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My
Diary/Blog For the Month of December 2015 |
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| Monday 28th December 2015 |
| 08:53 GMT The grey, but mild weather continued yesterday, and continues today.....or does it ? As I write this the sun is trying to break through the clouds. It actually looks quite bright to the east. It's obvious the cloud has thinned a lot because the temperature has dipped to just below 10° C. It was up near 14° C for much of yesterday. The weather forecast on the BBC's website has finally been updated and it shows the temperature slowly falling over the next week. Next Friday could be sunny, but rather cold at just 7° C. Today is shown as bright and sunny, and the temperature should rise to 12° C soon. Tomorrow may be very similar. I began to feel a bit better yesterday, but not enough to be tempted to go out and do anything. I mostly rested and concentrated on throwing off some of the things that ailed me. It sort of worked too. By early evening I was feeling better than I had felt the previous few days, and I did toy with the idea of popping out for a pint, but decided against it in the end. This was partly because I had had a good run of eating really rather carefully. Of course carefully does not always equate to healthily, but in terms of keeping total quantities of food to a sort of minimum I did quite well (in my own heavily biassed opinion). All I ate yesterday was some well cooked sausages (and you should have seen how much fat came off them !), a small steak, a handfull (literally) of salted peanuts, and two cans of soup. The soups both contained a lot of pulses (peas, beans) and they are alleged to be good for the digestive system - although anyone in the room might disagree with that. Not that anything of a farty nature has happened yet. The steak deserves a mention to itself. It had the possibility of being inedible, but it was really delicious. The reason it might have been inedible is the length of time it had been sitting in the bottom of the fridge (not freezer). I'm sure I saw mention of October on the packaging, but it was vacuum packed, and it didn't seem to look spoiled in any way, and it smelled OK. So I cooked it in my mini oven, and set the timer for what I guessed might be the right time. Then I got sidetracked by a phone call. When the phone call was over I found the steak looked rather well done, but crucially it had had time to rest after cooking, and that made it deliciously tender and tasty. One of the few useful things I did yesterday was to upload, and add notes to the pictures I took of Ladywell village on Boxing day morning. You can see all the pictures in their full glory right here https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157660528376233 I think that is all I can remember doing yesterday.....no it's not, but it's hardly worth mentioning that I finally got around to doing several days worth of washing up, but I am sure that's all I did. I went to bed a little after 9pm last night, and I thought I was going to have a bad night. I didn't seem to feel as if I wanted to sleep, although I had been yawning a lot before getting into bed. So I laid there feeling annoyed, and promptly fell asleep ! I have a vague recollection of waking up once or twice, but essentially I slept really well for a change. I also had a really mind boggling dream ! The dream was about a new (and as far as I can recall, totally fictitious) Microsoft map application that featured al the facilities of Google maps, Google Street View, and Google Earth taken to extremes. For instance I was looking at an aerial view of Catford, centred around St Dunstans College, and it was like you could strip away layers of earth bit by bit to reveal old river channels, and the underlying bedrock. The latter was in vivid 3D detail, and it looked like you could see molten magma at the centre of the Earth. The Street View type feature used thousands of carefully stitched together photos to show or recreate view from the present to the past. I remember looking at the huge industrial complex (that has never actually existed) to the south of Catford, and it showed all the big pollution spilling factorys that I (fictitiously) remembered from my youth in vivid 3D colour. It would be rather wonderful if such an application could really exist, and I guess parts of it, like being able to see the underlying geology, do exist in some limited format in specialist maps. Unfortunately the recreation of views from past rely on suitable photographs being available, and for some places they just don't exist - at least not in the public domain. For example I have searched the internet hogh and low for pictures of Catford Bridge station when it had a working goods yard, and the extra siding on the east side, and I can't find any at all. Today I feel better than yesterday, and that was better than the day before, but I am not symptomless yet. I have had a shower, and since then I have begun to feel less......I'm not sure what the word is. A sort of word that describes the transition from sleep to awake, and incorporates such features as "where am I", and Why am I" with a hint of wobbliness or dizziness or light headeness, or something that combines all three but is none of those things. I think only Douglas Adams could describe it in any understandable way. Well, no matter how weird I might have felt in the first hour of waking up, I have felt worse and still made it to work. So I see no reason why I shouldn't go out today - particularly so with the sun shinning. My destination today is Waterloo station. The only problem may actually be an opportunity, and that is that I can't get there by the usual straightforward route. Trains are only running as far as New Cross today - which is a bit of a novelty. At New Cross I can get an Overground train to Canada Water, and then change to an Underground train to Waterloo. I am making a rash decision that most of the trains will be relatively lightly used, and that will make travel more pleasant. My reason for going to Waterloo is to take some pictures of intruders there. It didn't used to be the case, but for the last 5 years (maybe more) Waterloo has been used exclusively by South Western Trains, and that is all you see there now. Today (and also yesterday) engineering works on the rails serving Paddington station means that Great Western Trains will be running 2 trains an hour into and out of Waterloo station. So it is a rare opportunity to see anything different at Waterloo station. If I can find all the needed paperwork without delaying myself too much, I might just buy a new railcard - a Senior Railcard. I thought they were only for the over 65s, but no, they are for the over 60s, and can be used to get a third off most rail tickets anywhere in the country. See here if you are an old git like me - http://www.senior-railcard.co.uk/ |
| Saturday
26th December 2015 |
| 06:38
GMT. It was rather grey yesterday, and from time to time there was some rain, but I think it was less rain than the forecast seemed to suggest. During the night the temperature seemed to rise instead of going down. It is currently 14° C, although I am sure it was almost 15° C about an hour ago. It looks quite damp outside, but I don't think it is raining right now, but it surely will later on. The forecast, that probably hasn't been updated since before Xmas, merely says that there will be thick cloud all day with the temperature a constant 14° C until sunset when it will drop to 13° C. Tomorrow is forecast to be remarkably similar except for a splash of rain around 8am. Yesterday was an interesting day. In many ways it was like a Sunday - but with even more shops closed. I felt ill in various ways yesterday, but I think my "detoxing" by drinking nothing but chilled water from morning to late night helped a lot. It certainly flushed my kidneys through ! I can't say it was a very productive day, but I did manage to finish the book I was reading, and I did finally upload the pictures I took of Chain playing at The Iron Horse pub on Saturday 19th December. I'm quite proud of a few of them, but others are not as good as I hope for. I had to convert some to black and white to hide how grainy they were in colour, but even the professionals have to do that now and then. You can see the entire album here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157662212321240 While the left over Chinese takeaway was very nice for dinner yesterday, I'm not sure it was very good for me. Either the salt, or more likely the MSG (monosodium glutamate), probably spiked my blood pressure, or something similar. After eating lunch (or was it dinner ?) it felt like someone had driven a nail into the top of my head. It was an extremely localised sharp pain at the very top of my head that lasted a couple of minutes. I guess it was just a few more brain cells dying. One of the peculiar things about yesterday was how quickly the time seemed to pass considering how little I did. One of the problems of Xmas day is that it can be boring, but somehow yesterday wasn't. I probably spent less than an hour in front of the TV, but quite a lot longer behind my book. Then there was the amount of sleeping I did - except I am not sure if it was sleeping.There were several times when I laid on my bed with my eyes closed, but still apparently aware of what was going on around me. What was surprising was that when I went to bed at around 9pm, I seemed to fall asleep quite easily, and I think I stayed asleep until midnight. When I woke up at midnight I was shivering. I didn't seem to feel particularly cold, but my whole body was shaking - which made taking a pee tricky ! When I got back in bed I pulled the duvet rightly around me. All too often I would feel too warm like that, but last night it felt good. The next time I woke up, maybe an hour or two later, I felt normal. At 4am I was feeling rather hot, and barely covered myself to go back to sleep. At that point the thermometer was saying it was almost 15° C outside, and I probably should have turned the heating off. As I sit here writing this I feel rather warm, but otherwise I feel no worse than I do many mornings after travelling to work. It is possible, maybe probable, that my shivers in the night was a fever, and I was fighting off some sort of infection. That would account for feeling rough yesterday, but whether I am cured of whatever it is/was will become apparent later on when I try and do something useful. I definitely want to go for a little walk today to get some of the knots out of my muscles, and a bit of fresh air may wake me up a bit more. Despite getting quite a lot of sleep I am still yawning as I pound away on the keyboard (and thinking about just makes it worse !). I think most of my body is in fair working order this morning. Perhaps the worst discomfort is from my neck for a change. Although I do seem to have a mild headache that comes and goes. Once I have showered and dressed it will be a bit closer to sun rise, and I will try and go out for a walk once it starts to get light. Maybe I'll take a wander into the park. That is the only plan I have for today, but there are other things I might do. I probably ought to try my new mini digital video recorder by playing some old VHS tapes into it - if the VHS machine is still working OK. If I feel like doing anything physical I might do some clearing up. It wouldn't be too hard to fill another large bin bag with assorted debris. In theory I do have a plan to eat as little as possible today, but the chances of sticking to that are pretty slim ! |
| Monday
21st December 2015 |
| 08:26
GMT. I can't recall when the showers for yesterday evening were forecast to happen, but I think they probably happened later than expected. There was evidence of rain during the night when I went out this morning, but I was not aware of when it fell. What was probably more obvious was that the temperature was falling last night, and this morning it was only about 7° C. The paradox is that the low temperature was the result of the sky being fairly clear, but the rain was the result of the sky being cloudy ! This morning should see some sunshine. It is now more cloudy than it seemed to be at 6:15 this morning, when I walked to the station, but there are still some blue patches visible between the clouds. The sun is still too low in the sky to do any more than illuminate the very tops of some the higher buildings around here, but there is hope that we'll see some real sunshine later this morning. Unfortunately it is forecast to rain this afternoon, and not only is it going to be rather cold rain, it is also likely to be raining moderately hard when I leave work to go home. 13° C is still probably quite good for this time of year, but it is going to feel somewhat cooler than it has recently.  I got my dates wrong, but after a few seconds research I can quite confidently say that tomorrow, the 22nd, is the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year - Yule ! This is both the best and worst day of the year. Worst because it is the day with the least daylight, and best because it marks the start of longer days that ultimately ends with Summer. Yule, as a festivity is a pretty good one. It doesn't need belief in any sky fairies, the twisted beliefs of weird men, or priests to misinterpret and misquote old writings. It is there for all, and can just be seen by looking outside. Of course marking where the sun rises each day, and how high it climbs in the sky each day, perhaps by making some notches on a stick, or erecting some gigantic stones on Salisbury Plain helps keep track of these things, but that just makes it all neater. You don't need to know how it happens to enjoy it, but if you want to know how it is easy enough. There are no secrets involved. No mysteries, no priesthoods to join with strange an exotic rituals. Just ask a scientist, or even consult wikipedia ! Today I feel like I didn't get enough sleep, and maybe that is because I didn't get enough sleep last night. Just a couple of days of not following my usual schedule has mucked up my sleep patterns. I was yawning when I went to bed just after 9pm, but sleep wouldn't come, and because it would come it turned into one of those nights when every minor defect in the bed becomes huge. Even one of my own hairs on the bottom sheet feels like a log, and the pillow feels like a sack of coal. Not only that, but the bed is too hot and the room is too cold. On top of all that I seemed to be farting a lot when I got in bed - which was quite unpleasant. Just to top off the list of miseries, I seemed to have a frequent feeling like my right foot was just about to get the cramps - but it never did ! While I struggled to get to sleep I pondered about all the farting I was doing. There are two schools of thought about farting. One says that farts are mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The other says that farts contain a high proportion of methane - and then go on to prove it by setting fire to them. (You can probably find many burning farts on You Tube if you care to search for them). I think I subscribe to the methane school of thought, but maybe only for the type of farts I had last night. It seems likely that some farts are just accumulations of gas from fizzy drinks, etc. passing through the system, but others are the result of fermentation by anaerobic bacteria. These bacteria are probably the cause of some farts, like mine last night, being disgustingly smelly. The good news is that methane has a high calorific value - you can run a car from methane produced by the fermentation of waste matter by bacteria ! Those calories are not produced out of thin air. They are chemical energy, and it may be a bold leap in faith, but my theory is that if the bacteria are eating some of what I have eaten, and ejecting it in the form of high calorie methane, then they are calories that my body is not absorbing - which is good ! I lost track of what I ate yesterday, but like a few recent Sundays, I think I ate less than what was probably my normal consumption in the past. Of course some of the things I did eat were not exactly good for me - principally the box of reheated southern fried chicken ! I had a few other bits and pieces - including more sugar free, sweetened by Stevia, chocolate. When early evening came around I had intended to have a hot dinner, but I decided that a couple of small bags of beef flavoured Hula Hoops were all I needed. This morning I felt a bit hungry, and "thin". Of course this is a very special usage of the word "thin" that does not actually exist in real life, and is a sort of shorthand for "not bloated". Most of me actually feels fairly good this morning. My chest is certainly well behaved this morning, and my usual aches, pains and stiffness are very attenuated, perhaps almost to the point of non existence is some cases. It does seem there is still some bacteria fermenting stuff in me this morning, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere as energetic as it was last night. Hopefully the tiredness I mentioned earlier will not affect me too much during the day, and hopefully I won't get drowned when I leave work to go home. If those two conditions are met I should be OK to go and pick up a repeat prescription from the pharmacy after work. I'll probably do it anyway, but if I am feeling fairly OK I might pop around the corner and buy a few things in Aldi while I am there. |
| Saturday
19th December 2015 |
| 17:56
GMT. Yesterday's weather was mostly harmless. It was dry and mild, and there was even a brief glimpse of sunshine sometime around midday. By late afternoon, and with the sun getting ready to set, it was 14° C by my reckoning. It didn't rain during the night, but the cloud meant the temperature barely dropped all night. This afternoon, after another dry day, with several sunny intervals, some lasting tens of minutes, the temperature just about hit 16° C. It's still 14° C now. The forecast says tomorrow is going to be a little cooler. The morning will be 13° C, but the temperature will drop to 10° C by midnight, and another degree by 5am Monday morning. Even more sunshine is forecast for tomorrow, but it is also forecast to rain for a few hours mid to late morning, and for even longer later on after dark. There was one good thing that came out of the Xmas dinner and party at work - I was able to go home in daylight ! This year I was even more out of tune with reality, or whatever psychobabble brain imbalance I suffer from, and all I could stand to do was to attend the pre-dinner party for two 5 minute segments. After that I felt completely and utterly depressed. As soon as everyone had sat down to dinner, at approx 2pm, I put on my coat and sneaked out. Going out in daylight, and with a couple of hours of daylight ahead of me, helped to relieve some of my depression...or buried it under other thoughts. It was interesting to see all the works going on for the Thameslink rail project at London Bridge itself, and the approaches going back halfway or more towards New Cross. It is obvious that a lot of work has been done that I haven't been able to see while travelling in the dark, and yet what has been done is not that obvious in terms of being able to see some sort of completion to the work. Somewhere, someone