Yesterday was definitely very dull, but at
least it stayed dry, and while it was far from
warm, it was at least not obnoxiously cold -
just rather cool, or somewhere in the region of 5
or 6° C. I thought that today was going to be
warmer, and to a very limited degree it will be -
most of the afternoon could be 8° C. Unfortunately
it is going to be another very dull, very grey
day, and today it will rain. There was some fine
misty rain when I almost went to work (more of
which later), and later there are some lusty
showers forecast for late afternoon, and into the
evening, During the evening the temperature will
rise, and by 11pm it might hit 10° C. Tomorrow may
actually be a slightly warm day with temperatures
peaking at 11° C in the afternoon. There is even a
chance of the briefest of brief glimpses of
sunshine, but if you blink and miss it, it will
seem to just be yet another miserable grey day -
with light rain for most of the morning to add to
the misery.
While I was lacking in aches and pains
yesterday, I did start to suffer in another way.
At first I thought it was a little bit of mild hay
fever. There is something, probably tree pollen,
that causes a mild reaction up my nose in spring,
but in this case it seems I was going down with a
cold. Apart from an increasing use of tissues, and
my nose starting to feel mildly sore, the rest of
me continues to feel quite good compared with much
that this winter has thrown at me.
Once I was out in the fresh air, going home,
my nose felt a lot better, and I doubt I would
have used more than two tissues to get me home.
Once I got indoors again my use of tissues
increased again, and it didn't get any better when
I had some dinner. In fact it probably got worse
when I had some hot steamy food. I'm not sure how
I changed my mind from having a can of soup to
having a far more substantial can of Cassoulet -
very thick French bean soup/stew with some chunks
of meat in it.
I followed that Cassoulet with a rather
substantial cheese and ham salad. I think I had
something after that, but apart from some snack, I
can't remember what it might have been, but I do
remember that it was very shortly after that, that
I got a message I wasn't expecting. It was from
Angela, and she was asking me if I would like to
meet for a drink after work today ! Naturally I
said yes. Quite what inspired this is a mystery. I
thought I had been blanked after Saturday night.
Maybe Angela (hi Angela) read what I wrote
yesterday. Who knows ?
I felt far less gloomy last night, but I
still had to contend with my nose dripping, or if
it wasn't actually dripping it was still feeling
all bunged up. It wasn't quite so bad when I was
laying down, and so I was in bed, and fast asleep
by, or before 9pm. I did have a bit of difficulty
getting to sleep thanks to my stuffy nose, but
somehow I managed it.
I slept for about three hours when I woke
up. As far as I can recall, it wasn't because I
needed a wee, although I did go for one, but it
was more because it felt like my nose was going to
explode. I couldn't seem to get comfortable again,
and so I did two things. I turned my heater up to
maximum, and I spent at least half an hour on the
internet before going back to bed again.
After a while I fell asleep again, but from
then on I kept waking up to blow my nose. The last
time was at about 4.45am, and it seems incredible
that I managed to get back to sleep for just 15
minutes before I was due to get up, but I did. I
guess I was just tired from all the missed sleep
earlier in the night.
It was that missed sleep, plus my nose still
dripping, that inspired me to go sick today, but
that wasn't the real reason....or was it. The
reason why, and what I told work, was that I had
"the runs" this morning - or in other words my
guts felt very unsettled even after several visits
to the toilet. I might have managed to get to work
if it had been just one of those ailments, but
three all together.....
Before I gave up on going to work I did get
as far as showering, dressing, putting my coat on,
and stepping out the door. The fresh, but rather
damp air felt good up my nose, but my guts still
felt a bit uncomfortable. So I turned around and
came back in again. Since then I have expelled a
very smelly trump (or fart as we used to call
them) but nothing else. Of course my nose
continued, and continues to drip.
I guess it was by about 06:34am, the same
time as I would be getting on my train, that I was
laying on my bed with a tissue in hand,
occasionally blowing my nose, and thinking I would
never get to sleep. The next thing I knew as that
it was 8.30am. It seems I needed and got some
extra sleep after all. I guess I feel mostly OK
now provided I try and ignore that I have a cold.
Mostly it is just my drippy/stuffy nose, but maybe
there is an underlying feeling of mild fatigue
that is telling me I ought to take advantage of
this day off to do some extreme resting.
I expect I will devote a lot of time to
resting, but there is still stuff I want/need to
do. Prime among that is to get to The Black Cat at
4.30pm to meet Angela. It would be rather good if
my nose could dry up by then, and maybe it could
if I am lucky. In the meantime I want to go out
and get a bit of shopping. I want to lug a few
bottles of sugar free cola home, and probably the
cheapest place to get them will be Aldi and their
own brand sugar free cola. While I am in there I
will undoubtedly buy more stuff. Before I go there
I think I'll take a peek in the pawn shop to see
if they have anything interesting in going cheap.
That seems to be enough for one day, but I
expect I'll do something more that I might report
tomorrow. Maybe I'll do some housework. One thing
I did on Sunday night that I forgot to mention,
was to test the halogen heater that I bought from
Poundstretcher. One good thing about is that it is
silent. One bad thing is that it is only 1.2kW,
and while that is enough to keep a warm room warm,
it struggles to warm up the room when it is cold.
I think it is going to see more use later on when
it is only the nights when it is cool. The one
thing I don't like about it is how bright it is.
It runs it's halogen tubes at quite a bright
orange heat. I expected a more gentle red. I don't
think I like it being so bright. Instead of it
being a nice "feature" it is actually a
distraction that is bright enough to read by !
Monday
30th January 2017
08:00
GMT
Yesterday evening's rain did cool things
down a bit, but not much. It was still around 7° C
when I went to bed, and the temperature hardly
changed through the rest of the night. The most
recent forecast suggests it's not going to change
much today either. The afternoon should see 8° C,
but that is all. With luck it will stay dry, but
it's going to be an extremely dull day. There was
no hint of the rising sun earlier, and even now,
18 minutes after sunrise, the sky is the colour of
lead - and the forecast reckons the cloud will be
thicker and darker later on ! Tomorrow
brings little cheer. It's going to be another
terribly dull day. It is supposed to start at 6°
C, which is sort of reasonable, and then it will
climb to 9° C. At around 6pm it is supposed to
reach a maximum of 10° C, but it will then start
to pour with rain - you just can't win !
There was one other important little job I
did that I forgot to mention yesterday. It was to
sew up a hole in my jeans pocket. I think I
possibly lost 30p in small change through that
hole. I guess that in practice it didn't really
take long to do that sewing, but it felt like it
did. I think I lack the patience for sewing - plus
I am not very good at it. When I say not very good
I mean that the results look a bit messy. All my
stitching is uneven, and it probably doesn't
follow any recognised pattern. On the other hand,
I feel fairly sure that it was a strong repair
that will last for ages.
I'm padding this out to make it look like
yesterday wasn't a totally boring, soul destroying
day - that came later, and built up to catatonia
inducing boredom in the evening. Earlier on I
passed some time testing the pedicure tool/rasp
that I bought in the 99p shop (plus a spare). It
was quite hard work, and I think it would be
easier to have called in a farrier, but I managed to
rasp off enough dead/hard skin to almost drop a
shoe size ! This morning I realised that I still
have more work to do on my left foot. It is a
tricky job when you can't actually see what you're
working on, and have to do it by touch. The other
thing is that I am not sure when you are supposed
to stop rasping away - presumably when it hurts or
you draw blood.
Sunday afternoons are always tedious, and
Sunday evenings can often be worse. Yesterday was
a particularly good example of both at moderately
extreme levels. During the evening I felt very
pissed off, and there were multiple reasons for
it. Angela's continuing silence was one reason,
but most of my despair originated from TV. For one
thing there seemed to be no entertainment on that
I could stomach watching, and for a second thing
there was the news. I don't know why I bothered to
watch the news. It depresses me at the best of
times, but lately it just seems that the world is
really going to hell in a handcart. I am sure
there are parallels in the rise of Donald Trump to
the rise of Adolf Hitler. Maybe the rise of
Theresa May parallels whoever ended up heading the
Stasi in East Germany. Sometimes it almost seems
sane that the Chinese want to cut off their
citizens from what is going on in the outside
world.
The good thing about Sunday nights is that
Monday follows. I know many people who really hate
Monday mornings, but I like them. After mostly
resting over the weekend I generally feel quite
good on Monday mornings, and this one is no
exception......actually, maybe it is a slight
exception. With the temperature 7° above zero I
don't ache much - and that includes my chest. I
can't say it was a joyous thing travelling to
work, but it was no worse than the average of the
last 10 year. Being at work brings no great joy,
or no joy at all, but it is something to do, and
at least it earns me another day's pay. I can put
that money towards my one way ticket to Mars to
get off this shitty planet.
There is only one thing I am 99% sure about
tonight, and that is that I won't be meeting
Angela for a drink, or anything else. I think I'll
just go home and mope a bit - hopefully not too
much or it will overwhelm my attempt to not eat
too much. It seems that despite multiple failures,
my attempts to eat more carefully recently have
been working. When I went shopping yesterday I was
comfortable in one of my smaller sized jeans.
After being able to wear then again after losing
something like 10kg at the end of last summer,
they became too tight again after the excesses of
autumn and winter, and now they are wearable again
- but only just !
Sunday
29th January 2017
15:52
GMT
The thing about yesterday was that it was
almost, but not quite warm for a while. After
sunset it cooled off, but not drastically, and it
was in the region of 5° C at sunrise this morning.
Since then the weather has been quite variable.
This morning it was bright(ish), and for a short
while, maybe just before midday, the sun tried to
come out. After that it became quite dull, and
we've had some showers. The rain has cooled things
down a little bit. Earlier on it seemed to be
trying to reach 10° C, but now the temperature has
fallen a couple of degrees. The weird thing is
that the temperature is forecast to rise again,
and the forecast seems pretty sure that from
midnight until about 4am tomorrow morning, it will
be 10° C ! Tomorrow was forecast to be almost
warm, with afternoon temperature of 10° C, or
maybe a little more, but the latest forecast says
it will be just 7 or 8° C for most of the day, and
it will be very dull and overcast.
Yesterday was a fairly productive sort of
day. I felt good enough to do a bit more hand
laundry before going out to the gig, and I tackled
washing a long sleeve shirt, and a medium sized
bath towel. The shirt was easy, but towels always
need a lot of manhandling. They seem to take ever
to rinse out, and after each rinse I have to wring
them out. It is hard, but strangely satisfying
work. The best thing is that it did not hurt my
chest, or anything else for that matter.
I had some bad news last night, or to be
precise I had no news, and that was bad. I sent
Angela a message asking if she was going to last
night's gig in The Black Cat, and she didn't
bother to respond. It was obvious to me that she
had decided she would go to see her daughter's gig
in Longfield despite the long journey, and she was
too embarrassed (or something similar) to tell me.
Now she is going to be all coy and shy because she
knows how much she will have hurt me. Why she
thought that not telling me would hurt me less
than telling me what I was half expecting anyway
is a mystery to me.
It wasn't only Angela who didn't turn up for
the gig. My neighbour from up the road, and round
the corner, didn't go either. I can't recall that
he said he would go, but like me, he does like to
support music in "our local". Maybe he had
something else on, on maybe he wasn't feeling too
good. Maybe he (and Angela) made the right
decision not to go because The Carlottas are in
need of a good singer. Their previous singer,
Andy, could certainly belt the songs out at the
top of his lungs, but he lacked finesse. Their new
singer sounds like he is singing on the football
terraces ...
I don't know any of their names, but here's one
look at The Carlottas....
...here's another look.
I felt two things
last night...no, make that three. Firstly I
felt like I didn't like being on my own.
Secondly, I felt that I was not terribly
excited about the band - mainly because of the
singer. I stayed until they were one or two
songs into their second set, and then I felt I
had taken enough photos. So I went home early.
Well, it was not a great start to another year
of gigs in The Black Cat, but there should be
better times ahead.
One new thing on the scene is the pubs very
own beer - except I was let into a secret -
it's actually Courage Best bitter - not a
favourite of mine, and so I only drank
Guinness.
I had
deliberately avoided eating too late in
the afternoon yesterday, and apart from
the trials of resisting the temptation to
eat, I did feel better for it - no
bloating, and plenty of room for beer ! To
avoid the temptation of the takeaway shops
I cooked some supper before I went
out that just needed heating up when I got
home. I can't remember what it was called,
but I bought it in Aldi in the morning. It
was essentially just dice sized cubes of
potato that were roasted with some garlic
and herb butter. I added a sprinkling of
cheese, and it was very nice.
I felt a bit annoyed about last
night, and so I didn't attempt to go to
bed straight away. I read for little more
than 15 minutes before my eyes felt very
droopy. I reckon that was before 11pm -
late for me, early for a Saturday night.
As far as I can recall, I seemed to sleep
quite well. By about 5.30am I woke up
feeling like it was time to get up. So I
took my medicines, and spent a bit of time
reading stuff on the internet. Then I went
back to bed, and somehow something like 2
hours passed without me realising I must
have been asleep for most of it.
Since then I've been fairly
productive. I've done all the washing up,
and I've scrubbed down the kitchen work
surface (which really shook my chest up),
and I cleaned my mini oven. Then I went
out shopping. This time it was to the 99p
shop where I bought the usual crap. I
can't even remember why I went in there,
but that didn't seem to stop me coming
away with stuff like sugar free biscuits,
and some rasp like tools for
grinding off dead skin on the feet.
After the 99p shop I went into
Poundstretcher. There were two things I
wanted from there. One was some fancy
mouthwash, and the other was a halogen
heater. I haven't tried the heater yet,
but I think some nice glowing firebars
would have a better ambience in the living
room than a fan heater. At the moment I am
using the fan heater because I have done
more laundry, and it is very good at
drying laundry. I've washed 4 pillowcases,
and a sheet. Maybe next weekend I'll
tackle the matching duvet cover, but that
is a big job !
The other thing I've done is to do
all the selection and editing of the
photos I took last night. I think I have
now done everything I intended or imagined
I might do today, and the best thing is
that this less cold weather has meant that
walking to the shops, or doing laundry has
not given me any chest twinges at all.
Hopefully I'll have a good night, and a
good day at work tomorrow. Al I have to do
now is to cook some dinner !
Saturday
28th January 2017
16:45
GMT
I'm not sure if the temperature did hit 7°
C as the forecast suggested it would yesterday,
but it was noticeably milder than the preceeding
days. It's a shame that most of the day was rather
dull, overcast and grey, although I am sure I
remember just a little bit of sunshine. Today has
been very different. Instead of a frost it was
about 5° C this morning. Instead of mist or fog
there was some rain, but it didn't last that long,
and it was perfectly dry by 11am, and possibly as
early as 10am. Then the sun came out, and we had a
nice bright sunny afternoon. The outside air
temperature rose to as much as 9° C, my bedroom
was almost feeling hot with no additional heating
to the sun pouring through the window, and the
thermometer on the back bedroom windowsill was
saying 11° C - that's almost warm !
All good things come to an end, and with the
sun setting it is now cooling off - and there have
been a couple more showers. By 5am tomorrow the
temperature will have dropped to 5° C. It is
forecast to be a grey day with some showers in the
late morning, and then more persistent rain later
in the afternoon. While all this is going on the
temperature will slowly rise, and by 8pm it may
have risen to 9° C. Monday morning is forecast to
start at 9° C - which is rather good, but it is
going to be a miserably dull day.
Fortunately it is forecast to be a dry day, and
that means I can wear a light coat - which should
be more than comfortable if the late afternoon
temperature hits the predicted 11° C.
Tuesday could hit 12° C, but by then the forecast
could be completely different - hopefully the only
change will be a lot less rain !
I finally got my office reasonably warm at
work yesterday. It made me feel rather sleepy, but
also a lot more comfortable. My main source of
complaint, my chest, still felt tender, but was
not really bothersome. I'm not sure if it gave me
any extra energy on the way home from work or not.
Walking to the station did not feel like a heroic
feat, but was mildly taxing as it usually is. I
tried, and partly succeeded in getting to Waterloo
station a little earlier. The reason for this was
that I noted there were some delays on some
trains. If the 15:50 train, the train I very
rarely ever manage to catch, had been just 3
minutes late, like the 16:05 train was initially
reported to be, I would have caught it. In the end
the 16:05 train was barely a minute late, and I
was soon on my way back to Catford Bridge - and
this time there were no signal failures to hold me
up.
In the last hour before sunset it brightened
up a bit, and that allowed me a good view of small
part of the works to rebuild the tracks after the
freight train mashed them up last Tuesday when it
derailed. There was not a great deal to see, but
at least there was something to see for the first
time this week.
If it had been a tiny bit warmer I might
have not have had to do my coat off when I got off
the train at Catford Bridge. Not having my coat
done us does feel more comfortable, but more
significantly the action of doing my coat up
caused my "floating rib" (or something) to go
"ping" in a most painful manner. The pain quickly
tailed off from an initially rather high for a
second a two, to practically nothing after a few
minutes. It was typical of some of the twinges I
get.
That sharp pain didn't alter my plan to walk
down to Poundstretcher to buy a new fan heater to
replace the one that mysteriously failed the other
day. In fact I bought two for £12.99 each, and the
second I'll keep as a spare - which could be quite
useful because the fan heater I was using in my
bedroom has an intermittent fault on it that I
can't find. It is like the fan siezes up when it
is cold, but in fact the fan is quite free to
rotate. I think there is a poor connection in it
somewhere, and I also think it could be tricky to
find. So I have thrown that heater away as well.
When I got home I followed through on my
plan (at least I think it was a plan) to have some
cans of soup. I started with a can of healthy
eating vegetable and lentil soup (just 78 calories
- probably for half a can !). I followed that with
some tomato soup, and I followed that with a can
of Bombay Potatoes. The latter has been hanging
around on my shelves for some time because, as I
re-discovered, it is not very nice. A little while
later I had some roasted winter vegetables with
some cheese on them.
In theory, and probably in practice that was
quite a lot, and yet it didn't feel that
substantial. I haven't a clue how many calories it
all added up to, and how it might have raised my
blood glucose level. I guess the fact that a lot
of it all was just liquid was why I almost felt
like I could have been capable of going out if I
had to. There were a couple of gigs I could have
gone to, but I fancied an early night - and I
almost had one - I think.
I was reading before I turned the lights
out, and I am not sure what time that was. I think
I possibly fell asleep close to 9pm, but I can't
swear by it. What I am very sure about is that it
being a fairly mild night I ended up feeling too
hot and had to turn the heat down in my bedroom at
sometime in the very early hours of the morning.
That was a bit of a change to the previous few
nights when I couldn't seem to get my bedroom warm
enough. Apart from getting up to turn the heater
down I think I slept well, and I even had a lay in
! I didn't wake up until almost a quarter to 6am !
I haven't done a lot today, but I have done
some stuff. I've been to Aldi, and tested out a
new pair of shoes at the same time. I seemed to
buy quite a lot in Aldi, and I am going to have to
be careful how I eat it. It included another 6
cans of soup, and there is no rush to eat them. I
probably bought too many ready meals, and it is
going to be tempting to eat those too quickly. The
shoes I was testing seemed OK. My initial thought
was that they were a bit tight in places, but they
didn't do any damage, and weren't particularly
uncomfortable. I think I'll give them a few more
local trips before I wear then to work one day.
The other thing I did today was quite
significant. I washed some work shirts. I wasn't
quite sure how much my chest might complain doing
that. It has been very delicate recently, but a
day and a bit of keeping in the warm has had the
desired effect, and if anything my chest feels
better for the exercise. I also spent 30 minutes
clearing up another bit of the back room. Once
again I gritted my teeth, and threw out some old
computer stuff that I've been carefully hoarding.
I also made a discovery....well not exactly a
discovery so much as a confirmation of a theory
from some time ago. Some of the muckiest bit of
carpet, the bits that are hardest to hoover, are
because there is a lot of matted hair in the
carpet - and it must be my hair. I'm not sure how
I've managed to lose so much hair in the back
room, but I pulled a couple of little clumps of it
off the carpet, and now the carpet looks less crap
(it's still pretty crap though, and maybe I might
replace it if I carry on my rehabilitation of that
back room to it's full extent).
The next thing today is to go to a gig.
