The threatened mist did not seem to happen in Catford this morning, but the thick, dark grey cloud has happened. The sun should have risen 5 minutes ago, but it's like night at the moment. I'm not sure how low the temperature dipped in the early hours of the night, but it is barely 5° C now. With luck it will rise to 10° C by this afternoon, but under that miserable sky it won't feel like much. At least today should be dry, or at least no rain is forecast, and presumably the damp looking road outside is just morning dew. Tomorrow, the first day of the new year, is probably going to be 1° cooler than today, but just as overcast, and probably dry too.

  As can be seen in the picture above, it was a brilliantly sunny day with a glorious blue sky. Such conditions meant I just had to go for a walk despite not really feeling much like walking yesterday. It turned out to be the only reason for going out for a bit of exercise. The real reason should have been to meet Angela in the pub during her lunchbreak. I am sure she said she would be back at work yesterday, but I guess she was too busy to go out yesterday.

   So the sunshine was the only reason to go out and get a bit of exercise, and for some reason, despite being fortified with one pint of Guinness, it felt like a hard slog walking home again. Well, actually walking to the pub was not as joyous as it should have been. I would have to admit that not seeing Angela made the walk home harder than it could have been.

  There was one bright spot...at least I think it was a bright spot, but it may have been foolish. On the way home I looked in Cash Busters window, and spotted another camera I wanted. It was a Canon SX420, and a quick Google on my phone, while outside the shop, showed that the specifications looked very good, and the price very reasonable.

  The only downside was that it was the red version of the camera. I would have preferred  black, or white, but you have to take what you can get. I went into the shop, and told the man I was interested in it, and knowing I often try to strike a bargain, he immediately said I could have it for £10 less than the ticket price. That definitely made it a bargain I couldn't refuse !

   Once I had got the camera home I gave it a good going over, and it seems to be in full working order. One useful thing is that it takes the same battery as my Canon Ixus 285 - and I have spare batteries for that camera that I can share with the new camera. I also now have a spare battery charger ... or three. I am sure I have the Canon original that came with the iXus 285, and another that came in conjunction with two spare batteries I ordered.

  The main features of this new camera, apart from it being red (!) is x42 built in zoom. A 20MP sensor, and built in WiFi. Like the Canon iXus 285, I can control the camera from my phone (using the same app). That has limited uses, but now and again it is handy. The one unknown about using the wifi link is what happens if the camera goes into standby, or even if it does. I can imagine a scenario where I would put the camera on a tripod point at, for instance, a birds nest, watching the view remotely on my phone, and then taking a picture when there is some action. It won't be terribly useful if the camera goes into standby after a few minutes, and can't be woken over wifi.

  Checking the new camera was one of three things I wanted to do when I got home from my short walk. The other two were to have some sort of lunch, and to have a snooze. Lunch was the closest I could get to the fabled "turkey twizzler". They were breaded chicken strips with an alleged spicy flavouring. I cooked them before going out, and ate them cold when I got home. They were not nice ! I never had a sleep because I had all the pictures I had taken of MT POckets teh day before to process.
  The pictures taken on my big Canon DSLR camera were, as expected, rather better than the single snap taken on my mobile phone, and yet I think they still lack some vivacity. My excuses for this include the strong back lighting from the window, and the pub being rather crowded. The latter meant I often had to use my wide angle lens to get everyone in the picture, but I could only use it off to the side, rather than face on to the band.
    It is something I hate doing, but as a photographer I just have to deliberately stand in others view to get a few shots. Luckily I think most people understand this, and are forgiving about it providing it is done quickly. To get the picture above I had to sort of elbow my way into position, and stand right in front of several people.

  It was about the same time that I finished the pictures that it was time to prepare dinner. Part of the preparation went on by itself as I left a packet of flattened sausage meat in the mini oven/grill. I had that sausage meet with tomatoes, spring onions and a small tin of "no added sugar" baked beans. I would not rate it as a healthy meal by any means, but it was very nice, and to my surprise I seemed to have lost another couple of hundred grams this morning.
  One of the things I tried last night was these two flavoured colas. As can be seen on the label, both are "festive limited editions". I bought them in Aldi yesterday morning (I forgot to say I went to Aldi yesterday morning). The clementine flavour reminded me of a dilute orange liqueur. The cinnamon definitely had a cinnamon flavour, but I don't think it went well with cola. Cinnamon is best used in buns, curries, and as a flavouring in bourbon. I don't feel the need to buy any more bottles of these drinks.

  TV was pretty boring last night. Even Star Trek : Voyager was one of the less interesting episodes. I ended up spending a fair time in bed before trying for an early night. I'm sure I was asleep quite early last night, but I have no idea when that was. I think it probably was quite early because I seemed to run out of sleep quite early this morning. It was still over an hour until sunrise when it seemed I couldn't sleep any more.

  Once awake I checked my blood glucose, and as usual I would have liked it to be a bit lower, but 6.8mmol/l is quite good enough. After a good poo I weighed myself, and once again there has been a small drop in weight. Not only was that good, but quite surprising after eating that big lump of sausage meat last night. My growing excitement about these things would have an effect on my blood pressure. The first reading I took was nice and low, and that pleased me too, but I expected that a second reading would be a little lower still - it usually is. Maybe the excitement was too much for because the reading was higher !