had a spreadsheet with lots of ticks on it charting the progress towards completion, and yet to the casual observer it is just changing patterns of chaos. When I got back home I relaxed for 10 minutes, but because it was still daylight I decided I would go and get my weekend shopping from Aldi early. Not only did I do that, and do it in shirtsleeves because it seemed mild enough not to need a coat, I also decided to give the new Dunlop trainers I recently received a test. They were both comfortable and uncomfortable. I think they can be broken in with persistence, and it may be worth the pain to try and do it. Their main problem is their lack of width at the widest part of the (my) foot. It's not crushing, and doesn't seem to be rubbing enough to lift any skin, but the margin of error is very small. I wasn't in pain when I got home with my shopping, but it was nice to get those trainers off again. I still felt some residual pissed off - ness in the evening, and decided I wouldn't go out. Instead I would stay in and eat some nice stuff, and enjoy the solitude. Some of my eating therapy involved chocolate - but not any old chocolate. I found some chocolate in Aldi that is sweetened with the herb Stevia. In theory, if you ignore the fat content, it makes the chocolate sort of harmless - low in sugar and stuff. I'm not sure I enjoyed it, but it wasn't bad, and anyway I only ate it as a sort of protest thing because generally speaking I am not a great chocolate eater. It's nice, but also bland in a sort of monotonous way. Also in protest, although I am not sure what I was protesting about, or to whom, I poured myself a large glass of whisky. I thought about getting drunk, but one glass seemed all I needed to prove an unknown point to and unknown audience. There's nothing like shouting to the wind for feeling good - probably. Is that a famous saying by a famous character (real or fictitious), or did I just make that bullshit up ? Oh well, it sounds good anyway. With no need to get up early for work this morning, I could be relaxed about what time I went to bed last night. If there had been something of vague interest on TV I might have stayed up later, but I found myself in bed, and turning out the light around 10.30pm. I think I slept reasonably well last night, but the best bit was that I slept on well past 5am. It was gone 7am when I finally decided that I couldn't sleep any longer, and that I ought to get up anyway to get the place ready for Aleemah to visit. The problem with Aleemah, or more accurately Aleemah's problem is that the railway was doing a dress rehearsal for the xmas shutdown today, and trains were only running as far as New Cross. So today, Aleemah had to get the bus. The good thing about that was there was no way to tell when she would arrive in Catford - well not accurately. So rather tragically I had to get to the pub early and test some beers while waiting for her to arrive. This morning, at about 10am, I got to try 2 pints of beer made up of half pints of these beers....  Click on the picture for a high resolution version ! Today Aleemah brought over
a terrible movie to watch on DVD. It was the film Krampus.
It is probably worth quoting from IMDB here (click
on the link for the full info) - "young Max (Emjay Anthony) is
disillusioned and turns his back on Christmas.
Little does he know, this lack of festive spirit
has unleashed the wrath of Krampus: a demonic
force of ancient evil intent on punishing
non-believers". I guess this is a
warning to me not to be completely and utterly
disillusioned, and turn my back on Christmas. Well
all I can do is apologise if I've released a demonic
spirit, but my dislike of Xmas has been honed to a
fine edge this year after years of practice.
After Aleemah went home I was going to do something useful, but I couldn't think what that might be so I didn't do anything. The only thing I have done of some significance is to edit some more photos, and upload them to Flickr. It was another experimental album of pictures taken using another old camera. This time it was the camera in my old T-Mobile G1 android phone. It was the first Android phone widely available in the UK, and it was my first Android phone, although it was far too expensive to buy new. I bought it second hand. In it's day it was a flagship product, and it had a rather good camera built into it. These days it is not so wonderful, and I found it struggled with the uneven lighting. I took the pictures while on my way to the pub to meet Aleemah. The sun was out, but it was still very low in the sky. That meant the tops of some building could be very bright while the road was still very gloomy. You can see how well, or how badly the camera coped with these conditions by clicking here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157662581822635 Tonight, or in fact quite soon now, I am going out to see some of Chain's gig in The Iron Horse pub in Sidcup. It is possible there will be a £2 entry fee, but I reckon I can cope with that even if I leave half way through - as I almost certainly will. So It's a train to Lewisham, then cross over to the opposite platform, and head back the way I have just come until the tracks veer off towards Sidcup. Pictures later (possibly tomorrow). |
| Wednesday
16th December 2015 |
| 08:32
GMT. Yesterday's weather was really all about whether I would get wet, very wet, or drowned going home from work ! There was possibly more rain than expected yesterday, but on the whole it was fairly light rain, and it went from very light rain as I left work, to hardly any rain at all as I walked from the station to home. There was probably more rain later, and it might have rained on and off through much of the night. It wasn't particularly cold yesterday - perhaps 11° C, or maybe even better. This morning it was about 12° C, and by this afternoon, after a very cloudy, but dry day, it will almost feel warm at 15° C. It seems like it will be unseasonably mild and dry until, and perhaps beyond the weekend !  I felt quite good yesterday morning, but that didn't last long. By mid morning I had developed a few aches and pains. Most had gone by mid afternoon, but my chest remained a bit clicky, or ratchetty, and occasionally mildly sore. The odd thing is that I felt like I had a lot of energy when I started off going home. At Waterloo I went up a set of stairs almost at a run - and I didn't feel particularly bad when I got to the top. I wasn't gasping for air, but maybe my legs, or particularly my knees gave some hints they would definitely not like me to do it again without a decent rest between attempts. Maybe I over did it, and wore myself out because I didn't feel so lively when I walked from the station to home...but then again it didn't feel like hard work either. It was nice to get home (as always), put the heating on, and arrange some food. I have to confess I started with an excessive snack as I sat down to check my email, and transfer some pictures to my PC. That snack was a large, but not huge (70mg ?), packet of "seasonally spiced" sweet potato crisps. They were nice, but I am not sure if they lived up to my imagined expectations. My actual dinner started with some tomatoes, cheese and chutney. The chutney had a very high sugar content, but that was to be expected. That starter was followed by an Iceland "Slimming World" curry, and that was going to be followed by some noodles with chilli sauce, but I mysteriously found I felt too full to eat them. I still felt a bit full, but not uncomfortably so when I went to bed. Maybe that lead to some strange dreams ! The most significant dream seemed to occur quite early in the night, and it was complete sci-fi nonsense - but still enjoyable in a scary sort of way. I can't recall the details very well now, but I do remember considering what I had just dreamed - possibly in another dream ! The first dream was about some apparatus that had some parallels to a large and fierce Tesla coil, but instead of boosting a low(ish) voltage to millions of volts, it boosted a small current to millions of amps. Such a thing is sort of possible, but is never done to such extremes of scale to my knowledge. In ways that defy common sense, these huge currents were enough to ionize the air to a rather lovely, but damn scary, violet plasma. I woke several times in the night, but I was quite pleased to see that the last time I woke up it was just 5 minutes before I would have had to wake anyway. All too often it is 20 minutes early, and sometimes double that. My initial thought was that I didn't feel too bad, but as time passed I began to feel a bit rough - as usual, that cumulatively rough - a combination of small things making a greater whole. One such problem is actually more a problem now, and it is trapped wind. To be more accurate, that wind is less trapped now than it was, and I feel I will soon be making a third visit to the toilet since starting to write this ! One annoyance compared to yesterday is that my legs feel stiff and unenergetic this morning. I walked up and over the link between Waterloo East and Waterloo mainline stations without any particular bother, but I definitely could not have managed to run up and stairs ! One thing that has made this worse is that my feet do not feel comfortable this morning, and I am not sure why. I am wearing the same make, size and style of shoe that I was wearing yesterday. The only difference is that they were black yesterday, and blue today. Not only that, but I wore these blue shoes sometime last week, and I don't recall them being uncomfortable then. It's a bit of a mystery. The only thing I know for sure is that walking from the station to work seemed like (slightly) hard work. I never used to understand, and maybe even fully believe my mum (and some other older people) when they would complain about wet/damp weather making their legs stiff, but I believe it now ! Hopefully my legs will loosen up during the day, and maybe my feet will find their place in my blue shoes, because I want to divert my journey home from work to go via Iceland to stock up on more of their "Slimming World" ready meals. Apart from that I intend to do nothing.....no, not really. I just can't think of anything I will do.  Yesterday morning there was one of those "meet the managers" type thing going on at Waterloo station.  |
