Today we return to heatwave territory. The forecast promises full sunshine all day long, and the afternoon may reach as high as 32° C for a single hour at 5pm. Not a single drop of rain is forecast. Tomorrow could be very sunny, but the afternoon may only see sunny spells. The afternoon temperature will be several degrees lower than today with just 26° C forecast, although it is still quite hot enough for some.

  Yesterday was a fairly calm sort of day, although I was still busy enough to not really allow any time for some decent relaxation and snoozing.

  Once I had finished writing, and had a too short rest (and I don't think I managed a short snooze like I would have liked), I had a shower, and I was about to say I didn't wash my hair, but I think I probably did. After I had finished washing me I filled one of my big buckets up with detergent, and put a fair bit of laundry in to soak. Anyone who has read more than a few entries in this electronic diary will know that the laundry is still there, untouched this morning. It seemed I had more important things to do yesterday.

  Once I was clean, dry and dressed I went shopping in Tesco. Apart from buying some fruit, I made little attempt at buying healthy stuff. I did buy a fair bit of drink. Over half of it was soft drinks - mostly a pack of 10 cans of Cherry & Vanilla Pepsi zero. I am not a great fan of Pepsi, but curiosity got the better of me. I have to admit that even before it was deeply chilled, it seemed to be fairly nice.  I also bought a 4 pack of orange flavoured Spanish lager. I can't say it was that nice, but it definitely wasn't horrible. I think I'll just say it was curiosity satisfied.

  It is a terrible habit, but it is also quite useful - buying ready made sandwiches from the reduced price shelf, and having them for lunch. Well, I needed something a bit stodgy before tipping beer down my throat. The afternoon was a beer tasting session with just Jodie this time. We had an interesting selection of beers, and it included one fruit sour beer. It was brewed by Vault City, and was an orange flavoured wheat beer (at least I think it was).

   Maybe I had persevered enough to numb my taste buds, and I now find some sour fruit beers to be almost drinkable. Some feel like they are dissolving the enamel on my teeth, and I still do not like them, but more gentle fruit beers I could almost feel like with a bit more practice I could enjoy them.

  After Jodie left to get a bus to Bromley (where she was meeting Alan) I had my dinner. It was a couple of curry flavoured fish cakes. I think I would always prefer cod and that green herb whose name is on the tip of my tongue, but the curry flavour worked well to give tasteless hake (or something) a bit of flavour. I followed it with a portion of plain vanilla ice cream. That was not the only high sugar thing I ate yesterday, but I must have paced myself or something.

  As usual I watched some TV (I think it was the news) as I ate, and I watched some other stuff on TV, but mostly I started editing the first photo album of photos taken at Petts Wood Calling, and of the band "See Emily Play". They are not, as the name might suggest, a Pink Floyd tribute band, but I suspect, but can't say with any certainty, that the lead singers name is Emily.
 Apart from possibly wrongly saying the lady singing is called Emily, I can't put a name to any of the band.
  Being the first band on means that the audience can be a bit thin. There were quite a few more people off to the right of the picture sheltering from the sun under the trees. It is only as things warm up that the audience drifts to the front.
  Here's the band as seen from behind the audience. At this time it was easy to circulate to take pictures, but later on it was tricky to work my way through small gaps in the crowd. After a few more bands it was almost impossible, and I stayed around the very front of the stage (which my wrist band gave me access to).
  The first three pictures were taken using my Canon 600D camera with Sigma 24 to 70mm lens. It doesn't always take a great picture, and so the rest of the photos were taken with my big Nikon D610 camera with the same Sigma 24 to 70mm lens (but with a Nikon fitting instead of Canon). I think it has a slight edge over the Canon camera, but if set correctly both cameras can almost match each other. It is hard to spot the difference after the photos have been processed and shrunk to fit on these pages. The differences were sometimes very obvious when looking at the raw images on my photo editor.
  "Hello Petts Wood !"

  Guitar, singer and bass guitar.
  Keyboard player with drummer in the background.
 
  The bass player.
  Close up on singer who may, or may not be Emily.
  Long shot with another photographer up against the railings. I think the photographer is Manx Jax, but it could also be someone else whose name is on the tip of mt tongue.
  This year the stage layout made it hard to invade the stage for close up photography. I had to hold the camera above my head, while standing on the ground at the side of the stage, to get this shot of the keyboard player.
  Once again there was no good vantage point to get this shot. It is one of several, and this one was when I got the camera pointing in the right direction while holding it above my head.
  Another slightly over exposed shot of the bass player.
  Although these pictures are fairly reasonable, they lack some sparkle. I probably should blame myself, but it could also be that the back drop is a bit bland. Later on in the day, as the sun was starting to get lower in the sky, the stage lighting added more character to the scene, and hopefully I was feeling more sort of relaxed, and stopped trying to force myself to take good pictures. The best often seem to happen more by accident than design.

