bend properly. I had to grip the hand rail until I got to the bottom. I think that without the security of the hand rail I might have stumbled and fell - very embarrassing, and probably painful. I did not want to to that ! I did stop at Catford Bridge to take a few snaps of trains. To my surprise they were trains I wanted for my grand spreadsheet of every number train I have "spotted". I didn't think it worth showing them here because apart from the number on the front that were just like any other train.

My photography started nearer home, and the first photo was of this plant that I cannot name, but I presume it to be a "low maintenance" plant that is growing in one of the big wooden planers used at the start and end of the no car zone (during school hours) by Holbeach School.

By the time I had entered the park, in the entrance opposite Wickes, my ankles and knees were starting to give me trouble. I wondered if I would ever manage the three mile walk I was going to try for. The answer to that would soon be answered. In the meantime, taking the wide angle lens paid off when I took the above picture of the mural on the inside of one of the arches of the viaduct that carries "The Catford Loop Line" railway above.

I had barely left the railway arch when I found that my intended walk was not going to be possible - a shame, but also a blessing ! The diversion would add around a mile to the walk and possibly more . It would mean walking along Catford Hill, and then up Perry Hill to the top, and then down Winsford Road into the park. I was very sure I could not manage that until I had put a lot more practice in, but I could at least see how far I could walk in the park.

I didn't have to go much further until my suspicions were confirmed. It was work being carried out on what I dubbed "the bridge of doom" on account of it's poor state of repair several years ago. It ended up being closed for over a week as it was repaired and refurbished, but it only took about a year before it was obvious that it was falling apart again. The last repair was little more than some tarred plywood over the rotting decking, plus some other merely cosmetic work.

A few minutes more walking took me as far as "the gates of doom". This new and temporary barrier meant that I would never get to see what they were doing to the bridge. I hope they are stripping it back to the metalwork, which seems in good condition, and providing brand new decking. They may also try some way of making it difficult for cyclists to cycle over the bridge. It is no problem if cyclists obey the rules and dismount to push their bike over the bridge, but some, maybe most, try it at full speed (as I would have done when I was a kid). There is enough room for a cyclist and a pedestrian to safe pass, but only if each knows the other is coming.

At this barrier I could only follow the path on the right which loops around through the area known as The Vineries. I assume that it was once a vineyard. Although is no access to the road that runs behind some houses at the back of The Vineries, one small group of houses is on a small cul-de-sac entered through some very old looking stone fence/gate posts with "Vineries" cut into the stone, and while it could be a facsimile, that etching in the stone does look like it is hundreds of years old. Once upon a time there was a farm and a flour mill in that area.

Having looped around through the Vineries I came out back on the path that would give me a choice of going up the short hill to Catford Hill, or back the way I came - passing Wickes, the builders merchants. For as long as I can remember there has always been some sort of van, or modifed caravan selling refreshments to the builders - usually tea and a "wad" (Sandwich - often a bacon sandwich). The latest offering is The Jerk Shack offering mostly Carribean style food. I didn't look carefully, but I imagine they must sell mugs of tea (a disgusting thing) and bacon sandwiches.

my shortened path

I must admit that I was in a fair bit of discomfort when I got back to Catford Bridge station. It was good to stand still there, and wait for a train in each direction and the chance of a couple more train photos. After 10, maybe 15 minutes I was back walking towards home.

By the time I arrived home I was actually starting to feel slightly better. I've known since the earliest times of doing this, and other walks, perhaps dating back to before 2009 (by which time I started making a record of some walks) that the first mile was hard work as I warmed up and got my knees bending smoothly. After that I could walk OK for another mile, and then there was the hard slog home again. My actual walk is shown on the map on the left. I think I'll say it was 1.5 miles (rounded up from 1.493), and that is longer than a walk to Ladywell and back. I hope that suggests that I am still slowly building my stamina up after all those weeks spend in hospital bed, plus the weeks and week before that when Angina type pains limited the exercise I could do.

I didn't feel too bad when I got home. It was definitely good to sit down, but it also felt like I could have pushed myself to walk more. It is probably good that I didn't push myself further, or was it ?

Most of it would have been dehydration, but I was 300gm lighter when I got home. I have not checked to see if "Simply Walking", the app I use on my phone to track how far I have walked, has my current weight set in it. Assuming it has, then the walk apparently burnt off 209 calories. That could have been good if the first thing I did when I got home was to have a single spoonful of my terrible Walls ice cream. The other spoonfuls were just plain bad for me.