| Monday
14th December 2015 |
| 11:10
GMT. There is now just a week to go until the winter solstice, and when the days start to get longer again. In the meantime, some mornings are so dull it is hard to know when day has started ! This morning was particularly dull, and rather cool too - just 7° C, and it's only just over 10° C now. It should brighten up a bit this afternoon, but only a bit, and not nearly enough for any sunshine. Then the cloud will thicken again, and a couple of hours of rain are forecast for just after sunset. There will be a bit more rain in the middle of the night, but then it will be dry, and about 11° C until I head home from work when it will pour down ! I'm just glad that I don't work on a building site !  The idea was that I would try and get to bed at my usual time last night so I could resynchronise my body with my usual rhythm for work days. It almost happened, but as 9pm approached I decided that I should finish off some laundry that I had left soaking during the day. Unfortunately this included a medium sized bath towel. It was not only heavy to manipulate and wring out, but it needed so many rinses before the water coming out was tolerably clear. It was about 10.30pm when I fell into a well deserved sleep. Once again I didn't sleep for as long as I felt I should have - and now, with less than half the day over, I am feeling like I need a good long snooze. This does not bode well for tomorrow when I am back at work. During the night I remember having a very long composite dream. With hind sight it is obvious that the dream was made up of many "chapters" on the same theme, but each was probably a seperate story in it's own right. The theme was trains again, and last night it involved a ride to London Bridge, presumably, but not explicitly from Catford Bridge. The theme also included the train being diverted via "the docks". I am unsure where these docks could have been, but it could have been somewhere in the vicinity of the old Battersea Power station. There are lots of odd spurs and diversions possible around there. It made for quite a scenic ride. This morning is yet another morning where I seem to have done very little except sit in front of my PC monitor straining my eyes as I edit photos or upload them. The good news is that I have finally uploaded the best (or least worst) pictures I took at Chain's gig on Saturday night. You can see them here in all their high resolution glory (click on a picture to read a brief description). https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157660059014003 Maybe by the end of today I will have another Flickr photo album ready to show to the world. It may not be quite so entertaining, but then again many of my photos are historical records rather than "wow !" pictures. I have been going through my archives trying to find all the pictures I have taken of Catford Bridge station. It is possible that in years to come the station will become part of The London Overground, and there are even tentative plans to incorporate the line from Catford Bridge to Hayes into an extended Bakerloo Line on the London Underground. So a nice record of how it looked might be nice. About the only thing I am doing today is waiting in for one more parcel delivery. The email I was sent said this parcel could arrive at any time since last Friday up to tomorrow. Well it hasn't arrived yet, but hopefully it will arrive today or it will be bloody awkward if it arrives tomorrow when I am back at work. The first two parcels of my Amazon order arrived one day earlier than predicted. So here's hoping that the last parcel will arrive one day before the last possible day. If it should arrive very soon I might go out somewhere for a walk, or to take more pictures. I didn't think it could be possible, but as I write this the sun has been shining through a little gap in the clouds for the last 5 minutes. It is rather nice ! |
| Sunday
13th December 2015 |
| 19:39
GMT. I wonder if it's worth mentioning the weather. It's probably a boring subject, but on the other hand it is sometimes interesting to look back over the years and compare a day to the same day years ago. The weather has actually been very similar over the last week or so. It has been dull and grey, and the temperature has ranged from as low as 7° C (first thing this morning) to around 12 ° C most days during daylight, and very late into the night last night. There was some rain this morning, and probably some in the night too, but yesterday, and from late morning today it has been dry. On Friday night I decided I was a lazy bastard and I wasn't going to go out to see Chain playing in Greenwich. I'm not sure if I regret that or not. By the time I would have gone out I was actually feeling OK, and (only) by comparison with earlier in the day, maybe rather good. On the plus side, being completely lazy is one of the treats of taking holiday from work. On Saturday morning I saw Aleemah. As usual, the first port of call after meeting her at the station was the Wetherspoons pub for breakfast. They had a couple of nice Xmas beers in !  The one on the right was the best....at least I think it was that way round ! Aleemah's taste in DVDs
continues to be weird. This week she brought over a
rather "adult" film rather than an old childrens TV
series as she has been bringing over recently.
Saturday's film was most definitely X-rated, but
also rather comical. It was a badly dubbed Italian
film about Devil worship in an English country
house. I have to confess that I enjoyed it a lot
more than some of the DVDs she brought to watch.
I felt a lot better on Saturday than I did on Friday, but there were times when I still felt rather rough. I felt terribly tired after Aleemah had left, and bits of me ached. So I lay on my bed, and did very little for quite some time. I'm not sure if I dozed off or not, but I had quite a few fleeting days dreams that often only lasted a second or two. Quite often I would try and remember what they were about, but all I was left with was a sort of unexplained flash frame, and that in turn rapidly evaporated from my memory. It was a mix of exciting and annoying ! The good thing is that the extra rest meant I was feeling sort of good when it came time to go out to get the bus to the other side of Bromley for Chain's gig in The Chatterton Arms. It was nice to be paid a compliment as soon as I arrived at the pub - even before I had gone in. I bumped into Jo Corteen's two daughters, and they were both convinced that I had lost weight since they saw me last. I suppose it is possible. I do try and be careful with what I eat some of the time, and maybe my trousers are still a bit looser than they were earlier in the year, and perhaps my gut doesn't overhang my gut much now, but I don't feel thinner in the way I would like to. I only stayed for the first set of the gig, but I could have stayed later if I wanted to. I was feeling mostly comfortable physically, but maybe not mentally. The background noise in the pub was annoying me a lot, and with hindsight I realised that I find watching the band non stop is a bit tiring. I don't know when that first happened, but I found myself thinking how good it was when I would pop outside for a fag every 20 - 40 minutes. It was a nice break, often quiet, and a chance to socialise with other smokers (and sometimes some non smokers too). I took a fair set of pictures while I was there, but another revelation came to me on the night - even with the biggest lens in the world, you can't take good pictures of moving subjects in dim light. So although I was reluctant to do it, I took some pictures using flash, and of course they look bright and sharp, but unfortunately they lack depth and "ambience". I will probably be uploading the photo album to Flickr tomorrow, and I'll link to it once it's up. Getting home was doubly annoying. The first annoyance was that the first bus that arrived was a 208. These take exactly the same route back to Catford as the 320, but are always slightly slower. The one I caught was exceptionally slow because some idiots got on in Bromley, and presumably wouldn't or couldn't pay. So the bus driver turned the engine off and refused to move until they got off the bus - which took so long that I was able to get off and get on the following bus ! Back in Catford I bought some chicken and chips. On this occasion it was something a bit different to drunken gluttony. I hadn't eaten all that much during the day because I wasn't feeling all that good. When I got home I tore into that chicken and chips like I was half starved - and promptly gave myself indigestion, and if only I had realised it, a clue as to what I have been suffering from recently. I didn't sleep all that well last night, although the reason was possibly more due to timing rather than indigestion. I don't know where all the time went, but I didn't go to bed until almost 1am this morning. Had I slept until 9am I would have been fine, but force of habit woke me up at 6am (which is an improvement on 5am - my normal time on