16:37
BST
In comparison with today, yesterday was quite
nice. I suppose I could go as far as saying it
was nice when judged on it's own merits. It
wasn't always sunny, but there was a fair amount
of sunshine, and it was appropriately almost
warm out - around 20° C. At some point in the
night, at midnight if the forecast was to be
believed, it all went completely wrong ! The
temperature dropped, and it started to rain. It
hasn't rained all day, and in truth there have
been periods of many hours when I don't think it
has been raining, but if it wasn't raining, the
sky looked as if it would start at any minute.
It has been the most gloomy and miserable day
possible (barring the worst days of winter).
It's not exactly cold right now. My thermometer
says it is currently 19° C now, but either it
was a lot colder earlier in the day, or there
were one or two reasons why it seemed a lot
colder. The first was just the psychological
effect of that cold grey looking sky, and/or I
was suffering from some sort of illness - and
the latter might be a possibility.
I did feel a bit odd last night, and I am
not sure why. I think I assumed that my potato
and spinach surprise that I cooked up from a bit
of this and a bit of that, was maybe a bit
stodgy. I can't say I was in any describable
discomfort, but I didn't feel like going out,
and I ended up having another night in. I didn't
end up doing anything of note all evening, and I
think I felt bored enough to go to bed slightly
early even by my standards for a Saturday night
- i.e. the same time as if I had to get up at,
or before 5am in the morning.
I actually got up at 4am this morning, but
eventually I went back to bed, and slept some
more. The reason I woke up at 4am after a
reasonable nights sleep turned out to be because
of a stomach upset. Until mid morning I had a
trapped wind sort of pain in my belly. That put
me off going out for a walk around the shops for
a bit of light exercise, and probably an
exercise in spending money on silly things in
the 99p or £1 stores, but it didn't stop me
doing a bit of laundry. When I had done that,
and stopped sweating, I had some brunch. That
quietened down the dull ache in my gut, but I
can't believe that ache was caused by hunger. I
know for sure that some of it was most
definitely wind !
While my gut stopped aching, my chest
started aching, although not straight away. It
was after I had been laying on my bed reading
and snoozing for an hour or two. It was an
annoying little ache, and it's position and
intensity depended on what side I had been
laying on, and for how long. The only cure was
to do the opposite of what used to make my
angina pains worse, and that was to get moving.
I still didn't feel like going out under that
terrible looking dark grey sky, but I did have
some more laundry that I could do.
So I've added two more t-shirts, some more
underwear, and a mini tablecloth to the three
work shirts and a couple of t-shirts I did this
morning. One of those t-shirts was fresh on this
morning but by lunchtime I had managed to pour
dinner down it ! Having just finished that
second set of laundry I am sweating like a pig,
but I am no longer in any significant
discomfort. That will probably come later if I
lay on my bed to read and snooze again !
The trouble is I have to admit I feel a
bit bored today. There is stuff I could do, but
it is so terribly hard to raise any enthusiasm
when it is so dark outside that I have to turn
the lights on to read. Today is one argument
against not quitting work for a while. At least
it gives me something to do, and for a few days
a year it can sometimes even be enjoyable
(although some weeks can be really hateful). As
well as forcing me to do a bit of exercise as I
strain my heart muscles commuting for a couple
of hours a day, it also brings in some money
that I don't have enough free time to spend. So
this month, much to my great surprise, I have
once again been able to transfer more money to
my extra retirement fund savings.
Last week I had judged that I would just
about run out of money today, the last day of
the month (and actually pay day), but I found
more than my new wages in my account. This will
all help towards my next major purchase sometime
soon. It worries me that I'll never get to using
it for what I want to use it for - gigs - but I
still aim to get a proper digital single lens
reflex camera one day.
Saturday 30th May
2015
17:21
BST
Yesterday was not exactly as the forecast
suggested it would be, but it drew strong
inspiration from it. The rain that was forecast
to be spread out as mostly showers in the late
morning/early afternoon, mostly came down as one
torrential shower featuring a bit of thunder and
lightning just after midday. Apart from a few
light showers, that to all practical intents I
managed to dodge, it was essentially dry as I
made my way home....but it could have been so
very different !
This was the scene that greeted me as I
approached home after a slightly extended
journey home from work. To the north the sky
boiled with thick black cloud, but to the west
the clouds were white, and fluffy, and broken
enough for some sunshine. As far as I can
recall, it somehow stayed dry for the rest of
the evening. It was probably in the region of 15
or 16° C when I arrived home. This morning the
temperature had dropped to 8° C, but it seemed
to warm up quite quickly even with it being
quite cloudy until 10 or 11am. It brightened up
after that, and most of this afternoon has seen
plenty of sunny spells. The temperature at the
moment is a quite respectable 20° C, but the
forecast says it is due to drop quite sharply
soon, and by midnight it will be rather cool,
and also rather wet. Most of tomorrow will be,
or may be, quite cool, and quite wet - at least
that was the rather stale forecast that hasn't
been updated for 24 hours now.
I was not happy as I left work, and my
happiness decreased as I travelled. The
afternoon saw the final phase of my hangover
from Thursday nights booze up. For some reason I
don't know, and probably don't want to know, it
seemed to impact on my chest. The first sign was
when I reached out, and down to get something
out of my desk drawers. That installed a nasty
muscular pain in my side. I can't remember when
it started, or when it went away, but I also
developed quite strong pain in my left nipple.
The two pains were probably unrelated, but you
never know....
The pain in my left nipple, which felt
like my mobile phone was not so much pressing
against it as it sat in my shirt pocket, but it
had actually sunk it's teeth into it ! There is
a rapidly diminishing possibility that the pain
might have been good news - news that a severed
nerve or two, severed during my operation 18
months ago, was finally knitting itself
together. It is very easy to imagine these
things, and I am probably doing just that, but
maybe I do have more sensation in an area that
was once quite numb. If that is the case then
maybe there is still some sort of hope left that
the damaged nerves to my left hand (ring and
little finger) may one day recover. Sometimes I
almost believe that my left hand is improving,
and in one respect it is. It is definitely
stronger now than it was a year ago, and maybe
even 6 months ago, but the change is so slow
that it would seem incredible that it could get
even better.
On the way home from work, maybe because
it was getting cold, more of my chest hurt. I
sometimes get this thing where it feels like the
skin is being pulled tight across my chest. It
doesn't seem to interfere with anything, but it
does not feel nice. On top of that I seemed to
be suffering with a touch of hay fever that also
seemed to affect my chest as well as giving me a
slightly drippy nose. I never used to suffer
from these things when I used to coat all my
airways with a good coating of tar and nicotine.
I could breath freely in those days.
To add to my discomfort, there was a
signal failure somewhere outside of London
Bridge station. This had caused cancellations
and delay, and one of the cancellations was for
my usual train from Waterloo East. I could have
opted to wait an extra long time for the next
one, or I could get the first train to Lewisham,
and a bus home from there. I opted for the
second choice, and suffered standing on a fairly
packed train, and a totally rammed full bus that
ever so slowly weaved it's way through the
horrendous rush hour traffic in Lewisham. I
suppose I should feel lucky that I arrived home
little more than 10 minutes late, and when you
consider that the picture above was taken as I
approached home, that I arrived home dry despite
not wearing a coat all the way home.
I had a nice rest when I got home. My
dinner was already mostly cooked - it was what I
had prepared for Thursday night, but hadn't
eaten. All I had to do was to stir in some
chilli flavoured pesto sauce, and zap it in the
microwave for five minutes. It was actually
quite tasty, but it transpired that my estimates
of just how big it would turn out were all
wrong. I could only eat just over half of it -
well I could have eaten more, but by some
strange miracle I decided not to. I did have a
rather large handful of peanuts a little later
in the evening, but that was all I ate last
night.
It is almost probably pure delusion, but
it seems that I didn't over eat last night -
although to make matters worse, that is judged
against an entirely fictional metric. Maybe it
could be true though because I didn't feel
bloated this morning. If it wasn't for one
little problem, I could have reported that I
also slept well last night, and that problem was
the amount of times I woke for a pee in the
night. I don't think my pasta surprise should
have been salty - I didn't add any salt, but
then again I did add some salty olives, and some
very salty anchivies. Add to that the salted
peanuts, and maybe I can account for being
thirsty last night without invoking high blood
glucose levels.
Some of that thirst disappeared when I
stopped drinking ice cold sugar free cola, and
went on to cheaper "no added sugar" blackcurrant
squash at tap water temperature. That glass
lasted the last hour of the evening, and all
through the night. There is something delightful
about drinking ice cold drinks, even non fizzy
drinks, that makes me want to drink them like
beer. As well as the loathsome smell of tea, and
the unpleasant smell and taste of coffee, hot
drinks give me diarrhoea for some unknown
reason, and apart from hot gravy drunk from a
soup spoon, I avoid them all !
This morning I did something I haven't
done for far too long - I hoovered the living
room. I did an exceptionally bad job of it so I
don't feel too guilty about it, but at least I
got rid of the scary looking spiders web hanging
off the side of the TV, and I got rid of all the
crumbs and other food detritus from the mat in
front of the settee. If you keep your eyes
closed it almost looks acceptable in the living
room now. Hopefully Aleemah kept her eyes closed
when she wasn't watching the DVD playing on the
TV when she visited this morning (and into
early afternoon).
This afternoon I have had some lunch. I
read a few pages from a paperback, and I had a
snooze that probably lasted a good hour. I am
now trying to raise the enthusiasm to go to a
gig this evening. The only trouble is that I
have a large distraction that may prevent me
going out tonight (ideally in just a couple of
hours or less now). That distraction is a large
bag of spinach that I bought from Aldi this
morning.
I know that spinach shrinks an awful lot
once it hits very hot water, but I think I am
going to struggle getting through what looks
like a mega family pack of the stuff before it
starts to wilt. I feel I want to start cooking
it now, and maybe I will. I face a three way
decision. Do I cook the spinach with pasta, or
with potato, or go to the gig ? Oh
decisions, decisions.....watch this space.
Friday 29th May
2015
08:25
BST
I never got a chance to check the temperature
yesterday afternoon, but it felt quite pleasant,
and was probably within a few degrees of 20° C.
I think the day was sunnier than expected. I
have no idea what weather to expect today. The
forecast said there would be some rain later
this morning, but the showers would peter out
early in the afternoon, and it would be dry, and
maybe sunny when I go home from work. However,
the clouds that seemed to threaten rain first
thing this morning have now dissipated, and it's
looking all bright and sunny from my office
window. Maybe another bank of cloud will pass
over later, or maybe not. Provided it is dry
around 4pm I will be mostly satisfied - although
it would be nice if it warmed up a bit. It was
12° C when I came to work in my shirtsleeves,
and while I was moving it was quite comfortable,
but now I am sitting down in my office I am
thinking of turning the heater on !
This morning I am paying the price for a
rather good evening. As planned, I met the
Thursday night drinkers in The Black Cat pub in
Catford - the pub that was formerly known as The
Catford Ram before it lost it's licence as a
result of a police rain where all sorts of
things were found. The brewery, who are now
directly running it, seemed to have invested a
fair amount of money in getting the place to
look clean and tidy again, and to deep clean,
and repair the gents toilets. They were
exceedingly unpleasant to use in the last days
of The Catford Ram. Last night it was almost a
pleasure to use them.
Chris and Andy at the bar of The Black Cat.
The other change is that the beer is fresh
and fed through clean pipes ! I am not a great
fan of Youngs beers, but the London Stout went
down well, although I would still prefer
Guinness. I only intended to stay for a couple
of pints, but I found myself enjoying the whole
experience so much that it was just starting to
get dark when I left. It's difficult to say how
much beer I drank, but 5 or 6 pints would be a
good starting point ! Now the curious thing was
that although I was really rather drunk, I
didn't feel the need to get any takeaway food,
and I didn't even feel the need to cook any
dinner once I got home. As I mentioned
yesterday, I had left a part cooked dinner in
the microwave, and it would only have taken 5
minutes to heat it up and stir the pesto in, but
I couldn't be bothered to do that one simple
thing. My "dinner" was actually a bag of
"Japanese" black pepper flavoured crunchy rice
crackers. If they weren't almost dripping with
oil they would be quite low in everything, and
sort of healthy.
Wolfing down the whole bag was probably
not a wise choice, but at least I didn't feel
bloated overnight, or this morning, although I
was still burping black pepper flavour when I
got out of bed this morning. I don't know what
time I got to sleep last night. It was probably
not that much later than 10pm, and I probably
fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the
pillow. With so much beer inside me I needed to
pee several times in the night, but everything
was OK until 4am. When I woke up to have a pee
my hangover was beginning to feel rather bad,
and I had a lot of trouble trying to get back to
sleep.
I reckon I got little more than 15 minutes
sleep before I was awakened by my alarm going
off. I was very tempted to turn over and go back
to sleep, but thought better of it. So I got up,
and had a shower. That helped a bit, but this
was one morning where I decided to take the walk
from Waterloo East to Waterloo mainline station
at a more sedate pace ( not actually slowly, but
I didn't put any effort in it). I also took it
fairly easy walking from the station to work. I
don't know why I don't always take it easy on
that walk because rushing like a madman only
make me arrive at work a few seconds early. It's
hardly worthwhile.
I do feel a bit better now...at least I
thinks it's better. It's certainly different.
Eating a couple of sandwiches bought from the
Sainsbury's Local shop, around the corner from
Earlsfield station - in the opposite direction
to work - have helped in some ways. I note that
Sainsburys is worse than Tesco. I didn't realise
it until I checked the till receipt, but they
charge an outrageous £1.29 for a 500ml bottle of
Diet Coke. Fortunately I bought two bottles, and
they sell two for £2 - so two bottles are as
cheap as two bottles from the sweet shop down
the road who still sell a 500ml bottle for £1 !
I think I will be taking things easy when
I get home from work today. There is a gig that
would be nice to go to if it wasn't tonight, and
wasn't in the venue it is in. It's Chris' band
The Spiders standing in for a band who couldn't
make it to The White Hart pub in Orpington. It's
a nice(ish) pub except that it is the wrong
shape to make photography easy, and Orpington is
a sod to get home from at night. The travelling
is a good enough reason not to go, but really I
just doubt if I could raise the energy or
enthusiasm to go. I might try a bit harder to
get to a gig tomorrow night, but tonight it's
feet up in from of the TV/PC/Book for a few
hours, and then bed nice and early so I can get
a good sleep before getting up nice and fresh (I
wish !) ready to do a bit of housework before a
visit from Aleemah.
Thursday 28th May
2015
08:06
BST
It's Thursday and the weekend is getting close -
so is PAYDAY !
Having the heating on in the train home
yesterday was a bit unnecessary. It was 20° C on
my thermometer when I got home, and after being
pre-heated on the train, it felt quite warm as I
walked from the station to home in the sunshine.
The weather forecast for yesterday wasn't
exactly right, but it was pretty close. I'm not
sure about the forecast for today. There has
already been one hiccup !
The screenshot on the left, taken at 06:48
on my mobile phone, shows what the weather was
supposed to be like. The little pictogram
for 07:00 suggests some light cloud with a bit
of sunshine peeping through the gaps in it. It
didn't seem to suggest what I could see out of
the train window as my train approached London
Bridge station (where it doesn't stop).
Admittedly it wasn't a view of Catford, and it
was only on one side of the train, but I could
see thick black clouds - the type that dump
gallons of water on you while thunder and
lightning crack and rumble away in the heavens.
We didn't get that, but we did pass through a
light shower somewhere in the region of Vauxhall
on train from Waterloo to Earlsfield. It
is now sunny with a light scattering of white
fluffy clouds - which is more like the forecast
for 09:00 rather than 08:00. With luck, today
should be fairly sunny, and it should warm up to
18 or 19° C from the current 12° C. The
next couple of days are supposed to follow the
pattern of the last couple of days, but with
maybe a little less sunshine, and a degree or
two cooler. It's next Monday that scares me. The
current forecast, which will probably change
beyond recognition after a few days, say that
next Monday will be cold, dark ,and very wet !
The beans and chick peas I had for
breakfast yesterday morning had an entirely
predictable effect this morning. Maybe they were
helped by my "potato surprise" that I cooked
when I got home from work yesterday. It was one
of those recipes that are made up as the meal is
"constructed". It ended up as a couple of diced
potatoes, some spring onions, a few brown
mushrooms, some fine green beans, some borlotti
beans, and half a carton of tomato passatta. I
also added some chilli oil for good measure. It
took some time to cook in the microwave oven -
maybe 25 minutes, but it was done in two (or was
it three ?) stages. I definitely part cooked the
potatoes and drained them before adding the
other ingredients. It came out quite similar to
an Indian mixed vegetable bahji. If I had added
a bit of curry powder it would have been almost
identical !
It is difficult to say if it was a healthy
meal, or not. It is the potatoes that I am
unsure about. Some say that plain boiled
potatoes, without lashings of butter (mashed
potatoes) or heaps of cheese, and probably more
butter (baked potatoes) are fairly innocent, but
I still feel dubious about all that
carbohydrate. Oh well we'll just have to see
what happens after I have used up what was a
slightly big bag of potatoes. I won't be having
those potatoes every day though. Tonight,
assuming I don't get too drunk and buy something
terrible on the way home, I have a partly cooked
pasta based meal ready to be finished and eaten
for dinner tonight. Pasta is another of those
unknowns. Once again some say that pasta,
particularly wholemeal pasta, is "good" for you
in some unknown way. Of course this is probably
a meme generated by the Italian pasta marketing
board to try and increase sales (just like the
probable rumours spread by the potato marketing
board !).
My sleep could have been better if it
wasn't spoiled by a couple of dreams. I actually
dreamed I was hungry last night. I was in a
Co-op store looking for bacon, and I found they
sold ready cooked bacon on golden toast with a
topping of bubbly melted cheddar cheese. I'm
surprised I didn't wake up with my pillow soaked
with drool after that dream. That happy dream
was almost, but not quite, and antidote for a
dream that left me feeling very sad, or
depressed, or some similar very negative
emotion. I can't remember what, if anything
happened in that dream, but I do remember the
subject or theme, or whatever it was I was
thinking in the dream. It concerned the idea
that there were some people, and for some reason
I thought university students would be most
likely, who could carry their whole world in a
small suitcase, and could move from wherever
they were, leaving friends, lovers, and family
behind for ever to start life from scratch in
some far off place. The whole idea of that left
me feeling empty, and sad, and very low. I could
never do it, and strangely enough, I don't think
I have ever known of a case of anyone actually
doing anything like that. It makes me wonder
where the idea of it came from.