Tonight should be good on several levels. The gig
is in The Black Cat, and a 6 minute walk in the
relatively mild air is not going to hurt me like
the sub-zero air last Saturday. I think Angela is
going, and that will be a huge plus point. Even if
she doesn't go I think Micheal will be there, and
I'll have some company. Other than that, I fear
the pub will be almost empty - which will be a
terrible shame because the gig is in aid of a
bowel cancer charity. I must remember to take
along a bag of loose change to dump in their
collecting bin - it's a good way of getting rid of
all those pesky small coins !
Friday
27th January 2017
08:23
GMT
The thing about yesterday was that it was
cold and grey, and miserable, and bloody horrible.
The temperature barely made it to 2° C, and I'm
not totally convinced it even made that. It was
freezing in my office, and the pale grey light
that filtered through the window was deeply
depressing. By 7 or 8pm the temperature had turned
negative. This morning was, by my reckoning, minus
2.4° C, and the frost was so thick and sparkly
that one one occasion I had to do a double take to
check that what I had seen wasn't snow. (It was
initially a very brief glance up a side road to
check for traffic before I crossed it. There was
something about the way the light caught the tops
of the parked cars that made it look like snow
until I looked more carefully.) Today is also
going to be rather grey, but the forecast says the
temperature should hit 7° C - that is not warm,
but it's a lot better than just 1° C ! There is
rain forecast for tomorrow morning, but there
could be some sunshine late in the afternoon. The
best thing is that it should be 8° C for much of
the afternoon. Once again that is not that great,
but it will probably be the closest to warm we
have had in ages. Sunday might even by 9° C !
I felt bloody horrible at work yesterday. I
just could not seem to get my office warm. Even
the production area outside my office, which has a
trillion kilowatt gas fired heater, was not that
warm. These cold days leave their mark, and in my
case that mark was an aching chest. Every single
scar, every single bone, every single bit of
ligament, and probably lots of other body parts
ached. It was a relief to leave work. Initially
some fast walking helped warm me up, and then some
warm trains helped warm me too. Eventually, where
eventually means about 50 minutes in this case, I
ended up in a warm(ish) pub, drinking soothing
beer. By the time I left, and went out into the
cold again, I was feeling fairly good, but it
didn't take long to cool off again - particularly
when I had the dubious pleasure of testing out one
of Thameslink's brand new class 700 trains. They
are "open plan" inside, and that means if the
heating fails in one carriage it is cold in all,
and last night it was bloody freezing on that
train !
Interior of class 700 train. Like an inner city
tram, or "metro" train, there are no doors
between carriages, and it is just one long
passenger space. That probably explains why it
was so cold and draughty last night.
One positive thing is the new displays. They are
bright and clear, and although I didn't see any
additional information, I believe they can
display more than just destinations.
Another view along the train from a lower
perspective.
While they are new and undamaged, the toilets
are quite nice. Of course they won't stay that
way......
Maybe I was surprised to see toilets fitted to
what seems like a souped up tram. This is the
hand washing area. Once again, it has had very
little use, and so it is clean, tidy, and
presumably in good working order.
There were only four
of us who made it to last night's drink, and I
thought it would be friendly to try and stay
just a bit longer than usual. That decision
was part bolstered by it being a simple, and
fairly quick journey home, but no matter how
quick it was, after sitting on that freezing
train, my chest was starting to complain by
the time I got off. A brisk walk helped, but
it couldn't help to steer me away from the
fried chicken shop for some instant
gratification by way of hot food - admittedly
only instant after I got home rather than when
I bought it.
When I got home I found the heater that
I had left running on low in the living room
had failed. So it was very chilly when I
arrived home. I swapped over the fan heater in
the living room, and left that running
overnight on low. I put the fan heater on full
in my bedroom, but it seemed to take ages to
take the chill off the room, and even after
running all through the night it didn't seem
all that warm in my bedroom.
I went to bed soon after eating my
chicken and chips, and that may have been a
bad idea. Initially I slept really well, but
at about 1.30am I woke up feeling horrible.
For a start I felt cold even under the duvet.
Not seriously cold, but more like I wished it
was a few degrees warmer. I seemed to be
suffering from indigestion, and I seemed to
need to go to the toilet - although I didn't
realise the extent of it until I was actually
sitting on the toilet in my cold bathroom.
After a while I seemed to feel OK apart
from a strong desire to sleep, but every time
I laid down in bed my chest would complain. It
was one set of pains if I lay on one side, and
some different pains if I lay on the other
side. They were mild, but annoying pains, and
they were of a nature that did raise
speculation about whether they were all to do
with my scar tissue, and other damage done by
the surgeons, or by me later on when I was
still healing, or if some of them were
something more serious. I still don't know,
but I am still alive this morning.
I think it was gone 3am when I got to
sleep again, and I presume I was sleeping well
because I was woke by my alarm sounding. This
morning my chest feels delicate, and is easy
to provoke - doubly so if I am in cold air.
The trouble is, I am in cold air again at
work. The heater was left on overnight - at
least I think it was, but it is bloody cold in
here again. It is too cold to work on anything
delicate, and my boss is badgering me to work
on something delicate. I have strong doubts I
will do a lot less today than he is hoping
for, but the forecast is currently predicting
that Monday will be warmer, maybe even lapping
against the roots of actual warm. So maybe I
can try and be a bit more productive on
Monday.
As is often the case, there is a gig or
two that I could theoretically go to tonight,
but I doubt I will feel like going out once I
get home. I suspect I will fill myself up with
hot soup, and then start reading until it is
time for bed. I also suspect that bedtime will
come early tonight. If, as the forecast thinks
it will, it is raining tomorrow morning, then
there would be no point in getting up, but I
find it very difficult to get extra sleep in
the morning, and it is easier going to sleep
earlier in the evening. The way I feel right
now is that I could be fast asleep by about
5.30pm ! I very much doubt I will go to bed
that early, but I wouldn't rule out going to
bed at 7.30pm. I also wouldn't rule out
sleeping in two shifts. If I do go to bed
extra early I may well get up for a few hours
in the night before going back to bed. I don't
know how that happens, but it does.
Thursday
26th January 2017
08:12
GMT
If only there had been some sunshine,
yesterday might not have been such a bad day. It
wasn't an awful day, but the greyness did tend to
outweigh the small increase in temperature
compared to the day before, and very much compared
to what is forecast for today. For some reason I
forgot to either look at my thermometer, or make a
mental note of what I saw if I did look at it when
I got home from work yesterday. All I can say is
that it didn't feel quite as cold as I went home.
The temperature didn't fall all that low during
the night. My thermometer said it was minus 0.4° C
when I walked to the station. That should have
been cold enough for frost, but it seems the wind
was strong enough to stop any frost forming (and
it made it feel even colder). The good news is
that the latest weather forecast says today is not
going to be as bad as the earlier forecasts said
it would be. Instead of only being 1° C this
afternoon, it is now thought that it will be 2° C
! Not only that, but we might see a bit of
sunshine in the last couple of hours before
sunset. Some light snow was forecast for the early
hours of tomorrow, but that is not shown in the
latest forecast. Also, tomorrow is now thought to
be a little brighter, but not actually sunny, and
it could get to 7° C - almost warm by comparison
to today !
It seemed feasible to go home via my usual
route after work yesterday. It might have worked
too if Southeastern had not gone for a hat trick.
Not only was there the blockage at Lewisham after
the freight train derailed (which caused far more
damage to the track than was first thought), but
there was a train on fire* at Kidbrooke, and a
signalling failure in the New Cross area !
* From picture I saw it was probably caused by
something inflammable, probably newspaper, getting
caught around the power pickup shoe, and setting
fire to the wooden shoe beam. Lots of smoke and
flames, but probably no serious damage apart from
soot.
When I arrived at Waterloo East station the
situation was like this; The 15:50 service to
Hayes (Kent) was not expected until 16:39. The
16:05 service was expect to arrive at 16:32 -
earlier than the train before it was supposed to
arrive - weird ! That would have involved a bit of
a tedious wait, but as I arrived on the platform
so did a Gravesend bound train that was going to
stop at Lewisham. It would be super tedious, but I
could get a bus from Lewisham.
Now the funny thing about the Gravesend
train was that it's route was changed twice. The
first time was probably to do with the blocked
lines at Lewisham, and secondly because of the
train on fire at Kidbrooke. Things got very
stupid. The platform indicators insisted the train
would stop at Lewisham, and the platform
announcements insisted the train was going to be
routed through Lewisham. Unfortunately it seemed
that every time there was a platform announcement
the driver would trigger an onboard announcement
that contradicted it. This confused many people,
and they kept getting on and off the train. This
blocked the doors so the driver couldn't shut the
doors, and that meant the train couldn't move.
Some people were getting quite cross, and
British Transport Police were called in to calm a
few people down. Meanwhile, I was checking the
National Rail app on my phone. Initially it showed
the train was going to take a third route
possibility, but after 5 minutes it changed to
agree with the platform indicators. It also showed
that the 16:17 Hayes train, the one I would get if
I missed my usual 16:05 train, had actually left
Charing Cross station on time, and was heading our
way. So I got off the Gravesend train, and walked
down the platform to where I usually get on the
train going home.
All that had to happen was to get the
Gravesend train moving, and out of the way. I'm
not sure if it was being held at signal, or if the
driver had thrown a strop, but it looked like the
doors could be closed, and it could have moved -
but it didn't. After a few more minutes a barely
audible announcement came over the Tannoy to say
that the Hayes train would now arrive on platform
C (I was on platform A). After a mad dash I was on
the train, and we were ready to leave - and we
did, and only a minute or two late.
We didn't get far before we started crawling
from signal to signal. We were caught in the
backlog of the signal failure near New Cross.
Eventually we passed that, and it was full steam
ahead for the rest of the journey. If it had not
been for that signal failure I might have only
been 12 minute late getting home, but I think it
was closer to 40 minutes. That was annoying, but I
have to admit it was mild compared to some stories
I've heard.
It was dark when I got home, and while I
wasn't particularly cold, I was still cold. Worse
still was that it seemed to take ages to warm my
room up. These were all recipes to breakdown my
will power with regard to eating. It wasn't a
complete disaster, but I did end up eating more
than I would have liked to. One positive aspect
was that I finally got around to washing my hair
last night, and another positive thing was that I
had a brief, but cordial message exchange with
Angela last night. It included what my over
optimistic mind thought were many positive words.
It does feel like I am in her good books again,
but that is probably no reason for optimism for
the future.
I probably should have gone to bed at 8pm
last night, but I left it until my usual time of
9pm. I think I fell asleep almost instantly. I
have one vague, dreamlike, memory of waking up,
and possibly going for a pee, but the only
definite memory is of waking up at 4.45am. That
was close enough to 5am, and so I got up. Once the
creaky feelings went away I was left feeling that
my chest was very delicate, while not actually
hurting most of the time. Silly things, like
putting my shirt on, would cause brief twinges of
pain - that was a bit more sensitive than I am
happy with.....well I am not happy with any of the
pains and twinges from my chest, but I accept that
some will happen, but a twinge from just putting
my shirt on was a bit much !
I caught my usual 06:34 train towards
Waterloo East this morning. It arrived on time,
and this was probably because it wasn't packed.
This means people can get on and off easily, and
the train didn't have extended waits at stations
as people battled their way on and off the train.
This was the case at Catford Bridge, and also at
Ladywell station. We may well have left Ladywell
station as much as a minute earlier than usual.
Once again we were diverted away from Lewisham -
where big delays always happen. In theory we
should have been 5, 6 or even 7 minutes early when
we got held at a signal to re-join the main line.
We waited at that signal for between one and two
minutes, but I am sure no more than that. We were
also held outside London Bridge for little more
than 30 seconds.
We stopped at London Bridge for what felt
like the usual time, but it was obvious by then
that we would arrive at Waterloo East a good three
or four minutes later than usual before the
trouble at Lewisham started. It meant that there
was no way, I, or even an athletic sprinter, could
get across the link to catch the 06:57 train that
I usually manage to get to take me to Earlsfield.
I missed it by almost three minutes, but that did
allow me plenty of time to catch the next one -
the 07:03. I don't know why I rushed, and in doing
so, I really upset my chest. As I walked down the
platform as fast as I could, it seemed like my
whole chest was shaking from side to side, and as
it did so it would pop, creak, grate and groan. I
am surprised I wasn't in considerable pain once I
got on the train, but all I was left with was a
mild ache that mostly dissipated as I sat on the
train.
Now I am here at work I feel bloody chilly,
but the heater is gradually warming the room. The
chill is causing a few aches here and there, but I
think that once I am warm I will feel OK. I guess
eating cold salad for breakfast is doing me no
favours heat wise, but at just 264 calories for
these two bowls, it's got to be the healthy
option.
In theory, and maybe in practice once spring
starts to spring, I should only eat the Italian
salad. It has almost half the calories of the
Greek salad. These two lots of salad are all that
will sustain me today until I can get some beer in
me. It's Thursday, and drinking night again !
Tonight we are drinking in The Shortlands Tavern -
relatively easy to get to after work, and
reasonably easy to get home from afterwards. With
so little substantial food in me I will only have
three pints, and then I'll rush home looking
forward to some hot food. I reckon I ought to try
and make the first course just some soup - perhaps
two cans. That, if I can bring myself to do it
should take the edge off my hunger - I hope
!
Wednesday
25th January 2017
08:45
GMT
If the temperature had been just a little
higher it might have been a nice day yesterday. It
was certainly bright and sunny, but a
disappointing 3° C at about sunset. Maybe it might
have been higher a little earlier, but only by a
solitary degree if it was. During the night the
temperature fell to just below zero, but it became
too cloudy for the temperature to drop any lower.
My thermometer was reading minus 0.9° C as
walked to the station. Compared to some recent
mornings it should have only been a mild frost,
but this morning seemed very frosty - particularly
on the pavement of the road leading to work. I had
to be very careful to avoid going apex over base
walking along there. The penalty for the
temperature only just dropping below zero this
morning, and for the afternoon being potentially plus
6° C, is a generous covering of cloud. It is going
to be a very murky day today. Tomorrow should see
a bit of sunshine, but it is going to be an
exceptionally cold day. The temperature may only
rise to just 3° C for a brief time in the
afternoon, and for most of the daylight hours it
will be just 2° C.
On reflection, if I ignore some of the
hardships of it, my journey into work yesterday
was quite exciting. Combine that with the pleasant
evening I had with Angela the night before, and I
was feeling quite good mentally even if I had a
few physical aches yesterday. It was still a
relief to leave work and go home of course, and
that would be another adventure on the trains.
It wasn't a great start when I got to Earlsfield
station. The first two trains were indefinitely
delayed, but it was only a 6 minute wait for the
third train, and I got to Clapham Junction in
plenty of time to catch a London Overground
train.
I had a seat all the way on the London
Overground. It was an uncomfortable seat, but
they are all uncomfortable on class 378 London
Overground trains ! It takes just 13 minutes to
get to Denmark Hill station from Clapham
Junction.
At Denmark Hill there was a 10 - 11 minute wait
for a train to Catford. It was a refurbished
class 319 Thameslink train.
It was a pretty full train that I got on. People
had "moved right down inside the train" but the
doorways were still rather full. With my back
pressed firmly against the door by the people in
front of me, I managed to get this snap of the
standing people through the glass draught shield
on my right.....
....and here's the view through the glass
draught shield on my left. It is fortunate that
it is only 4 stops from Denmark Hill station to
Catford station, and it wasn't much more than 10
minutes later I could get off into the fresh air
(sort of) of Catford, and start walking home
passed an almost, but not fully deserted Catford
Bridge station.
The reason that
Catford Bridge was not totally deserted was
that train had started to run to and from it -
with a train about every two hours, or
something ridiculous like that. Meanwhile, my
journey via "the scenic route" got my to
Catford about 10 minutes later than my usual
route. With only 2 trains an hour to Catford
station it seems unlikely I could get an
earlier train, but some day I'll try and get
out of work a few minutes earlier, and see if
it is possible to through the system with less
waiting for trains so I can get a train half
an hour earlier at Denmark Hill.
I felt quite tired when I could finally
relax at home. That meant I didn't get around
to washing my hair last night, and it is
feeling a bit yucky this morning. I was also
less strict about what I ate. I had the best
of intentions, and I started off with a simple
can of tomato soup. If I hadn't added some
spare corned beef, and some chunks of cheese,
it might have been a nice low calorie starter.
I shouldn't have eaten part two. It was
because part 3 needed 40 minutes of cooking. I
didn't dare look at the calorie and other
nutritional values on the side of the can, but
the can of Bolognese sauce that I ate as a
soup was probably pretty terrible - and I made
it worse with a generous helping of crumbled
parmesan cheese. Part three was "chicken
supreme". I expected it to be swimming in
garlic butter, but it was actually quite dry.
I may have got away with that one !
I spent quite a lot of the evening
talking to a friend - mostly about trains and
stuff. He waffled on and on until I had to
force a stop five minutes before my bedtime.
If I had brushed my teeth, jumped straight
into bed, and turned the lights off as soon as
I was in bed, I might have fallen asleep not
too long after 9pm, as I should have done, but
I wanted to finish the book I have been
reading. It was 10pm before I turned out the
lights, and it didn't take long before I was
fast asleep.
It was almost certainly the result of
missing a lot of sleep the night before, but
last night I did seem to sleep nearly all
night for a change. I do remember a mildly
scary, but exciting, and weird dream - or some
of it. It was a science fiction dream. I don't
seem to have too many of them. One weird, but
not rare aspect of the dream was how my
viewpoint would sometime change from directly
viewing the action, to watching myself
performing the action. The dream was about me
and an unidentified friend being on a planet
that was like the moon, but had an atmosphere.
Apart from one later bit, which definitely had
shrubs, it was all barren rocks and sand.
Hidden/camouflaged in the rocks and sands were
all sorts of dangerous animals. I nearly said
monsters, but most, if not all, were not
really big enough to be monsters, although
they did have sharp claws and fangs and poison
barbs ! I suppose the entire dream was
actually us just us walking across this
moon/planet trying to avoid being eaten !
This morning I woke up feeling a bit
stiff, but with nothing to seriously complain
about. That is basically the state of my
journey to work too. I wasn't perfectly
comfortable, but no ache or pain was much of
an inconvenience. The trains were almost back
to normal this morning. The only difference is
that we had to take the route that avoids
Lewisham. That should have made for a quicker
journey. Lewisham is always an extended stop
as quite a few people struggle to get off the
train there, and usually a few less struggle
to push their way aboard still crowded train.
That takes time, and occasionally we are held
at signal there to allow a Victoria train to
cross in front of us. With Lewisham bypassed,
no stopping at signals on the way, or the
train apparently going slower than usual, you
might expect that we would have arrived at
Waterloo East earlier than usual, but no. We
actually arrived a minutes later than usual -
plus an extra 6 minutes because the train had
left Hayes (Kent) station, where it starts
from 6 minutes late. Most drivers would have
put their foot down to try and make up that 6
minutes, but our driver seemed to do the
reverse for some unknown reason.
Tonight I shall.......well, I definitely
want to wash my hair tonight. I can't think of
anything else apart from that, and the usual
battle to try and eat a lot more moderately
than I would tend to have on a cold, grey
winters day. I don't know why, but I
keep think I might end up seeing Angela
tonight. I'm sure it must be wishful thinking
rather than premonition, and it is totally
unlikely. The good thing is that I won't be
too disappointed if something that isn't
supposed to happen doesn't happen.
Tuesday
24th January 2017
09:27
GMT
By comparison to the previous few days,
yesterday was a bit murky. There was some sunshine
in the afternoon, but the morning was grey even
after the hour or so of fog lifted. On the plus
side, it was very slightly less chilly, and I am
sure the temperature did hit at least 4° C as
forecast. The temperature did not drop as low
during the night as it has done recently, and this
morning I only saw minus 0.5° C on my
thermometer. It's looking like it will be a
bright, and mostly sunny sort of day. Towards the
end of the afternoon the temperature may reach 6°
C - still chilly, but less terribly so. By mid
evening a mist will form, and that will turn into
fog by morning. Tomorrow is forecast to be very
dull, and the temperature struggle to reach 4° C.
It was with great joy that I left work to go
and meet Angela in The Black Cat yesterday. The
only trouble was that the trains were playing up
again (although not nearly as bad as this morning
- see later !), and I was almost 15 minutes late
getting to the pub. Angela was as pleased to see
me as I was pleased to see her. We had two drinks
in there, and then we went back to my place for a
sandwich, another drink, and a cuddle.