work days), and I couldn't seem to sleep much beyond that time. Once I got up I started editing last night's photos, and while I did that I had a light snack. That gave me indigestion, and with the grand benefit of hindsight, that was a significant part of the discomfort that made me feel so bad on Friday, and to a lesser extent, yesterday. Today I had a gulp of Tesco's indigestion mix (aniseed flavoured milk of magnesia), and very soon I felt far better. If only I had realised that on Friday I could probably have saved myself a lot of discomfort. Sometimes it seems like photography is hard work ! Not only did I take a pile of pictures last night, but I went out and took more pictures today. Today was a silly sort of experiment to see how good or bad the pictures taken by my Praktica "Aquacam" could be. I bought the camera in Tesco a some years ago because I thought it might be useful for my walks along the seashore. It comes in a fully sealed housing for use underwater, but can be taken out and used like a pocket camera. I don't think I ever thought I would use it underwater, but maybe I could have used it near sea spray without fear of harming it. Today I decided I would take a slow walk to Lidl, and take some pictures along the way. I was careful how I composed the pictures, and careful how I took them - particularly keeping the camera steady for a few seconds after the camera appearing to take the picture (it suffers from very bad shutter lag). Had it been a sunny day the pictures would obviously been better, but they came out fairly well, and serve the purpose of illustrating various shops and stuff in Catford. You can see the complete collection here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157662373736215 - and read my notes and descriptions. It was writing the descriptions, adding tags, and showing where the places are on a map that was the real time consuming part of the whole exercise. It seems madness, but it is now getting close to bed time - or should be. I have one more day off tomorrow, but I am back at work on Tuesday so I ought to try and get back into synchronisation with the working day. Luckily it will be a short week. As well as being off on Monday, Friday is xmas part day at work, and being a miserable bastard I will probably sneak away early in the afternoon ! |
| Tuesday
8th December 2015 |
| 10:09
GMT. It's a pretty wet morning, but that's about all I can say for now. My work place server is under attack, and we have disconnected our internet connection. I am currently connected to my home server via a mobile broadband dongle, but I have only bought a small amount of data, and I want to use it for other things. I'll do a full update tonight - probably ! 19:02 GMT What a day ! Today has seen both sunshine and heavy rain. I can't quite recall when the first ray of sunshine broke through, but I think it was before midday. There followed a couple of hours of sunshine in variable amounts until approximately 3pm when it very rapidly clouded over, and then proceeded to pour with rain - very heavy rain for a while. By some miracle it managed to stop just before I left work to go home. The last 10 - 15 minutes of daylight were almost sunny - the sun was shining, but it was below my visible horizon. The latest theory is that tomorrow should be dry with some sunshine, but it will be a fair bit cooler. The top temperature is forecast to be no more than 11° C. There was trouble on the trains going home from work yesterday. A person hit by a train at Raynes Park was reported to be causing severe delays through Wimbledon (and at Earlsfield too being as they are on the same line). I didn't have time to look any further than that on South West Trains website before I left work. I decided I would rush to the bus stop, and get a 44 bus to Wandsworth Town station. It is on a different line, and should not have been affected. Unfortunately that line was having it's own problems, and after a tedious 10 minute ride on a packed and smelly bus, I discovered that I faced a 16 minute wait for the next train to Waterloo (or 15 minutes by the time I had got my camera out).   By the time my train arrived it was more or less dark, and by the time the train arrived at Waterloo it was far too late to catch my usual train from Waterloo East station. The next train to Catford Bridge is 19 minutes after my usual one, and I was so late getting to Waterloo East that I only had to wait 8 or 9 minutes for it. The good thing about is that it is a class 465 train instead of a class 376. That means more, and more comfortable seats. For some reason the train is generally less busy too. So I had a seat to myself without being jammed in, and a fairly pleasant ride back to Catford. As I walked from the station to home I couldn't help but think how easy it seemed to be to swing one leg in front of the other. It almost felt as easy as when I used to do my long walks (obviously before the point when my feet had been pounded into agony !). I just wish I knew the secret ingredients that make walking seem so easy on these odd occasions. I was late getting home, but only by about 20 minutes. So it wasn't the end of the world, and I felt sort of good. Good enough to do a little hand laundry job - and it was a very little job really. I had soaked a well stained greasy tea towel, plus a grease stained mini-table cloth in bio detergent for 24 hours, and all I had to do was to give them several rinses and lots of wringing out. Now they are dry it looks as if all the grease spots, and other food stains have come out OK - at least it does under slightly dim artificial light. Seeing them in bright daylight could reveal something else ! I managed to eat fairly (but not wholly) sensibly last night. The core of my dinner was a couple of Aldi "steamed meals" - white fish, green vegetables and potato flavour. They were supposed to be only 235 calories apiece. Of course I ate some junk too, but I still managed to feel a bit hungry this morning, and very hungry for a while this afternoon - although those feelings may not have been all that accurate because it feels like I have a bit of an odd stomach this evening. I might even explode soon ! For yet another evening I felt as if I should be sleeping, but not ready to go to bed for some reason. It was almost 10pm before I got in bed, and it was sometime after 10pm before I fell asleep. I think I slept reasonably well, but I woke up half an hour early, and I ended up feeling tired most of the time I was at work today. That wasn't the only feeling I had. I sort of felt a bit uncomfortable in an undefinable way. I definitely wanted to lay down, and if I had been able to I would most probably dozed off - I almost managed it in my office chair ! While coming home from work, via my usual route tonight, I partly felt good, and partly felt bad. I had something that wasn't quite pain, and yet was still unpleasant, in my gut area. It was almost as if I wanted to go to the toilet, but not quite, and also a bit like the lead up to the lead up to feeling like I might want to vomit at some time in the future. Maybe it was/is trapped wind that the finally escape in a cloud of miasma at some point, or maybe all my organs are in a slow spiral of decay. Some sort of cancer of the navel perhaps ! To carry on the theme, I do feel a bit bloated after my dinner of two Iceland "Slimming World" curries, and I do feel rather tired. I guess the tiredness is die to bad sleep even if it did seem to be good at the time. It is certainly not from over work. It has been a very lazy day at work today. With the server at work being eaten alive by one of those file encrypting ransomeware viruses the server was switched off, and we were isolated from the internet. There was stuff I could have done using files stored locally on my work PC, but why make extra work for yourself when it's not needed ? This is the second time the server has come under attack, and it is believed the infection was carried in a drop box account. That was not my concern, but after it happened the first time I took precautions. Not only did I have a memory stick with me with hundreds of hours of music on it to amuse myself, but I also took in my "3" mobile broadband dongle, and used it on an old laptop that has Linux Mint installed on it. A days worth of date cost me £2.99 - which was obviously rather expensive, and it would have been better value to buy a weeks worth (or even a month), but I assume the internet will be back tomorrow. Obviously the good thing was that I was the only one who had internet access on a desktop device (even if it was a laptop), and I was able to keep an eye on my favourite web sites while everyone else had to squint at their mobile phones if they wanted to check anything online. After tomorrow I don't have to worry about the internet at work for a few days. I've booked Thursday, Friday and next Monday off work, but I've also done a silly thing - possibly. I have ordered a few things from Amazon, and one bit will arrive on Thursday. If I doesn't come early I will have to stay in and amuse myself here. Another part of the order could arrive any time from Friday to next Tuesday. I hope they give me warning of the actual day it will arrive (they usually do if they can), and I won't have to spend all my mini holiday indoors waiting for the postman ! |
| Monday 7th December 2015 |
| 08:35