Apart from the psychic shock to my system,
and the shock to my system from that very high
fibre breakfast yesterday, I felt tolerably well
this morning. To a very limited, and short lived
extent, I actually felt quite good, but I burnt
out very quickly. The walk to the station seemed
to be about as effortless as it can be, and the
mad dash from Waterloo East to Waterloo seems to
be getting easier and easier recently -
particularly the ramp up from the platform to
the bridge. I went up that like a rat up a
drainpipe this morning. I arrived at the
mainline station breathing a bit heavily,
but far from out out of breath. I feel sure I
could have easily have carried out a normal
conversation without having to stop for air.
With that being the case, it makes it hard to
understand why the walk from Earlsfield station
to work seemed so hard, and why I felt on the
verge of breathlessness on the way. Of course
having to always watch where you put your feet
on Earlsfield's rotten pavements so you don't
trip, do make walking around here that much more
difficult than most other parts of the civilised
galaxy.
Tonight we are drinking in The Black Cat
pub in Catford - which is very handy. The Black
Cat is the new name for The Catford Ram, and it
has only recently re-opened after the drugs, and
stolen property bust that happened earlier in
the year. I hear it has changed quite a lot
inside, and the stage has been dismantled now.
So it will definitely be interesting to have a
first hand look, and check that the beer now
flows clearly and cleanly like it didn't with
the previous dodgy management.
Wednesday 27th May
2015
08:09
BST
I'm not sure how warm I hoped yesterday might
get, but I don't think it got that warm. However
it was very pleasant, and warm enough for me to
open my office window for several hours in the
afternoon. I think the top temperature was at
least 18° C. Today may be basically similar with
the exception that there could be a shower
around sunset (9pm - ish tonight). The rest of
the day may actually be a little bit sunnier
than yesterday, and in consequence it may also
be a little warmer - the weather forecast
predicts 19° C. It also now predicts that it
will become lightly overcast early this
afternoon - which is a bit of a shame. Tomorrow
should continue in a similar pattern to the last
couple of days.
I have developed a theory that buses are
telepathic. They do seem to know when to arrive
and when not to arrive - at least the buses that
run between work and the station do. If they day
was wonderfully warm and sunny, and I didn't
have a single ache or pain anywhere on, in,
under, or on my body, there would be a queue of
buses at the closest bus stop waiting to take me
the two stops to the station. If there was
torrential rain, I had terrible angina pains,
and my feet felt like I was wearing barbed wire
shoes, there wouldn't be a bus within a hundred
miles of the bus stop.
Yesterday, after finishing work, I would
have caught a bus if there was one there. My
shoes had become uncomfortable during the day -
not agonising, but a bit unpleasant - and it was
one of those occasions when it felt like all my
giblets were swinging free inside my loose chest
subframe. Of course the buses knew this, and
went into hiding. So I had to walk to the
station. By the time I got there my feet were
numb enough not to be too bothersome, and as
usual, walking provided enough movement for my
ribs and ligaments to settle in their correct
places. That was all just as well because I just
missed the lift up to the platform at
Earlsfield. I hate going up those three flights
of stairs, and 99 out of a 100 times I get the
lift. Yesterday I didn't, and had to walk up
those bloody stairs. It was knackering, but
surprisingly not completely knackers - just
mostly knackering ! I had to walk the first
quarter of the entire length of the 8 car length
platform at reduced speed, but I recovered fast
enough to finish at full speed.
The rest of my journey home from work was
just the usual bore, or waste of a big portion
of my life etc, etc, etc, but I felt fine. When
I arrived back in Catford I decided to pop into
the Turkish supermarket. This was principally to
buy a bottle or two of Diet Coke, but also to
buy a bottle of a particular make of chilli
sauce. I can't remember the name of it for some
reason, but I recognised the bottle. I also
bought some breakfast in there......
These high fibre snacks are fairly low in
undesirables like sugar and calories, and if I
remember correctly, they were an integral part
of the diet I was on when I was trying to cure
my angina prior to my quad heart bypass
operation. Whether they actually almost killed
me is an unknown, but when I went into hospital
I was close to buying smaller trousers, and the
blood tests done while I was in hospital didn't
show any signs that I was diabetic. So I
probably ought to buy more of these for future
breakfasts. It's a shame that the little Londis
mini-market where I used to buy these in
Earlsfield closed down. The only other place I
know that sells them is the Turkish supermarket
- which is open 24 hours a day so if I was early
enough I could buy more on my way to work if I
didn't buy them the night before.
I still haven't got around to my
experiments with pasta or potato based, chicken
free, dinners yet. I have run out of chicken,
but last night I had to use up a Tesco "Finest"
sausage and mash ready meal (bought because it
had a reduced price sticker on it). It was
superior to their ordinary sausage and mash
ready meals, but it was still a bit crap. I also
used up a bowl of ready mix salad that was
getting way to close to the point when it gets
sweaty and nasty. I put far too much mayonnaise
on it, and compounded the error by having a
couple of naughty snacks in the evening too.
It's not unusual that I feel bloated, and
that my gut is even bigger than usual, and maybe
that is so, but the tightness of my trousers
tells a different story. I was particularly
reminded of this, this morning, although the
cause of it actually happened yesterday when I
put on a different pair of jeans. Going even
further back in time by a good few months, I
bought two new pairs of jeans. When I tried to
put them on I found them to be ridiculously
tight - so tight that I couldn't wear them.
Since they were bought from the same place,
using the same order code as a pair I was
wearing most comfortably, I could only conclude
that either they had the wrong label in them, or
the pair I was wearing had stretched by a huge
amount. All I could do, in variable amounts, was
to be careful about what I ate, and eventually I
could get into those new jeans comfortably.
Yesterday morning I decided to wear the
original jeans that I was wearing before I
ordered the two new, and stupidly tight jeans. I
am wearing them again this morning, and I can't
believe how loose they are ! If I breath
in I can almost overlap the button and button
hole on the waist, above the flies, by four
inches ! It rather suggests there was something
wrong with the measurements with those two pairs
of too tight jeans - which now fit with maybe an
inch, perhaps if I really breathed in, two
inches to spare. Where this theory falls down is
that I have been feeling really fat and bloated
for the last week or six - particularly
when walking, but also when I look at myself in
the mirror.
Being fat and bloated probably doesn't
help my sleep, but last night I seemed to sleep
quite well again. I was in bed well before
sunset, and I might have been asleep by 8.30pm,
but I couldn't swear to it. I know I woke up
once or twice in the night - at least I think I
did - it all seems so dream like now. I know I
definitely woke up about 4am because I found it
quite hard to sleep after that. When I finally
got up, at 4.50am, I felt unusually good. I
seemed to have less aches and pains than usual,
and it's been like that all morning. Maybe I was
distracted from some of the usual aches, pains,
and stiffness by a pain in my foot - my right
foot. One of the discomforts I felt on my way
home last night was some chafing above my right
big toe. The area is still tender this morning,
and for some stupid reason I am wearing the same
type of shoes again. Luckily they are red shoes
so the bloodstains won't show !
Tuesday 26th May
2015
08:10
BST
I'm
sure that more than one weather forecast for
yesterday said it would only warm up to 15 or
16° C, but I definitely saw 24° C on both my
outdoor thermometers. It wasn't a very sunny
day, but it was probably sunnier than I
expected. During the night the temperature fell
to 11° C, but by the time I was walking to the
station it was 12° C. This is, amazingly enough,
in accordance with the weather forecast for
today, but that also said it should be a lot
brighter this morning, and that this afternoon
will be very sunny, although it will get cloudy
as evening approaches. The reality is that it is
not all that bright at the moment. Earlier on
the clouds were very high, and streaky. That let
the occasional ray of sunshine through, but
since then the sky has turned milky white, and
while it's not the sort of sky that threatens
rain, it doesn't look very appealing. Most days
this week are forecast to be a bit good, and a
bit bad - not specially warm, but not cold
either - although Friday might be the cooler
day, and with a chance of rain.
I meant to show this picture yesterday.
This was the view looking back across the car
park next to Tesco in Catford when I went for my
little trip around the cheapo (Poundland and the
99p shop) shops in Catford yesterday
morning. I don't think I have ever seen it
so empty, and by "so empty" I mean completely
empty, while Tesco is open and doing business
(although probably not a lot of it !).
I decided it would probably be wise not to
attempt to do any more physical things yesterday
afternoon. The stuff I did in the morning, the
laundry, and the "gardening" seemed quite enough
to damage me - and yes I can definitely feel I
used a few extra muscles yesterday
morning, this morning ! Instead of
wrangling wet linen, or pushing brooms, brushes,
and spades around the garden, I opted for
furtling software - and some reading and
snoozing.
I finally managed to sanitise all the ID3
tags of all the mp3 files in my
substitute-for-a-decent-radio-station memory
stick. Winamp now displays the correct band and
song title for every track - at least I think it
does, or will. Another thing I did on the PC was
to rip my new Blu ray disk to a file format that
I can easily play on the PC. Somewhere in the
signal chain something is too slow for my PC to
play a Blu Ray disk straight from the disk. So I
ripped it to a mp4 file on the hard disk, and
that plays smoothly - although I didn't actually
watch that film yesterday. I watched another £1
DVD that I bought the week before. It was Billy
Connolly live in Dublin 2002 - and it was very
funny !
I broke my own rules yesterday and ended
up eating some chicken. I was intending to avoid
chicken, and possibly most meats for a while,
but then I considered that the ready cooked
chicken legs I had in the fridge would not last
forever. So I had them for dinner last night.
Earlier in the day I had other naughty stuff
like yoghurt coated peanuts. I didn't even dare
look at how much sugar that added to my daily
allowance of as little as I can manage. I am
unsure why I should think it, but taking into
account it was like a Sunday, but worse,
yesterday, I seems as if I didn't end up eating
that much. Of course anything more than a
single lettuce leaf is too much a whole day, but
there is too much, and there is too much.
I think I got by on the non-bold too much !
Last night combined the worst of my
bedroom feeling too warm, and having snoozed
during the day, not feeling very tired when I
attempted to go to sleep. I didn't have any
heating on in my bedroom in the evening, and so
it shouldn't have been that warm in there, but
the top half of my body definitely said it was
too warm. strangely enough, my legs and feet
reckoned it was on the cool side. Eventually I
got to sleep, and I remember having a few dreams
that I was desperate to remember because I
thought they were worth recounting, but now I
try to do that I find they seem to have
evaporated from my mind. Oh well, there will be
other dreams..........no, wait a minute......one
dream is coming back to me.
I can only recall a tiny fragment of this
dream. I'm sure it must be one of those dreams
that means something terribly important. In the
dream I was clearing off the top of the
mantelpiece in the living room. It started with
throwing away a couple of old envelopes, and
progressed to filling a whole dustbin liner with
all the stuff that was on there. If I recall
correctly, the idea wasn't to throw it all away,
but to sort through and clean the most important
stuff before throwing away the rest. It was a
most distressing sort of dream - made worse by
the knowledge that it is something I really
ought to be doing in real life !
This morning I can definitely feel that I
did some hard physical labour yesterday. I am
not really in any pain as such, but like a
hangover, these self inflicted pains that are
easy to account for, do put some of my more
common aches and pains into some sort of
perspective. If those everyday pains, which I
enjoy moaning about whenever I get the chance,
were as bad as some of the things I feel this
morning, I would probably seek medical attention
for them at some point. On the other hand, these
new pains are only transitory, and will soon be
gone. Although for that short period of time
they are stronger, they actually are less bother
than the low level aches that are with my any
time I am not sleeping or drunk.
While it might sound like I am on my last
legs, and of course that is usually my
deliberate intention, I can still raise enough
steam to rush about for short periods, and
nothing brings me closer to a heart attack that
the mad dash over the link from Waterloo East
station to Waterloo mainline station. Here's a
really crappy video taken from my mini-camcorder
clipped to my shirt pocket as I wobbled and
weaved through the crowds. It will probably make
you seasick, but don't worry about that too much
- just look at how many people I overtake (not
as many us on a good day, but a few......).
Monday 25th May
2015
11:32
BST
Yesterday's weather was not very spectacular -
it was basically a slightly warm, slightly
overcast with occasional sunny spells, and - to
put it another way - there was nothing good or
bad to remember about it ! I think today is
going to turn out similar, although today seems
like it is going to be a bit cooler, and we will
probably lose the last trace of sunshine before
the afternoon ends (maybe 4 or 5pm). At least it
is supposed to stay dry, and 15° C, which might,
or might not be highest temperature today,
doesn't feel so bad. Curiously enough, although
three different weather forecast all reckon that
15° C will not be reached until late this
afternoon, and that the temperature right now
should be around 12° C, my thermometer says it
is 18° C as I write this !
I can't with all honesty say that
yesterday was a very productive day, but if
laying on my bed reading counts, it was quite a
busy day ! I did do two physical things. I
washed some shirts and underwear, and I went
shopping in Aldi. I felt a bit bloated in the
morning, and considered that I had probably
eaten far too much chicken and other meats
recently. So I was very careful about what I
bought in Aldi. I don't think I bought any meat
at all, but I did buy some fish.
Once upon a time, maybe 11 years ago, or
maybe 20 years ago (I can't remember whether it
was during my first period of unemployment, or
the second), I was particularly short of money,
and for a while I was living on pasta, spinach
and tuna. I thought it was a cheap way of
eating, although I assumed that all that
carbohydrate could be fattening if I got too
carried away. I can't recall feeling any thinner
or fatter, but a few people remarked that it
looked like I had lost weight. I also can't seem
to recall if I felt any better or worse for
eating it.
Two of the things I bought from Aldi were
some pasta, and a couple of tins of tuna. Tuna
is not the cheap cat treat that it was,
unfortunately, but some of my meals in the
coming week are going to be pasta and tune
based. Now I no longer have a working hob, and
have to use my microwave oven, I can't make it
is such large quantities as I used to, and maybe
that might be a good thing. I also bought some
potatoes to experiment with. I think I am more
dubious about eating potatoes than pasta, but
some say that plain boiled potatoes (with the
skins still on) are low in some of the worst
things, and moderately high in the better
things.
Last night's dinner was boiled potatoes
with roll mop herrings. It wasn't one of my
greatest culinary successes ! I had a theory
that it might work, and maybe it could have done
if I had rinsed the herrings to wash some of the
vinegar off. Perhaps some butter on the potatoes
might have helped too. It would probably have
helped too if I had more confidence in the roll
mops I used. They had been in the fridge rather
a long time, and were right on their "best
before" date. I wasn't sure if it was my
imagination, or if one of them seemed to be
developing a slightly odd flavour. I seemed to
survive eating it with no ill effects. So I
guess it was perfectly OK.
I could have easily eaten half of what I
ate yesterday - if I was in the right frame of
mind - but I could also have eaten double that
amount if I was in a bad state of mind. So I
guess I did OK, and although I try and deny it
to myself, the evidence seems to be that I slept
better for it last night. I can't even attribute
it to the two glasses of raw, nasty tasting,
Whyte And Mackay whisky that I forced myself to
drink last night (I've got to use the foul stuff
up as soon as possible so I can replace it with
some enjoyable Tesco "Special Reserve"). The
whisky would only help to get me to sleep, and
would have worn off by 2 or 3am, but I slept
longer than that.
I did wake up a few times in the night,
once after an interesting dream, but most
unusually I was fast asleep when my alarm went
off at 5am (because I forgot to tell it that
today is a bank holiday). It wasn't long before
I was back asleep again after that, and I seemed
to sleep soundly until about 7am. I think I
almost feel refreshed today !
The one bit of dream I remember seemed to
have no obvious inspiration from the waking
world. It concerned trying to get a "thing"
working. This thing was a sort of computer and
printer - or printers. It was curiously thin,
maybe just 4 or 5 inches thick, and designed to
be mounted in a standard 19 inch rack. One
printer printed onto a narrow till roll type
paper. That had jammed, and I managed to free
it. Another printer printed on to a roll of
white paper about the same width as A4 paper.
The third printer of this strange machine seemed
to print on what looked like a roll of thin
black rubber. There was no evidence of it in the
dream, or none that I remember, but I think it
may not have been rubber, but something that
would be deformed by the print head so it could
be used like a large rubber stamp. It was one of
those dream that seemed to have no beginning,
and no end. It was like someone had played a
short clip of film with no clues as to what came
before it, and no clue as to what happened next.
This morning was typical of my mornings
these days. It took some time before I felt well
enough to consider myself actually alive, but
from then on things happened quite fast. Once I
was sure my limbs would not fall off, and my
chest wouldn't explode, I tackled some laundry I
had left soaking overnight. It included some
heavily stained t-shirts, and a not very stained
double fitted sheet. That lot brought my laundry
right up to date - except for 5 heavy duvet
covers that I will try and do, one at a time, on
a series of hot sunny days, and the filthy,
stained with many dinners, t-shirt I was wearing
at the time, and the grossly offensive lounge
pants I was also wearing.
Doing that laundry, particularly the
sheet, which was not as taxing as a duvet cover,
but still a lot to handle, should have been
enough to drive me to having a lie down, but it
didn't, and I went on to work up quite a sweat
cleaning the garden path, or at least part of
it. Scrubbing moss off the path uses a lot of
energy ! Until the next rain, or perhaps a bird
or two knocks some more moss off the roof, the
path from the back door to where the garden
actually starts, and including the yard and a
bit wide strip of concrete at the back of the
house, is now almost spotless. On this occasion
I also started to push my way down the garden
itself. I had removed much of the debris from
that path so I could get to the washing line,
but I had not bothered to dig down through the
litter to the paving slabs. Well I have now -
sort of.....for maybe a yard and a
bit....perhaps more if you include the bit where
I took the top off, but didn't quite reach the
bottom.
I could have done more, but I was starting
to get quite sweaty, and knackered. What was
worse was that it felt like I had already done
enough to trigger some bad back ache later.
Luckily enough I don't seem to have any back
ache now, and that may have been because as soon
as I cooled down I went for a walk around the
shops in Catford. I bought some old crap in
Poundland, and a bit more in the 99p shop.
Amongst the stuff I bought was a metallic violet
coloured hair brush. I'll confess that now I
have looked at it again at home, it does look a
bit girly, but no one is going to see it except
me.
I also bought two DVDs and a Blu Ray disk.
I now have two Blu Ray disks in my collection.
This second one was a bit more expensive that
the first. The first only cost 99p, and it was
such a crappy film that I couldn't be bothered
to watch it. This new one cost a whole 100p, and
I am expecting great things of it - and maybe it
might actually be worth watching. It is a sci fi
film called "Monsters".
Some people moan that there is not enough action
in it to be worth watching, but that is a plus
point as far as I am concerned. I rarely, if
ever, enjoy films that are all special effects,
explosions, etc, and no plot. This film looks
like it might be sci fi for the intelligent -
which I may or not be - depending on which way
the wind blows, maybe.