  The gloom outside does not fill me with enthusiasm, but there are a couple of things I intend to do today. The first has to be to do the washing up. I seem to have neglected it for several days now. The other thing is to go for a walk. I can't say I am very enthusiastic about going on a gloomy day like today, but maybe there is a chance of seeing Angela today. One possible plan is going through my mind for tonight. Despite buying lots of food in Aldi yesterday, I have a hankering for a takeway - yet another shish kebab or two (minus the pitta bread that I will discard). The last few times I have eaten these grilled meat and salad meals I have had a good weight loss in the morning. Losing another couple of hundred grams would be very useful for when I see the Hospital Dietician on the 2nd of January.

  Tomorrow sees the start of a new year, and probably a change in these diaries. Many daily diaries are so long that when combined into the monthly page it ends up as a stupidly long page. I think I will only be posting a sort of precis of my daily witterings to my monthly pages, but each day will include a link to the full days writings. Tomorrow will see the first experiment, and I'll fine tune it from there. One good thing, if the new idea works, is that I'll be able to include more pictures without clogging up the monthly pages.

  Despite the forecast saying it should be 5° C, I spotted what looked like frost on some of the neighbours shed roofs, and possibly on some cars out in the road. It was only a light frosting, and maybe it was just sparkly dew. As I write this, my thermometers all seem to agree it is only about 3° C in my back garden ! Also at this time, I see a mostly clear sky. The only clouds are just a few very light misty areas that are so thin as to show blue behind them. I think it's possible that at least some of today will feature sunshine rather than just sunny periods. Maybe if there is an prolonged sunshine it may raise the temperature a little bit higher than the 11° C that is forecast. Today might be a nice day. Tomorrow might be nasty ! Most of tomorrow is forecast to be heavily overcast, but it could still be 10° C.
  One curious fact - the latest revision to the forecast for today predicts that 9am will be overcast. This photo was taken at 08.47am, and so in the next 13 minutes (actually 5 minutes as I write this) the sky will have to be completely covered by at least light clouds to make the forecast correct.

   Yesterday morning I completed the unpleasant task of wringing out the stone cold soapy water from the two things I had left in soak for over 24 hours, and then rinsed them 3 times in warm water. Once hung up to dry that got that job out of the way. I then showered, and washed my hair. All too soon it was time to go and get a bus to Bromley where I could get a train to Maidstone. From Maidstone station it was a 5 to 10 minute walk to the High Street, and The Stag pub where M.T. Pockets were playing at 3pm. A board outside the pub said that there was live music every Sunday at 3pm. It certainly worked - the pub was very busy !

  I had previously thought there was only one train an hour to Maidstone from Bromley South. In fact there are two. There is a fast train at xx:30, and a slower train at xx:42. If you miss the latter it is a 48 minute wait for the next train. I was in great fear of missing that second train, and if I had done so I might have got back on a bus to go home again. Ideally I would have got the train from Catford, but the "Catford Loop Line" was closed for engineering work, and the 320 (or 208) bus was the only way to get to Bromley.

  I aimed to get the earlier train if I could. It would leave the second train as a safety net if I missed it, and of course it was a faster journey. My bus arrived just in time to see the first train actually in the station, and about to leave. That gave me just 12 minutes to get a ticket, and get down onto the platform for the later train.

  It was a bit touch and go ! There was a queue at the single manned ticket window. I couldn't use a self service ticket machine because I wanted my ticket to start from Swanley, where the validity of my 60+ Oystercard runs out. I also wanted my Senior Railcard discount. My return to Maidstone ended up as just £8. Without the discount it would have been £12, and that doesn't include the fare from Catford to Swanley. These railcards and 60+ Oystercards are definitely worth having....although it can seem like a long wait to get them when under 60 years of age !

  I needn't have worried about getting the slower train, and in fact it was a better choice in terms of arrival time. I arrived while the band were still setting up. I think I drunk my first pint of Guinness before they started ! It was great to see than band again. It was the first live music I have seen in ages. The only downside is that the pub was surprisingly crowded, and it seemed to take an age to buy another pint of Guinness. I didn't bother trying to buy another after that.

  Being crowded meant I had less room to move around when taking photos, but I think I managed some good shots. The only thing that spoiled it was that the band had a window behind them, and it was bright daylight outside. Despite there being enough light, I had to use flash as fill in light on their faces. I couldn't do that when videoing though, and so I only shot two songs. It was also my first chance to use my steadycam unit at a gig. I still can't control it properly though !

  If this forecast holds, and the latest revision slightly improves upon it, we could finally see a few sunny periods today. The latest revision brings the time of the first sunny period forward to 11am. Maybe the last will be at 2pm. An even earlier version of this forecast showed the last sunny period as being at 3pm - which would have suited me better. Any sunshine might take the edge of what is going to be a cool day with a maximum temperature of just 9° C. Tomorrow could see 11° C, and there should be some sunshine for most of the daylight hours. the morning could be particularly sunny.
 
   The overcast sky was no source of inspiration or "get up and go" (there is a word I am looking for, but I can't quite recall the best one), but I still had a crazy desire to go out, and go for a country walk. I am sure I was inspired to actually go out my front door by a photo I took a few ten of minutes earlier.
  While I have been watching my weight very closely for the last few months, my more universal yardstick is "trouser inches", and this picture shows it well. I have no idea when I first used the belt that this section is a part of. It maybe have been 10 years ago, or it may have been 10 months ago. What I do know is that the distance between the signs of wear on the holes for the buckle is nearly 5 inches. At some point in the past my waist was nearly 5 inches bigger, and most of the shrinkage has been in the last few months. Despite my weight yo-yoing on the scales, the trend has been downwards, and so has my waist size. It almost makes it seem that the sacrifices have been worth it.