GMT. Yesterday was an unrelenting grey day with a few showers - mostly after dark. The temperature remained higher than it seemed. I think it was almost 15° C late in the afternoon. The temperature stayed up overnight, and this morning it was 13° C when I walked to the station. There were a few puddles left over from the rain earlier in the night, but thankfully no rain is forecast for today - although you would think there was judging by the look of the sky right now ! At the moment there is supposed to be light cloud, and the dark cloud that is overhead right now is not supposed to happen for a few hours yet. There is a possibility that there could be some sunny periods in the last hour or two before sunset. Maybe the last few minutes before sunset will be sunny. The temperature today is forecast to hardly change at all, and it will stay around 13° C until sunset. Even then the temperature will only drop by a degree or two. Tomorrow will see similar temperatures, but there will probably be some rain. There will also be some sunshine - possibly more than today ! I am having difficulty working out/remembering how good or badly I ate yesterday. The confusion comes from the idea that I didn't eat all that much in terms of physical quantities, but I probably ate a lot of calories and stuff. I think I can only conclude that my calorie intake was excess - which is bad, but that my sugar intake was reasonably low - which was good. I almost felt hungry when I went to bed last night, and this morning it seemed that my contribution to the toilet was less than usual. It is a shame that I didn't take more exercise yesterday to burn off some of those excess calories. On the whole, I had a lazy day yesterday, and apart from a quick walk to the £1 shop, I hardly did anything that I could call constructive. That didn't seem to stop me getting what seemed like quite a good nights sleep last night. There were times yesterday evening, and perhaps part of the afternoon, when I felt a bit odd, and that was even more true this morning. I have absolutely no idea if I feel good or bad this morning. My confusion comes from many conflicting feelings from around my body. I thought my legs felt a bit stiff, and I thought that maybe my feet were not comfortable in the shoes I chose to wear. On top of that I thought I felt a little bit asthmatic, and my chest superstructure (ribs, ligaments, and muscles) seemed like it was going to give trouble. None of these things seemed to hold me back from walking to the station, and none of those things caused me any sort of bother as I walked. I found that walking was actually as easy as any time in the last couple of years, but not as easy as in pre-angina and smoking days. I was walking fairly fast, and whatever had made me think I felt a bit asthmatic as I showered, and towelled myself dry earlier on, didn't seem to recur, and I was some way from being anywhere near out of breath when I arrived at the station. My legs and feet were OK too, as was my chest...sort of. My chest remains a bit of an enigma still. It does feel a bit loose and crunchy, and seems to be on the point of starting to hurt, but so far it hasn't really complained at all. With everything seemingly explained there is still something that makes me feel a bit odd today, and yet I can't seem to define it. Oh well, I'll either be dead before the end of the day, or it will have gone away. I note with some dismay that France is panicking in the wake of it's recent terrorist problems, and now seems to be taking a lead in heading towards the world depicted by George Orwell in 1984, or even Terry Nation in Blakes 7. Universal surveillance cannot be far away now. Now is the time to try and sign up to The Party if you can, and enjoy the good life, or just become a prole surviving on the scraps of the party members with little access to healthcare, housing, or any of the amenities we usually take for granted. The article that depressed me is here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/06/france_mulls_tighter_noose_around_crypto/ and a quote from it :- "France's state of emergency could lead to blocks on encrypted Internet connections and a ban on public Wi-Fi networks, if proposals put to the government go ahead.According to Le Monde, the extension of the state of emergency could also stretch to requiring all rental cars to carry GPS, expansion of public video surveillance, two-year telecommunications data retention, and approval for police to use IMSI-catchers (like the Stingray devices used in America)." Still, never mind. There are alternatives. The new estate, Catford Green, being built on the old Catford Greyhound stadium is littered with CCTV cameras, and it is well know that these stop bombs blowing up, and jam AK47 or similar weapons. Unfortunately they will probably do little to stop drug dealing, and stabbings once Catford Green turns into the latest sink estate when it is inhabited by those decanted out of the nearby Milford Towers when that latter place is demolished in a year or two.  The brave new world of Catford Green (as seen from the safety of the other side of the railway line).  Close up on the full pan/tilt/zoom CCTV camera in the previous picture.  Another CCTV camera with an excellent view into someone's bedroom.  When the building work has
finished, and there is access to the whole of the
site, I could, if I was brave enough, go and count
all the cameras. I reckon there could be as many at
least 20 outside, and probably many more inside the
buildings. Big brother is definitely watching YOU !
Or maybe not ! Is anyone actually watching these
camera to take action if they see anything ? I doubt
it. I expect they just feed into a recorder so
someone can see how something happened in the past -
if they can be bothered.
|
| Sunday
6th December 2015 |
| 13:22
GMT. The weather continues to be just like autumn.....or does it ? What is autumn weather like ? Maybe daytime temperatures of 12 - 14° C are a little higher than autumn usually demands, but that's how it's been recently, although some strong winds have often made it feel cooler. There were a few sunny periods on Friday, but mostly the sky has ranged between pale grey, and deep grey. There was some rain last night, but not much, and yesterday and Friday was dry (as far as I can recall). There will probably be some rain this afternoon. In fact it looks like there might have been a light sprinkle already. The rain may be heavier later on, but still only a fractional amount compared to reports I've heard of rain in the north west of the country. Cumbria has been hot by heavy flooding for instance. Tomorrow should be dry, and there may even be a few sunny periods just before sunset. Friday turned out a little different to how I imagined it would...or maybe it didn't ! I continued to feel OK at work until the afternoon when I started to yawn a lot. Getting out into the fresh air at home time rejuvenated me a bit, and I felt perfectly comfortable to go home via Tesco. At that time everything was running to plan, but when it came to the possibility of going out to see Chain playing in Greenwich, everything went weird rather than wrong. I didn't feel like going out once I got home. I was suffering from that specialised form of tiredness where you don't feel tired until you try and do something. It came as some relief that I had made a mistake about when the Chain gig was taking place. It wasn't on Friday night but on Saturday night. That left me free to be completely lazy without a trace of guilt. I was feeling so lazy that it seems I couldn't even be bothered to try and remember what I did on Friday night. I have a vague memory of doing some stuff with photos, but it was Saturday night when I uploaded some to Flickr, and not Friday night. Maybe I watched some TV before going to bed, but when was that ? I don't think it was very early, but I have no idea when. I think I probably slept quite well, but it was another of those nights when I woke up too early to get up, but not able to get to sleep again. So on Saturday morning I got up at about 4am and pottered around for something like an hour before going back to bed again. I managed to get back to sleep, and probably slept for a few hours, but I couldn't sleep any longer because I had to get up, and get ready to see Aleemah. I had barely washed, dressed, and done the absolute bare minimum of housework, no more than a quick tidy, before she phoned me to say what train she was on. From then on it was the usual breakfast in the Wetherspoons pub, and then back here to watch a DVD. This time Aleemah brought over a DVD of a six part children's TV series about young girl who keeps travelling back in time to the Elizabethan era. Aleemah seems to like these stories about time travelling. I do too - up to a limit, and like the last one, this crossed the limit ! It wasn't actually boring, but neither was it exciting ! After Aleemah had gone home again I went out to get my shopping from Aldi. Late afternoon is certainly a less busy time in there compared to the usual Saturday morning madness, but it is a bit of a wrench to suddenly get busy again when you want to relax. However once I got moving I was fine. I even found some unanticipated energy to do quite a lot of laundry (by hand) not too long after I got back from Aldi. That left little or no energy to go out again, or maybe it was just a lack of enthusiasm, to go Greenwich to see Chain's gig in The Mitre Hotel. Instead I did two other things - one of which turned out to be quite important, and the other not really important at all, but very time consuming. That latter thing was to edit 45 photos of a visit I made to Eastbourne on the 22nd August this year - one of the hottest days of the year. It includes many photos that I am quite proud off, and you can see them here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157661888832302 The other thing I did was to take a look behind the toilet bowl. The almost hallucinatory vision I had several days ago when I thought I saw something streak across the bathroom floor out of the corner of my eye, had been playing on my mind. Since then I have seen no evidence that I have a small furry visitor in the house, although once or twice I have heard an ambiguous rustle that could have been something moving, or just a floorboard creaking. What I found in the gloom behind the toilet bowl was a small hole that was almost certainly gnawed by a very small rodent. It was almost triangular between two floorboards and the skirting board. It seems very likely that I did see a mouse race across the floor out of the corner of my eye. I have no idea where it is now, but I am pretty certain it won't be using that hole behind the toilet again now I have sealed it with "frame sealant" - which goes rock hard !  