The two DVDs, both costing £1 each from
Poundland, may, or may not be good, but I think
there is a fair chance that both could be quite
enjoyable. One is by Jeremy Clarkson, and seems
to be a sort of extension of Top Gear featuring
all sorts of car madness. The other DVD is "Shaun
Of The Dead" which is a comedy starring
Simon Pegg (and Nick Frost). Most of what Simon
Pegg has done has been very amusing to the
English mind (opinions may vary in the US "give
me more explosions" A). All I need to do now is
find time to sit down and watch it.
Sunday 24th May
2015
10:27
BST
Friday turned out to be quite pleasant
weatherwise. It stayed dry, and there was
a fair amount of sunshine. I can't recall the
temperature, but I think it was probably a bit
higher than the 15° C I seemed to be expecting.
I am pretty sure that yesterday was nothing like
any forecast predicted it would be. There were
plenty of clouds around, but it was still bright
and sunny most of the time, and it was warm. By
late afternoon it was 20° C, and it might have
been a little higher than that at some point.
Even after sunset it was still shirtsleeves
weather - but only just, and only for the more
hardy ! This morning seems to have started off
sunny, and it is an acceptable 17° C now. There
seems every reason to hope that it will get
warmer - although the BBC's website throws cold
water on that theory, and says that 17° C will
be the highest it will get, and that by 3pm it
will be a degree cooler and raining ! The
forecast for tomorrow seems about right for an
English bank holiday. A bright sunrise, and then
it will go downhill from there. Possibly it will
stay dry, but it is going to be dull and cool
for the rest of the day - except that forecast
is over 24 hours old, and the reality is that it
will be somewhere between the hottest day of the
year, and the coldest day !
It was most pleasant to get home from work
on Friday. I was feeling OK, but the start of
three days off work triggered off the extreme
relaxation nerve (or some old bollocks like
that). Basically I did nothing of any merit on
Friday night. The same could be said about much
of yesterday. I was going to go out shopping
yesterday, but I didn't need to, and couldn't be
bothered to go any further than the corner shop
(where I bought a bottle of pop, and a
magazine). One thing I did do doesn't sound like
much, and in terms of physical or mental effort
it wasn't, but it did take up a lot of time in a
series of quite small chunks.
That little task was to sanitise the ID3
tags of the 1000+ song playlist that I am
currently using to amuse myself both here at
home, and at work. I have decided I want to
experiment with streaming songs over the
internet like an internet radio station, but I
don't intend to start an internet radio station
- but I do hope to be able to listen to my music
collection, or at least a part of it, while at
work or other places. Maybe I'll let a few other
people in on the secret too, but not while I am
experimenting. One of my aims is to have the
artist and song title visible in the distant
music player, and for that, if I can do it, I
have to make sure the ID3 tags are correct. I've
gone through over 500 now and some were riddled
with inaccuracies, and many weren't even there.
It is a long, slow, and rather boring job, but
someone has to do it :-)
So after "wasting" most of the day by
editing ID3 tags, reading, eating, and trying to
snooze, I decided I should make extra effort to
try and go out in the evening. It took a while
to psyche myself to go out, but once I got
moving it felt good. I caught the 320 bus to
Bromley Market Square bus stop which is
practically opposite The Partridge pub where
Chain were playing last night. I haven't been to
a Chain gig for ages and ages, and it was great
to see so many people I knew (often just by
name). Unfortunately there were a few problems.
It was far too crowded for my liking, and the
stage lighting was pointing at my camera instead
of the band. I took a few sample pictures, but
it was not a good night for photography.
This picture of Guy Harris on the drums, Geoff
Paice on bass, and Chris Mayer on lead guitar
probably illustrates to lighting problem as
well as any other picture. I've forced it a
bit to bring out some details, but apart from
it's atmospheric look, it doesn't look good to
my eyes.
A bit more forcing and we can now see Jo
Corteen in the gloom.
Even more forced brightness and the picture
looks quite grainy.
Converting the picture to black and white
helps a bit.
Using flash was the only way to get a bright
and sharp picture, but it loses all the pretty
colours, or "atmosphere" from the stage
lighting.
On the whole, I was
not happy about the whole experience last
night. A pint of Guinness was a rather
criminal £4.10. The place was far too
crowded for my comfort. The lighting was
bad, and because of the crowds I was almost
on top of the stage area with no way to
circulate. After being there an hour I gave
up and went home again. It felt good to go
out, and it was good to see Chain playing
again, albeit briefly. Waiting for the bus
to go home gave me a chance to see Bromley's
finest drunks - and there were a lot of them
even at 9.30pm !
In the end I felt quite disappointed
by it all. So much so that it drove me into
the fried chicken shop on the way home to
buy what, in the normal sequence of meals,
would be dinner. Giving in to that primal
urge added to a rather depressed feeling.
That was probably made worse by me feeling
rather alert, or the opposite of tired.
Ideally I would have just gone to bed, and
slept it all off, but I couldn't relax even
with the help of some booze. I couldn't be
bothered to fight my way to the bar for a
second pint of expensive Guinness, and I had
to rely on some Scotch when I got home to
try and pummel my brain into submission.
Unfortunately Tesco have (had ?) a
special promotion on Whyte And Mackay
whisky. It was just £16 for a 1 litre
bottle. That's quite cheap, but to my pallet
it is still not cheap enough. It is too
nasty to get drunk on - although I guess I
could have poured lots of diet coke on it to
take away the worst of it's taste. There is
a clue as to how nasty it is in the
screenshot I just took of Tesco's
website - they thought it might be
worth over £20, and now struggle to get rid
of it for £16 ! Hah !!
Eventually I got to sleep, and I
seemed to sleep OK until about 6am. I woke
up then and took my daily drugs, checked my
email, and other stuff. Then I went back to
bed and eventually got back to sleep. The
first time I got up I felt reasonably OK.
The second time I woke up I was clutching
the duvet like it was a life buoy or
something, and I felt dreadful. It is only
now, a couple of hours later, that I think I
feel OK.
Maybe it is time to do something
constructive. I feel like I should go to
somewhere partly deserted after last night.
Maybe somewhere on the lesser visited parts
of the seaside like Rye, or even between
Hastings and Bexhill, but I am not sure if I
want to do all that travelling on Sunday
service trains (assuming that there are no
engineering works blocking the lines - which
is a very bold assumption !). Maybe I'll
just be happy to go to Aldi, and to do some
laundry, but I suppose I ought to take a
shower first before appearing before my
public.
Friday 22nd May
2015
07:48
BST
Yesterday probably turned out better than
expected. There was more sunshine than the
forecast seemed to predict, and it may have been
warmer too. I didn't get to note the actual
temperature, but it was most definitely shirt
sleeve weather when I left work, and also when I
left the pub rather later than I had intended
to. This morning has started out a bit variable,
and that probably sets the pattern for the rest
of the day. When I first woke up the sky seemed
clear, but when I walked to the station the sky
was mostly filled with non-threatening thin
clouds. Now I am at work the sky looks mostly
clear again - at least the small part of it I
can see from my office window does. It was 10° C
when I came to work (in my shirtsleeves), and
the temperature should rise to at least 15° C,
and hopefully more - depending on the ratio of
sunny periods to cloudy periods. The long, bank
holiday, weekend is now looking not so good. I
wish they could make a long term forecast, at
least 12 hours in advance of reality that can be
relied on. Tomorrow may be wet, or sunny, or
might snow, or there could be tropical storms
and hurricanes. No one seems to know just
what is going to happen tomorrow. My guess is
that it will be similar to today, but I would
hope for it being even better.
It wasn't long after I had eaten my
sandwiches for breakfast that I developed bad
indigestion, or some sort of stomach ailment
yesterday morning. It wasn't a bad pain, but it
was quite distracting. A couple of antacid
tablets may have helped a bit, but essentially I
just had to sit it out until it had gone away -
sometime around midday if I recall correctly. I
felt fairly comfortable after that if I ignore
the tightness and/or stiffness of the new shoes
I was wearing. They didn't stop me walking,
although if I had spotted a convenient bus when
I left work I would probably have got it for the
two stops to the station.
While the Thursday night drinking crew
were boozing it up in a pub near Bromley, I was
heading to The Catford Constitutional Club. I
didn't really fancy extending my hour commute by
sitting on a bus for 30 minutes to get the pub
near Bromley, and Jodi wanted to meet up in
Catford to see if I could sort out a phone
problem for her. Unfortunately there had been a
bridge strike near Eden Park station (the second
to last station on the line through Catford
Bridge to Hayes in Kent). That didn't effect my
train because they were terminating the services
short at either Elmers End or New Beckenham
station (although there were no announcements
made on my train to warn anyone who wanted
to go further). The result of this was that Jodi
could not get a train from Elmers End station,
and had to get a bus to Catford. The result of
that was that she arrived half an hour late, and
I had already drunk a pint of beer.
I started with half a pint of the Berry
Mild Porter, and it was quite nice, but I
thought that I wouldn't like any more of it. The
White Dragon, a clear wheat beer, tasted awful
after the mild, but as the bottom of the half
pint glass came closer and closer I began to get
the proper taste of it. I then went on to have a
full three pints of it - I think. At 5.6% it was
a bit strong for an early session on an empty
stomach, and I left the pub feeling fairly
drunk. Drunk enough to buy a large cod and chips
on the way home !
I never did manage to sort out Jodi's
phone. It wasn't her mobile phone, but the
charger for a cordless landline phone, and to be
completely accurate it wasn't hers, but her
parents ! Her dad had tripped over the lead or
something, and had snapped the wire from the
little "wall wart" charger. I found one which
provided the same voltage (6V) and could provide
more current than the original. Unfortunately it
didn't work, and I suspect the trouble was that
the positive and negative were transposed.
Still, it was a good excuse for a beer.
For some stupid reason, probably to do
with being drunk, I still felt peckish after
eating my cod and chips - and they should have
been more than adequate for an evening meal.
Maybe I just felt bored after a little bit of
excitement/enjoyment in the pub. It was still
broad daylight outside, and it didn't feel like
bedtime. So I had to force myself to watch a bit
of TV, but it did not grab my attention enough.
So I had a small, and carefully selected snack
before going to bed. I have no idea what time
that was exactly, but I think it was just before
9pm. I fell asleep fairly quickly as far as I
can recall, and slept soundly for about 5 hours.
From then on until just before my alarm would
have woken me at 5am, I was half asleep and half
awake.
When I finally rolled out of bed a few
minutes before 5am I felt pretty horrible - much
worse than the quite mild hangover that I was
left with as I came to work. I can't really
describe how horrible I felt initially. It
wasn't exactly pain, but it was most
uncomfortable. Part of it was like that feeling
of imminent explosion just before you sneeze. By
the time I had been to the toilet, washed my
hair, and showered, I was almost back to just a
good old fashioned hangover, and I can cope with
those. Now, several hours later, I feel
relatively OK. I didn't eat any sandwiches this
morning. Partly because I ate enough for several
days last night, and partly because of how they
made me feel yesterday morning. Although I have
to confess I did buy, and eat, a bag of cheese
and onion crisps when I was buying a 500ml
bottle of Diet Coke from an "expensive" little
sweet shop on the high street - so it only cost
£1 instead of Tesco's blatant rip off price of
£1.25 !
I am very much looking forward to the end
of the working day when I can start a long bank
holiday weekend. I was hoping it would be even
longer, but the rail strike that promised at
least an extra day off, and probably two (out of
my holiday allowance) has been called off. With
luck it has only been suspended, and it will
happen at some future date. Many commuters
moaned like buggery about the intended strike. I
must have been one of the few who was looking
forward to it (but only on the understanding
that it would not last for more than a couple of
days).
This weekend there are a few things I
might do, or I might not do any of them. There
is a gig on Saturday night that I think I would
like to try and get to. I'm not seeing Aleemah
on Saturday, and so I should be able to dedicate
the day to mentally preparing myself to an
evening out. Now that all the sacks of nastiness
have been removed from my back garden I might
make use of it for drying some washing if we do
manage to have a warm dry day, or it is possible
that I might do a bit more tidying up in the
back garden. If it does get wet I might do some
tidying up indoors. Of course all these things
assume that I can be bothered to get out of bed,
but I probably will if only to go shopping in
Aldi. One thing I will almost certainly do is to
add more tracks to my memory stick of music that
substitutes for a decent radio station to listen
to. I might investigate setting an old PC up to
stream all the songs like a private internet
radio station. My current playlist looks like
this so far....
1044 tracks lasting at least 70 hours. I
reckon I can find at least another 500 tracks
to add to that - although it will be scraping
the barrel at the end !
Thursday 21st May
2015
07:36
BST
The forecast warned of passing showers, but it
was dry wherever I was yesterday. It wasn't a
bad day, and for sometime like March it could
have been described as quite a reasonable day.
My main complaint was that for all the sunshine
it didn't seem to warm up much beyond the
boundary between merely mild, and slightly warm.
I think it was about 15° C when I got home from
work. Today should see the top temperature at
least a few degrees higher, although once again
the sun will have to work hard to achieve that
after another chilly start to the day. It was
only about 7° C when I left home this morning.
All I can see from my office window is clear
blue sky, and we have been promised quite a lot
more of that today - but not exclusively. It
will, or may cloud over from time to time. The
forecast for tomorrow suggests it will be a
superior day to today. The forecast for the
weekend has gone from good to bad, and is now
looking semi-good. It will be nice if reality
turns out even better than that !
This picture serves two purposes. The more
obvious one is to show how beautifully clear and
blue the sky was yesterday morning (and this
morning was the same now and then). The main
purpose is to show the new streetlamp heads that
were fitted to the streetlamps near me a couple
of days ago. I think the one opposite my house
has been on day and night for a couple of days
now. It is so dazzling that it is hard to tell
what type of lamp it is, but I believe they are
LED based lamps.
Here's one of the new
head units in profile. I hope that these light
fittings produce less light pollution to the
night sky.
Here's a reminder of what the old fittings
looked like.
In most respects I felt far better
yesterday that I did the day before. My strained
ligaments, tendons, muscles, and whatever in my
chest had settled down a lot, and hardly ached
at all unless provoked. Unfortunately provoking
them was rather too easy sometimes. Reaching up
to eye height to grab a very light, three
quarter eaten, bag of peanuts out of my kitchen
cupboard was enough to send a rather sharp pain
through my left shoulder. Other movement would
cause other pains, sometimes sharp, and
sometimes dull, through different bits of my
upper torso. I really must stop throwing really
heavy stuff around, and straining all sorts of
things that shouldn't be strained !
There is some good news on that front ! I
had a reasonably comfortable journey home from
work, and after I got in I washed and put in the
rest of the new potatoes I recently bought into
the microwave. As soon as I had done that there
was a knock on the door. I opened it to find
that after what seemed like a very long wait (a
fortnight ?) Thames Water had finally sent their
contractors along to remove the plastic sacks of
nastiness they had scooped out of the sewer from
the manhole in my back garden. I was rather glad
to get rid of them for the obvious reason that
they were not nice to have laying around, but
also because I could hardly lift them to move
them elsewhere. I now feel there is a good
chance that it was taking one of the lightest
sacks through the house, to put it in the front
garden, was the start of all the aches and pains
I have been suffering in the chest area
recently. What probably broke the camel's back,
or more specifically my chest, was when I swung,
and jerked it upwards to get it into the wheelie
bin. It was bloody hard work doing that, and I
can't imagine just how much damage that might
have done to my chest - which is only held
together by scar tissue after my operation.
Here are the plastic sacks of concentrated
nastiness 5 minutes before they were finally
taken away.
They don't look anything like as heavy as they
actually were !
Another picture from yesterday - The concourse
of Waterloo station at approx 7am.
The man on the right was giving away nasty
green apples - probably Granny Smiths - teeth
breaking hard, and as sour as neat acid. I
have since found out that Zubrowka make Vodka,
and this particular vodka is traditionally
drunk with apple juice (in Poland I think).
Yesterday evening they were offering tiny
little glasses of what may have only been
apple juice, but might have had vodka in too.
I tried to sleep on my back last
night, but failed miserably. I had hoped
that it would help my chest to recover a bit
faster. As usual I slept on my side, mostly
my right side. I seemed to sleep quite well
last night, and didn't wake up with any new
aches or pains, but neither did I seem to
have any less.....Well maybe there is a
small improvement in my chest. I haven't
managed to provoke it into producing any
sharp pains, but some movements still
produce a strong ache. The good thing is
that these pains, including the sharper ones
I was getting yesterday, only seem to last a
few moments. I did notice one variation to
the usual pains this morning. I suppose I
must be putting weight on again because it
seemed like I could feel the weight of my
belly pulling down on my chest. It was like
the very centre of my chest, right where my
big scar is, was being gently, and slightly
uncomfortably stretched. At least that is
how my imagination interpreted what I could
feel as I walked across the concourse of
Waterloo station.
I was distracted from all but the
worst aches and pains by pains in my feet
(or should that be around my feet ?). I am
trying a new pair of shoes this morning, and
although they are not rubbing or pinching,
they do feel really stiff. It make it feel
like I have walked triple, or even quadruple
the distance I actually have walked. I hope
they loosen up a bit during the day or I'll
be limping home - except it's a Thursday,
and I won't be going straight home. The
Thursday night guys are drinking in a pub
near Bromley tonight. To go there would mean
an extra half hour or so on a bus after
travelling for over and hour from Earlsfield
to Catford, and I don't fancy doing that. So
I'm going to meet Jodie for a quick drink in
The Catford Constitutional Club. I reckon
I'll probably be home a lot earlier this
Thursday - maybe by 6pm, and with only a
couple of pints of beer in me. That should
be enough for a nice relaxing evening, and
an early night - maybe.
Wednesday 20th May
2015
08:10
BST
Most of yesterday was pretty horrible, but there
were a few good bits. There was a lot of rain
while I was at work, and around lunchtime there
were a few claps of thunder. The forecast said
that it should have been dry when I left work to
go home, and it was, but they cut it very fine.
The rain probably only stopped as little as 30
minutes before I left work, and even then there
were some very black clouds in the sky. Somehow
it didn't rain as I travelled, and for quite a
lot of the journey I was followed by a pleasant
little ray of sunshine. An hour, or maybe two
after I got home, the rain started again, and
somewhere not too far away, it was heavy enough
for some more thunder and lightning ! During the
night all the clouds went away, and this morning
it is delightfully sunny with just a few fluffy
white clouds high in the sky. Unfortunately the
cost of this was that the temperature dropped
very low. It was 5 or 6° C in Catford, and the
weather forecast on TV last night said that some
sheltered places, not that far from here in a
countryside sort of direction, may have had a
touch of frost first thing this morning. It is
forecast to cloud over again today, and there
could be a few passing showers, but overall it
should be a lot nicer than yesterday. Tomorrow
should be even better still with far more
sunshine, and temperatures nudging towards 20° C
!