I would normally have felt fairly tired, and deserving of a snooze after a walk like this, but I seemed to have enough energy left to copy all the photos to my PC, and do the usual selecting and editing. In the case of the train photos I took, I think it was 2 or 3 of them got added to my train photos spreadsheet. Actually I think it might have only been two now I think about it. It was two class 376 trains that I had pictures of when they were in plain white livery, and now have them in the dark blue Southeastern livery. There were 36 class 376 trains, and I only have 12 of them in the new livery. I guess that means I have more "train spotting" to do.

After I had dealt with the photos, had a sort of lunch, and finally a snooze, I did very little more until dinner time came near. My dinner was a box of ready to finish cooking, tandoori mixed grill. It came from the same series that includes all the spare ribs and stuff - cooked enough, and then sealed in a thick plastic bag. Take out from the plastic bag, and heat in the oven for typically 25 minutes. It was interesting to try it, and it was sort of nice, but I don't feel inclined to buy another. It was good, but not that good.

My evening was not a typical evening because it was a Saturday night, and there is not a lot of entertainment on TV on a Saturday (or Sunday) night. I found a few things I watched with maybe less enthusiasm than I would on a weekday evening, but I gave up around 9pm - an hour or even two sometimes, earlier than usual. I didn't feel quite ready for sleep, although maybe I should have tried, but it seemed a great time to read a bigger than usual chunk of the current book I am reading (Isaac Asimov's "The Winds Of Change").

I thought all the sugar in The Walls ice cream I had had earlier would have kept me up peeing a lot last night, but if anything I seemed to pee less in the night than some nights. Maybe I just don't remember some occasions. I don't really remember a dream I had this morning, but I do remember the consequences of it. The dream had featured several people visiting me fairly late in the evening. I assume, but I don't remember it to have been a beer tasting session.

It was the very end that I part remember. I was saying goodbye to everyone. Jodie slightly delayed things because she saw a stripy bug by the living room door. Normally she is not keen on bugs, and particularly not ones with yellow and black stripes - although this was not a flying bug. She decided she should rescue it by picking it up on a comb, and saying it would safer in the middle of the road outside !

Everyone had gone, and I was feeling really tired. I went to bed, and tried to sleep. Nothing seemed to happen, and so I opened my eyes and saw it was 4.30am in the very early morning. I seemed to have made the transition from dream to real life because I realised I was looking at the real time on my PC monitor (the screensaver is a big digital clock). I seemed to have actually woken up because it was time for a pee.

I held almost no hope that I could have gotten away with all I ate yesterday, even taking into account I had done a little bit of exercise. However it seems I did lose 600gm since yesterday morning. There was no such luck with my blood glucose. Once again the Walls ice cream takes the blame for my blood glucose going from an average of all three meters yesterday of 9.43mmol/l to 9.47mmol/l this morning. Both are very similar, and both are still under the red line (10.0mmol/l), but both are equally very bad. The trouble is that it is only 8 days until I see the nurse again, and I ought to get my readings out of the pink and into at least light green. Ideally I ought to increase that drop of 600gm by tenfold !

Today brings it's own problems. Being a Sunday, and with the trains running normally today, I should be seeing Jodie for a beer tasting session. It is good to break the monotony of a Sunday, but I usually try and dull the tedium with more beer than is good for me - and my appetite ! While I was out yesterday I picked up a day old, but still unread by me, copy of The Metro. I have read most of it, but I have saved the crosswords, quick and cryptic, for when Jodie is ignoring me as she doom scrolls through all her Instagram pages on her phone (mostly looking for cat and squirrel photos).

I had a late start writing this because of an error which screwed up all the formatting of this page. I ended up deleting the whole page, and using yesterday's page which I have edited as a new page for today. It is now late, but I reckon I can squeeze in a snooze, followed by a shower, and then doing the usual stuff in the kitchen and dining room - washing up, and cleaning and polishing the beer glasses. It is probably a good thing that I doubt I will have time to go to do a bit of shopping because I would probably also have brought back some common beers that Jodie would have no interest in, but I would be happy to guzzle down by myself with no permission from the head beer taster needed !

2549 words today.