It was at my place that she confirmed what I
had already guessed. While she still loves me, and
loves me a lot, she has fallen in love with the 75
year old man who has survived recent treatment for
cancer, and has now mostly recovered from a hip
replacement operation. I can understand her
motivation - sort of, although that does not make
it any easier to bear. It is going to make it hard
work for me to go to the same gigs as them. For
all that, I feel that there is a good chance that
we will still have occasional private times
together. Last night we had a very private time
together, and she was quite reluctant to get out
of my bed to go home.
As wonderful as it was to see Angela
yesterday, it was also depressing. I'm sure it is
depressing for her too. Although she is currently
biassed away from me, she still feels a strong
attraction to me. Meanwhile I have to be either
realistic, or maybe pessimistic. At the moment my
dream of a holiday this year seems to have crash
and burnt, and there was other stuff I hoped to do
with Angela, which will probably never happen. The
obvious answer is to get a replacement, but not
only don't I want to, but I don't think there is
anyone else who is the same age, with the same
experiences, and is as beautiful as Angela !
There was one other good thing about last
night - I didn't eat much. It was the second day
running that I had managed to curb my appetite,
although last night was a special case. When we
got home we both had a pack of Aldi beef and
horseradish sandwiches. After Angela went home I
had a Liver And Bacon ready meal, and apart from a
handful of nuts, that was all I ate yesterday
evening (although I did have a double ready made
salad for breakfast). This morning I think I feel
better for it, and this morning I needed to feel
better.
I didn't sleep well last night. I slept OK
initially, but from about 3am I couldn't seem to
shut my brain up. Obviously I was thinking about
Angela a lot. It was mostly negative, pessimistic
thoughts, but curiously enough I actually felt a
smidgen of optimism after I got up. It helped that
I didn't feel too creaky when I got up. I'll
probably feel desperately tired later on, but
right now I feel good - but only in comparison to
the average of the last couple of months. If I
compare it to how I felt last July/August, for
instance, I feel pretty crap ! It is a good thing
I did feel relatively good because I needed lots
of stamina to get to work. The reason is that the
trains were really up the creak this morning.
There had been a derailment of a very long
freight train near Lewisham earlier this morning,
and my guess is that it is so long that it is
straddling several set of points causing loads
more signals to fail to danger. When my usual
train was due to depart at 06:33 the station was
blocked by the train before the one before mine.
It was sitting in the station empty and going
nowhere. Fortunately I always check the internet
to see how the trains are performing before
travelling, and I knew what to expect. The only
option I could see was to get a train from Catford
station.
Of course I wasn't the only one to realise
that option. I walked to Catford station to catch
the 06:54 train, and so did loads of others.Most
of the trains from Catford at that time in the
morning are fairly full before they get there, and
get very full on any normal day. On a day like
today the train was bulging at the seams when we
finally pulled away from the station about 5
minutes late. At Crofton Park station more people
tried to get on - and somehow succeeded ! I went
as far as Peckham Rye where I changed trains to a
London Overground service to Clapham Junction.
Normally I would change at Denmark Hill where I
think the change is easier, but I wasn't sure I
would get a second chance to get to the doors
again !
Catford station with just the merest hint of
pink sky in the east at 06:50.
Like at Catford station, the platform was too
crowded to take a meaningful picture of my
fellow travellers, but I did take this snap of
the a station sign on the Thameslink platforms.
The eastern part of the sky was just starting to
get light while waiting for the London
Overground train.
Looking more towards the north, the sky is still
fairly dark, but in the middle of this snap is
one of those rare Southern trains - or they were
rare until the current series of strikes ended.
At Clapham Junction,
with my right knee starting to complain after
standing up for so long, I made my way over
the long overbridge to platform 11 where the
trains to Earlsfield stop. Once I got moving
the pain in my right knee faded away, and the
walk from Earlsfield station to work was
mostly OK. It seemed like it had been a very
long journey, but I was amazed to find that
having caught a train almost half an hour
later than usual in Catford, I was only half
an hour late getting to work. I might try the
route again some morning when it is all a
little less frantic - maybe even tomorrow, and
perhaps I aim for the 06:22 train if I feel I
am ready to go out a bit earlier.
I think I will almost certainly be using
that route in reverse to get home. The last
estimates I saw suggested that the freight
train would not be moved until much later
today, and that disruption would continue
until the end of the day. I hope that the
trains are back to normal tomorrow morning, or
it's going to be another horrible journey !
I think I would like to wash my hair
tonight, but other than that I have no plans
to do anything. I will try to eat as healthily
as I can manage, and that will depend on how
happy I feel. I'm not sure how how happy I
will be. I guess there's always hope, but I
think it will be slim pickings from now on.
Monday
23rd January 2017
08:21
GMT
It was nice and sunny again yesterday, but
it was still a very cold day. At the back of my
house, outside the kitchen, where the sun never
reaches in winter (and hardly in spring) it wasn't
all that much above freezing. Maybe just a whole
degree above. During the night the temperature
fell, and at 6am this morning I was reading minus
3° C. Oh well, that was 1.5° higher than the
morning before ! The main feature for this morning
was supposed to be mist and fog. I never saw
anything worse than a light haze on my way into
work, but an hour after getting here it is indeed
getting very foggy. The fog is supposed to lift
again in a few hours, and from midday there is
supposed to be the chance of a few sunny
intervals, but it is going to be mostly grey
today. The top temperature may just hit 4° C, but
at sunset it will start to drop ready for tomorrow
to be very similar to today - although if we are
very lucky there might be a few more sunny spells.
For a lot of yesterday I felt pretty bad,
and I am not totally sure why. So I kept myself
warm, and did little more than read and listen to
music. The music I was listening to was by Man -
the prog rock group from Wales in the 1970s. I
recently bought the box set called The
Original Album Series. I rather enjoyed it -
even the couple of albums I had never heard
before. The book I have been reading, and
almost finished last night, is Time For The
Stars by Robert A. Heinlein.
By late afternoon I was starting to feel
much better, and a couple of Ibuprofen tablets
improved things more. A little later and a very
large whisky and I felt perfectly normal (which is
good, but not as good as normal used to be). I had
a further boost to how I felt when somehow, and I
can't quite remember what the trigger was, I had a
conversation, via text messaging, with Angela. It
now seems almost certain that I will be seeing her
for at least a quick drink tonight, and if the
increasing warmth in our messages is anything to
go by it may be more than just a quick drink.
However there is still a small element of doubt,
and it is possible that something might arise that
will stop the meeting.
I went to bed feeling fairly happy last
night, but maybe not quite as early as I should
have. I can blame that on not wanting to put my
book down as the storyline starts to reach the
climax. It was possibly after 10pm before I got to
sleep, but I did seem to sleep quite well. My
sleep ended with a typical weird dream. The dream
seemed to start with my walking up a short, and
not very steep hill. As the dream continued it
seemed that I wanted to borrow a bucket of water
to wash a train carriage I had bought. I chose a
house seemingly at random, and knocked on the door
asking if I could borrow a bucket filled with
water. The resident, a very attractive young
housewife said I could, and invited me in. There
were several people inside the house including a
grandmother who was hand making ice cream, and a
young lad who was preparing to wash a dog. I
seemed to hang around a long time without being
given my bucket of water, and in the end I decided
I should intrude no longer, and said I was
leaving. As we approached the front door the young
housewife said something which implied that we
actually knew each other in some mysterious way,
but I can't remember what it was she said.
I woke up about 15 minutes before I needed
to, and decided to get up anyway. I felt typically
stiff and creaky, but otherwise fairly
comfortable. It was while I was showering that I
had a few twinges from my chest, and I was
expecting more trouble from it - particularly once
I was out in the freezing air. I took a couple of
Ibuprofen, and they either did the business, or my
chest was not as bad as I thought. I also took
another precaution....
This is where things get weird again. I
thought it prudent to leave a minute early to walk
to the station so I wouldn't have to rush so much.
So I took it easy walking to the station, and
arrived there 2 minutes early. It was as if I had
walked there faster rather than slower. I guess I
just misjudged the time or something. I was
actually quite lucky with the trains this morning.
My train was late leaving the depot, and they
diverted it to join the line at New Beckenham
station. That meant it did not call at 4 fairly
busy station before it arrived in Catford. For
once it was not jam packed inside. The other bit
of luck was at Waterloo. There was, and probably
still is, a broken rain between Wimbledon and
Earlsfield. That meant South West Trains had a lot
of trouble getting trains to Waterloo this
morning. My usual train was possibly one of the
first to leave this morning, and it left on time.
It was rather full, and I ended up standing all
the way to Earlsfield, but it wasn't too bad.
At Earlsfield I decided to take it easy
walking to work, and although I didn't seem to do
it quicker this time, it didn't seem to take any
longer either. I was feeling moderately OK when I
arrived at work, but I've gone slightly downhill
since. The reason is that it is bloody cold in
here. The heaters were left on full power over the
weekend, but those heaters are just air con units
working in reverse, and are very ineffective once
the outside air drops below 5 degrees, or
thereabouts. I have had to out my emergency
pullover on, but my hands are still freezing, and
I seem to have started coughing every now and
then. Oh well, only 8 hours to go, and there is a
good chance I will feel the warmth of seeing
Angela.
This car was conveniently under a street lamp
when I walked to the station. Look how frosty it
was !
This is Garret Lane, looking towards Wandsworth,
and just around the corner from work. It was
supposed to be foggy, but it's hardly even
misty. There is little more than some haze
around the brighter lights. An hour later fog
did descend, but it seems to have lifted again
now. I wonder what the weather will throw at us
next ?
Sunday
22nd January 2017
13:35
GMT
The weather continues
on it's relentless path of sunshine and frost.
Yesterday was all bright and sunny, and yet the
outside air temperature probably didn't get much
above a couple of degrees in the shade. By 8pm it
was down to minus 2° C, and falling.
By 8am this morning it had hit a new low - minus
4.5° C ! That is bloody cold for London even in
January. Once again the sky is blue, and the sun
is shining brightly. My bedroom, with the combined
efforts of my fan heater, and the sun pouring
through the windows, is now very
comfortably warm. Just outside my bedroom window I
have a wired thermometer connected to a display
just inside the window. With the sensor partly
shielded from the wind by the window frame and
stuff, and in direct sunlight, it is a rather nice
25° C. Stand 2 feet away and apart from it being a
12ft drop, it is only 0.5° C !
Tomorrow morning it is going to be cold -
very cold, but maybe not quite as cold as this
morning. The forecast also says there will be a
freezing fog that will persist until mid morning.
From then on it will be mostly cloudy, and the
temperature should eventually peak at just 4° C.
Tomorrow is not going to be nice.
I did little of any significance yesterday
afternoon except eat. That is only significant
because of the timing rather than the quantity and
quality of what I ate. I intended to take care of
what I ate to reduce some of the consequences, but
mildly failed in some areas, a failed quite badly
in one particular area. The big failure was
actually a misunderstanding. I had what looked to
be mostly salad, but it wasn't. It was not only
chicken and bacon and salad, but pasta, and grated
carrot in some quite thick dressing. It was very
nice, and also, unfortunately rather filling.
At any other time it may not have mattered
that it seemed so filling, but last night it did.
I was very determined to go out last night. I
hadn't been to a gig since new year's eve, and I
hadn't seen Angela for even longer. The only
trouble was that I had fallen out of practice of
going out after dark, and I didn't feel all that
good. I had to force myself to go, but instead of
feeling better once I got moving, I felt worse.
The frigid air was making me almost
asthmatic, and was hurting my chest. That was
despite wearing a very warm coat, one I often get
a bit sweaty in. The only way to stop it would
have been not to breathe ! On top of that, the
chicken and bacon and pasta and stuff seemed to
still be sitting very heavy on my stomach. I swear
I could feel it, plus anything I had drunk in the
previous hour or so, swilling around in my stomach
as I walked up the road.
I had hoped that once I had got to the pub,
warmed up, drunk a pint of Guinness, and the band
had started, I would feel better. Maybe I would
have, but there were two further problems. The pub
was ram packed full, and the band, The Life Of
Brian, weren't going to start until nearly 9.30pm
- 45 minutes or more after I arrived there. Oh,
and Angela hadn't turned up by then.
It was difficult to move around in the pub,
and it was made worse by wearing a heavy coat and
carrying my camera bag. I felt very large and
cumbersome like that. It was also difficult to
find a good vantage point where I could get some
good photos. On top of everything else I was
feeling something akin to mild claustrophobia.
Once I had finished my pint of Guinness I did my
best to hold on for a few minutes, but in the end
I decided to go home without even seeing the band
start.
The annoying thing was that if I hadn't held
on for those couple of minutes I would have caught
a train almost instantly. Instead I had to wave
the train goodbye while I was only a few tens of
feet away from it. Fortunately the trains were
still running four per hour, and I didn't have
that long to wait for the next one. On the other
hand, that extra 15 minutes of breathing in the
icy air (possibly getting on for minus 3°
C by then) really did my chest in. It hurt, and I
felt really breathless when I got back to Catford
, and was walking to home. Maybe breathless is not
the right word. I probably wasn't breathing in any
more air, but it just felt hard work to breathe in
the air that I did.
I didn't totally waste my time while I
waited at Elmers End station. I didn't get out my
big camera, but I did take some snaps with my new
(secondhand) Fuji XP71 camera. Apart from a
tendency to over expose bright areas, it does seem
to work very well under night conditions. It's
turned out to be quite a good buy.
The first picture is actually of Catford Bridge
station taken on my way to Elmers End.
This was Elmers End station at 21:12 while I
waited for the 21:24 service to New Cross (the
services to Canon Street station were
terminating at New Cross because of engineering
works).
Looking towards the Hayes end of the station.
While I waited a tram pulled in. Once the driver
changed ends it would form the next service to
West Croydon.
Destination sign on the side of the tram. It
would change to West Croydon once the driver had
changed ends, and got ready to depart.
I felt pretty
horrible when I got home. It was the same
going there except I had an extra pint of
Guinness sloshing around in my gut. On top of
that I had missed seeing Angela, and missed
seeing the band playing. So I was wheezy,
cold, in pain, and feeling pretty miserable. I
didn't feel like going straight to bed, and
while I would have liked to have had something
like a bowl of hot soup to warm me up, I
didn't dare add anything more than the
occasion sip of water to swill around in my
gut.
Later on I received a message from
Angela, one of very few recently that she has
actually instigated herself, saying that she
was gutted that she had missed me. That felt
encouraging, and on the basis of that I
suggested that maybe we could meet after work
tomorrow. She couldn't give me a definite yes,
but it seems quite possible that it will
happen.
I turned out the light, and was probably
fast asleep before 11pm. I woke up a couple of
times in the night, and froze my bits off
going to the toilet. I can't remember what
times it was, but I decided I had to put my
heater on full power for the rest of the
night. It wasn't surprising considering that
we hit a new low of minus 4.5° C this
morning. Since then I've had the heater on
full power until finally the bright sunshine
started doing it's work to keep the room warm.
I think I woke up too early this
morning. Either that or it's the two bowls of
tomato soup I had a bit earlier that are
making me feel very sleepy now. Some sleep my
be good if I can get any. I don't feel all
that good right now, and I am not sure why. In
some respects it feels a bit like 'flu, but I
don't think it is. I suspect that I may have
another artery or two furred up, but who knows
? Hopefully I'll feel OK tomorrow morning to
go to work, although I am dreading going to
work in that freezing fog, but if I don't go
to work I can't meet Angela after work - if
she is available.
Saturday
21st January 2017
11:13
GMT
Once again the highest
temperature I noticed yesterday seemed to fall
short of the forecast temperature. The last
forecast I saw said it might reach 5° C, but I
doubt it even hit 3° C. I only glanced at the
thermometer when I got home from work, and I'm
sure it said 2° C - and that was only 5 or 10
minutes after sunset. On the plus side, it was a
nice sunny day, and the sun did help heat my
office a tiny bit.
I took the photo of my weather station at,
as it says itself, 07:56 this morning, and it was
showing a new low. Minus 3.6° C is the
lowest I can ever recall seeing on that
thermometer. It's worth noting that it is on the
north side of the house, and is in permanent shade
at this time of year. If you click on the picture
it will open a new window/tab that shows a higher
resolution version of the picture.
In the high resolution version it is easier
to see the little symbol above the "C" of the
-3.6° C. That symbol shows the temperature was
still falling. Actually it wasn't at that point,
but it had been. I think I was lucky to have
caught the temperature reading at it's very
lowest.
It's also easier to see the little snowflakes
falling from the cloud at the top left of the
display. The inbuilt forecasting software reckons
that it is going to snow. That seems unlikely
while bright sunshine is pouring through my front
room windows. The BBC forecast agrees with what I
can see - it is going to be another sunny day, but
it is also going to be another very cold day. The
best they can offer is just 3° C at 2pm this
afternoon. From then on it's downhill all the way.
There will be another thick frost tomorrow
morning. It should be another very sunny day, and
it is supposed to be very slightly warmer too.
Maybe 5° C.
I felt quite sleepy at work yesterday -
particularly in the afternoon - and so it was nice
to get out into the fresh (but very chilly) air to
go home. I had a reasonably comfortable journey
home, and doing the entire journey in bright
daylight, with a little to spare at the end, was
sort of uplifting. It almost didn't matter that
Angela had not taken the bait, and I was destined
to spend the evening on my own again. In some
respects it was my timing that was wrong. I heard
that her daughter Miranda was heading her way
because she had a gig last night, and of course
Angela would have stayed in to greet her. Angela
would also have gone to the gig.
I could have gone to the gig as well, and if
didn't have the winter blues I probably would have
gone. After feeling sleepy at work I was fixated
on the idea that I wanted to get to bed early (I
didn't), and I didn't fancy doing a 2 train
journey in the dark, and while the temperature was
heading for zero degrees (and potentially under it
on the way back home). So I stayed in feeling both
slightly happy because I knew that Angela had a
good reason not to see me, and that leaves hope
for the future, but also slightly sad for not
forcing myself to go out.
In such a half good/half bad state of mind
it would have been easy to eat far too much, and
indeed I did, but for a different reason. On my
way home from work I called into Tesco to buy a
few bits and pieces. One thing I had a yearning
for was for some liver and bacon, and I did buy
and eat some. I also ate a can of tomato soup - so
far so good, but I did sprinkle on a generous
amount of grated cheddar cheese, and that would
have bumped up the total calories a bit.
It's what I ate next that was rather
naughty. While in Tesco I noticed some half price
packets of cheese and onion rolls (not bread
rolls, but rolls like sausage rolls). I could have
eaten one or two, but I have this terrible
affliction/weakness, and it is one that is partly
shared with Angela. It is once I have started a
packet (or whatever) I feel compelled to finish
it. So I ate all those cheese and onion rolls.
It's probably good that they don't make them like
I would make them with half a pound of cheddar in
each one. They actually contain so little cheese
that it is almost hard to taste it. So chomping
through the entire packet wasn't quite the
calamity it could have been, but still....
I tried to watch a bit of TV last nice, but
the TV was awash with bloody American politics,
and I am just not interested. I probably should be
because there is a fair chance that their new
president will start World War 3, but I find it
hard to pay much attention to our own politicians
let alone those 3000 miles away. As far as I am
concerned we are heading into a dystopian future
at a reckless speed, and I think I am happy that I
will probably die before life for the proles
becomes unbearable.
I did actually watch a bit of TV. I think I
saw most of one old episode of QI, and maybe half
an episode of M*A*S*H. Then I got bored and read
my book instead. Somehow an awful lot of time
passed, and I seem to recall it was around 11pm
when I went to sleep. So much for my idea of an
early night ! Just for a change I slept quite
soundly until I woke up completely unnecessarily
at more or less exactly 5am as if it were a work
day. I felt OK so I pottered around, mainly on the
internet, for a good few hours before going back
to sleep.
So far this morning I have done three things
(or four if you include writing this). I have
washed my hair, I have washed my body, and I have
done a tiny bit of housework. All I meant to do
was to brush up some crumbs from under my computer
desk, but as I brought the dust pan and brush up
the stairs I brushed a few stairs as I passed. It
was not as effective as a good hoovering (which my
stairs need again) but it wasn't bad, and it was
much easier than hoovering - although my back did
feel a bit creaky when I got to the top. I
probably ought to do it more frequently because it
doesn't take a huge effort lugging a big hoover
around, and it does make quite a visual
improvement.