I felt considerably better yesterday than
I did the day before. I had far less aches and
pains in my chest area, although the muscles and
tendons still felt rather tender. It is the
tendons that are most probably the root cause of
the pains I get, although in this case I
probably overworked a few muscles on Sunday as
well. There was no sign of the headache that
gently throbbed away on Monday either. The odd
thing is that though I felt a lot better, I
didn't seem to have the energy I had the
previous night when I walked to the station. It
felt like the usual boring slog rather than the
almost joyous light footed walk of Monday night.
While that may have not been that good, it
was more neutral than negative, and when I
factor in the fact that it was mostly sunny when
I went home rather than teeming down with rain,
like it almost was, it probably made for a good,
if not actual enjoyable journey home. On the way
I called into Tesco to buy a few things. I was
very wary about the prices in Tesco, and I
shopped quite carefully. For instance they had a
buy two for £2 offer on 1.75l bottles of diet
coke. So I bought two of them for effectively £1
each - which is remarkably cheaper than £1.25
for a single 500ml bottle ! Much of what I
bought had reduced prices stickers on it. That
included a bag of Jersey Royals new potatoes,
and the breakfast I've just eaten this morning
here at work.
A 22p saving per pack of sandwiches is not
a lot, but we have to remember Tesco's crappy
slogan - "Every Little Helps"! I also had a
"reduced price" dinner last night.....well a bit
of it was ! If I had left out, or seriously
reduced the amount of added butter, it might
have been a partly healthy sort of dinner. It
was mostly new potatoes and peas, but with a few
strips of barbecue flavoured skinless chicken
thrown in for good measure. The butter increased
the fat content from practically nothing to too
much, and of course the potatoes made the
carbohydrate levels rather higher than I would
aim for. The worst bit was that it was not as
nice as I hoped it would be. On a scale of 0 to
10 it would only be a 6 or 7 - nice, but not
that nice.
I spent a lot of my spare time after
dinner by copying more carefully selected songs
to my memory stick which is substituting for a
pleasurable radio station here at work. I now
have 1045 tracks for Winamp to randomly select
for playout. I don't think I have finished yet,
but even if I didn't add any more I probably
have enough songs to keep me going for weeks
without it becoming stale. While copying the
songs over I was also watching some TV, but I
found it hard to concentrate on. Eventually I
gave up and decided to go to bed to do some
reading. I read for maybe 30 minutes before I
put the book down, turned out the light, and was
soon fast asleep. It was probably not much later
than 8.30pm when I fell asleep, and it was still
light outside.
I think I slept rather well last night.
Maybe not having too many aches and pains helped
a lot. That is not to say I was perfectly
comfortable in bed. Certain positions made my
chest hurt, and other position would make one or
both arms hurt - mostly at either the elbow, or
wrists, or frequently both ! By 4am it seemed as
if I must have had enough sleep. I would have
liked to get more, but as much as I tried to
sleep I only got a few minutes here and there.
When I finally got out of bed I seemed to have
less aches and pains than usual. On the other
hand, I felt quite tender - all over - although
it was my chest area that specialised in feeling
tender, and it didn't, and doesn't need much to
invoke a few pains. A few minutes ago I made a
very simple movement. I reached behind me to
scratch my back, and that induced quite a sharp
pain to the top of my chest on the far left.
Eventually those tendons will heal, and I'll be
able to do that without any pain....until at the
weekend I do some sort of heavy lifting, and
trigger it off all over again. You would think I
would learn something from this !
This poster seemed a little strange and out of
place when I photographed it this morning. It
was on the wall of one of the toilet cubicles at
Waterloo station. Normally there are adverts for
products aimed very specifically at men. Not too
long ago Lloyds Pharmacy had adverts up for
Viagra and similar products. Sometime before
that Tena were advertising nappies for men (with
medical problems rather than strange twisted
fetishes). So this advert for Unwanted
Pet Week seemed a little out of place. It
may be, and probably is, a terribly sexist thing
to say, but I would imagine it would get more
response in the ladies toilet.
There was other stuff going on at Waterloo
station this morning. I have several pictures to
show taken with my Nikon camera, but for now
I've only transferred a couple of pictures off
my mobile phone - and none of them were of
happenings on the concourse of Waterloo station.
Those happenings were a much bigger stall
staffed with people handing out leaflets for
"Visit England", and a stand handing out free
nasty hard green apples. I can't recall who they
were, and I have not the slightest clue why they
were handing out free apples. I was offered one,
but turned it down. I think they were the
dreaded Granny Smiths apples - hard as a rock,
and as bitter as pure acid !
There were sights to see on the walk from
the station to work.......
For the last couple of days the council,
or more accurately, their contractors, have been
pruning the trees. It feels like they have left
it quite late to do this pruning, and have been
rather brutal too. I am sure this tree was
covered in green leaves before it was attacked
with chain saws. Now it hasn't got a single leaf
on it. I expect it will all grow back
eventually. Meanwhile, just look at that lovely
blue sky. It was certainly very nice this
morning if you ignore your own breath condensing
as it hits the frigid air as you rush to the
station !
Tuesday 19th May
2015
08:08
BST
There was probably less rain yesterday than
expected - although with some of the big black
clouds floating around it was easy to believe
there could have been a lot more. The showers we
did have seemed to be more sporadic than the
forecast suggested they would be, but they
didn't seem to stop until quite close to home
time. Maybe they stopped earlier than I thought
because the ground seemed fairly dry when I left
work. It was about 16° C when I left work, and
it was quite sunny. Despite that very pleasant
sunshine, there were still some very threatening
clouds in the sky, but I took a chance, and went
home in shirtsleeves. If it hadn't been just 7°
C it would have been a very pleasant morning
this morning. The sky was mostly blue, and the
day was bright and shiny. Unfortunately it
didn't last long. It's still fairly bright, but
the clouds are getting thicker and thicker.
Showers are forecast for today, and although
there could be a bit of sunshine between them,
they are forecast to dominate the day, and it is
looking like I will have to put a coat on to go
home after work even though it should be as mild
as yesterday. Tomorrow might (or might not) be a
little drier and warmer than today.
I felt rotten at work yesterday. The
headache I had in the morning waxed and waned
for a lot of the working day until it finally
vanished sometime in the afternoon. That wasn't
my only source of pain. I think I may have done
some damage to my chest when I did so much
laundry on Sunday. My Costochondritus (or some
similar ailment) became quite sore during the
day, and it seemed to take a long time for the
Ibuprofen I took to calm it down. Even after
that it was still a bit tender - as I found out
on the train home.
It was actually a relief to start walking
to the station at home time. Unlike the angina
pains I had before my quad heart bypass
operation, walking makes my current type of
chest pains go away - and they can go away quite
spectacularly. I don't know if it was just
an extra energy boost I got from being free from
pain, or if it was something else, plus a few
other positive effects, but for the first time
in ages I found walking to the station from work
to be almost exhilarating. As I mentioned
yesterday, I wasn't wearing the most comfortable
shoes I could have, but I still felt that I
could have carried on walking the extra mile and
a half to Wandsworth Common station. I decided I
wouldn't do that, and caught my train from
Earlsfield station as normal.
For some reason I didn't feel like racing
everybody across the link from Waterloo to
Waterloo East station, but then again, I didn't
lag behind either. It was while I was on the
train, maybe about a third of the way to Catford
Bridge, that I was reminded just how sore my
"floating rib(s)" could be. I was sitting
slightly awkwardly on the side edge of a seat so
as not to crowd out the person I was sitting
next to. As the train went over some points it
gave me a strong sideways jolt, and I felt a
sharp stab of pain in my side. It remained
painful, although of a lesser intensity to the
first 2 seconds, for a minute or two after that.
I felt perfectly OK when I got off the
train, and started walking towards home - except
for my feet. Those uncomfortable shoes had
decided to be a bit more uncomfortable by then.
I don't think it was bad enough to say they were
painful, but it did make the walk rather less
enjoyable. When I got indoors a strange thing
happened. I broke out in a medium strong sweat.
It was as if I had been working hard. I don't
know what all that was about, but it may have
suggested that I had some sort of infection.
Maybe an infection was another possible cause of
my chest being sore. I also started sneezing a
lot, and I didn't know whether to blame that on
hay fever or a cold. I'm obviously not a well
man, but I seemed to have a comfortable evening,
and a fair nights sleep.
There were various things I could have
eaten for dinner last night, and some would have
been healthier than others, but only one thing
tickled my fancy, and that was lamb rogan josh
curry - which is what I had. I think I bought it
from Aldi, and it was extremely nice. I am not
so sure that the chunks of lamb were not
"reconstituted meat", or something, but they
tasted good, and were extremely tender. It was
that extreme tenderness that makes me suspicious
that they were genuine cuts of real meat.
I did several things last night, but what
probably occupied my time most was adding even
more songs to the memory stick that I am using
to feed Winamp (the old version 2.xx series
which just does one thing, and does it well).
The 600 or so songs on it yesterday provided a
most adequate substitute for Cruisin' Radio -
although with an estimated 30 hours of music on
there I did have one song repeat once using
random playout. Last night I added enough songs
to take it over 1000 songs available. I haven't
finished yet. Tonight I may add some more
Beatles songs, and perhaps some more progressive
rock tracks. In theory, I am already at the
point where my random playlist will be more
varied, and have less repeats than virtually any
radio station currently broadcasting. Why did we
ever bother with radio ?
After what seemed like a reasonably good
sleep, I woke up feeling semi crap this morning.
I am fairly sure it is not the case, but it
reminds me of 'flu in some respects. One thing
is for certain, and that is that my floating rib
syndrome is in full swing this morning. Quite a
wide variety of movements from brushing my teeth
to doing up my shoelaces causes cracking and
popping sounds (sounds which are more felt than
heard) from the centre of my chest. It doesn't
hurt too much this morning because I took a
couple of Ibuprofen tablets before coming to
work, and they do seem to reduce any painful
inflammation quite well. Now I am at work I
don't feel very good, but at least today I have
dug out the heater again, and I should feel warm
today - unlike yesterday where I had to put a
jumper on to stop shivering.
This morning they were
setting up for a passengers forum on the
concourse of Waterloo station.
In the top picture there is just one lady
sorting out leafets, and then, a few minutes
later, loads of people in light blue high
visibility jackets descended on the place. I
presume they were managers bravely soliciting
the views of long suffering commuters who use
South Wast Trains services into and out of
Waterloo station.
Visit England say these free standing posters
that were also on the concourse of Waterloo
station this morning.
Monday 18th May
2015
08:06
BST
The weather wasn't that bad yesterday. There
were plenty of ways it could have been better
(mostly involving more, and hotter sunshine),
but it was not chilly, and even when it wasn't
actually sunny, it was still bright and cheery
outside. I forgot to check what the top
temperature was, but I would estimate it was
somewhere in the region of 16 or 17° C. Today
may not turn out as bad as originally
predicted...although it is still going to be
pretty bad. It was 11° C when I left home to
come to work. Before going out the door there
had been a brief splash of light rain, but it
stayed dry all the way here to work, and it only
started raining again after I had been here for
over half an hour. Even that rain was not heavy,
and seems to have stopped again (or at least it
is not hitting the window still). The most
recent forecast I saw seemed to say that there
would be non stop, moderately heavy rain all
morning until the sun broke through in the
afternoon. That forecast, that has now got off
to a poor start, implied I would be going home
in bright sunshine. Now I don't know what to
believe - but that is true of most days !
I had quite a productive day yesterday. I
ended up doing three lots of laundry. In the
morning I washed four work shirts plus some
underwear. In the middle of the day I washed a
couple of t-towels, a hand towel, and a small
table cloth. Late in the afternoon I must have
had a brain attack or something because I
decided to wash a duvet cover. It was a
moderately heavy one too ! I could have dried
any of those things on the washing line, and
that would have been particularly useful for the
duvet cover because it is virtually impossible
to wring it out enough by hand to stop it
dripping, but I still feel reluctant to use the
garden for anything while there are still 7 bags
of sewer scrapings out there. So I hung the
duvet as best as I could over the bath until it
had stopped dripping. It didn't actually take
that long, and then I hung it over the banisters
to continue to dry out. I was surprised how
quickly it did dry, and I was able to put it
away late last night. I feeling I really am
making a lot of progress catching up with my
laundry. I have nothing small left to wash now
(apart from the clothes I am weaaring at the
moment), and I only have 5 duvet covers to do.
Unfortunately those last 5 are really heavy
ones, and are they will be a real struggle to
wash and dry !
Laundry was just one of the things I did
yesterday. I also prepared and ate some food.
Only one thing needed a lot of preparation, and
ultimately it was almost wasted. While I was in
Aldi on Saturday, I noticed some pork and
chorizo burgers. They sounded like the should
have been really delicious. Unfortunately I was
badly mistaken. They were almost unpleasant to
eat, and I shall definitely not be buying any
more of them again ! My other meal, which must
have been dinner if the burgers were lunch, was
a ham salad dressed with oil and vinegar. So I
had one good meal, one bad meal, and I'll draw a
veil over what I may, or may not have had for
snacks during the day (mainly because I can't
really remember anything but a handful of
peanuts).
This morning I feel both good and bad - but
what's new about that ? All the hand laundry
cured me of lots of minor aches and pains
yesterday, but of course added a few new ones.
It allowed me to get a good sleep for 4 or so
hours, and maybe 3 not so good hours. When I
finally got up, just 10 minutes before my alarm
was due to wake me at 5am, I really only had one
thing to complain about, and that was a bit of a
headache. That headache slowly shrunk to one
place in my head, and became both intermittent
and more painful. I guess it is either a cancer,
or an aneurysm, so I didn't bother to take
anything for it. Sometimes tens of minutes pass
by now without me noticing it, but every so
often it is like someone pokes a stick in my
brain about an inch above my left eye, and in
about 2 or 3 inches. It is quite a localised
pain, and that is why I am sure it must be
something excitingly lethal - or maybe it is
just stage one of mental
vegetableisation.........
The only other thing that spoiled my
journey into work was my choice of shoes. My
purple Converse trainers, chosen to match my new
purple/violet shirt (as seen in the selfie taken
on platform 1 of Catford Bridge station at
approx 6.30am this morning), are getting rather
worn now, and are no longer terribly
comfortable. They don't pinch, and they don't
chafe, but it feels only one step away from
walking on gravel with bare feet ! I really
ought to throw them away, but I can't, or maybe
I just haven't yet been able to do it.
There was one other thing I did yesterday
that I almost forgot about - which is strange
considering I did so much of it. It all started
when it was announced that Cruisin'
Radio was closing down at 5pm yesterday.
It was a little internet radio station run by an
old mate of mine from pirate radio days. He ran
it quite seriously, and paid for enough server
bandwidth to serve hundreds of listeners, but he
only had a small listenership, and he didn't
fancy wasting any more of his own money to run
it. It was (paid) advert free (but did include
some very old adverts for their entertainment
value), and so he never made any money from it,
and didn't even intend to as long as it seemed
worthwhile to do it ( one of the old traditional
pirate values before rap music and greed killed
it off).
Cruisin' radio was my music source of
choice while at work, and at home too. I wasn't
looking forward to being at work today without
some music on so I started copying a random
selection of tracks to a 64GB USB memory stick.
Then I started ripping selected tracks from a
wide variety of CDs. I think I ended up with
nearly 600 tracks on the memory stick, and I am
playing them in random order even now as I write
this. Winamp estimates that there are about 33
hours of music on the memory stick so far, and
by tomorrow I will probably have added quite a
few more hours - and Windows reckons I've only
used about 3 GB of that memory stick so far. So
I could end up with thousands of tracks in the
end, and that is probably more than Crusin'
Radio used to play. I think I have just
described what I expect to do tonight, and
tomorrow night, and the night after.......
Sunday 17th May
2015
10:38
BST
Friday was a most definite improvement over
Thursday. It wasn't a particularly special day,
but it was mild enough, maybe with a hint of
warmth, to go home from work in shirtsleeves,
and of course it was dry. There were sunny
spells rather than continuous sunshine, but
that, plus the direction the wind was coming
from, probably took the temperature up to 15 or
16° C (although for the life of me, I can't
remember what the actual temperature was).
Yesterday was quite similar to Friday. It was a
little overcast in the first half of the
morning, but the clouds parted, and the rest of
the day was quite sunny. Occasionally a rather
dark looking cloud would drift over, but it
stayed dry. Once again the temperature was in
that sort of no man's land of not cold, but not
warm either - the high teens. Today looked like
it would be similar again, but the day started
quite bright and sunny, and will end overcast.
In fact the rather pessimistic forecast says we
can only look forward to another hour or so of
sunshine, but at least it will be around 16° C
again. It's probably best not to even think
about tomorrow, or the day after, or even the
day after that. Certainly don't think about it
unless you happen to carry a lifebouy around
with you, or at least a very sturdy raincoat !
It was a joy when work finished on Friday.
I was feeling quite weary. Some of it was
probably because I didn't seem to be getting the
amount of sleep I wanted, and some of it, maybe
a lot of it, was just the effect of working a
full 5 day week. Work has been moderately OK
recently - at least I haven't had any tantrums
of the "here's my resignation, goodbye" type
difficulties - something I could do for real now
with my lump sum and small pension being due
next month. It's not enough to live on easily,
but I could, and on the whole, it is probably
better than murdering someone (although not as
satisfying !).
The biggest problem with work at the
moment is that IFSEC
(security stuff exhibition - burglar alarms,
CCTV and stuff) is coming up soon, and as in
most years, but possibly more so this year,
there is a lot of running around like headless
chickens going on. We apparently know what new
products we want to exhibit, but for some reason
we want to exhibit them before they are even
properly developed - which is OK under some
circumstances, and to some levels, but...... So
people are starting to panic, and that really
pisses me off !
I took the video above on my way home on
Friday. It shows the Network Rail Track
Recording Train racing alongside my train as we
approach Vauxhall station on our way towards
Waterloo. Unfortunately I seem to have made the
video a bit bigger than my network can probably
handle. So apologies if it keeps hanging and
buffering....on the other hand the wind might be
blowing in the right direction, and it will play
OK.
There was stuff I was considering doing on
Friday night, but when it came down to it I just
could not be bothered. So I had some dinner,
watched a bit of TV, and mostly just read before
I went to bed. I can't decide it I slept OK or
not on Friday night. If I had to get up to go to
work I would probably say I slept badly, but
with no major rush to get up in the morning I
managed to get an extra couple of hours in bed.
Eventually I got up, washed, and dressed, and I
didn't feel that bad. If I didn't have to meet
Aleemah at the station, it is possible I might
have gone back to bed again.