Even after I had exited my front door, and was walking to the station, I kept glancing at the horrible grey sky, and having second thoughts. It wasn't until I had actually bought my tickets that I was fully committed to a long and muddy walk.

  My route was a well practiced one, although it must be a good few years since I last walked it. One thing I had never done was to walk it in cool/cold overcast weather. I think I may have walked it in spring and autumn, as well as summer, but only on bright sunny days. Yesterday was a new experience. I guess some practice recently of walking on dull days in the park, or around the local streets, made yesterday's enterprise a bit easier, and I suppose there were bit of yesterday's walk that I did genuinely enjoy. Most of it was a bit like going to work - it is something that has to be done, and enjoyment doesn't come into it.

  My walking route was from Eynsford to Shoreham following the footpath that mostly follows the river. That sounds like it is a fairly flat walk, but for some of the route the footpath veers away from the river, and there is a fair bit of hill to cross before getting back to the river.

  I'm glad I put on my comfortable, recently waterproofed, hiking boots because some of the path was a total quagmire. My feet remained warm and dry, and the tread on those boots helped keep me stable on some very slippery surfaces. It was quite an adventure - or so I kid myself to make it sound like I should do it more often. I think yesterday's experience means I am more likely to do this walk, or maybe something similar, on a rainy day - a much warmer rainy day !
  The flat grey sky wasn't always very good for photography, but somehow this picture of the entrance to Lullingstone Castle seemed to come out quite well - although the flatness of the light is very obvious. It was handy that the little Canon iXus 285HS, at minimum zoom, has quite a wide angle view. I can't recall getting in all the front of the entrance before, but maybe a lack of obscuring vegetation at this time of year helped.
  The Hop Shop, on Castle Farm, was closed, and I was unable to buy any lavender fudge - which is just as well because sweet, sugar laden, fudge is the last thing I want now. Even if the shop had been open I would not have bought fudge, or anything else because I was travelling light without any bags.
  One of many hazards on my walk - a pond in the middle of the path ! The churned up verge on the left of this huge puddle shows most people's way around the puddle, but I had faith in my boots, and (carefully) walked through the puddle. My feet remained perfectly dry, and the water did wash off some of the thick mud clinging to my boots.
  Nearing the end of my walk, and a pint of Guinness would have been very nice, but I didn't want to get the bar muddy, and most of all, I didn't dare stop in case I couldn't get started again !  I think at this point I had covered about 3.5 miles, and I was beginning to feel it. It was rather different to walking around the local park - which is mostly flat. This walk was probably worse than my Xmas day walk. That walk featured some bad hills, but yesterday's may have been worse, although there was an additional reason why my legs were starting to feel tired - mud !

  Walking across a quagmire, which I had to do several times, meant taking careful short steps. That seems harder than long strides in the dry. It made my overall average speed speed quite low despite keeping up what I thought was a good pace when I could. The curious thing was that the final bit of walk, from the pub to the station, which is uphill, seemed less taxing than I remember it being. I think I am going to claim, right or wrong, that I am fitter now than I was, and the fatigue I was feeling in my legs was a result of being very careful when walking through deep mud.

  It should have been a great relief when I reached the station, but unfortunately my train got there first, and I had to do even more walking to waste some of the 30 minutes wait for the next train (that extra is included in the 4.01 miles). Once I had got on the next train I could relax for the 30 or so minutes it takes to get back to Catford. Maybe I relaxed too much because as I stood up to get off the train it felt like me legs had seized up ! After a minute or two walking my legs felt OK again. While I was there, I popped into Sainsbury's to buy some Greek salads.

  Once I was finally home I could finally relax - a bit. At this point it is worth realising that as well as the 4 miles walked in the country, I had also walked two and from Catford station, and that walk is about half a mile each way. I claim that my entire walk was really 5 miles.....but I admit that is sort of cheating. I never used to include that walk to and from the station in my earlier country and seaside walks.

  Once I had had a wee, that had been bottled up since Shoreham, I remembered to weigh myself. It was still not as low as it was before everything went wrong before, and over Xmas, but getting close. I forgot to check my blood glucose. I was expecting it to be nice and low, but I was halfway through my second salad when I remembered to check it. It wasn't bad, but not as low as I hoped. Later on, just before I had my dinner, I checked it again, and this time my blood glucose level was low (as in low by my averages, but a long way from Hypoglycaemia).

  I spent a fair time selecting and editing photos I had taken along the way, and then I settled down to watch some TV - but there was almost nothing on that I cared to watch. I did see the last half an hour (or maybe a bit less) of a biopic of Michael Caine, but after that I turned the TV off. For some reason I thought that was at 8pm. I thought that I went to bed to read for a while, and may have turned the light off by, or even before 9pm. In truth I think I was completely unaware of the time. The only time that mattered was when it was time to get up.

  I was awake before sunrise after what seemed like a fair sleep, but I had a nagging feeling I wanted more sleep. I did try for a bit more sleep, but maybe I was too busy yawning to fall asleep. Soon it was time to check my weight, blood pressure and blood glucose. All were very satisfactory, although my blood pressure was a tiny bit higher than usual.

  There are a few things I could or should do before I go out this afternoon. I left a few bits of laundry soaking before I went out yesterday. I meant to finish the wash when I got home, but I couldn't raise the enthusiasm (or was it energy ?). This morning that washing is still sitting there in stone cold water. So my first job is to finish that laundry, and the launder my body under the shower. If there is enough time I might make it to Aldi and back before the highlight of the day.