My plans for today include doing a bit more
housework. I'm not sure where or what yet, but I
have an empty wheelie bin at the moment, and I
ought to dump some more old rubbish in it.
Probably the next thing I will do is to go to Aldi
for a proper bit of shopping. Other than that I
expect I'll pass a fair amount of time just
reading, and then tonight I really do want to make
the effort to get to a gig. The Life Of Brian,
featuring Angela's daughter Miranda on vocals, are
playing in The Elm Tree pub in Elmers End tonight.
The pub, formerly known as The William IV, is
relatively easy to get to by train, and buses run
quite late to get home again.
Friday
20th January 2017
08:30
GMT
Yesterday was not quite so cold as the day before.
It was only bloody cold instead of freezing cold !
I'm unsure of the late afternoon temperature, but
it did feel like it might have been the forecast
5° C.
As expected, the clear sky meant another
cold morning, and this morning it was minus
3° C. The rest of today will follow the pattern of
the last few days. It is going to be another
bright sunny day, but it is still going to be very
cold. The best we can expect today is 5° C again.
Tomorrow will be very similar except that an
occasional cloud will block the sun, and the
temperature may only reach 4° C. Sunday may be
similar to tomorrow, but Monday could add a nasty
element if the forecast comes true. I could be
going to work on Monday morning in freezing fog,
and that's freezing to the tune of minus
2° C !
Apart from feeling a little cooler than I
might desire, I felt mostly OK at work yesterday.
At least I can't recall anything significantly
negative about it now. That wasn't the case when I
left work. Going out in the cold aggravated my
chest. It was only a minor annoyance until I got
off the train at Grove Park station. As I got off
the train, after having to stand all the way from
Waterloo East, I must have twisted around too
much, or something like that. For a short while it
did feel like my chest was going to split in two.
(The thought of it is making my chest hurts right
now !) Fortunately it was like when you mildly
twist or sprain an ankle. If it is not too bad you
can carry on walking, and the pain is soon
forgotten.
The increasing day length, which is quite
apparent on these recent sunny days, is having a
positive effect on me. Most of my journey from
work to The Red Lion in Bromley was done in
daylight. At least half of it was done in
sunshine, and even the 5 - 6 minute walk from
Bromley North station to the pub was done before
it had got significantly dark. It made me more
enthusiastic to go to the pub. It will be even
nicer when I can have my three pints and it is
still daylight when I leave the pub. It could
almost entice me to stay for a fourth pint !
After not really seeing or speaking to
anybody outside of work for the past couple of
weeks it was sort of nice to interact with a few
people again. It was also nice to have a few pints
of ale. The sad thing was that it was dark when I
left the pub and walked to the station. I had
times it so that I didn't have to wait long for my
train back to Grove Park. Quite a lot of people
got off the train when it arrived, but only only a
few people got on with me for it's return journey
back to Grove Park. (Grove Park to Bromley North
is run as a shuttle service with the same train
going back and forth all day).
One characteristic of the Bromley North to
Grove Park service is that the line doesn't run
through any brightly lit areas. In fact for most
of the journey it is pitch black outside. There is
nothing so melancholy as being on your own in an
almost empty carriage with nothing to do but watch
blackness go past the window. It was a relief to
get off the train at Grove Park - a relief in one
sense, but not in another. I felt tired, and
walking up the steps to get out of the station
seemed very tiring, but maybe it was just all in
the head. When I was outside the station I spotted
a bus approaching, and somehow found the energy to
run for it - and it was a mildly uphill run ! It
was hard work, but not such hard work that I felt
any hesitation to go up the stairs to sit on the
top deck of the bus. Once I sat down I recovered
very fast. It was probably thanks to the beer.
It was also probably thanks to the beer that
the walk from the bus to home was mostly painless,
but mostly isn't completely. My chest gave no
trouble, or if it did I was too distracted to
notice. The thing that was uppermost on my mind,
and increasingly so as I got nearer and nearer to
home, was how the cold night air was affecting my
bladder ! By the time I reached my front door I
was ready to bust !! It was one of those times
when you fear fumbling with your keys and such,
but I got the keys in the locks first time,
and made it up to the toilet without incident.
I gave a lot of thought about eating while I
was on the bus home. This was not surprising
considering the countless fried chicken shops, as
well as other places that sell takeaway food, that
I passed on the way. It would have been so easy to
give into temptation and buy some fried chicken
and chips to take home, but I resolved not to, and
considering how desperate I was to wee when I got
home it is probably just as well that I hadn't
added any extra delays to my journey.
Maybe fried chicken and chips would not have
been too terrible for me if that was all I had
compared with what I actually ate. I had a three
course meal. The first course was a can of "Petit
Salle" - it's a sort of lentil stew with a few
bits of meats and a few bits of vegetable in it -
it's actually very nice. Then I had a can of
meatballs. I had intended to only have a can of
soup, but my hand slipped...... The last thing was
the most devastating of all - jam tarts. I have no
idea why I even bought them in the first place.
They were not particularly nice, and I knew they
wouldn't be, but I guess I wasn't thinking
straight when I originally bought them. They would
have raised my blood glucose level up way too
high, and ruined any chance of losing weight this
week !
It is possible that those jam tarts may have
had another bad effect too - although I can't
think how. I didn't get home until some time after
7pm, and that didn't leave that long to eat my
dinner, let it settle, and then go to bed.
Evidently I didn't let it settle for nearly long
enough. I was in bed, and asleep very soon after
9pm, and I reckon it was probably not long after
9.30pm that I had a really severe attack of acid
reflux. I woke up with the reflux just entering my
mouth. I really hate that, and I'm glad that it
happens only once in a blue moon (I can't actually
remember the last time. It must have been years
ago). Fortunately I was able to swallow it without
trouble, and I chased it down with a swig of
antacid (Tesco's own brand version of milk of
magnesia).
From then on I slept OK until, as seems to
always the case, about 4am. It was about then that
I kept waking up - sometimes because I was cold
and had half kicked the duvet off, and sometimes
because I don't like the dreams I'm having. One
dream was memorable for it's strangeness. I
dreamed I was counting a wad of about 10
banknotes. Initially they were £20 notes, but they
seemed to morph into, initially £5 notes (that's
inflation for you !), and after that things got
very silly. One turned into an earlier style of £5
note, and others turned into Euro notes of unknown
denomination. The some seemed to be forgeries -
initially very good ones, but then some appeared
to be only printed on one side. Somewhere towards
the end of the dream they had changed from
landscape to portrait orientation, and by that
time many of them seemed to have an unknown alien
script on them (as well as typical bank note
geometric swirls and curlicues). It was probably
all symbolic of what will happen when we finally
pull out of Europe, and our currency goes down the
drain.
This morning my main complaint was my chest
(well no news there), but it was actually sore. It
just felt sort of delicate. I had a couple of mild
twinges while showering - mainly while washing
under my armpits ! It seemed sensible to take a
couple of Ibuprofen tablets this morning, and
either my chest was less delicate than I thought,
or they worked to keep me mostly free of any great
discomfort on my way into work. Perhaps their best
affect was to stop any inflammation at the time
when I did manage to jolt a bit of pain into my
chest as I bounded down the stairs at Earlsfield
station after getting off the train there.
I really don't know what I am doing tonight.
I think there was a gig on somewhere that I
didn't, and don't expect to have the energy or
enthusiasm to go to tonight. There is a truly
microscopic, maybe even nanoscopic chance that I
might see Angela tonight. It's a crude, and
inaccurate way of saying it, but in simple terms I
put some bait down yesterday, and it wasn't
refused, but neither was it accepted. I fully
expect my evening to be like this - buy a few bits
from Tesco (I have a mild yearning fir liver and
bacon) - eat some of the stuff I buy - watch half
an hour of TV - read for an hour or two - go to
sleep until tomorrow. It will be pleasant, but far
from exciting.
In this morning's metro was the little
article in the picture above. I guess it is true
for many people, but for some of us it is
completely wrong. After a cold, dark miserable
winter it is about now that the lengthening days
are starting to become noticeable. Tonight it will
still be full daylight when I get off the train at
Catford Bridge, and even if I go home via Tesco it
should still be slightly light when I get home.
Apart from it being so cold, this is the recipe to
start eating less. Maybe I might even manage it
tonight, but even if I don't manage any miracle
tonight, it still marks a sort of turning point
when, if nothing else, the idea become lodged
deeper in the brain, and ready to spring into
action when conditions are more favourable. As
well as the desire to eat so much falling away,
the increase in daylight, particularly on sunny
days like today, increases the desire to get
outdoors, and exercise more. In theory I could be
fit and healthy by summertime, and ready to take
on 10 mile walks again.....or not !
Thursday
19th January 2017
08:11
GMT
It was
most definitely cold yesterday, and that's despite
it being a sunny day. I am not sure what the
official figures were, but I recorded minus
3.1° C before I set off to go to work, and 0.9° C
when I got home from work. The forecast had
promised that the sun would raise the temperature
to at least 3° C, but as I made my way home I saw
there was still frost on the grass in sheltered
areas, and some puddles still had a partial crust
of ice.
During the night the temperature dropped
back into minus figures. I think the photo on the
left is fairly self explanatory. Taken at 06:04,
and the outside temperature was only (only !) minus
2.5° C ! The forecast says today will be nice and
sunny again, and the temperature could hit a
glorious 6° C by mid afternoon. Tomorrow is
supposed to be a re-run of today, but with one
small change - the temperature is not supposed to
dip below zero tomorrow morning, although it could
well be exactly zero° C !
It was not very warm in my office yesterday.
The bottom of the two air conditioning units had
completely frozen up, and was not contributing any
heat to the room at all. It was just comfortable
enough to work, but only just. It didn't leave me
well prepared for the extra cold conditions when I
went home, and my chest felt quite uncomfortable
when I got home. As usual, some food was a quick
cure......or maybe it was the time taken to
prepare the food, and the fan heater on full power
that cured me.
I was thinking of just having a soup based
dinner last night - possibly about three cans of
soup - but I decided I had perishable stuff to use
up. So I zapped up the remaining ready made salad
with grated cheese, beef Hula Hoops, and some
stuff olives. It was like the one I ate the day
before, but sadly, last night's version did not
have so much salad cream on it because the bottle
ran out before I had squeezed my preferred dose
onto the other ingredients. Part two of my dinner
was a hot meal. It was ready to roast, roast
vegetables with a couple of Aberdeen Angus quarter
pounder beefburgers. It could almost be imagined
as a healthy meal (but I'm sure it wasn't).
Generally speaking, I was pretty bored last
night, or to put it another way, I felt totally
uninspired. I tried watching a bit of TV, but that
did nothing for me, and I ended up reading until
it was time to go to sleep. Unfortunately the book
I am currently reading, Sixth Column by Robert
Heinlein, I have read before. It was only very
recently that I got a physical copy of the book,
but once I started reading I quickly came to the
conclusion that I must have read an electronic
copy of it - probably a few years back when I used
to read downloaded books on my mobile phone. It's
still a good read, but knowing the basic plot
takes away some of the pleasure. Perhaps a lot of
the pleasure, or maybe it just stops you immersing
yourself so deep in the story that you can block
out the horrible real world for a few hours.
Despite it not being very warm in my office
yesterday, I still managed to feel very sleepy,
and in the afternoon my eyes kept closing while I
was reading stuff on my PC. That suggested I
didn't sleep nearly as well as I thought I had the
night before, and that I should do better last
night. I think I did. As seems usual now, I woke
around 3am, and didn't sleep very deeply after
that, but at least I did seem to sleep for most of
the two hours before I had to get up at 5am. I'm
sure I had a noteworthy dream last night. I'm sure
it involved trains or travel, but the details
seems to have evaporated now.
This morning I feel semi OK. My chest feels
as delicate as ever in the cold, and I had quite a
few twinges on the way to work. The last being as
I came down the stairs at Earlsfield station, but
the twinges seem to have been quite short lived.
hopefully I'll be mostly comfortable during the
day. One positive thing that I did feel was
probably an illusion because it was a feeling that
maybe I was just a microscopic bit thinner this
morning - more specifically, my gut didn't seem to
bulge as much. It seems unlikely this could be for
real considering how much I have actually eaten
compared with what I would have preferred to eat.
It is most likely the affect of that chick pea
dahl I ate the other day. It seemed a long time
coming, but it did feel I had been turned inside
out when I went to the toilet this morning !
It would be good if I didn't feel too bad
today because I definitely want to try and go to
this Thursday evening drink tonight (by some
peoples standards - very late afternoon drink).
Tonight we are meeting in The Red Lion pub in
Bromley. I ought to double check, but I am sure it
is the one that is a 5 minute walk away from
Bromley North station. It is another pub I don't
like, although it is relatively easy to get to
from work. It is less easy to get home from. If
the timing is right so I don't have to hang around
on a cold draughty railway station platform, I can
get the train from Bromley North to Grove Park
station, and then a bus from there down to
Catford. The alternative is to suffer on a bus all
the way from Bromley to Catford. I'll see how it
all works out at the time. I just hope the pub has
some decent strong beer. I feel I need a good beer
right now.
Wednesday
18th January 2017
08:41
GMT
Yesterday's sunshine helped warm up my
office, but it did nothing for the outside air
temperature. It was nice going home in sunshine,
and it was very nice that it was still light for a
short while after I got home, but it was a cold
experience. I didn't realise how cold until I
checked my outdoor thermometer at home. It read
just 0.9° C ! That was a lot colder than I expected it to - I
expected it to be 3 or even 4° C. I knew that the
temperature would drop overnight, but I don't
think I expected to see minus 3.1° C as I
was getting ready to walk to the station this
morning.
Today is forecast to be as sunny as
yesterday, but it should be less cold than
yesterday. The forecast says it should still be 3°
C when I get home from work. The only trouble is
that it will barely be higher than 3° C at any
time today. A few hours before midnight it is
supposed to cloud over, and that will improve the
temperature tomorrow morning. It may be plus 2° C
tomorrow morning, and maybe hit 6° C by late
afternoon after a few hours of sunshine.
The forecast for Friday will undoubtedly
change, but it could be the "warmest" day of the
week with temperature hitting an amazing 7° C !
Unfortunately it be very grey and will probably
rain.
I didn't feel nearly as good yesterday as I
did the day before that. I ached more, and I had
less energy. The shoes I was wearing probably
didn't help. They were comfortable, but in some
weird, unexplainable way they seemed to resist my
every step above a certain speed. Trying to
sustain my preferred speed seemed like harder work
than it should have done. That didn't feel good
combined with my chest feeling sore again.
The aches around my chest scar, and a few
other places, are definitely worse when it is cold
- and it doesn't matter how warm a coat I am
wearing. I was sweating under my coat, and yet my
chest felt sore yesterday morning. I didn't think
it would be so bad going home when it was supposed
to be warmer, but it was probably worse. Once I
realised that it was only 0.9° C it became easier
to understand why it was aching.
Just getting indoors was enough to stop the
worst of the aches and pains, and eating a bowl of
hot soup was such a good cure that it was hard to
remember than I had been in any discomfort at all.
It felt so good that the other two parts of my
three course dinner came out of cans too. After
the hot chicken soup (and it was extra hot because
I added some fierce chilli sauce), I had a can of
chick pea dahl - essentially lightly curried chick
peas. (I suspect that some time later, maybe
tomorrow morning, when I go to the toilet it will
be like machine gun fire !). Part three was a can
of not very nice chicken korma. I think it was
probably a bit past it's "best before" date, but
it didn't seem to do me any harm.
I know the soup was fairly low in calories,
fat and other bad stuff, and I think the
chick pea dahl may have been moderately low in the
worst things too. It is possible that those two
cans came to no more than 600 calories. I dread to
think how many were in the can of chicken korma.
The only reason for optimism is that it didn't
seem to be very oily. In fact I don't recall it
being oily at all. If it wasn't loaded with sugar,
and it certainly tasted more sour than sweet, it
may not have been as bad as I feared.
No matter how much I tried to resist I
couldn't stop myself having a few naughty snacks,
and yet I think I can delude myself that my
overall food intake for the day was lower than the
previous couple of days. I very much doubt it
would have been low enough to make me fitter, but
maybe it was low enough to give a temporary
feeling of not feeling so completely unfit. As a
bonus, I didn't feel stuffed or anything when I
went to bed.
I was in bed fairly early yesterday - mainly
because I was bored with TV, and I didn't have
anything better to do...or at least nothing I
wanted to do in the cold and dark (even if it
wasn't actually that cold, and completely not dark
anywhere indoors). Not feeling like I had
overeaten may have helped my sleep, although it
didn't stop some of my dreams being very
inventive. With hindsight, it seems I probably did
sleep unusually well last night. I think I had a
little wobble around 4am, but I managed to get
back into a sleep that was deep enough to make my
alarm sounding a bit of a surprise.
I'm sure there was something deep and
meaningful about my dreams. One involved walking
and a choice between walking along a road, or
through a forest path. Obviously I chose the
forest path, but there was no deep significance to
that. That would be my choice at any time. I think
I was probably just looking forward to the time
when it is much warmer, and when I am hopefully a
bit fitter, and I can get out again for some nice
long rambles.
The other dream I remember had an
interesting observation in it. It concerned going
to a party at the house of an old friend. His
previous house, which I visited a few times, and
his current house, which I have yet to visit, are
deep in the countryside, in the middle of nowhere.
In the dream I was driven to his house, and the
route seemed mostly familiar, and yet later on,
while at his current house, I remarked that I
didn't know where his house was. Now I come
to write it down it doesn't seem that interesting,
and yet I think it formed the basis for a whole
new dream that consisted entirely of a debate
about how I could know then route, and yet didn't
know where I was. Written that way, it does come
across as a metaphor for real life !
This morning I woke up feeling tolerably OK,
and maybe I felt like I had a tiny bit more energy
than yesterday morning. Maybe I also think that I
came through travelling in minus 3° C with
the minimum of adverse affects. At the moment, a
couple of hours after getting to work, I don't
feel specially bad, but I don't feel all that good
either. For one thing it is rather cool in my
office. Until the sun rises a bit higher, and
pours a bit of heat into here, the air-con/heater
units struggle to get the temperature up to shirt
sleeve comfort levels.
I think tonight is liable to be just as
boring and tedious as most nights are recently. A
combination of no light, no warmth, and no Angela
makes for a rather depressing time. Fortunately I
have a few books to read to make the evenings pass
a little quicker. The trouble with that is it just
makes going to work seem sooner, and that is
pretty depressing. I had a scheduled one-2-one
with my boss this morning, and I told him it was a
race to see which would come first - spring or my
resignation. He thought I was joking, but I don't
think I was. The good news is that he is happy
with me. The other good news is that while he is
still technically my boss, I now have a new first
line manager (or something like that). Having a
new fist line manager will make no difference to
what I do - at least I don't think it will - but
it might make me a little happier because I feel
I'll be able to moan and complain more effectively
satisfyingly to him.
Tuesday
17th January 2017
08:31
GMT
The weather recently has been very simple,
and it continues to be very simple. Yesterday was
cold and wet, and today will be cold and sunny.
Fortunately the rain stopped before I went home
yesterday, but it was still very cold. The
temperature was almost a constant 5° C yesterday -
maybe a degree cooler in the morning, and the
temperature did start to fall away during the
evening. This morning it was cold enough for a
frost on the parked cars. By this afternoon it
will have warmed up to a glorious 3° C, or if we
are really good it may even reach 4° C. At the
moment there is a nice blue sky, and it should
stay like this, with plenty of sunshine once the
sun has risen a bit further, until later this
afternoon when it will get gradually overcast.
Tomorrow may be very similar except that the early
morning temperature will be a degree or two lower
- minus 2° C. Now that is cold !
I felt remarkably good at work yesterday.
Some of the good feeling was because I was doing
some interesting work, but mostly it was because I
wasn't coughing, my nose wasn't running, and I was
generally free from aches and pains. The
interesting work was actually work of my own
devising. It was partly what could be called
training, and mostly me deciding I would prefer to
repair some stuff that I dragged out of the waste
bin. I now have half a dozen perfectly working
motors that are actually obsolete, and will never
be used for anything we make to sell, but I have a
theory they will end up in something one day.