I am unsure where all the time has gone today because I have done very little so far. I had another split morning where I got up for an hour or so before going back to bed again. The first thing I did when I got up for the second time, and after I had washed and dressed, was to go the shops. I was going to go to the Sam 99p shop (rather than the ordinary 99p shop), but for some unknown reason it was closed. So Went to the £1 shop, and wasted money on this and that. One of the things I bought I have posted a picture of on the left. The label suggests it might be cranberry flavoured, or perfumed bleach, but it appears to be neither. It is not even coloured. It does seem to freshen the toilet bowl but it doesn't even have a strong bleach odour. One of the things I wasted money on was some strings of fairy lights. I am unsure what I will do with them because I will not be putting up any decorations again this year. I just seem to have a fascination with things that light up. Part of that fascination is wonderment that blue and white LEDs that used to be so incredibly expensive and rare are now so stupidly cheap that you can get a string of them, including the wire, and a little flimsy battery box, for just £1 ! I did have some thoughts that I might go out somewhere today. One possibility was to go to Watford station on the Metropolitan Line. Sometime in the not too distant future that station is due to close when the line is diverted to pass through two extra stations, and then terminate at the mainline Watford station (which is apparently more convenient for most things in Watford). I do intend to get a pile of pictures before the station closes, but not today. It is too late in the day, and it is far too gloomy for photography (but mostly too gloomy for me!). I think I will just end up having a thoroughly lazy afternoon in preparation for work on tomorrow morning. |
| Friday
4th December 2015 |
| 08:26
GMT. The weather turned out to be quite similar to the forecast yesterday. I thought that the clouds were a little darker than the forecast suggested, but that is probably just my opinion. I can't recall if I checked the temperature because it just felt like the expected 12° C - not warm, but not too chilly. I don't know if the rain started at 7pm when it was supposed to, but it did rain yesterday evening, and this morning there are puddles around to prove it. I don't know when the rain stopped, but I do know all the clouds had gone away by 5am. It is a nice clear, but rather cool morning. The temperature was still falling when I left home to come to work. It should have hit the lower limit around now, and that was forecast to be about 6° C. It will slowly start to warm up now - if you can call not much more than 9° C "warm" !. Sometime this afternoon it will cloud over again, but it is supposed to stay dry all day today, and tomorrow too, although tomorrow is supposed to be quite cloudy - probably similar to yesterday. I felt fairly good at work yesterday, and I felt reasonably good going home from work, but I had no enthusiasm for extra travelling, and so I went straight home instead of going for my usual Thursday night drink. If I had arranged to take today off work, and preferably yesterday off as well, I would have made a far better effort to go for that drink - and then stay on, camera in hand, for the regular open mic session held in The Coach And Horses in Beckenham - the venue for last night's drink. The strange thing is that I didn't seem to miss that drink, and the company, much. I had things to do at home that kept me entertained (if you use a broad definition of entertained). One of the "entertainments" was eating. I have mentioned the Iceland "Slimming World" meals quite frequently recently, and I thought it was time I posted a picture of one.   Having eaten dinner, and then with the aid of some snacks as cigarette substitutes, I set about editing some more pictures. The pictures I chose were another set of bright and clear pictures taken almost a year ago on Sunday 28th December 2014. They were of Jo Corteen performing solo on the special busking stage set up in Bromley Market Square. It was a nice bright, but rather cold day. The madness of the xmas shopping was over, and the place was not too crowded, but there were enough people around for Jo to earn the price of a cup of coffee from change thrown into her guitar case. I have uploaded those pictures to Flickr, and you can see them here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157661922034906 If you use the criteria that if I had to be woken up by my alarm going off then I must have slept well, then I must have slept well last night. I'm not so sure it was that simple. I know I woke up several times in the night, but maybe it was less than my current average, and maybe it was for shorter periods too. Maybe I slept better than usual because I seem to be feeling tolerably OK now, or maybe it is the other way round. I think I said yesterday that it would be very, very nice to feel a lot, lot better, but that would probably only be possible by some sort of youth rejuvenation drug - or something suitably science fictional. So I don't feel good enough to do anything energetic, and I don't feel brave enough to do anything that might upset my fucked up chest superstructure, but at least I can sit here at work without anything hurting (much). Tonight I plan to go home via Tesco so I can buy a few odds and ends. I'll get my main weekend shopping from Aldi - possibly tomorrow, or maybe on Sunday. Other than that I have no plans unless I mysteriously feel semi-wonderful. As unlikely as that is, if it should happen I could go to Greenwich to see a Chain gig in The Mitre Hotel. I guess it is a little crazy, but because it is one of the worst places to do any photography (dark and a stupid "stage" layout), I don't feel a strong urge to go - and that's despite it being one of the easier venues to get to. When was it that photography became more important than the music ? I don't know, but that seems to be how it is these days. I am hooked on the everlasting quest to take the perfect photo ! |
| Thursday
3rd December 2015 |
| 08:16
GMT. Yesterday was remarkably similar to the day before. It was dry, mostly grey (ranging from light to dark at different times), and there was even a few unexpected brief sunny periods. It was probably a degree, perhaps two, cooler, but with the wind being lighter, it didn't really notice. Today will be a little different. During daylight hours the sky is forecast to be light grey (it is currently not that light !), and the temperature is supposed to be a constant 12° C. Once darkness falls the temperature won't start to fall until midnight when it will drop to 7° C by tomorrow morning. The worst thing will be at 7pm when some possibly heavy rain will fall, and it will continue to fall, maybe not always very heavy, until the early hours of tomorrow morning. It is now getting to the time of year where all my commuting is done in darkness. There was still a bit of light left when I waited for my train at Earlsfield station yesterday, but once I was on the train, travelling towards Waterloo, the light just faded away. It may have gone by the time we reached Clapham Junction station (1 stop, or a few minutes from Earlsfield), but I think I was trying to ignore the outside world by then. Apart from the sole of my left foot hurting (for reasons far too common to explain here - even I don't fully understand the mechanism that causes it) I was feeling mostly good...and quite happy to be heading towards home. On the way home I called into Iceland to buy some more of their "Slimming World" products. I found a fat free cottage pie (or was it shepherds pie ?) to try as well as the curries I also bought. One other item I bought was not billed as low anything, but hopefully it won't be too terrible. It was a deluxe mixture of sprouts, chestnuts, bacon, and a couple of cheeses. It is either going to be disgustingly horrible, or very nice. I am not a fan of sprouts by any means, but they do combine with chestnuts rather well, and years ago I used to quite like the frozen sprouts and chestnuts that Tesco used to sell (haven't seen them for quite a few years now). Whether Icelands recipe is nice or nasty is something I hope to find out tonight. My left foot was quite sore when I finally got home - not actually agony, but I was glad to take my shoes off, and rest my foot. I was quite keen to have my dinner once I had got changed into my slouch-about-in-the-privacy-of-my-own-home clothes, and for some reason I was excited about trying the cottage pie I had just bought. Being excited about that was completely illogical, and I may have just imagined that idea based upon my later assessment of it. I have no idea what they did, or what was in that pie, but it was far, far nicer than a normal full fat cottage pie ready meal. There