As usual, our first port of call was the
Wetherspoon's pub for breakfast. I found these
two interesting beers available, and had a half
pint of each while Aleemah drunk her coffee and
ate her vegetarian breakfast. Once we were
finished in there we went shopping in Aldi. I
seemed to buy about twice as much by volume, or
by weight, than I had bought in Tesco on
Wednesday night, and yet the price at the till
was about the same. I could get quite annoyed
with Tesco again !
After lugging my shopping home we sat down
to watch a DVD. It was the next two episodes of
the awful "The
Celts" DVD that Aleemah brought along. The
first two episodes that we watched last weekend
did have a few interesting things about them,
but as the episodes move out of the past, and
into more recent history they are starting to
become more like propaganda than a history
lesson. Oh well, only 4 more episodes to go. (4
? Can I really stand that ?).
I thought I was going to find the energy
and enthusiasm to go to a gig last night, but
once again it all went wrong. It was partly
because I didn't want to throw Aleemah out too
early. She was not going home after seeing me,
but was going to some event, and it seemed cruel
to let her pass some of the intervening time by
wandering around the street, and/or window
shopping, or whatever. So we chatted for a lot
longer than usual, and as we did I missed the
early meal (a late lunch) I had planned to have,
and I began to feel sort of relaxed or tired. I
didn't actually give up on the idea of going out
until I realised that so much time had passed
that it was 8pm, the time I intended to arrive
at the gig, and I was not even washed and
dressed to go out ! So I spent another evening
on the PC or reading on my bed. With the benefit
of hindsight I now realise that I was not as
tired as I thought I might be because I didn't
put my book down until 11pm, and even then I
didn't seem to feel that sleepy - although I did
seem to fall asleep surprisingly fast once I
turned the light out.
This morning I woke up feeling "crunchy".
My arms, legs, and my chest felt stiff and
creaky. Just to make things worse, I decided to
toss the one bag of sewer rubble that I had
managed to carry through the house into the
front garden into the wheelie bin to get rid of
it. That really did something nasty to my chest
superstructure, and it left me with a nasty pain
in my right hand side - the same side as the arm
I had used to swing the bag up high enough to
get it over the rim of the wheelie bin.
A couple of Ibuprofen tablets made short
work of that pain, and to get a few more creases
out I washed 4 shirts and some underwear. I also
have some more stuff soaking in bio detergent
that I hope will come out clean and fresh when I
tackle that before the day is out. The next
thing I was thinking of doing was to go for a
walk in the park. Maybe I will, or maybe I
won't. Midday seems to be approaching fast, and
I am feeling like some breakfast may be more
enjoyable.
Friday 15th May
2015
08:06
BST
It was disgustingly horrible yesterday. It
rained, and it rained, and it rained ! The only
very slight, microscopic mitigating fact was
that it wasn't icy cold rain. It was 10 or 11°
C, and that was just high enough to take the
worst of the sting out. I still got very wet
going home from work though. This morning
started out fairly cool, around 8° C, and
everything was all wet and soggy, but it was not
raining, and the sun was starting to break
through the clouds. A couple of hours later and
a lot of the sky is blue. We should have a
mostly sunny day today, and the temperature is
forecast to hit at least 15° C. Tomorrow could
be a couple of degrees warmer, but there will be
a few more clouds in the sky, and so less
sunshine.
There was some good news yesterday. It was
over a fortnight ago that I ordered some shirts
from (via) Amazon.co.uk. I didn't realise that I
was ordering them from the USA, and was rather
surprised when the tracking number that Amazon
gave me for the order had the shipment starting
off in America. It rather alarmed me because I
had a strong suspicion that I would have to pay
import duty on the order, and I wasn't sure how
that would work when they were being delivered
to work. In the end I got stitched up for
another £11.57 on top of a none too keen price
to start with. Yesterday, after a long wait, and
after paying the duty, plus Royal Mail's rip off
£8 handling fee (which was part of the £11.57,
not in addition to it thank the Gods) online on
Tuesday, the shirts were finally delivered.
Maybe all the aggro was worth it because they do
seem to be quite good quality, and the violet
shirt is the exact shade of violet I wanted (as
was the yellow and the green).
It was most unpleasant going home in the
rain after work yesterday. It seems the
waterproofing on my jacket is already breaking
down, and I am sure I don't remember the zip
being completely non-waterproof. I ended up with
a long streak of wetness down the front of my
shirt, and that wasn't pleasant ! It is quite
possible that getting so damp has actually had a
bad effect on me. This morning I have, in
variable proportions, back ache, front ache,
left ache, right ache, top ache, and also bottom
ache - although the latter is not to be confused
with gut ache 9although I have a touch of that
too !).
Last night was booze night, and I met up
with the usual suspects in The Catford
Constitutional Club for a few hours and a few
beers. I think I had three and a half pints last
night. I don't know if it was just me, or if it
was the beers that were available, but they were
all very nice, and all not that nice. I had a
pint of a half of Hazlenut Mild. It really did
have a hint of hazlenuts about it, and the half
pint I had first tasted so good that I went for
another full pint. I got three quarters of a
pint through that before deciding I didn't like
it. The same was true for another beer, but the
third was the opposite way round. It tasted
nasty at first, and then the more of it I tasted
the better I liked it.
There was a small at the CCC last night. Until
very recently, the windows at the end of the
room, pictured above, were shuttered, and that
gave the room a bit of a gloomy air. The reason
for this was that the only view was of a dirty
pile of rubble and stuff. That has now been
cleared, and the shutters opened. The view
outside of a brick wall is not that wonderful,
but the extra light is nice.
Another surprise to see the upstairs room
open, and ready for business. Occasionally the
door would be left slightly ajar, and we would
sneak a peek through it. Until recently it
seemed to be full of junk, and I theorise that
several floorboard were missing where they had
been "borrowed" to repair places where the
floorboards were crumbling away (such as in the
Gents toilet). It looks quite nice in there now,
and those end windows (plus one at the side)
make it bright and airy in there. Apparently it
can be hired for special occasions, but
otherwise is just provided as a quiet refuge for
when the main bar area gets too noisy. The only
problem is that it is a long walk from the bar,
but on the other hand it is just a few paces
from the toilets !
I think it was about 7pm when I left the
CCC. If it hadn't been cold, grey and raining, I
might have been able to resist it, but I thought
that last night was one night when I was fully
justified in buying some hot food to take home
for dinner. In this case it was fish and chips -
and it was lovely ! I ate that, watched a bit of
TV, and I was in bed before 9pm. Like the night
before, it didn't seem to feel like I slept that
well, but also just like last night, it was
difficult to tell if I was actually awake, or
just dreaming it. What I do know was that this
morning, more than other recent morning, I
definitely wanted to go back to bed instead of
coming to work. I probably would have slept if I
did go back to bed, but mostly I just didn't
fancy all the aggro of commuting on a cold wet
morning. I guess it was OK once I got moving,
but it was a hard start to the day.
My commute did not get any better when I
found this obnoxious excreta on the concourse of
Waterloo station. I don't like Sky. I don't like
footballs. I don't like Sky sport. I don't like
sport. I don't like discos and disco dancing
with the multi coloured floors, and "Minions"
(that can just be seen on the oblique side
panel) make me feel nauseous. In short, I think
this whole stand should have been obliterated by
thermonuclear weapons - at least ! I hope it's
not there when I go home or it will ruin my
entire weekend !
Thursday 14th May
2015
07:57
BST
It turned out quite nice yesterday. There was
blinding sunshine when I was going home from
work, and it felt pleasantly warm despite the
mercury only saying it was about 18° C. It was,
of course, the last hurrah before the weather
turned nasty. At this time of year the sun rises
and sets far enough round to the east and west
that some of the first light, and last light can
shine into my north facing bathroom window - but
only just ! This morning, as I went to the
bathroom after getting up, I could see the east
facing wall glowing pink. I couldn't actually
see the sunrise from indoors (and I couldn't go
outside because I was naked at the time), but it
must have been a very red sunrise, and the old
saw goes "red sky in the morning, shepherds
warning". That definitely agrees with the
weather forecast. It might have stayed dry, and
a bit bright, long enough for me to walk to the
station, and get to Waterloo, but here in
Earlsfield it was just starting to rain as I
left the station. The forecast predicts that it
will now continue to rain, sometimes light, and
sometimes heavy, but rarely not at all, until at
least midnight, and probably longer. The top
temperature today is unlikely to be any better
than 12° C ! Tomorrow should be mostly dry, and
there should be some sunshine. With luck it will
be 3 or 4 degrees warmer too !
I noticed my chest was getting a bit
clicky again yesterday. A wide selection of
movements would cause various internal bits of
my chest to click, pop, groan, grunt or wheeze
(or something like that). It is mostly painless,
although not exclusively, and most of the time
is no more than a mild annoyance. It didn't
interfere with my journey home from work until
my train approached Catford Bridge station, and
I stood up after quietly reading the Evening
Standard newspaper (which is now far less
annoying now the general election is over, and
it is not just wall to wall news stories about
bloody politicians). As I stood up I could feel
all the crunched up muscles and ligaments
unscrunch and align properly, and for 3 or 4
seconds it was most definitely painful, but the
pain had 90% gone before the train doors opened,
and was nothing but a memory by the time I
exited the station.
As I think I suggested I would yesterday,
I went home via Tesco - and I wish I hadn't now
! Tesco seem to have forgotten that they are
trying to entice customers back by reducing
their prices (except for a few headline, well
advertised, items). I was shocked,
flabbergasted, disappointed, and even enraged to
find that they were charging £1.25 for a 500ml
bottle of Diet Coke. All the little shops around
Earlsfield, and, if I recall correctly, even the
WH Smiths on Waterloo station, charge just £1
for a bottle. I expect even Harrods doesn't
charge much more than £1. Considering it
probably only costs about 10p to make a bottle
of Diet Coke, someone, somewhere, is
profiteering fit to bust, and Tesco must be a
deep part of that conspiracy ! I think that on
those occasions where I want to get stuff on the
way home from work I will have to start using
the Turkish supermarket more.
When I got home, with my blood pressure up
at bursting point (or so I should imagine) I
felt too angry (or was it just annoyed ?)(or
even something less than that ?) I didn't feel
too much like doing anything except eating some
of the expensive food I had just bought from
Tesco, and then relaxing a lot until I went to
bed. Of course it may have been because I've had
a few bad nights sleep, and I was feeling tired,
but I am never one to shirk my responsibility to
blame Tesco's high prices for all the troubles
of the world. So I decided I didn't feel like
doing any laundry, and I didn't even feel like
washing my hair - which definitely needed
washing.
It is possible I could say that there was
actually a positive outcome to all this. I
managed to get to bed nice and early, and I was
fast asleep before 9pm. It is difficult to say
whether I slept well or not because some of my
dreams seemed to be about sleeping and
waking.......at least I think they were ! It is
possible that the times I was dreaming about
waking up it was not a dream, but reality.
Although if it was reality it would mean that I
got very little sleep. At least one dream was
definitely a dream. In this dream I went to WH
Smiths in Catford to buy a record. When I got
there I found that they were only open to sell
newspapers, and the back of the shop where the
records were was in darkness. I checked the time
on my phone and found it was 4am, and not 5am as
I assumed it was. There were some obvious clues
that this was indeed a dream. For a start, the
WH Smiths store closed in Catford nearly a year
ago now. It is true that they would only open
the front of the store to sell newspapers first
thing in the morning, but that was from
something like 8am, and definitely not at 4am !
This morning I feel good and bad. My chest
felt a bit sore this morning. I expect with all
the dreaming I did I was probably thrashing
around a lot, and doing some intensive coughing
10 minutes after getting out of bed didn't help
either. One ache that I have noticed recently
that is a bit peculiar is wrist ache. Even now,
both my wrists seem to ache in a sort of
arthritic way which probably is not arthritic at
all. The very worst ache of all is actually
beyond ache and into the territory of pain, and
it is my right ankle. A couple of times
yesterday, and once this morning when I was
halfway between the station and work, my right
ankle has got very, very sore - sore to the
point that I have to grit my teeth to carry on
walking. It feels like a twisted or sprained
ankle, and comes on quite quickly, but also goes
quite quickly too - maybe after I have walked
another hundred yards or so. I am at a loss to
even suggest any reason for it at the moment.
Today would not be a good day to ask for a
giraffe burger at Waterloo station - the furries
are out in force !
They would prefer to be called representatives
of The World Wildlife Fund, but I think they
just like dressing up as furry animals for
warped sexual reasons - or so I once read on
some long forgotten web page :-)
Looking very cute in her "whatever animal
looks like that " onesie !
By tradition tonight is boozing night.
It will almost certainly be pouring with
rain after work. So I hope the beer is
flowing locally because I don't fancy long
walks home in the pouring rain. The Catford
Constitutional Club would be most handy, but
maybe The Black Cat, previously known as The
Catford Ram, has now opened, and would be
worth investigating. I did deliberately go
the long way round to pass it on my way to
Tesco last night, and it was a bit
ambiguous. The doors seemed to be open, and
there were lights on inside, but the windows
still seemed to be covered up inside. Oh
well, time will tell.
Wednesday 13th May
2015
08:10
BST
I don't seem to remember it raining yesterday
morning, although it may have done so briefly.
That wasn't how it was forecast to be, but we
did have the sunny afternoon that was promised -
although I'm not so sure it was as intensely
sunny as the forecast seemed to hint at.
Nevertheless, it still ended up a comfortable
17° C - but that didn't last long. The sky was
very clear last night, and the temperature fell
to a rather chilly feeling 7° C this morning.
Some cloud is bubbling up now, but it is not
supposed to get thick enough, or last long
enough to block all the sunshine, and it should
get up to at least 17° C again today. Tomorrow
is supposed to be very different ! The top
temperature was forecast to be a mere 12° C, and
it will be very grey and very wet. That is one
forecast I hope turns out to be very wrong !
I felt tolerably OK at work yesterday, and
I had a tolerably good journey home from work. I
think I am beginning to believe in the
supernatural, or some old gobbledegook to do
with those mythical
ley lines. It often seems that Waterloo
Station must lie on some confluence, or however
it is described, of several powerful ley lines
(is that even possible in the mythological
universe ?). Looking back as far as I can
remember, about 6 days, 17 hours, 44 minutes,
and 9 seconds, I seem to recall always feeling
like I have more energy when passing between
Waterloo East and Waterloo stations (in either
direction). I have to confess it seems to be
very weird, but while it feels good it is
difficult to knock it.
As usual, my energy started running down
as soon as my train pulled out of Waterloo East
station, and I was back to normal, whatever that
is, once I got off the train in Catford, and
started walking homewards. When I got to the end
of my road I found Thames Water where there. It
was the same two guys who unblocked the sewer
from the manhole in my back garden last
Thursday. I asked them if they had found the
source of all the rubble, and they said not yet,
but that they were hoping to get access to a
manhole in the garden 4 or 5 houses away from
mine. Unfortunately the lady who lives there was
either out, or not answering her front door. I
also took the opportunity to tell them that the
sacks of putrid crap they had left in my back
garden had still not been collected. They went
through the pantomime of pretending to call
their controller to make enquiries, and said
they would be in touch. Half and hour later they
had disappeared......but the sacks of crap
remain !
I made another experimental dinner last
night. As I had suggested, I tried black eyed
beans (or peas) with rice, and a lot more beef
stock than the previous night's experiment. Once
again, I threw in some roughly chopped up chilli
and bell pepper, and I also added a squirt of
tomato purée. Unfortunately it didn't turn out
very good. This time I used too much stock so it
was too soggy, and the black eyed beans seemed
too soft and squidgy compared to kidney beans.
Not only that, but I think those black eyed
beans were a bit tasteless compared to kidney
beans. My thoughts now are that I got it almost
right on Monday night, and maybe all that
version required was a bit of oil to make it
seem less dry.
I got to sleep earlier than the night
before, and I think I slept better last night,
but I still felt pretty rotten when I woke up.
In the words of Douglas
Adams, I felt like a military academy - bits
of me kept passing out when I got up this
morning. I think some of the cause was down to
taking another couple of large doses of
Metformin to help counteract the effects of all
the sugar in the cheesecake I ate on Monday
night (and by large dose I mean the currently
prescribed dosage rather than the amount my body
seems to tolerate). It was probably a good
experiment to prove or disprove my theory that
large doses cause inflammation to the scar
tissue and other damage to my chest
superstructure. Some annoying aches and pains
that have restarted seem to prove my theory !
My supernatural burst of energy at
Waterloo station, which seemed to be quite
extreme this morning, seemed to have some
bad effects. It may have felt psychologically
good to have gone racing over the link between
Waterloo East and Waterloo stations, and to
overtake al but the very fastest commuters, but
it seemed to wear me out, and cause other
negative things. Once I was on the train to
Earlsfield, and maybe a quarter of a mile from
Waterloo, I started to cough, and for a while I
couldn't seem to stop. Luckily I did have a
bottle of water in my ruck sack, and a swig of
that calmed things down a bit. When I got off
the train at Earlsfield my legs felt like lead.
The worst of that wore off by the time I had
exited the station, but the walk from there to
work seemed harder work than usual.
Now I am at work my main complaint is that
I feel cold, and I can't seem to find the energy
to walk two paces across the floor to grab a
spare jumper I keep here just for times like
this. My brain seems to be working in low gear
too because I've only just realised that that my
chair is on casters, and I can "whoosh" across
the 2.5 yard gap to get my jumper without having
to waste the energy walking there
!............Unfortunately I had to waste energy
standing up to reach the jumper, but I'm now
wearing it, and feeling less chilly now.
Tonight I think I will be doing what I
should have been doing 18 months ago, and that
is going to buy a small quantity of shopping
from a supermarket, probably Tesco. 18 months
ago I had not been out of hospital all that
long, and I was, I now realise, rather stupidly
attempting to buy a weeks work of shopping in
one go. In doing so, the weight I was carrying
back from the supermarket did some unknown
amount of damage to my healing chest. I live
with the consequences of that even now, but
tonight, like on Monday night, I will buy just a
small amount of stuff, and not strain myself
taking it home. Of course there are still
inherent dangers by doing it this way. Every
visit to a supermarket brings temptations that
are sometimes difficult to avoid, and I end up
eating either more than I should, or stuff that
I shouldn't eat when possible, and quite
frequently both !
As I raced through Waterloo station I did
two things. The first and third (bear with me)
was to get my camera out. The second was to use
the toilets there (30p a go, but usually clean
and dry, and with copious supplies of hot water
for washing hands afterwards). Before going to
the toilet I took a picture from the balcony.
Some men are just starting to unpack a new
display/sales stand.