  M.T. Pockets are playing in The Stag pub today. The pub is in far away Maidstone, but for some unknown reason it is a matinee performance starting at 3pm. I will obviously coming home in the dark, but all my travelling to the pub will be in daylight, and if I am very lucky, some of it could even be in sunshine. The downside is that there are no trains to Bromley South today, and I will have to endure an ultra tedious bus ride to Bromley South station to get a once-an-hour train to Maidstone. If I miss the train by as much as 30 minutes I might turn around and come back home again ! 

  I haven't seen any mist, as forecast for about now, but it is still dark outside. As far as I can see it is still clear outside. It seems that the first few hours of the day may be heavily overcast, but maybe by 11am the clouds will thin a bit. None is shown, but maybe it's worth crossing fingers and hoping that there might be a sunny period sometime in the afternoon. Even a few minutes of sunshine would make the forecast 11° C feel quite good. It's a shame that the forecast has just been updated, and the 11° C has now changed to just 10° C. Tomorrow is forecast to be similar to day except that tomorrow afternoon may have some sunny periods. The predicted temperature is currently thought to be 10° C again.
 
   Boxing day, the day before yesterday, was a miserable sort of day, but yesterday was one of the good days - very good ! I started yesterday by washing my hair, and having a good shower. I also put a couple of t-shirts, and some underwear into soak, but I didn't actually finish that bit of laundry until late afternoon. The final thing was to try and psyche myself up for a long walk. I didn't manage that, but by the end of the afternoon I had managed to clock up a few miles.

 If you look carefully at the map showing my walk you'll notice a bit of a mess at the bottom of the map. Once again I forgot to pause the tracker when I went into a shop TWICE, and it got all confused when it lost the GPS signal inside the shops. The first time I had a sort of excuse, but that, and what I was buying in those shops, a bit later.

  I managed to make my walk exactly 1 mile from home to the pub my walking a slightly convoluted route. I should have done a turn around Lewisham Park, or something, to pad it out a bit more, and also to use up a bit of time. I didn't, and ended up in the pub about 20 minutes early. I had sent a message to Angela to say that I would be in there at the usual time of 1pm, and I was a bit worried that she didn't acknowledge it, and that by 1.10pm she had not arrived.

  One minute later she breezed into the pub and told me that she hadn't seen my message, but wondered if I would be there. She did say that she had a busy morning, and maybe had wanted to finish something before going to the pub. With hindsight I think she was more than wondering if I would be there, and more like hoping I would be there.

  Seduction is not the right word, but it the best I can think of to describe how I have been working my charms on Angela - by doing almost nothing but being a different sort of person to lover boy. Yesterday it showed in two rather different ways. The more direct was a result of a new sweater she was wearing. It was ordinary and plain except that one side was exposing a lot of shoulder. I can't quite remember how, but I ended up stroking that small bit of skin, and remarking how wonderful it felt as part of a general compliment about her skin.
 
   I wish I could remember her exact words when I apologised for maybe being too over familiar, but I think she said it was nice, or of that wasn't her words, it was what she implied. I finished with stroking her cheek and chin. It was all very innocent, and yet it wasn't. A little there came a sort of confirmation that it was OK, and hopefully enjoyed. Angela had mentioned that she was curious about the quiz night they have in the pub some time ago. Yesterday she explicitly said that maybe we should have a go at some future quiz night, and that it would be just me and her.

  Maybe it was being dressed all in red (including red boot laces) that brought out the devil in Angela (or me). Anyhow, pub quiz nights are not my natural forte. I think I possess a wide range of knowledge, but there are some glaring holes in it, and I never remember details like dates. To take part would probably end up as a sort of ritual humiliation, but I think I could take that with Angela as my partner. It is even possible that Angela can fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge. I agreed I would join her, and that she was to let me know when it would be.

  The only bad thing was when I went to the toilet before leaving the pub with Angela. The belt I was wearing with my red trousers (which still feel comfortable despite being as much as a kilogram heavier than when I first ventured out into the world wearing them again) was a belt I had been experimenting with reinforcing the holes with eyelets. One of them hadn't been done properly, and left a very sharp edge which split my right thumb open !

  I had to walk Angela back to work with tissue wrapped around my thumb because it was bleeding quite profusely. Fortunately it was my right thumb, and Angela was on my left. It could have been messy if the other way around when for some reason I felt it appropriate to give Angela a sort of sideways hug as we walked down the road. Outside Angela's work place we had a proper hug - possibly for longer and tighter than usual. I think being injured, even if it was only a scratch, brought out extra love from Angela.

  After saying goodbye I continued walking, but not directly to home. As I walked I couldn't help but thinking that Angela and I, at the same age of 64 and a half, had been acting like teenagers while together. I certainly didn't see that coming when I was a teenager. Compared to the miserable day before, it was like I was walking on air as I headed for my first shopping stop. It was to pop into Poundland to buy a packet of plasters, and then to try and put one on my thumb when I was outside the shop.

  It was quite important to try and stop my thumb from bleeding before I went into the shop I was heading for - Peacocks. There was one particular item I wanted, and two optional items. The one I most wanted was socks. Not just any socks, but long thin socks. My experience of wearing hiking boots with dress socks instead of chunky hiking socks has been very positive, and the pair I had been wearing with my boots had started to wear through, and needed replacement. I think I found some suitable socks in Peacocks.