It was definitely chilly when I left work to
go home, and the waterproof coat I had put on in
the morning was not exactly what you would call a
warm coat. It seemed a good idea in the pouring
rain, but not such a good idea when it wasn't. I
was concerned that getting cold would trigger or
re-trigger some of my maladies - and in particular
my dodgy chest. It didn't do so yesterday, but I
am not so sure this morning.
After all my trouble getting to work
yesterday morning I didn't want to be late getting
home. So in defiance of all logic, and accepted
customs, I left work slightly early instead of
late. It did me no good though. I just missed a
train at Earlsfield, and had to wait a few minutes
for the train I often get anyway. I had been
hoping to get to Waterloo East in time to get the
15:50 train that was reported as running about 7
minutes late. I think that if it hadn't ended up
being cancelled I would have just missed it by as
little as a minute. That train being first late,
and then cancelled was most worrying, and my
worries were not unfounded. My usual train, then
16:05, was delayed as well, but at least it wasn't
cancelled, and it was only about 5 minutes late in
the end. I think the driver managed to make up
most of the time on the way to Catford Bridge.
When I got back to Catford I finally
remembered why I wanted to Poundland. It was to
buy a spare glasses case for the £1 reading
glasses I use at work. I still couldn't and can't
remember why I had the urge to go to Tesco, and so
I didn't go there. I ended up spending a whole £12
in Poundland. Some of that was on buying unholy
foodstuffs - but I am glad I did in one specific
instance !
I felt quite hungry when I got home. It was
the result of feeling cold (as well as gluttony).
The ideal cure would have been a can or two of hot
soup, but I had some ready made salads to use up.
I also had some 90% cooked "grilled Mediteranean
vegetable" and chicken legs. The latter would form
part 2 of my dinner. Part 1 was salad, but it was
no ordinary salad. It was a salad of my own
invention. The core of it was an Aldi
"Mediterranean style salad" to which I added a
very generous amount of grated Tesco "value"
cheddar, some stuffed olives, Heinz salad cream,
and then I sprinkled on the contents of a small
(25gm ?) bag of beef flavour Hula Hoops. It was
very delicious, and the best thing is that I have
all the ingredients to duplicate it again tonight
!
Apart from enjoying my super special salad,
and the grilled vegetables and chicken, I found
last night to be boring and sort of depressing.
Fortunately I had two distractions. Firstly I
washed and conditioned my hair. When my hair was
dry enough to rest it on my pillow I went to bed
with a book. The good news is that the three books
I had ordered online turned up yesterday, and they
should keep me amused for a few boring days and
nights. I didn't read for all that long last night
because I felt a bit tired.
I have no idea what time I turned out the
light, but it is possible I was asleep just before
9pm. I seemed to sleep quite well until 4am,
although I did get up for a wee at least once
before then. From 4am it felt more like I was day
dreaming instead of normal dreaming. In fact I was
doing a bit of both, but it seemed impossible to
tell the two apart - apart from when I opened my
eyes to check the time. I assume I was awake when
I did that. I had loads of very strange dreams.
Some I could attribute to past events, or stuff
seen on TV, but one was very bizzare. I dreamed
that I had a bat living/roosting in my kitchen. It
was a strange bat in as much as it was white, and
incredibly thin. When I first saw it I saw it
clinging to the wall. I tried to open a window to
let it fly out, but instead it disappeared into
it's nest. It was a most elaborate woven nest made
out of something like raffia. I had no idea where
it could have got the material from, and how it
got it into the kitchen. I also had no idea why I
had not noticed it before. Towards the end of that
dream I think I woke up, but continued it as a day
dream.
It was as that dream was coming to an end
that I became aware that my chest felt very
scrunched up where I was almost sleeping on my
chest. Upon straightening myself out a bit I
thought that I had triggered off my "twisted rib"
problem, but apparently not, although I decided I
should get up rather than risk making it worse. I
think I got up at about 4.40am, or 20 minutes
before I had to. I wasn't sure how good I felt. My
nose felt very bunged up, but that eventually
cleared, and I was just left with a general
feeling of somewhere between good and bad -
delicate but not actually in pain. That is how I
still feel - more or less. I did feel lacking in
energy as I came to work, although I did manage to
push myself quite hard to reach top speed for the
mad dash from Waterloo East to Waterloo. It left
me feeling a bit puffed, and gently knackered !
I want to go in Tesco on the way home, but
it is probably just pure gluttony. I already have
everything I need for my dinner tonight - plus a
selection of snacks that I shouldn't really be
eating. My concern is that I might need something
for tomorrow night, or the night after. It is, now
I remember that today is only Tuesday, the night
after that concerns me. That will be Thursday
night, and I really ought to make some sort of
effort to go drinking with the Thursday night lads
again. That will mean I won't be able to get any
shopping in that night - unless it is a takeaway,
but I would like to avoid that.
At Waterloo station they were trying to
persuade people to go to Florida for some reason.
If Donald Trump wasn't so paranoid about "furriners"
I would assume they were trying to recruit orange
pickers at a dollar a day. I can't believe they
want tourists. Not in a country so terrified that
anyone born outside the USA must be a terrorist. I
have no idea why they were there. Perhaps they
were just trying to flog tatty looking palm trees
or something/
Monday
16th January 2017
09:51
GMT
It was certainly cold yesterday morning,
but I don't think it was cold enough for a frost,
and it wasn't cold enough for any rain to fall as
snow. I can't actually recall if there was much
rain, but it was certainly a very grey day - so I
didn't go out, and tried to avoid looking out the
window ! By early evening the temperature had
risen from about 4° C to the forecasted 7° C.
During the night the temperature fell back to 4 or
5° C. Maybe it would have gone lower, but what
little heat there was, was trapped by thick
clouds. Those clouds have been dropping rain on us
from before I woke up (I think), and the forecast
says they will continue to do so until this
afternoon. From about 2pm it should be dry, but it
is still going to be very grey, and the
temperature will still only be 5° C. During the
evening the clouds will thin out, and the
temperature may drop low enough for a frost, but
on the plus side it should be a bright and sunny
day tomorrow. It's just a shame that the highest
temperature may only be 4° C.
The big thing on Saturday was the party in
the evening. I mentioned that I felt some
reluctance to go to it when I wrote yesterday
afternoon. I acted as if I was going to go almost
up to the time I would have been leaving to get
there, but at the last minute I thought "why am I
doing this ?". There didn't seem to be any
point in going there if I didn't expect to enjoy
myself, and if I had forced myself to go it would
only be because it would be embarrassing to have
to say that I just didn't fancy going out. Maybe
it was a wrong decision, and I might have enjoyed
myself if I had made the effort to get there, but
I decided I had to do what felt right to me. That
was to have to healthy(ish) dinner I had already
cooked for myself, and to get to bed when I felt
like it - which was probably hours earlier than
many who did go to the party.
I mentioned that I had made a better long
term temporary repair to my bed, and wondered if
it would make any difference to my sleep. It seems
it did. Yesterday morning I couldn't rule out it
wasn't just coincidence, but this morning suggests
that it was indeed a real effect, and that
reducing a sag of little more than an inch and a
bit in the left hand centre of the mattress did
make me sleep better. So I got up yesterday
morning raring to go. Actually I didn't, but I may
have felt less sleepy, and possibly a bit less
achey. Unfortunately the greyness outside, and the
chill that seemed to be seeping into the house,
removed any enthusiasm to do anything at all. It
was all rather depressing really.
In the end there was one significant thing I
did do. It turned out to be a rather unpleasant
task, but it was one possibility I had considered,
and knew just had to be done. It concerned the
slow rehabilitation of my back room from being
little more than a junk room, to once again a
dining room - not that I actually need a dining
room (although for a while I thought it might be a
good idea when entertaining someone). The recent
work has involved being rather more ruthless that
I have ever been at throwing out stuff that has
been cluttering the top, and underneath the dining
table.
I had already got a lot of stuff out from
underneath the dining table, and thrown it away,
but I knew I was approaching something potentially
unpleasant - and I was right. Once upon a time I
had a mouse infestation, and I didn't manage to
cure it until I stop putting down poison bait,
which the mice seemed to thrive on, and put down
old fashioned, traditional mouse traps. I caught a
few mice that way, and the signs that I had a
mouse problem seemed to go away. It seems likely
that one mouse avoided being caught, and it was
living under a cardboard box that was right at the
back under the dining room table. Yesterday I
moved that box to reveal one long dead, mummified
mouse, plenty of dropping, and what were probably
the husks of maggots that had turned to flies.
Fortunately nothing was moving, and everything was
dry as a bone. So it was easy to hoover up.
I didn't do anything significant after that
unpleasant job. A few inconsequential jobs were
just a bit of housekeeping on my PC - including
adding a few more tracks to the 2,332 that I keep
in a fold called "psuedo radio". I play them using
random play, and with around 145 hours worth of
music in that folder I get less repeats than most,
if not all radio stations. For a bit more
entertainment I watched the film "The
Martian". It was quite a good film, although
I didn't like the ending. Well, maybe not the
ending, but I would have enjoyed it more if our
here had a few more triumphs, and less disasters.
I guess that the disasters were needed to make it
"exciting", but there is more than one way to
triumph !
I was very curious to find out how I would
sleep again last night, but I seemed to take ages
to get to sleep. I just didn't seem to feel tired
when I got into bed - again ! Eventually I got to
sleep, and while I woke up several times in the
night, I did seem to sleep quite comfortably, and
this morning I had the rare treat (?) of having to
be woken up by my alarm. I did feel sort of good,
and that was to be quite a good idea later. "Sort
of good" is not to be confused with actually
feeling good in a pain and ache-less way, but I
did feel better than what seems to be normal these
days.
I still have a slight tendency to cough now
and then, and I still need to blow my nose every
now and then, but I think this is about normal for
me - particularly in the winter. I thought that
the gyrations of having a shower were going to
trigger off some chest pain, but apart from a
brief twinge or two I seem to be free of chest
pain for the moment. This was all good because I
needed maximum stamina and stuff this morning.
There was a bit of a cockup on the railway
this morning. Over running engineering works at
Hither Green meant that no trains could get to
London from the Grove Park depot. The first two
(or three ?) Charing Cross trains in the morning,
and that includes the one I normally get, were
cancelled. The first train to Charing Cross came
by some long route, and used the spur from
Beckenham Junction to New Beckenham to form a
service from New Beckenham to Charing Cross. That
train was due at 06:59, but it finally arrived 32
minutes late. In the meantime, a train for Cannon
Street arrived, and gave a good idea what my
journey might be like !
This gives an idea of how full that first train
to Canon Street was. The doors had just opened,
but it's already standing room from one end of
the carriage to the other.
Some stupid people kept shouting "move down
inside !" without appreciating there was nowhere
for anyone to move down to. The train was packed
solid from end to end !
People continued to try and
push their way on board, and stood in the
doorways as the driver tried to close the
doors. The driver tried three times to close
the doors, and only on the third attempt did
he manage it so the train could get underway.
There was a little confusion as to whether the
train I finally got was the one that had come
via the spur from Beckenham Junction, or one
that had finally made it to Hayes (Kent)
before heading back up the line towards
Catford Bridge. I was tempted to go for the
second train because it was only five minutes
behind the train I was on. It possibly would
have had the advantage of being less packed,
and may have even got to London faster by
bypassing Lewisham station - which my train
did stop at.
Here's a couple of screenshots I've stuck
together. On the left, taken at 07:32, is a
screenshot of my train from Catford Bridge
showing had arrived 32 minutes late ! On the
right is a screenshot taken at 08:07 showing
that even when I got to Waterloo my troubles
were not over. The first train I could get
was the 08:03, and as you can see it
departed 3 minutes late. Compared to what
had gone on before it was small fry, but
even so.........
In theory I will
be making up the time for being in late at
work this morning, and I probably will - a
minute here, a minute there......it all
adds up ! I had two plans for tonight when
I leave work. One was to go into Tesco and
buy something terribly important - but I
have no idea what it was. The second was
to go in Poundland, and once again I
haven#t the faintest idea why. Maybe it
was an alternative source of whatever it
was I might have bought from Tesco.
Overall it is probably going to be a very
boring evening.....unless.....it is
possible that I might have a couple more
books being delivered today. If so then I
can confidently predict that I will be
spending a fair bit of the evening laying
on my bed reading !
Saturday
14th January 2017
15:30
GMT
Yesterday's weather was closer to the
earlier forecast than to the forecast issued in
the morning. The earlier forecast, issued the
night before, said that at 9am there would be a
mixture of sunshine, dark clouds and snow. The
later forecast just said it would be a bit grey.
In reality it did snow, but it was an hour later
at 10am. There was some sunshine yesterday, but it
was less than the forecast seemed to suggest. The
bit the forecast got right was the temperature. It
barely got above 4° C all day, and soon fell away
after sunset. It felt like a very cold night, and
it seemed difficult keeping my room warm. This
morning it was below zero outside (it was over 20°
C in my bedroom, but rather less in the bathroom
!). Most of the morning was lightly overcast, but
this afternoon has seen some sunny spells. It is
still a very cold day. The current temperature is
only just over 4° C. The temperature is expected
to fall to just 1 or 2° C by sunrise tomorrow.
Then the temperature is supposed to climb to a
whole 7° C. The penalty for that is that it is
going to be an exceptionally wet day. Heavy rain
is expected from sunrise to beyond sunset ! I
wouldn't be surprised if the first rain didn't
fall as snow !
I didn't feel too bad at work yesterday. I
would have been happier if I had managed to get my
office a bit warmer, but it was mostly OK. My
chest didn't seem to give me any trouble once my
room was a bit warmer than when I first moaned
about it yesterday. I can't seem to remember what
it was now, but when I first left work to walk to
the station I didn't feel too
comfortable....actually I think it was my left
ankle that felt a bit stiff, and later on, once it
wasn't, it was the sole of my left foot that felt
less than comfortable. That latter discomfort was
very intermittent, and I think it depended on how
cold the road was.
On the way home I went into Tesco and bought
some stuff. I didn't want to do a proper shop
because I only had a couple of medium sized bags
with me - neither of which I wanted to trust with
big bottle of Diet Coke. I did trust them with
some cans of soup though, but most of what I
bought was a lot lighter. Much of what I bought
was semi or completely healthy (until drowned in
mayonnaise or worse).
One item, that made for a bloatworthy end to
my dinner, was most definitely not healthy. I
regret buying it, and I regret eating it now, but
it had a reduced price sticker on it, and I was
feeling curious...and, until reality kicked in,
nostalgic too. The item was billed as bread and
butter pudding. I assumed it would be like the
bread and butter pudding my mum used to make. She
made it from old, stale bread, crusts and all,
along with sultanas, and some spice - probably
nutmeg, but it could have been something
else. Tesco's version was made with fresh
white bread and loads of egg custard sprinkled
with sultanas. It was very nice, but absolutely
nothing like I hoped it would be. I shall avoid it
in future on three counts - Even at reduced price
it was rather expensive, it is not bread and
butter pudding as I know it, and lastly, I didn't
check but it was obvious it was heaving with
calories and sugar. Very nice though !
I don't think I can blame it all on feeling
bloated, although undoubtedly that was a
significant thing, but I felt rather rough last
night. It was more like a partial relapse of my
recent cold. Maybe I was even running a
temperature. I hadn't thought of that until just
now, but it would explain why I couldn't seem to
get my room warm enough. Not only that but my nose
got very twitchy again, and I was coughing a lot.
It didn't bode well for a good nights sleep,
but in fact I didn't sleep too badly last night. I
can't quite remember when I went to bed, but I
think it was before 9pm. I woke too many times in
the night, sometimes for a wee, and sometimes not,
but as far as I can recall, I was able to get back
to sleep fairly quickly. Best of all was that I
managed to get back to sleep at times when I would
often give up, and get up. It was well past 6am,
maybe almost 7am when I finally decided I would
get up.
There wasn't that much I wanted to do this
morning, but going to Aldi for some proper
shopping was one of two things. It took a fair
amount of discipline to get around Aldi without
buying naughty stuff. Of course I partly failed as
would be expected. My weakness this time was for a
couple of little packs of Sushi - one fish, and
the other vegetable. I'm not sure how naughty they
actually are. All that rice is not that good for
me. All the carbohydrate in it turns to sugar
under the influence of enzymes in the gut. I
suspect that Sushi has a lot of salt in it, but
while salt is bad for people with heart
conditions, like myself, they still used to give
me a couple of sachets of it when I was in
hospital - which I dutifully used to leave
untouched. My salt consumption is probably quite
low compared to some.
Much of what I bought was salad and
vegetables - very healthy until I ruin them with
dressings and/or cheese ! I did buy some solid
Parmesan cheese to use instead of Cheddar. I doubt
it is a lot healthier, but in theory it is so
strong that you use less....maybe ! One bit of
meat I bought I bought out of curiosity. It is the
"Greek Style" chicken chunks pictured on the left.
Having eaten it I am left wondering what is so
"Greek style" about it. It has some herbs and
garlic flavouring, but the one flavour that stands
out is Lemon oil, and that gives hints of Thai
food to my warped pallet !
In theory I have now eaten enough for the
day - except for a late night snack. That late
night snack, if I can resist eating it a lot
sooner, is some roasted winter vegetables. At
least that is what is says on the packet, but at
least half of it is carrots, and I don't consider
carrots to be particularly wintry.
Before I forget.....the second thing I did
today was to wash three work shirts, two t-shirts,
and some underwear. I thought I had better add
that before anyone thought I was completely lazy
today. Today I am only mostly lazy. Actually I did
one other potentially important/useful thing. I
have repaired my bed - sort of. My bed, being
modern (as in less than 35 years old) is a typical
cheap and nasty bit of furniture. It is made from
cheap wood, wood glue, and staples. Quite a few
years ago one of the joints came apart. I did a
temporary repair, and it has held together ever
since, but one side did say a little in the
middle. Today I have made an improved temporary
repair. I have added a bigger wedge to support it,
and now it shouldn't sag. In theory I will sleep a
lot better now, but I bet I won't !
I don't feel terribly keen to go, but I have
an invite to a party tonight. It is a big party
being held in a small hall or working man's club
(I'm not sure exactly). So it may be less
claustrophobic than many parties, and I think it
is possible that the private party that Chain will
be playing at will be this party. So I ought to
try and get there. If I was feeling fit, which I
am not, it is within walking distance - less than
2 miles, maybe 1.5 miles. I think I'll probably
get a bus, but maybe I'll walk back if I have
enough booze. I assume that there will be a proper
bar there, but once again I know little about the
venue. I can't even picture it despite knowing the
road it is on quite well. In theory I will be
eating my roasted vegetables after I get home from
the party.
Friday
13th January 2017
08:19
GMT
There was an awful lot of weather
yesterday ! It was very grey, very, dim, very
depressing all day long. Until about 4pm the
temperature was in the region of 5° C. After that
it quickly fell towards zero. It may have been
before midday before the first rain fell. It
didn't take long for the rain to become very
heavy, although maybe not torrential, but
certainly heavy enough to cause some big puddles,
and to soak anyone not wearing full waterproofs
right through to the skin.
The extent of the rain is not really obvious
in this picture I took at Waterloo East on my way
home from work, but believe me, there was plenty
of rain to soak not only me, but everyone else in
the picture too ! I took the picture around 16:05
while waiting for the slightly delayed 16:05 train
(which rather unusually came in on platform C
instead of platform A). Half an hour later I was
home, and the temperature was dropping fast.
It wasn't long after 5pm that the
temperature had fallen low enough for the rain to
turn to sleet. By 6pm the sleet had turned to
snow, and not long after that it was settling on
any drained surface (tops of cars, fence posts,
and even on some parts of the ground). After a
couple of attempts to grab a picture of the snow
using my pocket sized cameras I got out my big
Canon DSLR camera with the F1.8 lens. That took a
nice sharp picture of the snow swirling around,
and on cars.
I think the snow stopped falling by, or very
soon after 7pm, but the temperature stayed close
to freezing, and some of the snow on the cars
survived overnight. It was 0.3° C when I got up
this morning. I am surprised it wasn't a lot lower
because the sky was very clear, and the full moon
looked very big, bright, and sharp in the clear
black sky. Today is forecast to be mostly clear
and sunny, but the temperature is going to stay
very low. 4° C is the highest forecast today, and
once the sun has set the temperature will fall
away to 0° C or lower. It wasn't always going to
be like this......
