Like yesterday, this morning started with rain, and it seemed more than a light sprinkle, although still far from heavy. The forecast promises more rain through the rest of the day. Between showers there could be some sunny spells. This afternoon could reach 23° C, and there is a fair chance it will be raining. 8pm, just 15 minutes before sunset, could see clear skies and full sunshine ! Tomorrow could start at 15° C, but with sunny spells and maybe even a period of full sunshine. Tomorrow afternoon may only see 21° C in the afternoon, and it may also feature light rain. 

  I don't think I could say that yesterday was a particularly good day, but it was generally OK. I did a few things, and I might have done more, but the grey outside dampened my enthusiasm.
  This picture uses a purple shaded filter to emphasise how threatening the sky looked. Unfortunately I was a bit slapdash using it. The filter should be purple at the top, and fade to clear by about halfway down. Unfortunately I seemed to have allowed the filter to rotate some the purple area was mostly towards the left. Oh well, it still looks sinister. The thickness of the clouds are still apparent no matter where the purple is.

  This picture was taken while I was looking at my collection of filters and thinking I really ought to make more creative use of them. The trouble I have always had is that the effects they produce are only good for one photo. If used to often the pictures just look a bit silly. To use them creatively, and some can make grass look greener, the beach look more golden and the sky more blue, I would be forever swapping them around. That would be fine if I were shooting pictures to some sort of plan, but nearly all my photos are decided by what I see at the time.

  Back to the real world, and one of the things I managed to do earlier than expected, was to finish washing a grubby, and probably starting to get smelly shorts. As I mentioned yesterday, and had started the wash the day before, and left the shorts soaking in one of my big builders buckets. Getting that out of the way meant I could have a shower, and maybe wash my hair (or what is left of it), but in the end I could not be bothered with washing because it seemed to grim outside to want to go out and mingle with the public.

  I still did a bit of shopping, but it was online shopping, and I can only imagine it happened when I had some sort of brain seizure. It was while taking the picture above that I developed a sort of mania that said I needed an even bigger zoom lens. One trouble with photography is that you sometimes buy stuff for just one job, although once you have it you find it useful for things you didn't expect.

  I own several 300mm zoom lenses, and it is because one model is quite cheap, and particularly so for lenses for Nikon cameras. Many lenses will only work, at least in auto-focus mode, if the camera has the focus motor in the body - which new Nikon cameras don't have. I thought a 300mm zoom lens would be all I would ever need, but it was while taking pictures of the eclipse that I thought a more powerful lens would be good. It would also be good for wildlife photography. There have been times when I have seen a bird in a tree and wished for a more powerful lens.

  Once I would have thought it madness, but when I ordered a couple of lenses from Ebay my opinion changed. Apart from one lens that has a sticky zoom ring at one end, all the rest have been really good. Yesterday, while I could not control myself, I had a look for bigger zoom lenses on Ebay. I found what seemed to be a very affordable Sigma 50 to 500mm lens. Some of my favourite lenses are made by Sigma, and so I took a chance.

  This morning's update from Ebay is that the seller has arranged delivery by Royal Mail. It has a tracking number, and Royal Mail are due to collect it some time today. Once they have it, it could be at a local sorting office by tomorrow morning, and possibly delivered tomorrow. I really look forward to testing it. Ideally I should take it to the beach and take pervy pictures of topless sunbathers, but now we have lost the best sunshine that is unlikely, and besides, that is not the real use I have in mind.

  The one big error I have made is that I am not sure of the filter size for the lens, but I think my x2000 neutral density filter, and when it arrives (hopefully in a few days) my special filter lens for Hydrogen light from the sun, will be the wrong size for this new lens. Oh well, it is ages before the next decent eclipse, and I'll probably be long dead by then. Hopefully I will get good use out the new lens taking pictures of less celestial objects......although it could be good for pictures of the moon.

  The dark clouds did have a big dampening effect on me, and sapped most ideas of stuff I might have done, but in a way they were a good thing, They inspired me to finish a job that I had stopped doing last month. It was the selecting and editing of photos I had taken at Chattfest on 25th July. In particular, the photos of The Life Of Brian band. I had put together one photo album, and all those pictures I had taken using my Canon 600D camera with my new (at the time) Sigma 24 to 70mm zoom lens - the Canon fitting version of my favourite Nikon lens for taking pictures of bands.