are probably premium cottage pies featuring real mashed potato instead of some strange pulp, and real prime cuts of meat. They are probably available from places like Marks And Spencer...and cost a fortune ! Anything less has just been made obsolete by Iceland's "Slimming World" version. Apart from filling my face, I also uploaded two photo albums to Flickr. As I do this more and more I discover short cuts that make the process a little less tedious. For instance I now know had to add tags to every photo in an album at the same time, and also to place the location where they were taken on a map (although it is a shame that the map seems to use incorrect place names - for instance it thinks that Catford Bridge station is on Blythe Hill instead of being in Catford !). The first photo album I uploaded can be found here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157661880024196 it is of Andrew Rogers on the stage at the Petts Wood Memorial Hall singing his "rat pack" stuff - not my first choice of entertainment, but the pictures should earn me a beer or two ! The second album is of the band Red Post Hill performing some great rock covers in The Black Cat pub (formerly the Catford Ram) in Catford last Saturday. Their photo album is here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157659600662034 I'm sure I shouldn't be sitting here writing that I seemed to get quite a good night's sleep last night, but that is exactly what I am doing ! I didn't seem to be in a great rush to get to bed last night, and it was probably 9.30pm before I turned out the light. Thankfully I didn't hear any suspicious rustle, creak, squeak or any other noise that would hint at the existence of a mouse in the house last night, and I am beginning to think that the undefined blurry streak I saw out of the corner of my eye while I was in the bathroom a few days ago, was just a shadow, or one of my hairs or eyelashes, or just my imagination. Since then I have seen, nor heard anything that might suggest I have a new little furry lodger in the house. With no audible distractions I was able to fall asleep quite quickly. I woke up a few times in the night, but mostly just for brief periods. The one time I was awake for a longer period was because I woke up with cramp in my left leg, and had to walk around a bit to ease the muscles. One of the good things about last night, or should I say this morning, is that I only woke up 10 minutes before my alarm was due to go off. That is a great improvement on 30 minutes (or even more on some occasions). One of the bad things about this morning was the cloud completely covering any hint of sunrise. It was dark when I arrived at Earlsfield station, but by the time I had walked to work, it was just about light. It can only get worse ! Apart from my left foot, which is still a bit sore, I feel at least average, and maybe slightly better. That doesn't mean I couldn't feel a whole lot better, but that would probably demand that I was twenty years younger, quite a few stones lighter, had an un-operated on chest, and maybe drunk ! I could theoretically satisfy one of those requirements tonight. It's Thursday, and that should mean drinking night ! Tonight we are drinking in Beckenham, and maybe "we" doesn't include me for several reasons. It is a bit out of the way for me (when travelling from work), and it involves a fair bit of walking that would be nice on a warm summers day, but not in the cold miserable night with a sore foot. There is also the probability that it will be pissing down with rain at about the time I might be leaving to go home. I had intended to get today and tomorrow off work so I could go there straight from home, and I could stay out late, but I never got around to booking the days off. I may still go tonight. I'll make the final decision on my way home, but my guess is that I'll be getting off the train at Catford Bridge instead of staying on it until it reaches Clock House station - the nearest station (for me) to the Coach And Horses pub in Beckenham. |
| Wednesday
2nd December 2015 |
| 08:30
GMT. The best thing I can say about yesterday's weather was that it stayed dry. The second best thing I can say is that for a December day it wasn't all that cold - about 12 - 13° C. I have a vague recollection that there was even a little bit of sunshine, but mostly it was a miserable grey day. It is looking like today will be very similar. It is quite a dark grey at the moment, but there is some mad hope that it may only be light grey later on. Temperatures will probably be similar to yesterday.......... I really should check the latest forecast before writing this stuff ! Since 5am, which is what I have been quoting, the forecast has changed a little bit. It seems that there is now a good chance of some rain falling around midday, but everything else seems to be the same as it was forecast at 5am. It is currently forecast that tomorrow will see some rain in the evening, but the temperature and greyness will be similar to today or yesterday for most of the day. To my surprise I felt mostly OK at work yesterday. My chest remained tender, and it was fairly easy to provoke it into giving a few moments of pain, but as the day passed by it seemed to be recovering. I think it was probably down to the shoes I was wearing, but I didn't seem to feel particularly energetic on the way home. The particular shoes were slip on "skater style" shoes, at least I think that is how they are described, and they are definitely very comfortable to wear at work. They are also mostly comfortable to walk in, but they feel sort of spongy when walking, and it seems to feel like hard work to overcome that sponginess. I don't quite know where that sponginess comes from because the soles are quite thing with no obvious padding, although they are not as thin as the cheap and cheerful slip on plimsolls I have grown to like. Sadly they are not really suitable for wet weather, but it usually feels like I have extra energy when I am wearing those plimsolls - and that's despite their thin soles being quite hard on the feet. With hindsight, I was in a funny sort of mood when I got home from work yesterday. The outcome of that is that I almost ate sensibly, and I did something I didn't even imagine I would do. One of things I did want to do was to upload a photo album to Flickr. I felt a bit hungry to do it straight away, and in theory I should have waited until I had eaten dinner before doing it, but I opted to eat a big bag of fat and calorie laden crisps to "keep me going" while I waited for all the multi-megabytes of pictures uploaded, and to feed my braincells when I added descriptions and tags for each photo. You can see the result here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157661728397282 - at least I hope you can ! As I write this it seems that Flickr, and several other web sites seem to have gone off the air. Whether it's a general thing, or just the capricious internet connection here at work, is an unknown right now. (update: it's back now). After eating that big bag of crisps - venison, red wine, and thyme flavour ! (and not all that nice) - I was somehow spurred on to be quite careful what I ate for my real dinner. I opted for a couple of Iceland "Slimming World" curries. They added up to around 800 calories. The salad I had for breakfast was about 400 calories, and the crisps were about 8,000,077 calories. So added up that makes......too much - again ! Oh well, at least it left me feeling rather less than full, and able to perform some madness. I decided that I ought to make a start at doing some laundry. I had two work shirts that, and some t-shirts from the weekend to wash (plus some underpants). I didn't really mean to do it all at once, but I did just that. Two work shirts, and 4 t-shirts, plus underpants left me dripping with sweat by the time I had them all hanging up to dry. I don't know if it was the relief of getting that lot washed, or the excitement of being able to wash that much in one go, or the rush of endorphins that extreme exercise brings on, but I felt rather good when I finally sat down and attempted to cool down. It was a bit of an extended cool down because I had to wait some time before my hair was dry enough before I could go to bed. When I got to bed I felt both tired, and not tired. I guess it was my body that was tired, but my mind was still buzzing. Eventually I managed to relax, and just as I was beginning to fall asleep I heard a noise. It was the sort of noise a mouse might make, but it was also the sort of noise that my computer desk might make as it relaxes after I had been leaning on it. It was also the sort of noise that a pile of clothes might make when the pair of jeans that had been casually thrown on top with pockets of change in them might make as the pile settles down. It was also the sort of noise that happens so suddenly, but is so brief, that it is gone before you have time to examine it. Was it a mouse, or was it something totally innocent. The only thing that mattered was that my brain went from relaxed to a high state of alertness, and it took ages for it to calm down before I could fall asleep. This morning it feels like I finally managed to get a reasonable night's sleep. I don't feel too bad. All the effort of hand washing all that laundry actually probably helped sort out the chest/ribs/ligaments/muscles pain I had. This morning there is still some tenderness that I am wary of, but I haven't had any pain yet. If anything it is some of my arm muscles that have a slight memory of how much effort they had to put in to do that laundry. I can't say they are painful, but there is a definite sensation there !   |