  It was quite a relief to get this first band's photos selected and edited. It meant I could relax more deeply for the rest of the evening. I can't seem to remember, but I think I may have headed for bed at 9pm last night. I think that I thought I could make a start on the next band's photos, but I very quickly dismissed the idea. I can't be sure, but I was probably fast asleep around 10pm.

  I know I woke up once or twice for a pee, and at around 2.30am I either had a dream or I was awake. I heard something through my open bedroom window. It sounded like some courier doing an exceedingly late delivery. Knowing how late some courier arrive I was almost tempted to pull on a pair of trousers to have a look for any packets/parcels tossed behind the wheelie bins. This morning I have had no notifications of deliveries, and I guess I just heard someone getting home very late.

  This morning I forced myself to go back to bed after I woke up at about 6am. I had a pee, and I also stopped for a minute to take screen shots of the weather forecast. Once I was back in bed (or actually most of me was on, rather than in my bed) I didn't seem to have any trouble falling asleep again, and it was around 8am when I got up.

  I had another pee, and did my best to have a poo. I did have a poo, but it was tiny ! Anyway, I still weighed myself, and it seems I managed to put on 1.3kg since yesterday morning. That is the biggest increase for ages and ages, and not good news at all ! I have since had a more substantial poo, but I doubt it would have made that much difference to my weight. I guess I had better try and eat more carefully today, although I have already broken that idea !

 On the other hand, my blood glucose is pretty good this morning. The average of all three readings was 8.7mmol/l. That is a tiny bit higher than yesterday, and exactly the same as last Saturday. It is also about what my blood glucose settles down on if I don't make a special attempt at lowering, and if I haven't eaten anything with too much sugar in it - except that I did, and that seems to have reflected in my weight gain.

  One of the things I was going to do today has already happened. I was thinking I would have to be alert for a parcel delivery by Royal Mail. It has already arrived, and it was the third, slightly more expensive Panama straw hat I ordered. Apart from a wider hat band, and a feather tucked into it, it is hard to see why it should be over double the price of the other two......and yet, maybe there is something about it that says it is better quality.

  I think I will still be awaiting another parcel delivery today, and that will stop me going out. It is a few items ordered from China, and being delivered by Evri. They admit they have one package for me at my local depot, and they will let me know once it is out on the road for delivery. My guess is it will be here very late afternoon. Hopefully I will get an estimate in time to let me go to a few shops without missing the delivery.

  The main thing being delivered is a magnetic charger coil. Last week Alan brought one round to charge his own phone while we were drinking. I knew one of my phones could be charged that way, and my Honor 200 worked with Alan's charger. I am not sure if my Huawei did or didn't. Anyway, I'll have my own charging coil sooner or later. The only thing I forgot to order was a high power charger to power the coil. At full tilt the coil probably demands 5 amps or so, and I think my biggest chargers only supply about 2.25amps. It should still charge, but it will be slower (at least I think that will be the case). If it all seems a good idea I'll have to order a high power 5V power supply.

  On the subject of ordering stuff, and maybe stuff that I shouldn't really need.... I have a confession to make. Last Saturday, at Petts Wood Calling, I was chatting to John Bull whose knowledge of photography is better than mine, and he was showing me what I think is his latest camera. It is a Nikon 700D, and although over 10 years old, and only 12.1 megapixels, it was from Nikon's Professional range. It seems now is a good time to buy one as pro photographers upgrade. If well cared for, a good camera should last 10 years before new developments/features have slowly got good enough to justify upgrading (when you are a professional), and it seems 10 year old cameras are the sweet spot.

  John remarked that the 700D was as cheap as chips now, and indeed they are. Yesterday I ordered one from Ebay as "body only" and I have paid just £244 for a professional grade camera that was originally sold for 10 times the price. The camera only comes with a charger and one (possibly knackered) battery) plus carrying strap. I already have lenses for it, and I think I have spare batteries for it (they are the same as used in my Nikon 610D camera). It may be optimistic that it will improve my pictures, but you never know. I was not sure if my Nikon 610D camera would improve my pictures, but it does seem that nearly every snap I take with that camera comes out pretty good (technically, but not always artistically). My next important photography will be on the 8th, and I should have the camera here by then, and have had a few days to learn how to use it - although I've found that my current collection of 4 Nikon cameras share so much in common that once you know one it is easy to transfer most of that knowledge to a new one.