The forecast for light rain in the early hours was probably right because it was definitely pouring with rain when I woke up this morning. The heavy rain could last until 2pm, and then the clouds will start to clear. From 4pm we may get a glimpse of the sun through the last of the rain clouds. From 5pm we may see sunny spells, and at 7pm, just before the sun set we could see full sunshine peeping over the visible horizon. The best we may see this afternoon is just 17° C, and clear skies after sunset may see the temperature plummet to as low as 12° C by 5am tomorrow. At sunrise tomorrow we may have full sunshine for a few hours. The rest of the day may feature occasional sunny spells, but a few hours will be dull. Tomorrow could see a high of just 19° C, or 2 degrees higher than today.

  Yesterday was quite good - as the calm before the storm should be (the storm being my colonoscopy and gastroscopy tomorrow). I have already mentioned that I started yesterday with some good weight loss, and yesterday I thought I would see if I could improve on that by going out for a hour for some light walking exercise.

  I have to confess that I felt time was wasting, and I could not bother to wash my hair or have a shower before I got ready to go for a walk. Maybe I was concentrating too much on forcing myself to go out. I felt like I didn't really want to, or maybe I didn't trust myself enough to enjoy it.

  In fact I did enjoy all the walk except the last 5 minutes when my legs were starting to feel a bit tired. As usual I took a camera with me. It was my Nikon D3200 fitted with a Nikon 24 to 200mm zoom lens. It was a nice lightweight combination, and the camera and lens can take some excellent picture only marred by the cameraman !
  I was very pleased with this picture. It shows a squirrel running away from me (although I wasn't chasing it), and it is in sharp focus while all around is slightly out of focus. It also shows the squirrel has all four paws off the ground as it mixes running with hopping (as squirrels do).
  I all too frequently guess and get it wrong, but this time I checked, and confidently say this is a moorhen. It is walking over one of the steel mesh encased loose rocks that are used for the weir in the river behind Lewisham Hospital's "Riverside House".
  One thing I should have checked was to see if my memory is correct that in the late 1960s (maybe) the comedian Tony Hancock, when he was in a sit-com, had a fictional address in Railway Terrace. I am very sure it included the word railway. Anyway, this Railway Terrace is on the western side of Ladywell station.
  If these picture file names meant they were stored in chronological order I would have shown this picture first. It was the first picture I took after walking through the park to the first clear view to the north. Also, it was taken with my new phone, the Poco M8 5G. It seems to take nice pictures (but it was me who seems to have increased the contrast during editing. With hindsight it was not done well). This is the view looking north, and shows a cloudy sky with some quite heavy looking clouds. Behind me to the south, the sun was usually shining from a sky which had very far less clouds.


  My walk was basically from home to Ladywell station, and then back home again. It wasn't done in a straight line, and several meanders took the total distance up to almost 1.5 miles. That is not very far in absolute terms, and yet it seems about right - as indicated by my legs feeling very tired in the last minutes of the walk before getting home.

  When I got home I felt like I had achieved something useful, and getting on the scales showed a bit more weight loss. The real celebration for that was this morning after it had all been consolidated. Well.....not actually a celebration, but more a sort of smug feeling !

  After getting home I had a single cheese roll. I expect I wanted more, but somehow I seemed to have developed something akin to a conscious about it.


   The rest of my afternoon was mostly just resting, reading, and although I don't specifically remember it, I would be surprised if I didn't have a snooze. At 6pm I watched the news and had another cheese roll. I know I had intended to have some ice cream, and I think I did, but the memory seems hazy for some reason. It may be that I was doing these things on auto pilot because thinking about them too much could have lead me off the golden path.

  One thing I did during the evening was to look to see if I could find the Simply Walking android app to download, and side install on my new phone. I did, and while I am not too sure it was "clean" I did find the file, and install it. I now have Simply Walking on my new phone, and all I need now is to get out and test it. It might just be a walk to the Pharmacy to pick up my new Ozempic injector - which I can't use until the day after my Colonoscopy and Gastroscopy. I did think of a walk in the park, but not in the heavy rain. I can't be sure, but it may have stopped now....or maybe it is just taking a short rest !

  One thing is definite about today, and it is that it is the day before my oral and anal rape with the endoscope camera at the hospital. That means my low fibre diet can come to an end today, but there is a but, and it is a big but. From 1pm today I have to fast until gone 4pm tomorrow when my "procedure" is over. It also means that at 7pm today I take my first dose of PlenVu - the hypersonic laxative. I will probably be up half the night rushing to the toilet. At 6am tomorrow I take the second, slightly different does that will mostly flush me through like very bad, but probably clear, diarrhoea. Then it will be a case of hoping I am 110% empty before walking to the hospital at about 2pm.

  One footnote to that last paragraph: I am allowed clear drinks, aka chilled water, for up to 2 hours before my procedure. The other note is that this bread and water diet, apart from missing some vitamins and minerals, seems to be a good way of losing weight. I may continue it, with a few non low fibre treats, for a week or two to see what I can manage.