  The two other items were a very low priority. A spare pair of black sweat pants (as I believe they are called) seemed like a handy thing to have. Unfortunately I couldn't see a similar pair that had an internal lining like the one pair I have and occasionally wear - as just indoor pants/trousers rather than for any sporty, sweaty reason. I did find something similar, and added them to my shopping basket. The other thing was a winter coat. I was more curious as to what they had until I spotted what looked like a good coat, in what should have been the right size, and only £25. I added that to my basket too.
  The orange coloured coat on the left in this picture, was one I bought quite a few years ago, but at the time of purchase it turned out to be a lot smaller than the XXL size suggested. I could barely do it up, and it felt like I was in a straight jacket when I did manage it. There was no way I could wear it at the time, but now I have lost some weight I could wear it if, for instance, we had some very severe weather. In the interim, I thought that the blue coat on the right would be a a more comfortable fit - it being a XXXL size. In reality there is little difference in the size, and I will have to lose a bit more weight before either of these severe weather coats becomes very comfortable to wear.

  When I went in Poundland I didn't exactly forget to pause the tracker on my phone, and I left it running because I knew I would be near the front of the shop most of the time, and the GPS signal probably penetrates a little way inside (although it will lose a lot of accuracy). There was also the fact that I didn't have full use of my right hand until I got a plaster on my thumb. I did forget when I went into Peacocks, and so the tracking trace ends up as a mess, and that mess would add anything from half a mile to a mile to my total walk.

  I slightly made amends to it by taking another un-tracked walk to Tesco and back after I had dumped my shopping from Peacocks at home. The two walks combined possibly come a bit closer to the 2.61 miles shown for the first walk. Neither walk was particularly comfortable. I was testing out another old pair of hiking boots with thin socks. My feet were up to the threshold of pain, and neither were they damaged, but those boots were certainly not as comfortable as the pair of hiking boots I took out of retirement a few weeks ago. I do have one more pair to test, but I don't think I'll chance then on any walk likely to be more than 2 miles long - or maybe less.
  I didn't take many pictures on my walk through the park. The picture above showing a clump of daffodils just starting to come up, was just one of two pictures. Despite it being very often wet, and very often very dull, I guess we are having a very mild winter, and these daffodil shoots seem to agree. Of course February seems to be a more traditional month for snow, and maybe I'll get the chance to test one or both of my severe weather coats in the sort of weather I bought them for. By February they could even fit better if I can just lose a bit more weight.
  As I am sure this fat little squirrel would agree, winter is really the time to put weight on, and not to lose it. I really should think more positive thoughts that I am doing well to keep my weight down, let alone lose any. However it seems I am almost back on track to lose some weight again after a few days of madness.

  I have to confess that I did buy some bad things from Tesco yesterday. The big lump of blue cheese (not officially Stilton, but very similar), reduced from £4 to just £1, just had to be bought. I ought to try and make it last a few days ! The two slices of pork and egg roll, also reduced price, seemed too tempting to ignore, even though their calorific value was probably quite high. The Colmans mustard flavoured pork scratchings main failure was probably he salt they contained.

  I also took a good look at the soups on the shelves in Tesco, and selected 4 (or was it 5 ?) of them with what seemed like the lowest sugar count - although they also had to satisfy the criteria of being nice flavours too. Apart from the two bottles of Diet Coke, and the bottle of whiskey, my one other purchase was of a bag of flavoured chicken wings. Within the big bag were three smaller bags containing wings with three different marinades. I am not sure why I dared to buy them after finding the wings I bought from Iceland seemed to contain a lot of sugar. Fortunately the wings I bought yesterday didn't seem to have a sugary glaze like the Iceland wings.

  I was in an extremely good mood yesterday. It was partly from a couple of successful shopping trips. Partly because I had actually gone out on a less than ideal day for a walk, but mostly because of Angela. She really does raise my spirits. The downside, if indeed it can be called a downside, is that my mind was still buzzing when I tried to go to sleep. I thought I felt tired, but I just didn't feel sleepy. It felt like I lay in bed for ages trying to get to sleep, but maybe it was less than it felt like. I can't really remember what time I turned the light out, but it was probably around 11pm.

  I guess I was probably asleep by midnight, but I can't be sure of that. I know it was about 2.15am when I first woke up. I managed to get back to sleep for another couple of hours fairly quickly, but it was by no means instantly. I didn't think the last hour or two was going to happen, but it did - just. At 7am it seemed like I may as well start getting up. I sort of felt OK with what sleep I had managed to get, and apart from my right shoulder, which is still playing up, I feel fairly OK. My blood pressure is it's usual moderately low, and my blood glucose is, as usual, not quite as low as I think it should be, but pretty typical of the last month or two.

  Now comes the bit where I have to try and decide what I am going to do today. The great outdoors doesn't look too attractive right now, but there is hope that it will brighten up in another couple of hours - although the chances of any sunshine are quite low. What I am going to try and convince myself to do is to go for a country walk - specifically the approx 4 miles from Eynsford to Shoreham (Kent). On nicer days it used to be may favourite practice walk. I have often thought about doing it in less pleasant weather, and today could be the day.  At least the trains are running, and that is a good first step.

  Today could be a dry version of yesterday. It is certainly very dull outside now, but maybe it will only be light grey for a few hours around midday. The temperature will probably be the same as yesterday. In other words, under the cold grey sky it is going to feel cold. With bright sunshine, and no wind, 9° C could feel pleasant, almost warm, but not today ! Rechecking the forecast shows one small change has occurred. The cloud cover is now probably going to change from dark grey to light grey at midday, and although we won't be able to see it in the dark, the cloud cover will remain light into the night - but not light enough to see any stars. Tomorrow might be the same as today apart from one small change to the better - it might be a couple of degrees less cold.
 