  The following pictures were taken with my Nikon 610D camera using my favourite Sigma 24 to 70mm zoom lens. On the day it was a test between the Canon and Nikon cameras, and it proved the point that it is the lens that provides the quality, and by using the same lens (with their different fittings) on the two cameras showed that both cameras could match each other quite well.
  Miranda can pull some wonderful faces when on stage. Not all are attractive, but some show the power of her voice.
  Some singers can "own" the stage, and Miranda is one of them.
  Brian Bath seeming to be enjoying himself. He is credited on some of Kate Bush's early songs, and was a member of her band in her early days. He is an unusual guitarist in that provided he knows the song he is a brilliant guitarist, but doesn't do so well if he has to improvise.
  This picture was taken during their final song, and Miranda has a double reason for looking so happy. Their set was just about flawless, and they excelled on a proper stage (as opposed to the more usual corner of a pub), but more than that, she had got through their set without having any pains. Just a week earlier she had had her appendix out, and admitted that it was part adrenaline that got her on stage. Once on stage she gave it her all, and the high of doing a great gig provided more relief. I have heard from her since, and she never said she had any pains in the evening when she was relaxed and ready for sleep. That was good news.
 I'm not even sure I remember taking this picture of Miranda after she had come off stage, but I was quite pleased how good it looks (to my eyes).

  I had to go through 252 photos to find these examples (and another 20+ for a full photo album), and all that took some time. It probably was not then, but I think I may have had too many snacks yesterday. I was in that sort of mood. At this point I am trying to remember what I had for dinner. I keep thinking it was a Tesco Paella, but that was surely the day before ? Maybe I just finished off the reduced price sandwiches I had bought from Tesco the day before. I know I ended it with some ice cream.

  It was the Ben & Jerry's orange choc chip ice cream that I mentioned yesterday. This time I left it out of the fridge for at least 10 minutes, and maybe 15 before eating it. It was better when starting to melt, but I still felt it was a bit disappointing for a premium priced ice cream. It seems curiosity killed the cat again !

  There is nothing new to say about my evening. It was the usual selection of TV, and in bed at around 10pm. I made a point of going to bed early to give myself time to read for a while before trying for sleep. I was probably asleep around 11pm, but I am not sure I slept that well. I seemed to dream a lot, and I seemed to have a very long dream made of a few overlapping segments.

  In this long seeming dream (but probably only lasting a few minutes) I was at work in a new building. For some reason Jodie came with me, and she was being treated as the new girl as if she was going to work there. In the meantime I was setting up my new work bench. There was a woman who was calibrating what seemed to just an ordinary 14" ex-scrap TV used mostly to watch teletext.

  After a while I wanted to nip outside for a cigarette. That turned into quite a complex thing. The first thing was going down the stairs which were running with water like a waterfall. Having exited the building I had to walk along a narrow village street that was crowded with traffic. I saw several near misses as cars, vans and lorries passed each other. I don't think I had my cigarette because the dream ended before I got to wherever I was allowed to smoke.

  I woke up at about 4 am (but possibly 5am) and saw that there was a fair amount of rain. Unlike the previous morning, the road outside was properly wet, and it even looked like the garden had been watered well. The air blowing in my bedroom window smelled of rain, and was also rather chilly. I closed the window before getting back onto (but not in) my bed, and falling asleep again. I am sure I had another dream then, but that one, if it happened, has left no memories.

  One thing I ate a fair bit of yesterday was fruit. It had the desired effect when I got up and went to the toilet. There was no messing around - I had a very decent seeming poo, although I did think that maybe I had not passed as much pee as usual. That was sort of reflected in my weight when I got on the scales. I seemed to have gained a whole kilogram since yesterday morning. I knew I did not eat all that carefully, but a whole kilogram ????

  My blood glucose was slightly up this morning, but still good enough. I got readings of 8.5, 7.1 and 7.9mmol/l. That was three very different readings for no obvious reasons - one very good, and one leaning towards the bad. The other was just in the middle. My blood pressure was 115/75, and maybe that is a bit on the low side, but at least my heart is probably not having to work too hard.

  Once again it is another morning when I have no real idea of what I am doing today. It would be easy to say I might ake a walk in the park, but I probably won't. Maybe I should do what I did yesterday, and make some progress on a backlog of photos. I still have photos of two bands I saw at Petts Wood Calling, and I have only had a brief glance at some of the pictures. Maybe this is what dull rainy days were designed for.