After coming out of the toilet it was partly
erected, and turned out to be the Royal
Society For The Protection Of Birds soliciting
for funds.
Tuesday 12th May
2015
07:51
BST
Once upon a time the BBC's weather forecast page
of their website said that yesterday afternoon
would be non stop sunshine. Then they changed
their minds and said it would be cloudy.
The reality was the middle way - it was
sometimes cloudy, and sometimes sunny ! It was
also quite warm. I saw 23.7° C on my upstairs
thermometer, although nearer the ground it may
have been a couple of degrees cooler. The nights
no longer get freezing cold, although they are
still rather cool. This morning it was
about 11 or 12° C, and that was just high enough
to be on the limits of comfort to come to work
in just shirtsleeves - but only just ! There
hasn't been any sunshine this morning. At first
there was some very high streaky/mottled cloud,
but now the cloud is lower and getting thicker.
The forecast says it will rain this morning, and
that seems very possible, but this afternoon is
supposed to be bright and sunny. It should also
get pleasantly warm by the time I leave work to
go home......although I see the latest forecast
says it will only be a mere 17° C. Tomorrow
might also have a sunny afternoon with the
temperature also a mere 17° C, but it is
supposed to be a chilly start to the day - just
8° C. Spring hasn't finished yet !
It was definitely nice going home with the
temperature a nice comfortable 20 - 23° C
yesterday, and as seems to be happening a lot
recently, I had several bursts of energy on the
way. Going up the long staircase from the subway
at Waterloo East seemed to need less effort, and
I was less short of breath at the top. It was
almost like I weighed less, but that can't be
the case - particularly considering some of the
things I have eaten recently. It must just be my
leg muscles getting stronger. I certainly had
the energy to stride at a good pace to Tesco, on
my way home, and keep up a reasonable pace
carrying my shopping home.
I was not knackered when I got home, but I
seemed to have dissipated any excess energy I
might have had. The result was that I didn't do
anything worthwhile last night. I just ate,
watched a bit of TV, read the last couple of
chapters of a book, and then got to sleep later
than I should have ! In terms of weight, most of
what I had bought from Tesco was a couple of
1.75l bottles of diet cola, and four packs of
sandwiches. I brought two packs of sandwiches
here to work for breakfast, and the other two
are intended to be tomorrows breakfast.
I didn't use anything I bought on my way
home for my dinner because I was in an
experimental mood. The dinner I put together was
fairly nutritionally balanced (probably) and
should have been very low in fat. It was my
variant on that West Indian dish of peas and
rice - except the peas were red kidney beans
(which I believe is what the West Indians
usually use instead of green garden peas). I
included some chopped chilli and a chopped bell
pepper, plus a little water and a stock cube.
The rice was pre-cooked, as were the kidney
beans. So it required very little cooking. When
I eat it the peppers were still fairly crunchy.
It was quite filling, but it wasn't all that
nice. It would have been a lot nicer if I had
used much more stock so it was less dry.
While it was a healthy meal by all normal
standards, it wasn't by my standards. The rice
was, of course, almost pure carbohydrate, and
while it doesn't convert to sugar instantly,
over a period of time it is broken down to sugar
as it is digested, and depending on how much my
pancreas has recovered, it could raise my blood
glucose to unacceptable levels. I will never
know if it does raise my blood glucose level
because the effect will be completely swamped by
something far, far worse that I ate last night.
I saw this lonely looking cheesecake sitting on
a shelf in Tesco marked as reduced/half price,
and I felt sorry for it....
I don't think it was the high levels of
sugar in my blood stream, although that could
well have played a part in it, but I had a
pretty lousy night last night. If the glucose in
the blood rises too high you can spend all night
peeing as the body tries to get the blood back
to normal. That didn't happen, but I did feel
hot and sweaty from time to time, and excess
sweating can also be caused by high blood
glucose levels. However it was also true that it
was considerably warmer in my bedroom than usual
last night. The day ended quite warm, and my
bedroom faces south so it catches any sunshine
there is. So I was trying to sleep half under
the duvet, and half outside of it, and in doing
so I was having all sorts of fights with it in
the night. I think I had some quite spectacular
dreams last night, but they have all faded from
memory now - except for a vague memory that
Catford Bridge railway station was also a
heli-port !
This morning I feel like I would have
liked to have gone back to bed as soon as I had
finished drying myself after my morning shower,
or if not that, to have had at least an extra
hour to acclimatize myself to being awake before
leaving to come to work. I felt, and to a lesser
extent I still do feel lousy in a very
specialised way. It is a feeling that is far
greater than the sum of the usual little aches
and pains, and stiffnesses. It's a feeling of
what you imagine high blood pressure should feel
like (except you can't actually feel high blood
pressure). A sort of feeling that the air is
crushing you while at the same time you are
going to explode - two completely contradictory
things, but that's how it feels. I am also
feeling rather chilly now I've been sitting at
my desk for over an hour now.
Hopefully the weather forecast contains a
grain of truth today, and it will be warm and
sunny when I finally leave here to go home
again. I haven't got any specific plans for
tonight, In fact, when I consider it more
deeply, I don't think I have any plans for
tonight. I have a vague idea that I might have
rice again tonight. Perhaps I'll attempt to
perfect my rice and peas recipe - lots more
stock, and maybe a different sort of bean
tonight - or maybe chick peas. It could be a
handy thing to do because if I attempt to live
off the tiny pension I get next month, it will
make for very cheap meals if I start off with
raw/dry ingredients (not pre-cooked rice and
tinned beans).
Monday 11th May
2015
09:54
BST
Yesterday afternoon was not bad. The sun became
a bit intermittent as the afternoon changed into
evening, and finally it became too cloudy to see
a sun set. That cloud meant it was a very mild
night, and this morning started at a very
tolerable 13° C - mild enough to leave my coat
off as I came to work. It is still rather
cloudy, but the cloud is supposed to lift any
minute now (!), and the afternoon should be nice
and warm and sunny. If that does happen it
should reach 22° C by the time I go home to all
those stinking bags of crap extracted from the
sewer, and left in my back garden. (That reminds
me, I must phone Thames Water soon and find out
if they have any clue as to what is going on). Update
: The BBC website has now given up on the
afternoon being sunny, but they still say it
will be 21 or 22° C. Tomorrow should be a lot
sunnier, but strangely enough it will be a few
degrees cooler !
I felt good yesterday afternoon and
evening. That's not to say that I was free from
pain. Some of the lifting and stuff that I did
left it's mark on a few muscles, but it felt
like I had accomplished a lot over the long
weekend. Washing two duvet covers was
particularly useful - or will be in the future.
By some peoples standards, those who will
masochistically bust a gut working from dawn to
dusk, would probably not recognise my idea that
I had accomplished a lot, but by my personal
standards I should have been awarded a medal !
Having said that, maybe that is not quite
right. Although it felt good to have done what I
did do, I did feel a specialised form of boredom
last night. It was like I wanted to do more or
something. It was a yearning to achieve more, or
a sort of wanderlust. I think I mentioned it
yesterday how I felt the urge to get to the
seaside, or into the countryside, building up.
To get fitter and weird stuff like that. It's a
shame I had to ruin it all by coming to work
today !
I did not get a good nights sleep last
night - at least it doesn't seem that way. For a
start, I didn't try and get to sleep until quite
late, and even then I didn't seem to get to
sleep very quickly. I woke several times in the
night - although I seemed to get back to sleep
easily enough. finally, I woke up, and got up
earlier than I needed too. For all that, I don't
seem to feel too bad at all this morning. I did
have a vague ache that was worryingly a bit like
toothache earlier this morning, and maybe if I
look for it I can feel a small amount of
tenderness one side of my face, but it doesn't
feel very serious yet.
The rest of me feels surprisingly good. I
can still feel where I was using my muscles
yesterday, but it is nothing drastic. Until I
arrived at Earlsfield, and had walked a couple
of hundred yards, I seemed to have quite a bit
of energy. The race between Waterloo East and
Waterloo mainline stations seemed a lot easier
than usual - almost as easy as when I was on 40
- 50 cigarettes a day. It is almost as if I am
recovering from a long illness - sometimes, and
sometimes relapsing like when I was halfway
between the station and work this morning. That
last bit of walking felt very "ordinary" - like
I had no "special powers" at all - "special
powers" being an alternative name for being ever
so slightly fit, and fit being an alternative
work for still warm and with a pulse !
There were two companies on the concourse of
Waterloo station this morning.
This was one of the companies. They were
trying to promote some sort of business
software.
This highly suspicious looking, stereotypical
Tory looking business man was trying to flog
some energy saving idea.
It would be nice to
think I would have to rush home tonight to
let Thames Water pick up the stinky bags of
stinky crap scooped from the bowels of the
sewer that runs through my, and my
neighbours back gardens, but such an idea is
wildly optimistic. I feel I might go home
via Tesco and pick up a bottle of pop, or
two, and maybe choose something for an
exciting dinner tonight, and something for
breakfast tomorrow morning that is a bit
cheaper than the sandwiches I bought in WH
Smiths in Waterloo station this morning for
breakfast. They were very nice sandwiches,
but well overpriced because of the store
being located in a mainline London railway
station - they probably have a very high
rent to cover, and thousands of tourists and
other travellers to fleece !
They are not all
visible in this picture, but there are 8
of these incredibly heavy plastic sacks
stinking up my back garden, and probably
my neighbours too ! Even the empty one now
has some rubble in it - although I must
confess that not all of it came out of the
sewer !
Sunday 10th May
2015
14:58
BST
I'm
not so sure the temperature dropped as fast as I
thought it would during the night. It was a
little overcast this morning, but it didn't seem
to feel particularly cold. By 10am it was
certainly comfortable to go out shopping in
shirtsleeves, and it was starting to get sunny.
The clouds seem to be thickening again now, but
the rest of the morning, and these first three
hours of the afternoon have been pleasantly
sunny. I'm sure the thermometer outside the
kitchen window would say it is as much as three
degrees cooler, but the one about 10ft higher
than that, outside on the back bedroom
windowsill says it is currently a rather nice
21° C. The forecast says the temperature will
only dip to about 13 or 14° C during the night,
and then will climb to a summer-like 22° C by
tomorrow afternoon. I guess we are almost
leaving spring behind now. It seemed short
compared to how long winter seemed to be (to me)
this year.
I didn't raise any enthusiasm for doing
any unusual feats of housework last night, and
nor did I even consider the idea of going to a
gig (although I think there was one I could have
got to last night). Instead of all that I spent
a pleasurable time watching a DVD of Billy
Connolly live in London (2010). I forgot to
mention it was one of the things I bought from
Poundland yesterday - and it was worth every
penny of the £1 ! I also made a mistake in
saying the stiff bristled broom I bought from
Poundstretcher was £1 - it wasn't. It was £2.99
!
I guess I must have slept OK last night
because I can't think of anything bad to say
about it except that I woke up much too early.
It would have been perfect if I had to go to
work today, but after a while I got back in bed
and slept some more. When I eventually got up I
felt reasonably good. Just before 10am I tried
to ruin that. I thought I would try and move the
8 stinky bags of sewer debris out to the front
garden where Thames Water's contractor could
pick them up without me needing to be here to
let them in. I moved one bag out there. It was
the lightest one, and it was still fffffff-heavy
! Not only that, but most of the bags were still
dripping obnoxious fluid when moved !
I definitely didn't want to move them
through the house while they were dripping, and
I don't think I could even carry most of them,
but I did space them out a bit to give them a
better chance of drying out a bit. That released
a nasty smell so I put plan B into operation,
but before that I tested out my new broom by
sweeping the path up as far, and beyond the
sacks, and shovelled up the pile of stuff and
placed it into one of the rubbish sacks. Most of
it wasn't sewer debris, but Thames Water can
still dispose of it for me !
Plan B was to take another trip to
Poundland (and also the nearby 99p shop - not
the one on the high street) where I bought fresh
stocks of bleach, disinfectant, rubber gloves
etc etc, and also another Billy Connolly DVD.
This one is "Live In Dublin 2002". I shall look
forward to watching that some evening when I am
bored. When I got home I put part 2 of plan B
into operation. To counteract the smell from
those sacks and their leakage, I used up a whole
bottle of disinfectant that I liberally poured
everywhere. I think it helped.
After I cleaned myself up I treated myself
to brunch. It wasn't quite a traditional Sunday
morning fry up (I haven't been able to do one of
them since my gas cooker was placed out of
commission a few years ago, and even when it was
working it was actually only an occasional
treat), and it wasn't really a lunch. So it was
definitely brunch. It was some cheap, but
good-ish quality burgers from Aldi with
poached egg and poached baby tomatoes. It was
also rather nice !
I gave brunch a decent time to settle
before I tackled another big job - laundering a
duvet cover (and a couple of pairs of lounge
pants). Ideally I would hang the duvet cover in
the garden to drip dry, but until the garden is
a bit more sterile I didn't fancy that. So it is
on a clothes horse in the bath, and once it
stops dripping I'll probably let it dry over the
banister rail. I did manage to wring out the
lounge pants enough to hang them to dry on a
clothes horse in front of the fan heater running
on the cold setting in the living room.
I feel fairly knackered now, but not
totally knackered, although I expect I'll feel a
few mildly stressed muscles tomorrow morning. It
does seem that the days getting longer, and
warmer, is having the positive effect that I
hoped it would have. I seem to have more energy,
and more enthusiasm to do stuff as we head into
summer. Of course it could be a self fulfilling
prophecy - I believe I should be better so I
am.....well maybe, but it seems to work whatever
it is. Of course some days do still definitely
hurt.......but maybe not as much as they did,
maybe........ Now if only I could overcome the
inertia against going out in the evenings I
could almost declare myself cured, but I think
my first priority should be to try and train for
some long distance walks - and now the weather
seems to be getting more stable, I ought to do
it as soon as possible !
Saturday 9th May
2015
18:07
BST
Yesterday was brighter and warmer than expected,
and the rain, while arriving on time, was a lot
lighter, and rather briefer than expected as
well. Overall, it wasn't a bad day, although on
this occasion it would have actually been useful
for quite a heavy downpour to wash away some of
the sewage spillage around the manhole cover in
my back garden (although now it has dried out it
doesn't look as bas as it did). I'm not sure
just how warm it did get, but it may well have
been 18° C or maybe more. This morning started
off quite mild - as May mornings are supposed to
in my book! It was at least 10° C, but that was
spoiled by it being overcast. It looked as if it
might rain, and maybe I did feel a spot or two,
but the sun came out late in the morning, and it
has been a fine afternoon. The thermometer
outside my kitchen said it was 18° C a little
while ago, but the thermometer outside the
upstairs back bedroom window was saying 22° C !
The rest of this evening should be dry, but the
temperature will drop sharply once the sun goes
down. Tomorrow will not be as sunny as today,
but at least there will be some sunshine. Monday
could have even lass sunshine, but temperatures
as high as 21° C are forecast. Tuesday is
forecast to be very sunny - but only 19° C. Does
anyone understand how the weather works ?
It was nice taking the day off work
yesterday. It turned out that I didn't have to
take it off after all, but I did make quite good
use of my time. As I suggested I might do,
I went out and bought some shopping from Aldi.
Then I decided to do some laundry. I (hand)
washed two work shirts, two t-shirts, a
pillowcase, and some underwear. After that I
decided to rest for a while. So with one ear
listening out for the call that never came from
Thames Water, I lay on my bed and read for a
while, and that turned into a short snooze.
By about 5pm I was contemplating paying a
short visit to The Swan pub in West Wickham
where Chain were playing. It seemed obvious that
Thames Water would not be calling to pick up the
sacks of nasty stuff that they promised to
dispose of, and I might as well try to avoid
eating anything so I would be comfortable to go
out, and then..............
......this turned up at 7pm.
It obviously wasn't a van or lorry to take
away those slimy sacks, but at any moment I was
expecting a knock on the door, and to be asked
if they could open up the manhole in my back
garden again. In the end they didn't, and I'm
not sure what they actually did because within
15 minutes they had driven off again after
apparently visiting the neighbour who lives up
the road - presumably the one where the sewer
might have collapsed.
There was still plenty of time for me to
go out after they went away again, but in that
short period of time I had lost the enthusiasm -
but apparently I still had a lot more energy
than I imagined. At 8pm I decided to wash a
duvet cover. It was a cheap and nasty
lightweight one, and so I could almost wring it
dry enough to not drip too much, but it needed
some pretty strange contortions to do it. I must
have been feeling very masochistic, or maybe I
had some sort of death wish, because I also
decided to wash a medium sized bath towel at the
same time. Now they do need some serious
manhandling to wring out by hand. In fact it is
impossible to do, but I got it down to a slow
drip, and left it to start to dry hung over the
bath all night.
All that had laundry was quite enough to
kill me several times over, or it should have
been, and maybe it did give a stroke or other
type of brain seizure because what I did next
was completely out of character - doubly so at
nearly 9pm on a Friday night. I had this insane
idea that I might hoover my bedroom. I made sure
I did a poor job of it so I couldn't be accused
of being absolutely completely insane,
but.........
I guess I slept quite well after all that.
I woke up earlier than I needed to, early enough
to go to work, but that was OK because after a
while I turned over and went back to sleep. I
eventually woke up feeling surprisingly good.
After all the laundry wrangling I expected to
have a few sore bits on top of the usual sore
bits. I could definitely feel that I had worked
a few muscles harder than usual, but it was all
very mild and mostly ignorable. There are many
mornings when I could wish to feel as good when
I went off to work !
This morning I met Aleemah for breakfast
and a DVD. This Saturday I didn't drag her
around Aldi after we had breakfast in the
Wetherspoons pub, but I did drag her around both
Poundland, and Poundstretcher. The former was
just a speculative visit, and the latter because
I was after a specific item. It turned out it
was definitely worth going around Poundland. I
discovered they had these for just £1
each.......
Now I must admit I took a really crap
picture of this perfectly formed, possibly made
in China, traditional dimpled beer glass. I was
so overjoyed that I splashed out and bought 2 !
The only fault with them is that they are not
officially stamped with "1 Imperial pint", and
so can't be used to buy beer in a pub, but I
never intended to anyway. In Poundstretcher I
splashed out another £1.29 (or was it more ?) on
a nice stiff bristled broom that I will used to
sweep the garden path.
The DVD that Aleemah brought around today
was, I have to admit, mostly tedious to watch.
It was the DVD version of a BBCtv series called
The Celts - which may interest Aleemah, but
doesn't really interest me - although I have to
admit that in the two episodes we watched there
were a few interesting facts, but they only took
up a couple of minutes of the 100 minutes or so
that we watched ! Allemah left a bit later
than usual today, at almost 4pm. Since then I've
had a bite or two to eat, and done little else.
I'd like to find the enthusiasm to hoover the
living room now, but it hasn't happened yet.