   For the first time in untold years, Xmas day was an OK day. Yesterday, boxing day, was not a good day. On the whole it was a bad day. The lousy wet weather seemed to wash away any good thoughts or ideas. It certainly put paid to any outdoor activities - including shopping - even in the corner shop ! I guess I started with some good intentions. I washed my hair, and had a good shower. I also hand washed three t-shirts and some underwear. For a grand finale I did the small amount of washing up that had been left in the sink, and I cleaned the work top and microwave oven.

  It was while working in the kitchen that I started to feel a bit cold. It wasn't bad while working, but after I finished, and went back to my bedroom, I still seemed to be cooling down. It was almost like I had a very mild fever. In the end I could stand it no more, and went back to the kitchen to heat up a can of oxtail soup. I ate that soup with a bit of chilli sauce in it, and it seemed unbelievably delicious. I git carried away at that point, and had two more cans of soup. One was "no added sugar" tomato soup with a good splash of Worcestershire sauce in it, and the other was chicken soup with a small amount of Thai red curry paste in it. The latter should have had a bigger dollop of Thai curry paste in it. I'll try to remember that if there is a next time.

  Three cans of hot soup did warm me up, but also left me feeling lethargic, although I think I was feeling lethargic before eating the soups.  At least I could lay on my bed quietly reading without feeling shivery. An individual can of soup is fairly low calorie, and if the correct flavour and/or make is chosen, fairly low sugar content too. I knew the Oxtail soup was fairly benign, and the tomato soup was supposed to be, but cumulatively they probably added up to more than I should have eaten. Later on I would compound the problem as I disposed of the two Chinese themed ready meals I bought from Iceland before Xmas. Of course I disposed them down my throat.

  On the whole, not counting the bit of work I did in the morning, yesterday was a boring day. I was looking forward to going for a quick drink with Jodie instead of feeling like it was my duty to meet her for a drink. It had been loose arrangement to meet, and both of us said that the weather wasn't looking good for it. I didn't hear from Jodie, and I assume that she was not keen on waiting for buses in the rain, and she probably assumed I would be grumpy about going out in the rain.

  I had to amuse myself the best I could in the afternoon and evening. Now I have to admit that most of the ways I amused myself would have been fine if done in a positive mood, but when you feel you have to force yourself to do stuff it takes away any possible pleasure. Last night's episode of Star Trek - Voyager was not a good episode (only about 1 in 4 episodes were average or better of that series), but if I hadn't forced myself to watch it I would have watched it anyway, and enjoyed it more !

  It was some relief when I felt I had read enough of the short chapters of the book I am reading (Rocket Man - the biography of Nasa Astronaut, and moon walker, Pete Conrad). I put the book down, turned out the light, and despite my right shoulder aching, I fell asleep very quickly. I think I ended up having quite a good sleep, and while I can't really remember anything of my dreams, I seem to think that the "flavour" of them was sort of positive. Maybe not specially happy, but nothing scary, weird, or depressing. They were probably better than real life - which makes it doubly annoying I can't remember anything about them.

  This morning my right shoulder is still sore, but it depends on how I move it, or what position it is in. With care I can try to avoid what makes it worse, and I can forget it until I make a wrong move, and it reminds me, with a fair bit of aggression, that it is not happy. The rest of me seems mostly OK. My blood glucose is not as low as yesterday, but at least I know exactly why - it was the predictable result of the food I ate. I think, but I might be deluding myself, that my weight has stabilised again, and it might still be possible to reach an unknown target when I see the Diabetes nurse and Dietician at the hospital in January.

  Today I might stand a chance of improving my weight and blood glucose level, or it could all go horribly wrong. Things could go well if I meet Angela at lunchtime, and don't drink too much Guinness. It would all go horribly wrong if I don't see Angela, and even more horribly wrong if I hear that Angela won't be available before setting out on a walk that will take me to the pub. On a miserable, grey day like today, I doubt I will actually walk much further than the minimum, but maybe if the sky does turn from dirty grey to light grey by midday, I might be less negative about it.

  I do have a fall back plan if Angela is not available. In fact I have two, and they may not be exclusive to each other. I could do both. I fancy a look around Peacocks to see what menswear there may be in their current sale. I also fancy a look around either Aldi or Tesco. Either of them could have stuff at a reduced price, but generally it is only high calorie/high sugar Xmas food that is reduced to clear it off the shelves. On rare occasions Tesco has some reduced price booze. I doubt either has any good bargains for me, but I could get some socks from Tesco !
  One of the things I did to amuse myself yesterday was to look to see if anything was moving on the local rail network. Sometimes it is interesting to see what lines are blocked, and where engineering trains are. It seemed that Southern were running something as good as, or better than a Sunday service out of Victoria, but around here nothing was moving. With no tube network in SE London, we were effectively marooned. Anyhow, I was looking around and I came across St Mary Cray, and some bored signalman showed what they thought of Xmas, and/or of St Mary Cray !