The curious thing forecast for today was
supposed to happen at 09:00. Look very carefully
at the little pictogram for the weather at 09:00.
It shows black clouds, sunshine, and snow. How
diverse is that !! The latest version of the
forecast shows it will just be sunny at 09:00, but
otherwise the rest of the forecast is similar to
this screenshot taken yesterday evening.
I had a fairly rotten time at work
yesterday. For some reason my chest was really
playing up. From time to time it did seem as if it
might well be something more serious than my usual
"twisted rib", but even if it was, and maybe more
so if it was, the idea of going home in almost
freezing rain seemed like a very bad thing to do.
Of course there was no choice but to put my best
foot forward, grit my teeth, and step out into the
rain when home time came around.
The rain was very cold, and very wet. It
seemed sensible to reduce my exposure to it by
getting a bus, but the old rules of fate, or Sods
law still applied. Anytime I actually want a bus
there are no buses in sight here in Earlsfield. I
did wait under the shelter of the bus stop for
nearly 15 seconds before giving up and walking the
rest of the way to the station. It got me a little
wetter, but I was at the station before a bus came
in sight. I just missed a train when I got to the
station, and I had to wait 3 minutes for the next
one. That meant my time would be a bit tight when
I got to Waterloo.
Walking to the station in the pouring rain
felt OK, apart from the obvious discomfort of
walking in cold rain. I wasn't sure how it would
feel rushing across the link from Waterloo to
Waterloo East. That can be, and usually is, a bit
energetic ! With just about 4 minutes to do it in
if I wasn't to miss my train, I couldn't afford to
mess about, and walked as fast as I could. Once I
got to the other end of the link I realised I
could have been a bit more relaxed about it. My
train was about 6 minutes late, and just for a
change it was going to depart from platform C
instead of platform A - a fact I realised before I
wasted my energy going down to the wrong platform.
All that rushing around raised my breathing
rate, and probably my heart rate too, but I didn't
feel any worse for it. I wondered how I would feel
when I got off the nice warm train, and had to
walk through the rain to home. Once again I felt
wet, but fine. In fact I felt pretty good all
evening. It was almost as if I had finally got
over my cold. I hadn't, but it felt like it. One
of the first things I wanted was some hot food.
Yet another large can of Cassolet*
was the perfect stuff to line my stomach with hot
food. In theory that should have been sufficient
for the whole evening, but I fancied more, and had
a steak with mushrooms. As usual I have to confess
that I had a snack or two as well.
* Cassolet is the spelling on the can (at least I
think it is) - Cassoulet is the spelling Wikipedia
uses.
I didn't really do anything of any great
significance last night, and I intended to get a
nice early night. For some reason that escapes me,
I didn't get to bed, and turn out the light until
9pm. It didn't take long to get to sleep, and to
my amazement I slept better than I have for ages.
I have a couple of dream like memories, which have
so little substance that they could almost have
really been dreams, of going for a pee in the
night, but other than that I slept right through
until 4.30am. Maybe that was all the sleep I
needed because there was no obvious reason why I
should wake up half an hour early.
I woke up feeling all bunged up again. I
only had to blow my nose a couple of times to
clear that, but once again I had to do a lot of
coughing before it felt like my airways were
clear. After that I felt fine until I went for a
shower. As I went through the motions of rubbing
on shower gel, and then rinsing it off, I managed
to make my chest go pop or click, or
something....All I know is that all the arm
movements got my chest aching, and it has been
aching to some extent or another ever since !
The only time my chest ache was not apparent
was while I was rushing around coming to work, but
now I have been sitting at my desk for some time
my chest is aching just like it did yesterday. I
feel it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so cool in
here. It was nice and warm in here yesterday, but
today it is almost, but not quite chilly. At any
other time, and more so if I were doing anything
requiring more than a modicum of physical effort,
it would probably be a comfortable temperature,
but it's not for just typing !
I have no plans for tonight. I may go home
via Tesco if the mood grabs me, but I don't really
need to just yet - although if I don't I will have
to go to Aldi in the morning. I think I will
mostly have a quiet night, possibly getting slowly
drunk on whisky, and I may, or may not, be in bed
nice and early tonight. Tomorrow is another day -
probably another boring day - but you never
know...
Thursday
12th January 2017
08:15
GMT
While it was quite sunny yesterday, the sun
did little to raise the temperature - just as the
forecast predicted. Oddly enough, it didn't feel
quite so cool in Catford compared to here in
Earlsfield. In general terms, the afternoon
temperature was in the region of 6 - 7° C, or
about a degree and a bit lower than the morning.
Things get more interesting today !
The big feature today, and one that has
survived several revisions of the forecast, is
snow. At the moment it is about 6° C, and it
is very dull. An hour or two after midday will see
some rain start to fall. It is forecast to be
heavy rain once it gets going properly. The most
recent forecast says that at about 5pm (it was 6pm
in earlier forecasts) the slightly warm air
carrying all the moisture, which it will be
dumping on us as rain, will run into some freezing
cold air coming the other way. That cold air will
turn the rain to snow, and for a couple of hours
heavy snow is forecast. After that it will just be
cold. Tomorrow may well only be 4° C, at best, but
it might be bright and sunny.....or it might snow
even more.
I took the above picture at roughly the same
time, but a few yards nearer work than the picture
I showed yesterday, but essentially it is the same
view except for the absence of a nice cheery glow
on the eastern horizon. As I write this it is now
daylight, but it is a very gloomy, and grey sort
of daylight. It's all very depressing.
I didn't feel all that bad at work
yesterday. Even my chest was fairly well behaved
(barring the odd twinge). That sort of surprised
me. I didn't even feel particularly tired most of
the time, and that too was a surprise after the
bad night's sleep I got. Although, having said
that, there was one particular time when it would
have been very tempting to let myself go, and doze
off in front of my PC.
Going home from work wasn't really stressful
even when I had to rush a bit to make sure I
managed to catch the 16:05 train at Waterloo East.
While it wasn't stressful it brought no joy apart
from the knowledge I was going home. I must admit
that is a generalisation. There were a few
seconds, maybe 30 of them, that did bring some
enjoyment. As I walked to the station, here in
Earlsfield, there is a short bit of road, on an
"S" bend where there is a slightly clear view
towards the west. I could see some blue sky there,
and small crack in some clouds allowed some bright
shafts of light to shine through. Somebody, maybe
miles away, would have seen on of those shafts of
light as sunshine.
I had my rucksack with me on the way home. I
was using it to carry some stuff I had ordered
online, and had delivered to work. It included a
new pair of jeans that, as I found out later, I
can barely get into while I feel so fat and
bloated. Had I not been carrying that ruck sack I
would have gone home via Tesco to get some
shopping. What I did instead was to make a small
detour via the corner shop a couple of hundred
feet (or yards ?) up the road from where I live. I
bought some Diet Coke, and also bought a magazine
as well as something that I regretted after trying
on those new jeans - a small bar of chocolate.
It seems like I really do need to pull my
finger out and stabilise my weight, or preferably
lose some weight. It is not easy to do in the cold
gloomy days, and my break up with Angela does not
put me in a happy mood ! (I say "break up" because
it is easier than trying to explain how we just
seemed to drift apart - probably through my lack
of action or something). I find it hard to judge
whether I ate less or more than, say, the night
before. My desire for something instant and hot
lead me to open a large can of "Chinese style hot
pot" (as if such a thing could ever exist).
It was basically a thinnish meaty gravy with
lots of rice floating about in it, along with a
few slivers of vegetables (including those black
slimy mushrooms the Chinese use). It was like
something you might make using leftovers from a
Chinese takeaway, and yet at Aldi, a year or two
back, they had hundreds of gallons of the stuff in
large cans. I didn't dare check it's nutritional
values because I was scared about how much sugar
was likely to be in it. The second part of my
dinner was some roast Mediterranean vegetables.
They would have been far more wholesome if I
hadn't melted some extra cheese on them, and then
given that a very generous squirt of mayonnaise.
Then there was that little chocolate bar, and some
assorted nuts. I doubt I lost any weight last
night !
By 7.30pm I was feeling very tired. Too
tired to even watch TV. So I brushed my teeth, and
went to bed. I thought I might read for a while,
but once I was in bed it seemed like I was so
tired that I could fall asleep easily - and I did
! Two hours later I woke up feeling half
refreshed, and half creaky. I couldn't get to
sleep again for a while so I did my reading then
for 30 - 40 minutes. I also poured myself a large
whisky because it seemed like a good idea.
Eventually I got back to sleep, but it was a very
lumpy sleep. As well as waking up for a pee once
or twice, I also woke up to find my pillow, and
the sheet near the pillow saturated with sweat,
and I also woke up twice with cramp in my calves.
Overall it was not a great night's sleep.
I'm not sure what the sweating episode was all
about. It didn't seem particularly warm in my in
my bedroom last night. I could blame it on the
extra hot chilli sauce I had on my dinner much
earlier, or I could blame it on another bit of
fever as I throw off the last bit of this cold I
still have in a weakened form. My nose may have
mostly dried up, but my cough goes on - although
mainly at night. My airways seemed to be partly
blocked again this morning, and I had to cough up
quite a few lumps of mucus before I could breathe
freely, or mostly freely again.
Now I am at work I feel worse than before I
left home. It's a return to a series of aches that
could be considered as something like you might
have with 'flu, but with some added chest ache
too. I also had an interesting pain in my side
too. It was probably a kidney, or my liver about
to explode. I can't work out where it was exactly
because it seems to have gone now. Looking on the
bright side, my legs don't hurt where the muscles
all cramped up in the night.
Tonight I should be going for a drink with
the Thursday night drinkers, but I probably won't.
For one thing, I don't feel terribly sociable
right now. The other, and more practical thing is
that I can seem to find any pleasure in making my
way to Beckenham in the middle of heavy rain, and
rain turning to sleet. Coming back in heavy snow
would probably be very exciting, but I have bad
memories of getting caught in heavy snow when I
worked in Beckenham. All the buses came to a halt,
and I had to walk half way home from there. I was
a lot fitter then, but it was still a huge relief
when I finally found a bus moving that could get
me to Catford. I doubt I could walk a quarter of
the way home in my present condition without dying
! I think, that on balance, I will stick to being
unsociable, or miserable as some would say, and go
straight home to revel in my solitude.
Wednesday
11th January 2017
08:22
GMT
I don't think I can remember any
significant sunny spells yesterday. Maybe there
was a very short one to validate the forecast, but
which escaped my attention. My impression is that
it was generally a grey day, but also a mild day.
I think the temperature may have flirted with 10°
C for a while, but mostly it was 8 - 9° C. The
forecast said that this morning would be 10° C,
but I reckon it was only 8° C. The temperature is
supposed to drop during the day, and it could be a
couple of degrees lower by sunset. That's despite
it being a fairly bright day with some sunny
intervals. I can see quite a lot of blue sky as I
write this, and so the idea of sunny spells does
not seem unlikely today. Tomorrow may only reach
5° C, and it is going to be very overcast. There
is a possibility of snow in the evening tomorrow !
I made it into work this morning. Before I
went into work I turned around to take one last
look at freedom. Like many cameras, and in this
case it was my new (secondhand) Fuji XP71, it has
made the sky look brighter, and bluer than what my
eyes saw. It almost looks like the sun is peeping
above the buildings in the distance, but that is
just the camera being over exposed by the
brightness of the sky where the sun is about to
rise. The camera has captured the yellow glare of
the streetlights OK.
I carried on doing some light cleaning up
work yesterday. I made a microscopic improvement
in the corner of my bedroom, and a useful
improvement in my back room (the room that once
again, sometime in the future, may be my dining
room). I now have two heavy duty bib liners full
of junk, and nowhere to put them until the wheelie
bin is emptied tomorrow (or Friday). I could have
filled a third bag if I had carried on, and that
would have totally cleared all the junk from under
the dining table except for a CRT computer
monitor. I am in two minds whether to dispose of
that or not. I am inclined to keep it, but I have
no idea where.
Some of the stuff I threw away probably made
my eyes water more than the remnants of my cold.
Apart from that, I didn't feel all that bad
yesterday, although I didn't feel good enough to
get out the house again. It was a case of just
doing everything slowly with frequent rests. I
almost felt good enough to be careful about what I
ate, and indeed I only moderately overate except
for...(no, let's forget about that !).
I went to bed feeling almost normal, and
amazingly enough I didn't start to cough until I
had been in bed for a good 10 - 15 minutes. In
theory I should have been able to fall asleep
quite quickly, but it didn't happen. I felt both
restless and sleepy at the same time. In the end I
had a very poor night's sleep. I woke up
frequently - sometimes for a pee, sometimes
because I felt too hot, sometimes because I felt
too cold, and sometimes because I was having
dreams I didn't like. Those dreams were about
Angela. I'm not sure what is happening with
Angela. I haven't seen her once this year, and we
have had very little communication. I think we
have drifted apart or something. I should fight
it, but I don't feel strong enough to do so, and
to be honest it just feels normal to be on my own.
Normal, but not what I would prefer.
When it was time to get up this morning I
felt pretty rough. It felt like one of my lungs
had a cork in it, and I was coughing for some time
before what must have been a partial plug of mucus
shifted. After that I could breathe OK, but I
still didn't feel that wonderful. Nevertheless, I
went through the motions of getting ready for
work, and eventually set out to the station.
I think I would have much preferred going
back to bed instead of getting on a packed, hot,
and stuffy train, and standing all the way to
Waterloo East. It was a relief to get off the
train again. Then I had to do the mad dash across
the link to Waterloo mainline station. I was a bit
apprehensive about that, but it was far easier
than I imagined. I don't know if it did any damage
that wasn't apparent at the time, but I found the
walk from Earlsfield station to work to be quite
taxing. It was a relief to get into work, and it
was also a relief to find that the heating was
still on as I had left it when I finished work
last Thursday.
Now I am sitting down in the warm I
feel......not that wonderful. I seem to have a
headache for some reason, and I feel tired - both
in the sleepy, and weary senses. To add to it all,
I seem to need to clear my throat, sometimes quite
powerfully, quite frequently. Hopefully that will
settle down soon because some of the more powerful
coughs really hurt my operation scar and stuff.
I think it will be very nice when the work
day is over, and I can head for home. It will
probably be even nicer to actually get home. I
have no plans for tonight. I was thinking of
getting some shopping on the way home, but I had
two Amazon orders waiting for me when I got to
work - a pair of jeans, and some spare belts - and
carrying them home is enough for me. So tonight I
think I'll be living on canned food (maybe not),
and doing very, very little !
Tuesday
10th January 2017
10:55
GMT
The forecast said it would start to rain at
midday yesterday, and to my surprise, it did !
During the morning there were a few brief sunny
spells, and if it wasn't for the wind it might
have even felt quite mild. Unfortunately the wind
was a bit gusty, and made it feel a bit chilly.
The afternoon was mostly wet, although I don't
think the rain was as heavy as the forecast seemed
to suggest it was. I think the outside
temperature was closer to 8° C than the 9° C that
was forecast for the morning, but the afternoon
temperature probably was around the forecast 10°
C. Today has started off grey, but mild. The
forecast says there should be some sunny spells,
but that looks unlikely at the moment. The current
temperature is about 8° C, but it is supposed to
rise to 9° C soon. Tomorrow is forecast to be as
warm as 11° C, but it will probably be very grey
with a small chance of a sprinkle of rain in the
morning.
I felt most determined to go out for a
breath of fresh air yesterday. As I mentioned
yesterday, I didn't want to go too far in case I
felt crap. In the end I decided to take the two
new cameras I bought to test them on Catford
station. Catford station sees a greater variety of
trains going through it than Catford Bridge. The
only downside is that, being on an embankment, it
is more exposed than Catford Bridge station. I may
have spent as much as an hour there, and I felt
both good and bad.
The bad was that it felt a little cooler
than I anticipated, and that might, but probably
didn't trigger the occasional cough I got. The
wind sometimes made my eyes water a bit, and so
from time to time I had to blow my nose, but on
the whole my nose felt much clearer than it has
lately. Even the occasional cough didn't seem to
be any big thing. I guess that after an hour I was
beginning to feel like a sit down, or even a lie
down would have been good, but it was quite a
productive hour.
The first train I spotted
snapped was this very common class 319
Thameslink train.
Heading in the other direction, towards Dover, I
think, was this Southeastern trains class 375
train in Southeastern hi-speed livery.
If there was one good
reason to go out photographing trains
yesterday, it was to get this snap. It's not a
terribly good snap, but it shows one of
Thameslink's brand new, not yet in passenger
service, class 700 trains on a test/driver
training run. If I understand the plans
correctly, these will take over Thameslink
services to Sevenoaks, and possibly a new
Thameslink service to Dartford too.
An 8 car Thameslink service from Sevenoaks
approaching Catford. The 4 car unit on the front
is in Thameslink's latest livery. The rear 4
cars are in old Southern livery with a
Thameslink sticker over it !
Somewhere up the line towards Blackfriars
station (or possibly beyond it) there was some
trouble that caused some big delays to services
going to Sevenoaks. This class 319 train was 38
minutes late - which means it held up the train
that was originally due 30 minutes after it.
That second train arrived about 10 - 15 minutes
late.
A Southeastern class 465 train approaching
Catford station from somewhere in Kent to
Victoria.
At midday it started to rain - just as
the forecast predicted - which was astonishing
!! Initially it was very light rain, and
rather intermittent. I wish I had hung on for
just 2 minutes longer on the platform. Just as
I left the station a single class 47 diesel
loco made it's way through the station. I
could have tried to get a snap of it as it
crossed the viaduct, but I couldn't get a
camera ready in time. Incidentally, the better
of the two cameras I tried was the Fuji XP71.
That was the more expensive of the pair I
bought. I was quite impressed with it's
pictures. I was less impressed with the
cheaper of the two (just £20 !), the Nikon
L29. It seemed to favour longer exposure times
through a smaller aperture. That produces a
better depth of field at the expense of more
motion blur - just what you don't need when
photographing anything that moves.
After I left the station it was only
spitting with rain, and even that was only
intermittent. So I decided to wander down to
the Pound Shop to get some more Eucalyptus and
Black Pepper shower gel. I was dubious about
it the first time I bought some. I thought it
would smell like a sick room, but somehow it
seems to have a slightly hippy-ish small about
it. They seemed to be running out, and so I
bought 3 bottles of it. I hope that first
bottle wasn't just a fluke !
I didn't do much for the rest of the
afternoon except photo editing and eating. I
probably did other stuff too, but they were
the most significant things until the evening
when I washed my hair. I was feeling fairly
good for much of the time, or I was once I had
eaten some hot food. Prior to that my chest
was hurting a bit. I decided to wash my hair
because I thought that I was well on the way
to recovery, and would be well enough to go to
work today.
It all went wrong as soon as I got into
bed and laid down. Within minutes I had
started coughing, and occasionally it was a
throaty cough as well as a dry throat, tickly
cough. I guess it was a plus point that
initially my nose remained fairly clear, but
eventually all that coughing got my nose
running again. It didn't feel like I had got
any better at all !
I had gone to bed just a little later
than my intended 9pm, but it was gone midnight
before I managed to get to sleep. I woke up
several time during the course of the night,
but the time I woke at around 3am was the most
significant. I thought that I might have had a
fever the night before, but this morning I
most definitely did. I didn't sweat like I did
the night before, but I did feel very shivery,
and I turned the heating on full to warm
myself up.
That fever was not the best I've had,
but like most fever's it seemed to do some
good. I slept better after I managed to warm
up, and this morning I almost felt good enough
to go to work. Maybe I might have done if I
didn't wake up two hours too late. I'm sort of
glad that I didn't try and be the hero this
morning because I am not fully recovered quite
yet. For instance, in the last 10 minutes I
seem to have got a very dry tickly throat
again.
Other than that, I don't feel too
bad, and in one respect I feel sort of
good. I actually felt like doing some stuff
this morning. I've emptied a few waste bins,
and I've done all the washing up. I have also
made a little progress cleaning up my back
room. I am not sure what inspired me to do it,
but that small bit of progress added up to
half a bin liner full of junk, and a quite a
lot of my old dining table becoming visible,
and lightly cleaned. There is still a hell of
a lot of clearing up to do in there, and I
really ought to be finishing the front room
first, but maybe I might do a little more this
afternoon - but not much because the wheelie
bin is almost full !