Maybe it will come later, or maybe I will have a
wonderful, and maybe ever so slightly boring,
relaxing evening.
One quickie - I passed The Catford Ram
this morning. It has had a new coat of paint
outside, and has gained a new name. Presumably
it's new manager has managed to successfully
apply for a new licence, and it will be opening
soon under it's new name of The Black Cat. Let's
hope it wil be a decent pub, and maybe will have
some live bands on from time to time - assuming
the stage has not been demolished during
whatever decorating they have been doing inside.
Friday 8th May
2015
09:45
BST
I think there were some showers yesterday, but I
mainly remember that it was often overcast, and
that it was dry when I left work to go home -
and stayed dry through the night. The
temperature didn't get high enough to get
anywhere near warm, but it was sort of mild from
the afternoon until sometime after sunset
(perhaps in the region of 14 or 15° C). It must
be just me, but this morning feels colder than
yesterday afternoon, and yet my thermometers
suggest otherwise. It is certainly overcast, and
is forecast to be so all day. By 4pm the
temperature should reach 17° C, and probably
more, and then an hour later there will be some
showers for a couple of hours. On this occasion
those showers could be very useful !
My feeling of feeling moderately OK when I
got to work yesterday did not last all that
long. I ate a couple of sandwiches for breakfast
when I got there, and for a while after that I
felt quite bloated. Happily enough it faded away
after about mid morning, and from then on I felt
OK, and maybe somewhere near good when I left
work to go...not straight home, but for a beer
with the Thursday night drinkers in The
Ravensbourne Arms in Ladywell/Lewisham.
Maybe it was the lure of beer that perked
me up. It almost made the grey sky ignorable !
One minor annoyance was, and probably always
will be, is that even though I travelled in the
last carriage of the train, and exited by the
end doors, the exit from the platform at
Ladywell station is still a short walk away.
Like most of the stations on the Mid-Kent line
(to Hayes, Kent), the platforms were extended to
take 12 coach trains. I am unsure if I have ever
seen a 12 coach train use them in the 10+ years
since they were extended, but should it ever
happen they are ready for it. Unfortunately the
stop sign for a 10 coach train, which I was on,
is in the same place as for a 12 coach train,
and you have to walk a full two coach lengths,
plus a bit more to get out of the station. It is
not much. It is hardly anything at all, but I
still find it annoying ! Fortunately there are
other rewards for getting off the train at
Ladywell station, and one is to walk through the
churchyard.
This is not a very sharp picture because
I had to use my mobile phone to take it, and
then use enlargement instead of zoom to get the
subject to look a bit bigger. This is a baby, or
at least a very young squirrel sitting on top of
a gravestone in the grounds of St Mary's Church.
I can't recall ever seeing a smaller squirrel
than this one. It also looked to be an unusually
light shade of grey. I presume it's fur will
darken as it gets older.
I had a nice drink in The Ravensbourne
Arms with the lads, but it was only a brief
drink, and that turned out to be a better idea
than I had imagined. I left the pub still
feeling very sober, and that meant that I could
resist all temptations to buy any takeaway from
fast food shops. It also meant that I remembered
to buy the bottle of salad cream I said I would
buy on the way home - One of the subjects of the
evening was comparing the virtues of salad cream
versus mayonnaise. I bought the salad cream, and
some other stuff, from the Tesco Express store
on the high street.
It was not long after I got home that I
had a not completely unexpected surprise. During
the last week or so a couple of my neighbours
had had to call out Thames Water ( or their
contractors) to pump out blocked drains. All the
evidence started to point to a collapsed sewer
under my back garden. I found this very worrying
because I assumed it would be rather expensive
to get it fixed. It seemed I needn't have
worried too much for two reasons. The first is
that because it was part of a communal sewer it
is maintained directly by the water company just
like any sewer under a public road, and the
second reason is that the problem turned out to
be a good 13 metres away from my property.
Last night the two guys sent by Thames
Water, with their huge lorry equipped with huge
tanks of water, huge long hoses, and CCTV
equipment, had been called in by my next door
neighbour. It was only a day or tow ago that I
told her that if they wanted to try rodding the
blockage from the manhole in my back garden,
they were welcome to try it. I don't think I
knew what I was letting myself in for ! Two good
things came out of this. The first is that was
when they told me that even if the sewer had
collapsed under my back garden I would not have
to pay to have it fixed (although I would
obviously have to suffer, or maybe enjoy, the
inconvenience, or the usefulness of having my
back garden dug up).
The second good thing about it was that
they managed to clear the worst of the blockage
for the first time, and have identified where
they think the root of the trouble is. My
neighbour had already told me that on recent
previous occasions when they had been called to
my next door neighbour, and to the next one up
the pipe, they had pulled out huge lumps of wet
wipes, or similar semi-textile type material.
When they were jetting out the pipe from the
manhole in my garden, which incidently was
fairly dry, and no blocked, they managed to
dislodge even more huge heaps of "wet wipes",
plus lots of stones, mud, and other rubble.
That last blockage came from, they
estimate, two houses away, and once it was moved
there was a huge surge of water down through the
bottom of my manhole. With the way now clear
they could use their CCTV camera to look along
the sewer to see what damage they could find. 15
metres away the camera seemed to enter a
junction under a manhole cover, and it seemed to
be full of gravel and muck, plus even more wet
wipes. To get that far took from about 6pm to
11pm, and the guys called it a day, but they
think that once the CCTV recording has been
analysed there will be a job to investigate what
is going on under that clogged up manhole, and
maybe even further up towards the start of the
pipe, but apart from the possible need for a
power flush from my or my neighbours manhole,
they are finished with us - almost.
I have had to take the day off work today,
which is actually quite a nice thing, because at
some point today (or else !!!) a man with a van
(or something) will be along to pick up the 8 or
so plastic sacks of debris pulled out of the
sewer. Those sacks are still stacked in my back
garden. Hopefully they will have stopped
dripping too much obnoxious fluid when they are
transported through the house. I think that the
guy(s) may also hose away, and possibly
disinfect some of the black sludge from around
the manhole.
Apart from it being quite a long night, it
was an interesting, maybe even an entertaining
night. The CCTV camera was certainly more
interesting than most of what was probably on
the TV last night (election night !). It was
interesting to learn how the sewer was routed
behind the houses, and that fact that it was
effectively owned and maintained by Thames Water
- although presumably they would levy charges if
damage was done by deliberately, or by a
negligent builder of something, but not by "fair
wear and tear". The smell was interesting too -
sort of. It was most certainly unpleasant, but
it was not the choking, gagging sort of smell I
imagined it would be. Compared to some of the
smells left behind by the guys in the toilets at
work, it was really quite mild !
It was still perfect daylight when I took this
picture of the guys peering down the manhole.
11pm approaches, and finally the sewer is
clear enough to send the CCTV camera a long
way up the pipe to check for damage. The root
of the problem seems to be about 15 metres to
the left of this picture, and that takes it
past the boundary of my garden, and past next
door's garden too.
Now it is just a
matter of waiting until the sacks of
unpleasantness are collected, and any
cleaning to be to be done - and I have no
idea when that might be ! They have my phone
number, and I assume they will give me some
advance warning as to when they will arrive.
So in theory I could pop out to the shops at
any time, and I might well just do that
soon.
Thursday 7th May
2015
07:42
BST
There were many rain showers yesterday, and some
of them were quite heavy, but there were also
some sunny periods. For instance it was bright
and sunny when I left work to go home - in shirt
sleeves ! I only got a third of the way to the
station before it clouded over again, and
threatened to rain. Fortunately it stayed
dry, and I was treated to several sunny periods
during the hour it takes to get home. Unfortunately
my luck ran out about 30 - 40 seconds away from
home. Not that many raindrops fell, but they
were the big ones. The type that can soak you in
a about 50 seconds ! I guess that I was lucky to
only get slightly damp before getting indoors.
The other useful thing was that the temperature
was about 14° C, and so the rain was not too
freezing !
Today has started off bright, and often
quite clear. The forecast says that most of
today will be very lightly overcast with
frequent sunny spells. That should warm things
up to about 16° C by the time I go home from
work today, and I think that today I can be more
confident about not putting my coat on. The
weather forecasts change very frequently these
days, sometimes it seems by the hour, but the
last forecast I saw for tomorrow did not look
good. It could well be like yesterday - sunshine
and rain !
I guess there is a certain pleasure in
defying the weather, and going home without a
coat on, and it nearly worked yesterday. I don't
really know why it is, but I feel much more
comfortable, and on some occasions, far more
energetic when I am walking without a coat on
(but still carrying the weight of one in my
small rucksack). And so it was yesterday. I
certainly didn't feel my very best on the way,
and I wonder if I ever will again, but for
contemporary times I felt pretty good. Having
said that, I didn't seem to have any spare
energy to walk much faster when it started to
rain as I got very close to home.
I was obviously feeling peculiar when I
got in because for the second evening running
(or is it longer than that ?) I didn't feel an
overwhelming urge to eat the fridge and cupboard
dry. I still ate more than what I would have
liked to eaten, but it was moderate by some
previous occasions. Could it be that the need
for cigarette to signal the end of dinner/eating
has finally gone away......Probably not
completely, but it is not the huge struggle it
was 6 or more months ago. There are still too
many urges for anything in the loose categories
of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll to make
surviving on just a bowl of lightly dressed
salad possible yet. Maybe some strong angina
pains would help - they did last time !
When I think about it, yesterday evening
was a bit of a mixed up evening. I felt
reasonably good, and I didn't feel exhausted,
and yet I had no inclination to finish the half
finished washing up, and no inclination to do
any laundry. I didn't even have much inclination
to wash my hair, and I had to force myself to do
that. It seemed to take a long time to dry last
night, and that made me a little late to
bed.....or to be more precise.....I was late
getting to bed early (if that makes any sense?).
I thought an early night might be a good idea
after feeling very sleepy for a while at work.
There are two possibilities to explain the
sleep I got last night. Either I had become so
sleep deprived that I just had to sleep like I
did, or I just had a good nights sleep for a
change. After turning out the light I fell
asleep quite quickly, and I only woke on two
brief occasions during the night. Maybe more
significantly, I had to be woken up by my alarm
clock (app on my phone). That is very unusual.
The first time I woke up was because I had a
really annoying itch...or at least I had the
itch when I woke up. There is nothing worse, or
as unexplainable as an intense itch on the sole
of the foot ! It was almost like I had a small
cut or something, but on the few other occasions
I have suffered this torture I have never seen
any physical marks. It kept me awake for 10 or
15 minutes, but eventually I fell asleep again,
and then woke again at about 3am. There was no
itch this time, but I definitely needed a wee !
When my alarm woke me I had no itch on the
sole of my foot, and I didn't need a wee, but I
don't recall feeling all that great. I'm not
sure exactly how I did feel - except for one
thing. After my shower, and a sort of vigorous
towelling, I felt like a lie down, and maybe
even a snooze would have been rather pleasant,
but sadly work beckoned. I made one mistake when
getting dressed, and that one mistake rather
distracted me from all but the most significant
aches or pains. I wish I had put different shoes
on ! The shoes I put on are wonderfully
comfortable for sitting at my desk, or even
sitting on the train. They are fine for a quick
walk to the shops, but they ain't very
comfortable for the long-ish walks involved in
my commute to work. They don't cause pain or
discomfort to any particular bits of my feet,
but produce strong discomfort to most parts of
my feet once I get into my stride. I might
resort to wearing a spare pair I conveniently
have here at work to go home in after work -
although, with luck, I'll be stopping off for
some booze on the way home from work.
Of course today is pole-axing day (or
whatever they call it), and it seems someone in
Catford may have not quite grasped the names of
some of the political parties, although there
could be many explanations for the thinking
behind this slogan sprayed on the fencing around
the scaffolding that is holding up the fire
gutted Railway Tavern pub by Catford Bridge
station. Of those many possible explanations, I
think I would probably find myself agreeing with
most of them !
Wednesday 6th May
2015
07:59
BST
Yesterday was not too bad a day. Once the
morning rain finished the sun came out quite
frequently, and although it was not enough to
raise the temperature that much, it seemed
pleasantly mild as I made my way home from work.
The only thing I could complain about was the
wind. Sometimes it was quite strong, and by the
time I got home from work my hair looked like I
had been dragged through a hedge backwards !
Apparently there could be some far stronger
winds around the middle of today. That fact is
about the only one that seems consistent across
the current and previous forecasts for today.
Apart from trees and leaves being blown onto the
railways lines (and bringing the world to a
halt), and my hair being blown from my head root
by root, it's mainly going to be a day of trying
to be in the right place at the right time.
There will be scattered showers, and sunny
periods all day long, although there is a chance
that the morning will see more showers than the
afternoon. So far I have been fairly lucky. It
was pouring with rain a little while
before I walked to the station, but it stopped
just before I went out. I had a nice bright
sunny journey to work, but caught the last 30
seconds of a shower when I arrived at
Earlsfield. Until 2 seconds ago it was bright
and sunny, but now the sky is clouding over
again. In a little while it will probably be
sunny again. If I am very lucky it will be
bright and sunny when I am going home after
work. It's looking like tomorrow may stay dry,
but it is forecast to be a much duller day, and
yet, paradoxically, it will possibly be 2 or 2
degrees warmer than today. It is currently
around 10° C, and the top temperature may only
reach 13° C.
I had a reasonable day at work yesterday,
and I felt fairly good as I went home. At
Waterloo East I had a little burst of energy as
I went up the staircase from the subway a bit, a
tiny bit, faster than usual, and felt less
knackered at the top. When I arrived in Catford
I still seemed to have a reasonable reserve of
energy, and I walked to Tesco at a good pace. It
wasn't all wonderful though. Having bought
enough to need three carrier bags, I started
walking towards home, and as I did so I could
feel my energy levels dropping quite fast. By
the time I was in the kitchen, putting my new
shopping away, I felt totally exhausted.
So I didn't do half of what I thought
might be possible....or maybe only a quarter ! I
did half the washing up, and no laundry. One
other thing I considered doing didn't get done
either. That was washing my hair. I thought I
might do that this morning, but this morning it
was the pouring rain that put me off doing it
again. It wasn't all negativity last night. I
managed to restrain my enthusiasm for eating
quite well. I had bought a lot of half price
sandwiches, and some other reduced price stuff.
Somehow I managed to avoid eating any of them,
and stuck to my basic plan of a large bowl of
salad with extra baby tomatoes and some sliced,
seedless, chillies to accompany some ready
cooked, but cold barbecued chicken wings. That
lot wasn't that bad, but I have to
confess I did have a few snacks too. So I don't
think I'll be tightening my belt anytime soon,
but at least I don't have to loosen it.
I felt tired all through the evening, and
if I hadn't wanted to finish a book off I would
have been in bed, and hopefully asleep quite
early. In fact I was in bed and falling asleep a
little later than my usual-ish time of 9pm. I
guess, although I haven't checked for ages, that
I have my blood glucose level back under control
now, and last night, like many recent nights, I
only woke in the night for a pee once, and last
night (technically this morning) it was at
3.30am. That would not have been a problem if I
had managed to go back to sleep again properly
afterwards. I now think that I didn't actually
wake up for a pee at all, but I just woke up
because my brain had some stupid idea that I had
slept for long enough.
If I did not have to be at work today I
would probably have got up at 3.30am, and done
some reading (book, or more likely the internet)
for an hour or two before going back to bed to
top my sleep up to the full 8 hours.
Unfortunately I couldn't do that this morning,
and I just had to lay there until sleep finally
caught up with me at about 4.30am. Twenty
minutes later I woke up again, and with just 10
minutes to go before my alarm went off, it
wasn't worth trying to get back to sleep again.
I don't feel tired right now, but I would not be
surprised if I spent the whole afternoon yawning
!
I feel both good and bad this morning.
Many of the more frequent aches and pains seem
very subdued this morning. Maybe that is because
I have more tangible aches and pains to distract
me. My chest seems very loose, clicky, poppy,
creaky, and grindy this morning. It is not
painful, but it does not feel pleasant. Earlier
on I had some lower back pain, with some pain on
the side too. That seems to have evaporated now,
but my other annoyance is still there, and that
annoyance is, or are, my legs. They seem
unusually stiff this morning, and my thighs
almost seemed to hurt as I walked from the
station to work. I guess it is the wet weather.
My mum, and quite a selection of my relatives if
I recall correctly, all suffered from stiff legs
in wet weather. Now I have caught up with their
age I too seem to suffer the same thing. It's
lucky the weekend was (mostly) dry or I would
never have been able to do all the walking I did
then.
Tonight I really must make some effort to
wash my hair. I think I ought to do that even if
I barely have the energy to stand. Hopefully I
will have a lot more than that, and maybe enough
to wash a few shirts. It would be slightly handy
to wash a sheet too, although if I do I will
have to dry it indoors until this wet weather
has finally been replaced with proper warm and
sunny weather !
I took this picture of
Mercedes Benz showing off their new car on the
concourse of Waterloo station yesterday
morning...
....and this one this morning. It's a "CLA
Class" Mercedes Benz - whatever that is !
Tuesday 5th May
2015
07:48
BST
Until late afternoon it was a fine day
yesterday, but by 4pm it had become overcast,
and maybe an hour later there was some light
rain. I think there may have been heavier rain
later on, but by then I wasn't paying any
attention to the big wide outdoor world. Perhaps
in compensation for the rain, it was exceedingly
mild - maybe even quite warm. I think I saw 22°
C on one of my thermometers. This morning it is
still very overcast, and there has been some
light rain, but at 14° C it is quite mild. Later
today the sun should come out, and although it
won't, or at least may not, warm up that much,
it is supposed to be bright and sunny when I
leave work to go home. It's looking like
tomorrow will see a mixture of sun and showers
through the whole day.
Saturday in the park was good, but Sunday
was better. Sadly the music was no better, and
in some respects far worse, but I did have some
company, my friend Kevin, and that made it less
boring hanging around waiting for something
exciting to happen. Unfortunately it also had a
downside. Standing around, not really moving
more than 15ft from the beer tent,started
causing me some discomfort. I had a little lower
back pain, and an old, old, problem started to
rear it's head - sciatica. At least I think that
is what it is. It's a pain down the outside of
the upper part of my right leg, and I believe it
is caused by pressure on a nerve. Fortunately it
is slowly getting better. It was far, far worse
back in 1979 when it used to make waiting at the
bus stop for the bus home from work,
particularly uncomfortable. In the last 36 years
it has become less and less frequent, and less
and less severe. I rec kong it will be fully
cured about 12 years after my death. It wasn't
terrible on Sunday, but I had to leave Kevin for
a while and do a fast walk around a bit of the
park to get the creases out of my legs and back.