  Today may not be as bad as the forecast predicted. For instance it wasn't predicted that there would enough gaps in the cloud to let through an occasional glimpse of the sun, but I have definitely seen sunshine this morning. Unfortunately the latest revision of the forecast is much worse than the forecast in the screenshot above. Now some of the rain will be heavy instead of light, and it is now predicted that the rain will last right through to 9pm. As I write this the road looks a bit damp, but it doesn't really look like it has started raining yet. Fingers crossed that the latest revision of the forecast turns out to be wrong, and that today won't even be as bad as the early forecast predicted. The one thing that is usually correctly predicted is the temperature, and today should be 9° C - not too bad in sunshine, but pretty miserable in the rain. Tomorrow is currently predicted to be a dry version of today, but still overcast from dawn to dusk and beyond.
 
   Yesterday, being Xmas day, could have been ultra boring, but it wasn't. For the first time in I don't know how many years, yesterday was a good day. There is nothing really to add to what I wrote yesterday, but to recap; My day started with a very short, but very delicious greetings message from Angela. That set me up to go for a long walk that was nearly 5 miles long, and featured a couple of hill climbs. Maybe not pushing myself to round it up to 5 miles was a wise move because apart from needing a short rest when I got home, I didn't have any lingering fatigue. That was handy for when I got a message from Kevin, and went out again to meet him in the pub for a couple of drinks. I will admit that my legs did feel a bit creaky for the first couple of hundred feet, but after that I didn't really notice anything more until I was home again. It was then that I noticed my feet were feeling a bit sore.

  Yesterday evening, after I had eaten my experimental sprout satay dinner, went by smoothly. I expected I might go to bed early, but to my great surprise there were a few TV programmes on that grabbed my attention, to some degree or another. The final programme was a documentary celebrating 50 years of Star Trek. In parts it was good, but maybe less so in others. It was mainly just talking heads recounting their memories, and some were not terribly exciting. That was a shame because it spoiled my concentration, and sometimes my attention would wander off to the internet.

  That programme ended at 11pm, and I went straight to bed. Initially I started reading, but I discovered there were only a couple of pages left to read in the last New Scientist. Once I had read those two pages I turned out the light, and I seemed to fall asleep really quickly. I'm fairly sure I was asleep before midnight. Prior to falling asleep, and earlier in the evening, I was keeping an eye on the temperature outside, and I saw it fall to just under 2° C. I did wonder if I might wake up to snow, but no, the temperature rose again in the small hours.

  I think I probably slept well last night. Once again I did that thing where I started to get up at sometime after 6am, but ended up back in bed again. One moment I was laying in bed thinking that maybe it was a mistake to try and get back to sleep, and the next moment it was 8.30am, and I could see sunshine through the gaps in the curtains. After a big wee, and a fairly good poo, I weighed myself, and it seemed that I had put on quite a bit of weight since yesterday afternoon. I am now wondering if my scales go inaccurate when left in a cold room. I think it may be possible, but mostly I thought that I was dreading checking my blood glucose. I needn't have worried. It was the lowest early morning reading I have had for a week or two !

  Today I have some grand plans....well, maybe not "grand", but there are a few things I expect I will do. One of the most important is to have a good shower. I knew (or thought I knew) that I would not be seeing anyone yesterday, and so I didn't even bother to wipe a wet flannel across my face. When it came to meeting Kevin, which was unexpected, all I had time for was to spray on a bit of deodorant, and hope for the best !

   Before I have a shower there are two tasks to complete first, although only the first is actually important to do before a shower. I have a few t-shirts, and some underwear to wash. That can be a mildly sweaty exercise (or very sweaty on a warm summers day), and it's best to wash myself afterwards. It doesn't actually matter when I do the other task - a small amount of washing up.

  Later this afternoon it is possible that I will be meeting Jodie for a couple of beers in the Wetherspoons pub, but it depends on how heavy the rain might be, plus other things. So it is not definite, but worth getting ready for.
  I have a suspicion I've posted this picture before, but maybe not. Pepsi Max, ginger flavour, is another of those weird drinks seen in Poundstretcher. As a rule I don't care for Pepsi Max, but because I was previously unaware of this ginger variant, plus it being sugar free, meant it had to be tried. It is fairly pleasant, but not exciting enough to rush out to buy more, although I may grab a couple of spare cans for a rainy day or something. Incidently, the 59p, or 2 for £1 is not the Poundstretcher price. I think they might have been as little as 39p, and definitely no more than 45p a can.
  Sometimes it is fun (or maybe just interesting) to explore the world via Google Maps. Flicking over to street view sometimes provides more information. I can't even remember why I wanted to check the street view of a bus stop opposite Lewisham hospital, where Angela works. I can't recall seeing Angela wearing a red coat before, but I feel sure this could be Angela waiting at the bus stop to go home. Unfortunately Google have blurred her face, and the picture is not particularly sharp when you zoom in, but her looks right. She is smoking while waiting for the bus, and she definitely has a pair of shoes exactly as seen in the picture.

  The forecast above turned out to be about right. It was really quite chilly this morning, but the sunshine was glorious. At times, when it was on my back, it actually felt quite warm. Had it been 12° C, like yesterday, instead of just 8° C, it might have been the sort of day for going out without a coat. Tonight the temperature may drop to 4° C (according to the latest revision), and that might be low enough for a touch of frost, but the temperature profile for tomorrow is looking about the same as that for today. The big difference is that there will probably be light rain until after 2pm, and then it may just be heavily overcast.

Today has been a busy day, and that was good because it distracted from what this day is. Today could easily have been worse than a really boring Sunday, but it got off to a very good start.
  Sometimes I worry that I delude myself about how close Angela and I are, but the above message seems to show me that we are very close. It's a shame that she wants to remain loyal to lover boy despite him suppressing her usual joy-de-vivre, but while he has assorted medical problems, she will never give up on him. It's like when she stuck with John who she originally friended to help out while his cancer got worse - and fell in love with him.