Monday
9th January 2017
07:30
GMT
It stayed mild and rather damp through the
night, and this morning I woke up to it being
about 8° C. That was roughly what it was when I
went to bed. Like last night it looks very damp
outside, but it doesn't seem to raining. Rain is
expected after midday as this screenshot shows
....
It doesn't seem like it will be very nice
today, although the temperature staying up near
10° C is good. It seems if I am to do anything
outside today, I will have to do it before midday.
One less obvious good thing is that the weather
information shows sunset to be at 16:11. That is
still far too early, but at least it shows the
days are getting longer. Nearer the solstice, if I
recall correctly, sunset was 15:52, and possibly
earlier. It is a shame that sunrise takes so long
to catch up. It is getting earlier, but only by
seconds instead of minutes - or that's what it
feels like.
It was with some trepidation that I went to
bed last night. My head felt as if it was full of
snot, and my cough was quite annoying -
particularly when laying down. It seemed that I
would never get to sleep feeling so uncomfortable,
but I did, and quite quickly too. I am unsure if
it was a good or bad idea, but I left the heating
on in my bedroom when I went to bed. It was quite
warm in there, and while that made me feel better
in many respects, it did feel too warm under the
duvet.
While I was asleep I must have pulled the
duvet fully around me. Maybe that was because I
had a fever and was feeling cold. I will never
know what it was now, but I woke up three (or four
?) hours after getting into bed with my pillow
soaked with sweat, and the duvet and sheet cold
and wet in some places. The cold and wet obviously
didn't feel very nice, but I took it as a good
sign. I hope I had slept through a fierce fever
because it would have been good at burning up the
bugs causing my cold.
There are some hints that it may have done
just that. I still feel pretty crappy this
morning, but I am sure I feel less crappy. My nose
is still filling up with mucus, and I am still
coughing, but it feels like both are becoming less
and less intrusive now. If I marshal all my powers
of imagination I can just about believe that the
rest of my body, with the exception of my chest,
is also feeling much better. Paradoxically, my
chest actually feels more sore and stiff this
morning than it has in the last 36 hours.
I did give some thought to being a hero and
going into work today. There are a couple of
reasons why it would have been a good idea, as I
mentioned yesterday, but I think allowing a bit
more time to get over this cold is a good idea,
plus if it turns out that I really do feel a bit
better there are things I would like to do that
involve not being at work. Admittedly most of
those things revolve around testing my body on a
short walk - in such a manner that I can quickly
come back into the warm if it turns out my body
feels crap in the fresh air.
It does seem to me that I haven't had to
blow my nose for at least 5 minutes now. That must
be some sort of record. It almost gives me
confidence that I am getting better. On the other
hand it might just be because I am not laying down
in bed. Sooner or later I must go and have a
shower, and see how I feel after that.
Sunday
8th January 2017
19:02
GMT
It didn't seem like the temperature dropped
very far after sunset yesterday. Surprisingly,
that is exactly what the forecast predicted would
happen. By this morning the temperature was almost
8° C - rather good compared to recent mornings.
The forecast said that today might be a little
less gloomy than Saturday. That was an
understatement. Until the clouds thickened up
early in the afternoon, it was nice and sunny from
about mid morning. By mid afternoon the
temperature outside the back bedroom, a normally
unheated room, was 12° C, although at ground level
it was probably closer to 10° C. That was the
closest we have had to warm for ages. Later in the
afternoon there were some showers, and it still
looks rather damp outside even now, but the
temperature has only fallen a degree or so. The
temperature profile for tomorrow is forecast to be
quite similar to today. Unfortunately tomorrow
looks like it is going to be cloudier, and it may
well rain for most of the afternoon. The rain is
supposed to stop soon after I get home from work -
if I actually go to work tomorrow.
For a lot of yesterday I felt fairly OK, but
this was while I stayed in a warm room doing very
little. I did consider the possibility of going
out, but in the end it didn't seem like a good
idea. I do wonder if fresh air and Guinness may
have been better for me. It's possible they would
have been, but on the other hand it might have
only been a temporary respite from this cold I am
suffering from.
I made sure I got plenty of booze last night
to help me sleep, and I think it worked for a
while. Rather than my usual whisky, I opened up
three cans of extra strength lager - and I have no
idea why. It just seemed like a good idea at the
time. I thought I might watch some TV, but about
the only thing of interest was some episodes of
Red Dwarf, and a QI (or two). I think it might
have been around 11pm when I turned in.
Initially I didn't seem to feel sleepy, but
it wasn't long before the booze did it's good
work, and I slept solidly for at least three
hours. I woke up to a medium sized hangover, but
also to my throat feeling clogged with mucus, and
my nose and sinuses all bunged up. Somehow I got
to sleep again quite quickly, and again a few more
times until I got up sometime between 6am and 7am.
I definitely felt worse this morning. For a
while I was coughing up a few lumps until my
airways were clean. After that I was just back to
the occasional tickle at the back of the throat.
My nose had also become a lot more bunged up, but
it wasn't actually dripping most of the time -
just now and then. I still feel similar this
evening even down to the occasional brief bit of
sneezing.
I definitely feel worse than yesterday. On
top of the more bunged up nose, I also seem to
ache more....sort of. The problem is that many of
my ailments are not obvious while I am sitting at
my PC with the room nice and warm. It's only when
doing stuff like going down to the cold kitchen
that I am reminded that I sometime feel pretty
crappy.
In some respects it is made worse by the
feeling that there is stuff I'd like to do, but
either can't, or shouldn't. The couple of hours of
sunshine we had, with the temperature very mild,
acted as a strong lure to go out even if it was
just for a walk around the shops. I probably
should have just gone out and see how it felt, but
I had a pessimistic feeling that I would probably
feel rotten. The again I also thought that fresh
air would feel good. In the end I stayed in, and
somehow managed to keep myself amused.
There was one other thing I saw today, in
fact not much less that half an hour ago, and it
was a You Tube video that gave me such a strong
desire to be out and about with my camera. It was
a video embedded on another web site about a
couple of guys doing something I have wanted to do
for 5 or 6 years now. On what looks like a mild
spring day they go to visit Swale station on the
line between Sittingbourne and Sheerness. I have
often wanted to get off the train there to enjoy
the sheer desolation of the place. There is little
to photograph, but I reckon I would come away with
a few snaps. I really have to add this to my "to
do" list. In the meantime here's that video.
If I could be sure of
getting a good sleep tonight I would have less
qualms about going back to work tomorrow. At
least if I do it won't be a cold frosty
journey to work - the principal reason why I
decided not to go to work on Friday. The only
trouble is that I am not expecting to get a
good night's sleep. Every time I lay down, my
face seems to fill up with unshiftable mucus,
and my throat gets very tickly. I guess I
would get to sleep in the end, and I guess it
would be wise to try and get to sleep as early
as I can - which would be soon - if only I
actually felt sleepy ! There are two reasons
why it is slightly important that I go to
work. The first, and perhaps the more
important, is that I am having some new
clothing, ordered online, being delivered to
work, and one parcel has already arrived. The
second reason is that I am supposed to be
having a one-to-one with my boss. Well, that's
going to be very tedious, and it can wait.
I'll just have to see how I feel in the
morning.
Saturday
7th January 2017
16:05
GMT
It was minus 2.4° C yesterday
morning. From then on it slowly warmed up - but
not by that much ! I would guess that by the
afternoon it was somewhere in the region of 4 to
5° C. It was a bright, and often sunny day, but
that sun just couldn't warm things up any further.
It wasn't until sunset that the temperature rose a
little more, and so did the amount of cloud. It
was a cloudy night, and it has been a cloudy day.
By 7am the temperature was getting on for 7° C,
and this afternoon it has been as high as 10° C.
If the forecast holds good, the temperature will
only drop to 8° C during the night, and apart from
for a few hours in the afternoon when it is
supposed to be 9° C, it will be more or less
constantly 8° C all day tomorrow. It will be like
today - overcast, and slightly gloomy, although
possibly a little less gloomy than today.
It is odd that many of my usual aches and
pains seemed to take a bit of a back seat to a
different problem I was developing on Thursday.
That may not be strictly accurate. My chest was
actually giving me a lot of discomfort when I when
out into the cold after work, but the rest of my
body seemed to be in unusually good working order
as I very slowly started to fall victim to a cold.
The first thing I noticed was that my throat was
getting increasingly tickly, and I found myself
sipping at my drink ever more often to keep my
throat wet.
As I travelled, via my usual route via
Victoria, to Shortlands station, for The
Shortlands Tavern, my chest was really giving me
some grief, and of course coughing was not making
it any better. I had my usual three pints of beer
with the lads before making my way home. I
had been doing my best to eat more healthily until
Thursday night. When I got off the train at
Catford I decided I wanted hot food inside me
instantly ! So I bought some chicken and chips.
Apart from my developing cough, it was an instant
cure for my chest pains, and maybe it even gave
some temporary respite from my cough too.
I don't know why my scar tissue, and other
after effects from my heart bypass operation,
should be giving me so much grief this winter. I
am sure I didn't suffer like this last year. Maybe
it wasn't such a cold winter or something. What I
do know is that it's not just a case of keeping my
chest warm externally, but it needs to be kept
warm internally as well. I could stop breathing in
the frigid air, but I doubt I would last long
without Oxygen, or I can eat hot food to keep the
inside warm. That latter way seems best apart from
the side effect of the temptation to eat too much.
It's why I am buying, and occasionally a lot more
soup lately (I don't drink hot brown liquids out
of cups like normal people do).
Once I had eaten, and turned the heating up
flat out on Thursday night I felt fine until I
went to bed. It seemed as soon as I stopped
sipping my drink, and being upright, my breathing
started to feel a bit wheezy, and I started to
cough a lot more. On top of that, my chest got a
bit crunchy. I would turn over to one side, and I
would hear a crunch from my bones inside my chest,
and crunch again if I turned over to the other
side. If I lay on my back my chest would slowly
crunch whenever I breathed in (or out, or both ?).
It didn't make sleeping very easy !
I did get to sleep somehow, and while I
could have wished for more, and more peaceful
sleep, I did get probably enough to get me through
the day if needed. Unfortunately there was a
thick, minus 2.4° C frost outside, and I
just could not face that while still coughing. It
was a recipe for a really painful chest. So I
called in sick to work, and took it easy.
As I took it easy I found that my nose was
getting increasingly stuffy and twitchy as a head
cold came to fruition. A day and a half later and
it is like my cough - rather intermittent. One
thing I did yesterday that seems counter intuitive
was to hand wash some shirts. It was medium hard
work, and possibly felt harder because I was under
the weather, but the hot steamy atmosphere was
good for my nose and throat. I felt better and
quite accomplished once it was all hanging up to
dry. I also felt quite tired !
One thing I didn't do yesterday was to spend
much time laying on my bed snoozing. It is
probably what I wanted to do, but I couldn't seem
to relax, and I felt much better spending hours
doing stuff on my PC. One task was to rip a load
of my CDs so I could add some tracks to my special
folder (directory) on my PC called "psuedo radio"
it contains approx 2500 assorted music track, and
when played in random order simulates a radio
station playing nothing but the very best tracks
(apart from a few novelty tracks I added
for.........for novelty reasons !).
With today being Saturday I felt little
compulsion to try to get to bed early last night.
Now that is a little strange considering I was
convinced I didn't get enough sleep the night
before, but while I thought I should be tired, I
actually felt almost restless. Maybe it was the
prediction that like the previous night I would
find it hard to get comfortable for sleep - and I
was right !
I think it might have even been after
midnight when I got to sleep last night, and it
was pretty lumpy sleep.......or so I imagined. It
did seem like I was awake a lot, but on the other
hand quite a lot of time seemed to pass unnoticed.
I guess that maybe I did sleep more than I thought
I did. One good thing is that it was a lot warmer
this morning. I didn't make use of it too early,
but eventually I put my coat on and ventured into
the great wide world out there.
My first visit was to "Cash Busters" to look
at their cameras. If it was in good working order
they had a bargain in there. It was a Nikon D3200
camera body for just £200. I already have one so
it didn't interest me, although it would have been
great if my camera stopped working - I have a
selection of lenses, and wouldn't have to buy one
before I could use it. What caught my eye more was
a couple of small and cheap(ish) pocket sized
cameras. One was a Fuji XP71 camera that has all
sorts of bells and whistles such as built in WiFi,
as well as being completely waterproof it's much
younger brother, the XP10 that I already own.
The other camera that caught my eye was a
Nikon L29. I guess it doesn't have any special
features apart from the useful ability to run off
a couple of ordinary (high power) AA cells. To
simplify matters I bought both of the cameras, and
the man in the shop did me a deal - both cameras
for just £100 - which is about the very cheapest
price I could find for just the Fuji camera on the
secondhand market.
Both cameras work OK in a basic fashion. At
some point I will give them a proper test. I think
the Fuji will eventually accompany me any time I
am forced out on a rainy day. i.e, going to work.
One of the interesting things about the Nikon
camera was that it came with a 4GB memory card. It
was obviously used, but all the pictures had been
deleted on it. There are various utilities you can
get for a Windows PC to undelete deleted pictures,
and it is almost built in to a Linux PC. I
recovered in excess of 300 pictures from the
memory card, and most of them were filthy
pictures, and when I say they were filthy pictures
I mean they were probably taken by an
environmental health officer. There were pictures
of all sorts of rubbish strew about the streets
Southwark - decaying food in bags outside food
shops, and dumped mattress and other fly tipping.
All very interesting, but not worth keeping.
After I bought the cameras I went shopping
in Aldi. Most of what I bought was potentially
healthy sort of stuff. I bought lots of salad
stuff, fruit and vegetables. I also bought a
couple of nice steaks that could be almost healthy
- although it is very debatable. If they are too
lean they lack taste, but are fairly healthy. If
they are too fatty they are very very tasty, but
bad for you. Mine are medium fatty, and if I cook
them carefully, rendering as much fat as possible
while not overcooking them, they will be sort
of healthy ! Of course there were a few
items that are definitely not the sort of thing I
should be eating, like the Cornish-like pasty that
I bought, but.....
While I was out I was quite aware that my
breathing was a bit raspy, but on the whole I felt
fairly good in the fresh air. The fact that it was
closer to tepid than cold helped a lot. I didn't
feel stressed about being out, and carrying quite
a heavy load of shopping home (not made lighter by
including half a dozen cans of soup). In fact I
felt so optimistic that I put a towel, and some
other washing into some bio detergent to soak. It
is still there now, all cold and nasty, and I seem
to have lost my enthusiasm to start the rinsing
and wringing.
Until recently I was considering the
possibility of going to a gig this evening. Maybe
of there had been one in The Bkack Cat I might
have gone, but I no longer feel much like
travelling. It has only been in the last 20
minutes that it seems my nose is starting to run
more. It could be just another intermittent burst
of activity from my cold, or it could be building
up to a climax. I think I am very likely to stay
in and amuse myself this evening.
The weather forecast for tomorrow does
really inspire me, but it should be dry, and not
too cold. Maybe I might take a wander somewhere
with a selection of cameras, and see what I can
take pictures of. For the moment though it's just
rest and relaxation - although I am going to have
to force myself to do something with the stuff
soaking in the mega bucket in the bath !
Thursday
5th January 2017
08:29
GMT The sun almost came out
yesterday afternoon, but generally speaking it was
a rather dull and dreary day - and it was quite
cool too. It is possible that the temperature may
have peaked at 7° C, as the forecast predicted,
but it wasn't really noticeable. The forecast said
there was a possibility of rain, but I didn't
notice any rain personally. A friend living about
8 miles from here did report some rain falling
where he lived during the morning. Maybe I was
lucky.
As I went home from work the sky was very
clear, and the moon was looking bright.
Unfortunately I didn't have a suitable camera to
get a snap of it. Also unfortunately, that clear
sky allowed the temperature to drop quite a lot
during the night.
I took the very soft focus snap on the left
just before I left home to come to work. If I had
waited 20 - 30 seconds for the outside sensor to
send an update it would have read minus
1.4° C.
The forecast for today says we should see a
bright sunny day, and indeed the sky is clear blue
at the moment. Once the sun climbs a bit higher it
should start pouring its rays onto the roof of my
office, and it may finally get warm in here.
Unfortunately it will little for the outside air.
The best we can hope for today is just 4° C. Oh
well, it could be worse - I grabbed a screen shot
off the TV last night. Tomorrow morning is going
to be just as cold as this morning, and probably
colder away from the centre of town.
It was warmer, but not actually warm in my
office yesterday, and so I didn't feel quite so
awful as I did the day before. There were
actually times when I didn't feel bad at all, but
every now and then I would get the odd twinge of
this, that, or the other. I can't think of an
occasion when going home has not come as a big
relief, and quite frequently it is a huge relief.
Yesterday it was probably a semi huge relief !
Going home wasn't perfectly straightforward
because last night there really were delays on the
trains (unlike the morning when the reported
delays didn't exist). For a while things looked
grim. I didn't really fancy standing around on a
draughty railway station platform for a long
period of time. To my great relief the vague
information we had been offered seemed to be
accurate, and while some peoples trains had been
cancelled, my train was only about 7 minutes late
at Waterloo East, and practically on time when we
arrived at Catford Bridge station.
Getting back on a slightly healthy diet
since coming back to work after the Xmas break
seems to slightly beneficial. It is almost enough
to spur me on to greater endeavours, but "almost"
is not quite enough to do it properly. So last
night I had good intentions, but precious little
will power. I did have a nice healthy salad, but I
also had some grilled sausages. If I had left it
there it would have been a good effort, but I
spoiled things by snacking on some unspeakable
things ! I doubt I will be getting any thinner
eating what I did yesterday. On the other hand,
all the salad and stuff that I have been eating
would appear to have a beneficial effect on my
colon.
On reflection there was one other thing I
could have done last night, and that was to wash
my hair. I didn't do that, but I did do two
important things. The first was physically quite
important - servicing the fan heater in my
bedroom. I had noticed that the fan was running
too slowly, and on one occasion had jut about
failed to start up causing the heater to trip out.
This particular fan heater is a nice easy one to
strip down, and provide a drip of 3 in 1 oil to
the fan bearings. It is now running as sweet as a
nut.
The other thing I did was sort of important,
but not so essential. It was to finally upload the
pictures I took of Redriffe playing at The Black
Cat's new years eve party. They are a mixed bag.
Some look good, and some don't look so good. The
only thing I can say in my defence is that they
look a darn sight better than some of the smeary
mobile phone pictures I see people posting of
bands. You can see my picture of Redriffe here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157677297668330
There are many other photo albums to see as well.
If I recall correctly, I was feeling so good
(by comparison) last night that I didn't feel the
need to take any painkillers, and I may not have
even had any whisky to help me sleep. Maybe that
is the answer to why I seemed to sleep better than
recently last night. It could also have been
because I was just plain knackered. I did wake a
few times in the night, but only briefly. I was
sure I was awake at 5am when my alarm woke me.
That is a very rare thing to happen.
The dreams I had, or at least the few bits I
remember suggest that my sleep was not that good.
On the other hand the dreams seemed different, and
perhaps more inventive than my usual dreams. That
could be a good thing....or a bad thing. One dream
seemed to go on a long time, but I think I kept
either reinventing it, or adding extra scenes to
it. It's hard to tell which, and also hard to tell
whether it was a lucid dream, or if I kept waking
up during it. It was a science fiction dream. I
was on Mars, and drinking with the natives of
Mars. They seemed to have a nice drink that was
identical to Jaegermeister ! The other dream I had
was not exactly sexual, but did involve a lot of
bare breasts. I say not sexual because it just
seemed a perfectly normal thing for the women in
the dream to not have their breasts covered.
This morning I probably feel better than I
have done for some while. That doesn't mean I
don't still feel lousy, and various things don't
hurt. In fact I did have some new aches this
morning. Both my ankles felt sort of mildly weak
and mildly creaky. It's rare for both to be like
that. The biggest improvement is my chest. It is
far from perfect, and every so often I still get a
twinge that might be a heart attack, but evidently
isn't (or wasn't). Somehow it just seems the pains
are milder, and less frequent this morning. It
almost feel like 10 hours exposure to hot sunshine
would almost cure most of my aches and pains (and
it would certainly distract me from eating too
much and/or the wrong foods).