One of the reasons to go back to the park
for a second day was to take more photos -
although the beer tent was a very strong
attraction, and there was also the naive idea
that there could be some good live music to
listen to (there wasn't !). On the whole, the
musicians were an ugly bunch, or at least a lot
of their music was. I did take plenty of photos
of them, but without the horrible music they
played they don't really mean much. Other
photos, like this bunch of coppers, are easy to
relate to.
I found this duck
posing for me on a rock where the river goes
between the park and Lewisham Hospital.
I know this is a wagtail, but I am unsure what
type it is exactly.
I am unsure if this is another type of
wagtail, or a different gender, or if it a
different type of bird entirely.
As far as I can remember this is not the same
bird as in the picture above. Maybe one of
them is the mate of the wagtail with the
yellow under carriage, or maybe not.
A long shot of one of the bands on stage, but
shown here to show off that lovely blue sky.
At this point in the afternoon the sun was so
strong that I could feel a mild tingle of
sunburn on my arms when I got home.
This very extrovert character has at least one
claim to fame. He was the man who rescued the
bar from The Grove Tavern pub in Wimbledon,
and converted it into two small portable bars
for events like this. It was from his
handiwork that they were serving the beer
from.
After testing all
the beers from the beer tent, and possibly
the strong 6% one twice, we decided that the
music had got too horrible, and headed off
to the nearby pub - The Ravensbourne Arms. I
think we had a pint each in there before
heading back into Catford for even more beer
in the Wetherspoons pub - The London And
Rye. By now things were a bit hazy. I don't
think we had much more than another pint and
a half, but the half pint was the completely
delicious, and rather strong Abbot Reserve
beer (6.6% if I remember correctly - which
is debatable !).
Kevin bought some food while we were
in there, and the receipt he got for it gave
a good hint as to what time we left there. I
had got to the park at 1pm, and it must have
been 7 hours later when I left the pub and
headed home - for some breakfast ! I hadn't
eaten at all before then, and all that booze
made me ravenous - and stupid. I bought far
too much chicken and chips on the way home,
and I stuffed myself silly when I got home !
I think I was in bed by 10pm, and was
possibly even fast asleep by then.
The first part of my sleep was
wonderful, after three to four hours I woke
up feeling absolutely terrible. it was one
of those occasions when you feel so bad that
you are almost certain that you are about to
die, and yet no matter how hard you try you
can't seem to manage it ! So I had to endure
the aching head, and aching gut while
feeling desperately, desperately tired, and
yet far too uncomfortable to lie down to try
and go to sleep again. After a couple of
visits to the toilet I began to feel like I
wouldn't fart the duvet off the bed, and
probably make a mess in bed too, and that
just left the dizziness when ever I laid
down and closed my eyes to get over.
Eventually I got back to sleep, and had
enough patchy sleep to keep me going through
Yesterday - the May bank holiday.
When I finally got up yesterday I
didn't feel all that good, although it was
mostly just normal hangover feelings. I took
things nice and slowly as I became
acclimatized to the waking world. After an
hour or two I felt ready to tackle some
laundry, and I hand washed four short sleeve
shirts and some underwear. Once that lot was
hung up to dry I basically did nothing - if
you exclude a bit of photo editing, and
laying on my bed reading. I was sort of
saving my energy for an afternoon treat.
At just before 4pm I went out to meet
my friend Barbara from Cumbria at Catford
Bridge station. I then took her on the mini
tour of Catford. This included a quick beer
in The Catford Constitutional Club so she
could marvel at it's decrepitness, and
marvel at the lushness (?) of the ladies
toilet there. Then it was a whistle stop
tour of some of the sights of the high
street before stopping off at the
Wetherspoons for more beer and dinner. All
too soon it was time to see Barbara back
onto the train to London again, and a few
more sight seeing opportunities as we rushed
to the station.
It brought to an end what must have
been the best long bank holiday weekend
since I don't know when (1970s maybe ???).
When I got back I decided that the meal I
had in the pub should have been good enough
for dinner, and yet I still felt a bit
peckish. So while I watched an hour, or so,
of TV I had a few snacks of a dubious
nature. The chocolate covered ice cream bar
was probably the worst things I had. At 9pm
I was in bed, and I was tempted to do a bit
of reading for maybe half an hour, but
decided to turn out the light. It was one of
those occasions when you barely have time to
finish the thought that you are never going
to be able to get to sleep before you are
asleep.
As far as I can recall, I slept
solidly until 3pm when I woke up needing a
wee. I was soon fast asleep again, and I
slept until about 4.40am - at which point it
wasn't worth trying to sleep for a mere 20
minutes before my alarm was due to go off. I
don't think I slept all that well in the
last hour of subjective time - although in
reality it was probably less than five
minutes. I had this dream that seemed to go
on and on. I feel sure it was actually a
whole series of short dreams all linked
together so that it seemed that one scene
would morph into another. For instance I
would at one person doing something, look
away for a moment, and when I looked back in
the original direction the scene had
changed. Some of the dream was sexy, and
some of it scary, and none of it made any
great sense, although it seemed like it was
probably enjoyable at the time.
I almost wished I could have got up
even earlier this morning, or better still,
that I could have left to go to work a lot
later. Anyone, including myself, would
assume that I had plenty of time to get my
mind and body tuned to face the real world
before I left to walk to the station on my
way to work, but I definitely felt rather
rough when doing so. On this occasion it was
not a hangover, although I may have had a
hint of one, but my legs seemed to ache, and
I had a stomach ache. It's only now I am at
work that I begin to feel fairly OK -
although I still don't feel like rushing
around much. It would probably help a lot if
the sun was shining. Just now it seemed to
momentarily brighten up, but overall, it
remains rather grey outside.
I have grand plans for tonight - which
is easy to say at this end of the day. I
think I will go home via Tesco and get some
of the shopping I would normally have got
over the weekend if I hadn't been too busy.
There is a very good chance that will
happen. There is a good chance that I will
do some washing up when I get home (out of
necessity), and a fair chance that I will do
all the washing up, but I am a bit
skeptical if I will do a bit more laundry
sometime this evening. I have plenty of
clean clothes, so there is no urgent need to
do any laundry, but it would be handy not to
get a backlog as sometimes happens.
Sunday 3rd May
2015
10:19
BST
The weather on Friday was neither good nor bad
in the end. The cold morning gave way to a mild
afternoon after some sunny spells. Yesterday
started off very chilly (maybe around 6° C) and
it was very grey. Gradually it warmed up, and
from time to time the sun came out. The early
afternoon was shirt sleeve weather, but it did
seem to cool off quite quickly around 5pm. At
it's best it was probably in the region of 16°
C. This morning has started off a lot less cool
the the previous couple of days, and the reason
for that is all the wet and leaking cloud
sitting over our heads. The rain has eased off
now, and if the forecast can be believed, the
sun will start to come out at midday - which
might be very handy. By 4pm it could be as warm
as 18° C ! Tomorrow, which a few days ago was
forecast to be a complete and utter washout, is
now looking like it might be almost reasonable -
quite a lot of sunshine through the day, and the
temperature hitting 17° C.
I didn't feel all that wonderful at work
on Friday. I went from feeling awful first thing
in the morning to feeling reasonably OK for the
rest of the morning, and then tired and aching
as home time approached. Going home didn't feel
too bad, and along the way I learned two
interesting things. The first was that the
purpose of the pop up pub on the concourse of
Waterloo station was as a recruiting attraction
for the Army. I believe that they did have some
real ales in there, but I have no idea who they
served them to - maybe only those who
accepted the Queens shilling !
The other thing I learned was that
something was happening in Ladywell Fields. As
my train left Ladywell station I could see
funfair type stuff being delivered. As far as I
was aware there was nothing advertised to happen
in the park, and a search of the internet, and
in the local paper didn't give any clues as to
what was happening. It wasn't until just after
midday yesterday that I found out what it was
all about. Meanwhile, I got off the train at
Catford Bridge, and hurried home to have my
dinner.
For some reason that I suspect could have
been the exercise I got travelling from work I
was actually feeling unusually good when I got
home. I even contemplated trying to keep myself
feeing good in some unimagined way so that I
would have the energy to go out in the evening
to see Chain playing in Greenwich. So I started
out with a light snack rather than dinner, and
for a while that felt enough, but like Superman
with a piece of red Kryptonite tucked in his
outwardly worn underpants, I felt my powers
waning as the evening progressed. Maybe I could
have done something about it, but I have missed
so many gigs now that I didn't seem to care
about missing another.
Having decided I wasn't going out my
thoughts turned to dinner again, and I found
myself ordering a takeaway. I went for something
a little different, and ordered some grilled
peri-peri chicken. Being skinless and grilled it
is almost healthy, although the stuff I ordered
with it was not so good, and is probably best
ignored ! The other stuff was to make up the
minimum price for free delivery, and it all
added up to enough for the leftovers to make for
a nice tasty breakfast !
My sleep seemed a bit lumpy on Friday
night/Saturday morning, and I woke up feeling
really quite rotten. It was therefore surprising
that I forced myself out of the front door
before 8am to investigate what was happening in
the park (Ladywell Fields). My chest felt quite
delicate, and the cold air aggravated everything
including my fingers, but it was probably worth
it because the more I walked the better I felt.
I walked all the way to Ladywell as I did a
circular(ish) tour of the northern part of the
park. From memory, it is a little bit more than
a 1.5 mile walk. On the way I took a few
photos....
On the bank of the river Ravensbourne I spotted
a moorhen and a chick (plus two more that were
partly hidden behind some foliage).
This is part of the childrens play area.
It's changed a lot since I last played in there
half a century ago ! Back then there was no red
and yellow plastic. It was all made of red
painted metal or wood. Just beyond the left hand
side of the picture was a pyramid shapes
structure made from logs that were either bolted
or nailed together. That was good fun to play on
! In approximately the centre of this picture,
near to the closest boundary fence, was a
roundabout - purely drive by boy power ! Just
one boy, working really hard, could spin it up
enough for it to fling his sister onto the
tarmac around it. Now I wonder who that boy
could have been.........
I don't know why I've noticed it before, but
there is a gap in the foliage that provides a
completely clear shot over the fence to this
sign on the platform of Ladywell station.
This is what I came to investigate. It was
definitely fairground stuff, but there was still
no hint as to what was going on.
This provided a big clue that it might be
worth coming back later - as did a small stage
with PA and some drums on it. So I headed back
to home where I had a lie down and a warm up. A
little later I was feeling fairly good, and
looking forward to going out again for another
tour around the park. I had no idea what time
anything might start, or even if it would start
yesterday. I took a guess that it might start at
either midday or 1pm, and so I compromised and
went back at 12.30pm. That was a pretty good
time. The beer tent was up and running, and it
wasn't a terribly long wait before the first
musicians were on the stage.
Having drawn a blank about what was
happening when I searched the internet, and also
scanned through the pages of the most recent
local paper, I finally found a flyer for the
event taped to a lamppost not 30ft from the beer
tent ! It revealed it was an event in aid of The
Jimmy Mizen foundation. You can read more
about Jimmy Mizen, and how he died at the hands
of a deranged thug on Wikipedia
here. I've made a dedicated picture page
of a large selection of pictures I took
yesterday here.
I stayed in the park sampling the beers, a
half pint at a time, and watching the musicians
for a couple of hours, but I started feeling a
bit bored. So I took a break and went home for a
bit. It is almost unprecedented for me to walk
to Ladywell twice in one day, but yesterday I
did it three times ! I have to admit that I
didn't enjoy my last visit. After a break of 60
- 90- minutes it felt like it was beginning to
cool down a bit. I tried the artisanal lager
that was on offer, but it wasn't as nice as the
ales I had earlier, but there was a far worse
problem !
The singer who was singing when I arrived
was a good singer, and he could play his
acoustic guitar perfectly well, but his songs
were dreadfully depressing - both lyric wise and
the way he sung them. He made Leonard Cohen
sound positively delightful by comparison ! So I
drunk up my lager as fast as I could, and headed
back home. That was a disappointment, but I had
had plenty of fresh air and exercise, and I was
feeling extremely good by then. I was also
feeling very tired, but it was a good tiredness.
The tiredness that comes of achieving something.
Oddly enough, apart from a few complaints from
my leg muscles as I approached home for the
third time, I didn't seem to have a single ache
or pain anywhere else.
It was of course utter madness that just
when I was feeling so good that I should decide
to order another takeaway. For a start it was
from a rather expensive Indian restaurant, and
of course takeaways are rarely healthy. In this
case it was not desperately unhealthy because of
two reasons. The first was that the main bit of
the meal was a tandoori mixed grill, and they
are usually fairly fat free. The second was that
the portions of everything else I ordered were
very small - maybe even tiny for the price I
paid for them !
During the night everything siezed up
again, and I felt pretty rotten when I woke up.
My chest felt very crunchy, and slightly tight.
Having a tight chest is not a good idea, but
these days when mine gets tight it does it in a
different manner to what I will suggest is the
more dangerous way. I've heard it described as
tight making breathing difficult, but more often
than not it feels like it is the skin across my
chest that feels tight. I think it is something
to do with my scar tissue, and maybe the damage
under the skin that happens during thoracic
surgery. It's just another of those things that
is annoying rather than painful or debilitating.
Quite a few hours have passed since I got
up, and at the moment the greatest sensation I
can feel is mild hunger. I shall ignore that as
much as I can because in anther hour or two I am
going back to the park to see what's happening,
and probably grabbing a few more beers. It is
possible that I might be joined by my friend
Kevin today. It depends on how he feels, and if
he is allowed to get out of, or defer some
household tasks he has been asked to do. So more
fresh air and frolics for me, and maybe for
Kevin too. Let's hope for some more entertaining
musicians - if the stage is running today.
Friday 1st May
2015
08:14
BST
There were a few times when it became lightly
overcast yesterday, but on the whole it was a
nice sunny day. It would have been nicer if it
had been a bit warmer though. It was definitely
chilly in the morning, but late in the afternoon
it got up to 15 - 16° C, and that should have
felt warmer than it did. Maybe it was just me !
This morning it definitely is cold - no more
than 6° C - but the limited amount of sunshine
we should have today may be able to double that
to 12° C. Contrary to how it was forecast a
couple of days ago, it should stay dry today, or
dry until after sunset. Tomorrow is still
looking like it might be a dull and wet day, and
Sunday could be similar, but the more optimistic
forecasters are now saying that bank holiday
Monday could be bright and warm.
Yesterday should have been a good day.
Lots of nice things happened, but at the end of
it I didn't feel all that good. Maybe I was sad
that the day was over, or maybe a few aches were
getting me down. It was probably a combination
of both and something unknown as well. It was
definitely a night where I could have smoked a
whole packet of cigarettes, and probably a large
quantity of whisky too. Maybe some chocolate ice
cream might have been good too. In the end I
made do with a small tot of whisky and a large
handful of salted peanuts.
After I had got home from the pub, where I
had lunch with Patricia, I felt very tired. Not
tired in a sleepy sort of way, but like I had
been carrying a heavy load or something. I did
try to have a snooze, and I think I may have
dropped off to sleep for 10 or 15 minutes, but I
also felt sort of restless too - which sounds in
direct contradiction to the idea that I felt
tired or exhausted, and I have no idea how the
two things can co-exist, but they seemed to. In
some ways it was like I had a cold, and maybe I
did.
I often felt colder than the thermometer
suggested I should, and I had quite a few
sessions where I was either coughing or
sneezing. I thought it was probably just hay
fever, but now I wonder if it wasn't. The
sneezing and coughing made my chest ache, and I
had other aches and pains in a few joints and
muscles, and yet I didn't feel ill as such. It
felt like my whole body was worn out and
decaying (except for my eyes which seem to be in
very good working order) rather than something
like a cold or 'flu.
Just before 5pm I found the energy (and/or
the enthusiasm) to go out to The Catford
Constitutional Club to have a couple of beers
with the lads. If I didn't have to come to work
today I could have stayed there for many pints,
but bearing in mind I had two pints at
lunchtime, I decided that it would be best if I
just had two pints and leave early - which is
what I did. When I got home again I had some
dinner, and the main part of that dinner was a
ready made cheese and pasta salad that I had
bought from Aldi the previous night. It was
nice, but it didn't satisfy, and I had some
crisps and cheese to top it off (which was very
naughty !).
When I look back at the whole day, I think
I probably ate a lot in small quantities spread
throughout the day. That could account for some
of the stomach ache I suffered this morning, but
I don't think I can blame it for a poor nights
sleep last night. I assume I had a poor nights
sleep because I did feel pretty awful when I got
up this morning, and it wasn't until I arrived
here at work that I started to feel passably OK
- at least I think I do now.
I don't remember waking up much in the
night, but I do, or I did remember a couple of
vivid dreams. One concerned flying - on a
bicycle ! It was curious that I didn't seem to
have any sensation that might be thought of as
flying, but I am sure I was on a push bike of
some type, and I seemed to be looking down on
the countryside as it passed below me. Sometimes
there was nothing to give a good idea of the
scale of what I was looking down at. Someone was
with me, on another bike I presume, and I
remember pointing out that one area we were
passing over could, when filmed from the right
height, look like a ruined city even though it
was just a large factory yard (or something like
that). The other dream that seemed quite
spectacular, and worth recording, seems to have
vanished into thin air as do so many dreams.
This was the view looking down Garrat Lane
from just past Earlsfield station on my way home
from work on Wednesday. The shop with it's
shutters down is where I now tend to buy drinks
and sandwiches on my way to work now that the
Londis mini supermarket has closed down (which
was near the lampost with the security camera on
it). Since the middle of the week it has only
been opening one shutter in the morning, and the
shelves are starting to look a bit bare. I
reckon it is going out of business, and I was
surprised to see it open this morning. If it
does close down I will either have to walk a few
minutes in the wrong direction to go to the
small Sainsbury's convenience store, or take a
chance on a dubious little shop that is at least
on the way to work.
This morning a "pub" has popped up on the
concourse of Waterloo station. Apart from it
being The Duke Of Wellington, I can't see any
branding on anything. So I don't know who is
running it, or what they are trying to promote.
I am not even sure that they were selling beer
this morning, but it seems like a good idea if
they are.
The Duke Of Wellington from ground level.
I now notice that there is something written
along the top of the structure on the side
facing the platforms, but I can't make it out
even from the original full sized photo. It
might have given a clue as to what it was all
about. What I did notice was that the the
painting on the side has that white silhouette
of a man in a dramatic pose, and it says "pose
here for photos". I didn't !
It's too dark to see any detail of inside
the "pub" in this photo, but it does have a sort
of bar in there, and the bar has some optics
behind it, but I don't recall seeing any bottles
of spirits attached to those optics (although
they were probably still setting things up at
7am this morning.)
