This afternoon could be quite hot, but after a few sunny spells this morning, a lot of the day may be dull. Full sunshine may resume at 7pm tonight. The afternoon could reach 29° C, and I suspect it might feel very muggy. Tomorrow could feature full sunshine from dawn to dusk, and the afternoon may reach a scorching 32° C.

  Yesterday was another day dominated by Chattfest photo editing, but I did do some other stuff too. Other stuff included some laundry and eating a quite low sugar diet !

  The main task for yesterday was photo editing, and I have to admit I was feeling that maybe I had taken too many photos, and that it would take a month of Sunday's to get through them all. On the other hand, I am making fair progress, and I think I should finish in time to take a another huge heap of photos at Petts Wood Calling next Saturday. Yesterday I showed pictures from the first two bands, and today I think I have pictures ready to show of the next two bands - which were Cross Town Revival, and Retro Rock Icons. I showed a few sample pictures of The Life Of Brian who were on at 3pm before those two bands, and they were just from my Cannon Camera. I think I took something like 200 snaps of the band on my big Nikon camera, and trying to sort the best from those is going to ne a nightmare !
  There was one man I could instantly name playing drums for Crosstown Revival, and his name is Steve Fuller. He is one of those musicians who loves his craft so much that he is willing to step in for any band needing a drummer for a gig. I first photographed him maybe 10 years ago playing drums for Chain who were without a regular drummer at the time. Steve always has a big grin when playing - in fact I think his mouth has a permanent grin !
  Crosstown Revival are one of those bands that like to jump down and play among the audience, and it is all thanks to cheap Chinese radio links for guitars and mics. No doubt, one day some mad drummer will manage to walk off stage with his drums, and playing through a miniature radio transmitter. (joke....or at least I thing I am joking).
  Not actually singing at this point, but he did sing out there among the audience.
  Crosstown revival were one of the few bands I managed to get to line up for a shot of the whole band. I'll admit they did have a very limited amount of time to clear their stuff from the stage for the next band, but I did say they could line up after they had done their stage clearing, but many member would then just disappear to the four corners of the universe, never to be seen again (or when then that had been served at the bar, or had had a pee).

  At this point I thought I was going to show some pictures of The Retro Rock Icons. I know I started selecting and editing some pictures of them, but I think I may have only done a few high definition pictures that are too big to show here. Either that or I stored them elsewhere on my hard disk, and they have got mislaid.

  One thing I did allow to interrupt my work in the "digital darkroom" was some laundry. It was just 4 t-shirts, and for once I did not just leave them soaking, but did the whole job in one go. They seem to be dry this morning after drying them on the big clothes horse in the front room. In consequence the bath is free this morning, and I won't have to do any mucking about before I can wash my hair and have a shower.

  There was one other time where I took a break from photo editing, and that was when I prepared my dinner. I ate lunch at my PC, and it was some beef flavour Hula Hoops with some cheese. My dinner was actually cheese on sourdough bread. I thought it was about time I tried to use a loaf I had bought a week ago, but left it still sealed. I opened it expecting to find green patches of mould, but it was fine. It was the first time I have had cheese on toast for months, and possibly years. It was not exactly wonderful, but I enjoyed it a lot.

  I think I was doing my photo editing at a more sedate pace than usual, and I think it was because I was overwhelmed by the amount of pictures I had to deal with. It was good being able to test my Cannon 600D camera with the new Sigma 24 to 70mm zoom lens, but now tested I think I will keep it as a standby for when I might prefer a lighter camera, or in case the big Nikon fails in some way. Using both cameras was probably silly because I was clicking away almost (but not quite) ad lib, and taking more pictures than I can cope with. If I was a good photographer I would get each picture taken correct, and of something worth showing. I am not a good photographer and so I work to the idea that if I take enough pictures some of them must be good.

  By the evening my enthusiasm for photo editing was seriously waning, and although I tried to do more photos during commercial breaks, I seemed to be more interesting in relaxing my brain by watching TV. I was feeling terribly tired, but maybe not sleepy in the evening, and I think I may have given in and gone to bed at 10pm. Evidently I was not just tired, but very sleepy. I think I was fast asleep within minutes of my mead hitting the pillow.

  I don't think I remember anything about last night. I don't remember getting up for a pee in the night, but earlier on I don't remember taking my evening medication. I thought I had dished out the pills ready to take, but I now have my doubts - mostly based on seeming not to remember getting up for a pee in the night. The prescribed diuretic tablet I take usually makes getting up for a pee a standard event once or twice in the night.

  Had I passed the amount of pee expected in the night I may have lost a bit of weight by this morning. Instead I seemed to have gained 400gm. That seemed a bit odd because I thought I had eaten quite lightly yesterday - I had not been to Tesco, and there was not a lot to tempt me in the fridge or cupboard. The careful eating I thought I had done certainly showed up in my blood glucose readings. This morning I had better (lower) readings than I have had for ages. I got readings of 7.7, 7.7 and 7.8mmol/l, or an average of 7.73mmol/l. I only had one reading the same as that this month, and none lower. Last month I managed a couple that were marginally lower. It was only just over my self set target (that I haven't reached for ages) and rather pleasing.

  The only downside this morning is that I have yet to "empty my bowels", and it feels like I should be able to. My other negative bit of health is actually healing OK now.

  It is hard to take a picture of the top of your own head, but I sort of managed it, even if it doesn't show as much as  thought it should.

  In simple terms I got very sunburned while out in the full sunshine at Chattfest. Unfortunately, as I get older and older (now 71 years old) I am losing my hair. I have to remember that I am not doing too bad. My dad, and my oldest brother were more or less completely bald at half my age.

  What I was not prepared for was the top of my head getting seriously sun burned. I think it must have blistered, and where a (presumably) big blister has burst, the liquid inside has dried and gone crusty. I have never experience anything like this before.

  It seems obvious/preudent that if there is more burning sunshine when I got to Petts Wood Calling this coming Saturday, I really need to wear a hat. I don't really like hats, and the only one I own is a baseball style hat (and they usually look pretty stupid). On the plus side it does not have a baseball, or MAGA logo on it, but "Triple A" - one of the last special beers Youngs brewed in their Wandsworth brewery. It was quite nice, and I drank enough of it to earn two of these hats. The other blew away while I was waiting for a train one rainy morning on my way to work - never to be seen again.

 Today I must have a shower, and gently wash my hair (or what is left of it), and then I will finally be clean and fragrant enough to go shopping in Tesco (although I am also considering Aldi instead). After shopping come eating, and then I suppose I had better knuckle down and try and make some more headway getting through the pictures I took last Saturday. I know I took 253 pictures of Life Of Brian, and I will add some of those to the selection I took using my Canon camera as an experiment. Apart from that, I have three more bands to do. The last band I saw was Emma And The Invaders. Emma does a fair cover of some Blondie songs. She is pretty, maybe photogenic, but somehow a bit one dimensional. It felt like one picture from the left, one from the right, and one from the front seemed to cover everything. I took more than that - a total of 64 snaps - far less than everyone else. I doubt her (and her band) will end up with a photo album with much more than half a dozen pictures in it.

  Other than photo editing, which could consume most of my time, some shopping, and some eating, I don't know what else I will do today. I suspect it will be some advanced forms of resting, aka being lazy at a professional level !