It's Thursday, and tonight I will be joining
the Thursday night drinkers for a few pints in The
Shortlands Tavern next door to Shortlands station.
It's a straightforward journey to get there after
work, and straightforward to get home from. The
only unknown will be the state of Southern Trains
for the part of the journey where I have to use
them to get from Clapham Junction to Victoria
station. I don't think they are on strike today,
but they may be. I do have an alternate route
available that is not quite so comfortable if I
need to use it.
Wednesday
4th January 2017
08:47
GMT
There was a fair amount of sunshine
yesterday, but it did nothing to warm my office
up. My office remained possibly illegally cold all
day ! The outside air temperature was probably
little better than 5° C at it's warmest - except
maybe sometime after sunset when I think it might
have warmed up a by a degree or two before falling
to about 4° C when I got up this morning. Later
today we could see the temperature as high as 7°
C, but there will be very little sunshine today -
if indeed there is any at all. There could well be
a few light showers this morning, but the forecast
says it will be dry this afternoon. By contrast,
tomorrow is currently forecast to be dry and
sunny, but bloody cold ! The highest temperature
is forecast to be just 3° C, and it may well be
below zero before sunrise, and after sunset.
I seemed to be almost shivering for most of
the day at work yesterday. My office was well
below 10° C when I arrived at work, and it never
did get comfortably warm by the time I left to go
home. I made sure that I left the heating on when
I went home, and it wasn't turned down as low as I
usually set it when I go home. This morning it is
still cooler than I prefer, but at least I can
work in shirtsleeves, and I can pick up my tools
without them making my hands go numb with cold
today.
Sitting in the cold all day really made my
chest feel painful, and it was actually a relief
to do a brisk walk to the station. Initially that
made my chest hurt more, but the exertion warmed
me up a bit, and maybe got my blood flowing
better. My chest still felt tender, but at least
it stopped hurting so much. It felt even better
when I was on a nice warm train - but I only
stayed on the first train for one stop. As my
train pulled into Clapham Junction station I spied
something purple or maroon sitting by the train
shed. It was a superbly clean and shiny class 20
locomotive in London Transport livery.
This locomotive,
recently painted into London Transport livery,
is privately owned, and is used for railtours
and stuff. It also earns it's keep hauling
other stuff. One man I spoke to on the
platform had a theory that it had been used to
haul some of South West Trains new class 707
trains to Clapham Junction depot. That seemed
a feasible idea. There was one of these brand
new, and not yet in passenger service, trains
visible in the yard.
I'm not sure what train I had originally
caught from Earlsfield station, and I suspect
it may have been a slightly earlier one than
normal (perhaps the 15:43 instead of the
15:47). I got off that train on platform 10,
and went over to platform 7 to take my
photographs. Having taken my photographs I am
sure I heard an announcement warning that the
next train would not stop at platform 7.
Evidently no one told the driver and several
passengers. The driver stopped, and several
passengers got off. I got on. Platform 7 is
the platform used for "express" trains, and
that train rushed me non stop to Waterloo, and
I was there in time to catch my usual train
home. In fact I had about 2 minutes to spare !
It was nice travelling back to Catford
while it was still just about light. My
current usual train is the 16:05, and
coincidently that was the same time as sunset
yesterday. It was starting to get dim, but
with few clouds around there was still enough
glow in the western sky to stop it being
completely dark when my train arrived at
Catford Bridge. Things can only get better
from now on until the summer solstice and the
days start getting shorter again. I felt so
good that I ignored some residual chest pain,
and walked down to the Pound shop. There was
nothing I needed urgently from there, but I
had promised Angela that I would pick up a box
of lens cleaners. It seems I also bought quite
a lot of other stuff too !
One of my purchases was a couple of tins
of Heinz oxtail soup. At 50p a tin it is a lot
cheaper than buying from Tesco. While I was
shivering at work I had decided that a bowl or
two of steaming hot soup would be just the
thing to warm me up. Of course by the time I
got home, after sitting on warm trains, and
walking around, I no longer felt shivery, but
I thought that some soup might still be nice,
and a can of oxtail soup would be extra nice.
I also had a can of Tesco own brand cream of
chicken soup (with some chilli sauce to zap it
up a bit).
I had the two cans of soup plus a couple
of packs of sandwiches, and that was most of
what I ate last night. It wasn't quite
healthy, low this or low that, but it didn't
seem an excessive amount. I felt full enough
without any hint of bloat when I went to bed
last night. I was in bed sometime after 8pm,
and I read for a while before turning out the
light. I can't be sure this morning, but I
think I may have just got to sleep before 9pm.
Of course going to bed so early was wasted
because from 3am I didn't sleep terribly well.
This morning my chest felt very loose -
and by that I mean it took very little effort
to make it click and pop. It is too much
clicking and popping, which might be, but
probably isn't, two bones, or two halves of my
sternum rubbing together, that leave my chest
feeling sore. There is also some soreness that
seems to be a legacy of nerves cut during my
heart operation almost three and half years
ago. That generally affects my left man boob.
It can feel weirdly sore sometimes. When I
left home I felt relatively OK, but travelling
definitely stirred things up, and while it is
not hurting as I write this, my chest feels
very delicate right now. I blame most of
it on the cold weather - well know for causing
old wounds/scar to hurt.
There was a bit of an oddity about my
journey to work. Consider these
screenshots..........
Consider the screenshot on the left. At
the top is a warning saying "This train has
been delayed by urgent repairs to the
railway", but at most stations it is reported
as departing on time, and it is not shown as
expected late at Catford Bridge (and it
wasn't). I took the second screenshot when I
was waiting for my next train, the 06:57, to
depart from Waterloo Mainline station. At the
top right you can see that I took it at 06:56,
and yet it is reporting that my train from
Catford Bridge has arrived on time at
07:01 - a full 5 minutes before it had, or was
going to ! Time travel at it's finest !! It is
very hard to believe that my train had been
delayed by urgent repairs to the railway
!
I don't think I have any plans for
tonight. It feels unlikely, but there is still
a very slight possibility of seeing Angela,
although nothing has been arranged, or even
mentioned as yet. What I ought to do is to
upload those pictures of Redriffe playing on
new years eve to Flickr. I should have done it
last night, but I was distracted by the
pictures I had taken at Clapham Junction. I
did upload them, plus one extra, all in high
resolution, to Flickr last night. you can see
them here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157674870880214
Tuesday
3rd January 2017
08:05
GMT
It was definitely cold yesterday, and yet
the sun did carry some warmth - but you had to be
behind glass, in a sheltered location, such as my
bedroom, to feel it. There was a lot of sunshine
yesterday, and yet the outside air temperature
didn't really venture much beyond 4° C. Meanwhile,
with the sun streaming through my bedroom window,
I could turn the heating off in that room, and
still stay more or less comfortable. It was a
clear night, last night, and by 8pm the
temperature was just turning negative. By my
reckoning it didn't fall much lower than minus
1° C, but there was a thick frost when I walked to
the station this morning. It could take some time
for that frost to clear. It may not be quite so
sunny as yesterday, but there should be
some sunshine for most of the hours of daylight.
The latest forecast for today says that today may
not be sunny at all - and this is despite the
clear sky I can currently see. By 4pm, as the sun
sets, the temperature might just hit 5° C, but it
will continue to rise. By 5am tomorrow it might be
6° C. Later tomorrow, a slightly dull and overcast
day, it might be 7° C. Then the temperature will
plummet to zero or below during the night.
I didn't really do anything of note on
Sunday evening. I don't think I even did any
exotic cooking. If I recall correctly I just
opened a large can of Cassolet - a duck wing,
sausage and haricot bean stew - it might, or might
not be typical French peasant food. I probably ate
something else as well, although one of those
large cans of Cassolet is fairly filling. Some
time after eating that, and it could have been
anywhere from 30 minutes to 5 hours, I went to
bed. I just can't remember when, or even how well
I slept, although I do remember that I woke up
stupidly early, and would have wished for another
3 or 4 hours sleep.
One thing I did do on Sunday was to upload
all the pictures I took on my novelty train ride
from Catford bridge to Blackfriars station - a
very rare and unusual diversionary route when
engineering works block access between Lewisham
and London Bridge. Only a small selection of
pictures are of "train spotting". The rest are
building, river, bird, boat and statue spotting !
You can see them all here in glorious high
resolution - https://www.flickr.com/photos/135353558@N03/albums/72157674844894713
There were many things I could have done
yesterday, but I opted to do just two things of
any significance. I considered going out to take
pictures of the three or four cattle/horse trough
a mile or two down the road towards Bromley, but
decided that it was probably time to get some
stuff from Tesco instead. I hadn't done any food
shopping since before Xmas, and I was getting low
on supplies. I bought a couple of bags of stuff,
and a lot of it was healthy sort of stuff like
salad, and some was emphatically not !
I did wonder how my chest would feel while
walking to Tesco on such a cold morning. Initially
it started to hurt here and there, but after a few
hundred yards it settled down, and if it hadn't
been so cold it might have almost been enjoyable
walking. I'm not sure if it would have been so
enjoyable to walk for as much as a couple of miles
to photograph those cattle troughs though. My
chest also behave quite predictably once I got
home. It felt fine until I sat down, and it went
"click". For a little while after that it was sore
again. I am still torn between trying to harass my
doctor to see if any cure can be found for this,
or to just wait it out for when it is warmer, and
I am fitter/slimmer again.
I spent many hours yesterday going through
all the pictures I took at the new years eve gig
at The Black Cat. One curious fact is that my
photography seemed to get better as the evening
progressed. I can only assume this was due to the
beneficial effects of drinking liberal amounts of
Guinness !
There were a few pictures that came out
really well, and some that managed to catch the
action. Eventually, maybe even tonight, I'll
upload all the decent pictures to a new photo
album on Flickr. In the meantime, here's one
picture of Redriffe in action.
I did do one extra bit of photography last
night.
This was the crescent moon last night at about
8pm.
I was supposed to go to bed early last
night, but somehow that didn't happen. It must
have been gone 10pm when I finally fell
asleep. That wouldn't have been so bad if I
had managed to sleep right through until my
alarm went off at 5am, but it seemed like I
was only sleeping intermittently after 3am
this morning. It did give me a chance to have,
and remember a fair amount from a dream. I
dreamed I was on a train coming back from
somewhere far away to the north of London,
possibly Birmingham. Why on Earth I would have
gone to Birmingham is unexplained.
Even less explained is why a train from
the north would terminate at Waterloo
International station ! It was definitely a
very nice train I was on. It was very
spacious, and seemed to be about 20ft wide ! I
only remember the approaches to Waterloo
International station (which no longer exists
back in the real world). The approach was a
bit like a roller coaster the way the tracks
ducked and dived under and over assorted
obstacles (other railway lines and buildings).
When I arrived at Waterloo International I had
to go to Waterloo East to get a train back to
Catford - just like I have to do when going
home from work. In my dream it was quite a
long walk to get to the stairs up to the link
across to Waterloo East, and those stairs
seemed to be in a restaurant.
I finally woke from the dream as I was
going up those stairs. It was probably about
4.40am - 20 minutes before I wanted to get up,
but there was no point trying to get back to
sleep again at that time. I woke up feeling
pretty awful. I had both lower back pain, and
assorted clicks, pops, and pain from my chest.
A hot shower sorted some of those aches and
pains, and I was generally comfortable for
most of my journey to work.
I must confess that I am badly out of
practice with rushing around. The mad dash
from Waterloo East to Waterloo Mainline
station was really rather taxing this morning,
and it was really hard work to keep up to
speed. Fortunately it didn't seem to have any
bad effects, and although it was nice to sit
down again when I got on the 06:57 train from
platform 4, I seemed to get my breath back
before the doors closed, and the train set
off.
It seems the one thing that does
irritate my chest is when I get off the train
at Earlsfield, and bound down the long flight
of stairs there. It must shake up my chest
because it felt sort before I had even exited
the station. When I arrived at work it was
freezing in my office. There was even ice on
the case of the air conditioning unit - inside
the office ! I'm not sure how long the heating
had been on in the production area, but very
little heat from there penetrates my office. A
little does, and that might be why the
thermometer was reading 10° C when I
remembered to check it 10 - 15 minutes after I
turned on the useless heating in here. Two and
a bit hours later the temperature in here is
at least 16° C. By this afternoon it will be
quite comfortable - particularly if the latest
forecast is wrong, and we do get some sunshine
today. Meanwhile my desk, and all my tools are
horribly cold to touch.
Tonight I will.........In all
probability I will upload the Redriffe photos
to Flickr. There is always the possibility
that I will be distracted, but somehow I don't
think I will be. I haven't actually spoken to
Angela for two days now. There is no reason
for this apart from I've been waiting to hear
from her, and I expect she has been waiting to
hear from me. I must call her today. Maybe she
will come and distract me tonight, but I have
my doubts.
Sunday
1st January 2017
16:25
GMT
What can I say about the weather for the
last day of last year ? Well......it did have one
redeeming factor - it was not freezing cold. It
was cold, but not freezing cold ! It was also
probably good that it was a dry day, but apart
from that, it was a dull grey, thoroughly
miserable sort of day. Today, the first day
of the new year, has been grey as well, although
there was a short period when the sun almost made
it through the clouds. Unlike yesterday when the
temperature was flirting with 10° C, today has
barely made it to 8° C. In fact I am not sure if
it even quite made that. There was some light rain
this morning, but there was a window of a couple
of hours when it stayed dry. Then, this afternoon,
it poured down, and it is raining quite heavily as
I type this. The clouds should break up during the
night, and as they do the temperature is going to
fall away until it is almost, but maybe not quite,
freezing. Sunny spells are forecast for tomorrow,
but the temperature will only be in the region of
4° C at best, and at 5am the day after, when I
have to go back to work, it will be below zero !
The big thing about yesterday was New Years
Eve. For some it is a joyous occasion, and there
was a chance that for possibly the first time
ever, it could have been for me too. Unfortunately
Angela decided she had to see her daughter Miranda
fronting "The Miranda Flyers" (at least I think
that was the name they adopted) playing a working
mans club in Tunbridge Wells. So I was essentially
left on my own, except for Michael, in The Black
Cat.
The band Redriffe were playing in The Black
Cat. It was their third appearance there. I liked
them the first time, but not the second time. I
have to admit, that like the governor of the pub
suggested, they are a good party band. Of course
they have their shortfalls - mainly the singer who
occasionally tackles a song that is out of his
range. The result is not pleasing on the ear. His
singing was made worse through no fault of his own
when one of the PA speakers blew up. That did
affect the sound quite profoundly !
The gig was good enough for me to stay to
the end - which rather bizarrely was a good 15
minutes before midnight. Midnight was a rather
muted air, and that suited me quite well. I came
away feeling glad that I had gone, and yet rather
underwhelmed. I managed to drink quite a lot of
Guinness through the evening, but oddly enough I
resisted a post-pub nosh up (as some put it) quite
well - but not entirely. I did have a little bowl
of peanuts to munch as I tried to get in the right
frame of mind to go to bed.
I think I was in bed slightly before 1am,
and I was asleep very soon after. I seemed to
sleep quite well until it was time to get up -
except it wasn't time to get up ! My brain
overruled my body, and decided to get me up in
time to go to work - again ! I never really got to
sleep again after that. In theory I am going to be
in bed very early tonight, and if there was any
justice I would sleep right through to midday
tomorrow.
This morning I felt both good and bad. My
chest felt better behaved than recently, and yet I
still had an assortment of pains. Yet again, the
more annoying pains were when I tried to relax -
which is partly the reason why I didn't get any
extra sleep this morning. I decided that the only
answer was to kill or cure. I've been reluctant to
go out in the cold air recently, but I didn't seem
to suffer walking to and from the pub last night.
So I decided I just had to go out today.
There was one special reason to go out
today. For the first time that I am aware of,
although I will concede that there are likely to
be times I have been unaware of, the trains from
Catford Bridge were going to Blackfriars station.
The usual diversionary route is to Victoria, and I
am not aware of any reason why they couldn't have
gone there today. Of course I had to try it.
Catching a nice sharp snap of dot-matrix
platform displays is always a bit hit and miss,
but I struck lucky today. I think, quite by
chance, I hit upon the ideal exposure time to
avoid flicker and breakup.
I wasn't sure how I would feel walking to
the station, or after walking to the station, but
apart from a little shortness of breath because I
am so out of condition, I was fine. It didn't
last, once my train arrived (the one on the left
in the picture above), and I slumped down in my
seat, my chest started to feel bad. Not terribly
bad, but the sort of bad where you worry that if
it gets worse you are probably in heart attack
country.
I settled down again while on the train, and
when I alighted at Blackfriars station I was
feeling close to normal. I didn't walk far when I
left the station, but I guess it could have been a
casual mile. I wasn't rushing because I kept
stopping to take pictures. In some ways it felt
quite good. I suspect the temperature was a degree
or two higher right inside the city, and that may
have helped. I also felt perfectly OK when I
re-entered the station, and walked up the two
flights of stairs to the platform. I also felt
perfectly OK when I got up to platform level, and
hung around on the platform taking pictures for a
few minutes. Then I got on my train, say down, and
bang....well, not really bang, but my chest pains
returned again.
Those pains subsided while I was on the
train - adopting a slightly different posture
helped despite it being difficult to relate some
of the pains to posture. I was fine walking home
from the station, but not too long after I got
home two pains developed. One was my chest, and
the other was my stomach - I think it was a bit
hungry. Food was a dilemma. I wanted something
nice, but not too unhealthy. I settled on a couple
of microwaved baked sweet potatoes with some
butter. They don't sound particularly healthy, and
probably weren't, but they filled a gap for a
while, but didn't completely kill a sense of
peckishness.
I could have cooked up something a bit more
exotic, but I wasn't sure what the situation with
Angela would be. She did say that she would try
and see me today, but she couldn't make a definite
promise. I haven't heard anything from her
so I guess I am on my own this evening. Oh well,
at least I saw her two days on the trot. Perhaps
I'll get to see her tomorrow.
I think my plans for this evening include
cooking up something closer to a real dinner, and
getting to bed early if I can. Tomorrow is going
to be bright and dry, and I think I ought to try
and get out again for at least an hour or two.
There are some cattle/horse troughs I still want
to photograph, and I ought to do them sooner or
later before they, like many other others,
disappear from the streets. Before that I have to
upload all the pictures I took today to Flickr,
and also select and edit the pictures I took
at the new year even gig. If I can find the energy
and enthusiasm I could be very busy for a while !
Yesterday was not quite so cold as the day before.
It was only bloody cold instead of freezing cold !
I'm unsure of the late afternoon temperature, but
it did feel like it might have been the forecast
5° C.
It was
most definitely cold yesterday, and that's despite
it being a sunny day. I am not sure what the
official figures were, but I recorded minus
3.1° C before I set off to go to work, and 0.9° C
when I got home from work. The forecast had
promised that the sun would raise the temperature
to at least 3° C, but as I made my way home I saw
there was still frost on the grass in sheltered
areas, and some puddles still had a partial crust
of ice.
expected it to - I
expected it to be 3 or even 4° C. I knew that the
temperature would drop overnight, but I don't
think I expected to see minus 3.1° C as I
was getting ready to walk to the station this
morning.
Much of what I bought was salad and
vegetables - very healthy until I ruin them with
dressings and/or cheese ! I did buy some solid
Parmesan cheese to use instead of Cheddar. I doubt
it is a lot healthier, but in theory it is so
strong that you use less....maybe ! One bit of
meat I bought I bought out of curiosity. It is the
"Greek Style" chicken chunks pictured on the left.
Having eaten it I am left wondering what is so
"Greek style" about it. It has some herbs and
garlic flavouring, but the one flavour that stands
out is Lemon oil, and that gives hints of Thai
food to my warped pallet !
The sun almost came out
yesterday afternoon, but generally speaking it was
a rather dull and dreary day - and it was quite
cool too. It is possible that the temperature may
have peaked at 7° C, as the forecast predicted,
but it wasn't really noticeable. The forecast said
there was a possibility of rain, but I didn't
notice any rain personally. A friend living about
8 miles from here did report some rain falling
where he lived during the morning. Maybe I was
lucky.