  Despite it being very chilly this morning, the bright sunshine called to me very strongly. I had always intended to go for a walk, but the sunshine was responsible for me pushing myself to follow a route that I have been thinking about for well over a year. It was to take in 5 different parks. Today I managed it. I ended up walking 4.68 miles, and went through part of the Pool River Linear Park, Blythe Hill Fields, Ravensbourne Park Gardens, Ladywell Fields, and Lewisham Park.


  Not only was it a long walk, it also featured a couple of taxing hills. The first was when I left the Pool River Linear Park, and walked up Winsford Road to Perry Hill. That took me extremely close to Angela's house, but I didn't dare try calling there. From then on it was downhill until I started the climb Blythe Hill Lane. That is a bloody steep road that goes up to Blythe Hill Fields. There are some terrific views from up there !
  This is one view from the top of Blythe Hill Fields. It features all the skyscrapers around Canary Wharf.  In another direction are all the famous named skyscrapers in the city of London - The shard, the cheesegrater, the walki-talkie etc.
  Before I could tackle the long steep hill to the top of Blythe Hill Fields I passed The Blythe Hill Tavern.  I have to admit, that if it had been open I would have called in for a pint of Guinness to re-hydrate myself. After what was about another hour of walking I came to another pub...
...The Jolly Farmers - scene of many clandestine meetings with Angela. I had been hopeful that it might have opened at 11am, and by coincidence it was 10.59am when I arrived outside. Realistically I knew that midday is the typical opening time on a Xmas day, and that not all pubs open at all on the day. I suspect that The Jolly Farmers may not have opened at all, but I didn't want to hang around outside for a whole hour to find out. I just carried on walking to my fifth and final park - Lewisham Park.

  My feet were starting to feel a bit heavy as I walked through the park, by the shortest route, but I had some strange idea that I might walk home the long way round. The idea was to pass by The London & Rye, Wetherspoons pub, and see if that was getting ready to open (and to go in if it actually had opened). Had I gone past the pub it would have probably just added enough extra distance to take my walk to 5 miles. However, when it came to it, I crossed the main road, and took a more direct route home. I noted that as I passed the Group Practice that the pharmacy had his "Open" sign outside. That could be useful knowledge for next year.

  When I got home I did a few tests, and found they contradicted each other. My blood glucose level was surprisingly high (although not desperately so), but my weight was almost back down to the lowest I recently achieved. Throwing all caution aside I ate my last two packets of crisps. I then ate two lots of instant noodles. I felt quite relaxed after that, and it felt good to lay on my bed reading. I had only been reading for about 20 minutes when I got a message from friend Kevin. His family situation had stabilised, and he was being allowed out for a "swift half". Would I like to join him.

  I quickly got dressed for outdoors again, and while initially my legs felt a bit stiff, I found I soon speeded up. I arrived at the pub to within 30 seconds of the agreed time - Kevin turned up 5 minutes late ! We stayed for three pints (or 2.5 pints in Kevin's case), and had a good chat. I gave Kevin his Xmas present, and as the bell sounded bar closing, I walked back home again. At last I felt I could rest properly, but I didn't. I had pictures to edit, and dinner to cook.

  Dinner was an experimental meal. It was what could be called, and possibly is called, sprout satay - assuming I am not the first to make it, and it had a name before I invented it for myself. Basically it was sprouts cooked in chicken stock flavoured with too much peanut butter. I think if I hadn't overdone the peanut butter, and had perhaps used normal chicken stock cubes, instead of chicken stock pots, it might have been much nicer than it was.

  Right now it is finally time to upload all this writing, and do some intensive resting. Of course now I have nothing to write about tomorrow morning. It is forecast to rain tomorrow, and so I doubt I will go out walking to give me anything new to write about. I expect tomorrow could be a boring day !

  The forecast got things wrong in two ways this morning. The sunny spells could have been called sunshine up to about 10.30am when they could have been called rain ! I wasn't expecting that as I walked through the park ! I'm not even sure the forecast 12° C is right. Maybe it is the wind, but it feels much cooler to me. It now seems that the forecast has been revised to show a shower due at midday, and a possible earlier revision my have showed the shower I encountered earlier, but I didn't see that revision. It seems that there may be more showers after sunset, but the rest of the evening could be dry. Tomorrow is forecast to be dry and sunny, but it could well be a very chilly day with a maximum temperature of just 8° C.


  My walking exercise was not a very long walk yesterday - just 1.81 miles, and I had to deliberately take the long way home to achieve that. It was harder work than usual because I was not feeling too good. The sunshine had given way to sunny periods, and even they were getting a bit thin as I walked home. Despite the predicted temperature it was feeling very to me, and worse than that, bit of me were starting to ache.

  One bit that was starting to feel sore was my right shoulder, and it would get even worse later on. I suspect it, and possibly some other aches, were the result of wearing a ruck sack that I rarely use for reasons I had forgotten until yesterday. It was that the shoulder straps keep slipping off my shoulders. As a result I was forever lifting my shoulders to try and get the straps back in place. I think that triggered off the pain in my right shoulder joint, and probably some lower back pain too. Even my neck was complaining for while last night.

  The reason I used that little used rucksack was in case Angela might need it to take home her Xmas present of two bottles of vodka liqueur. She didn't, but it was useful for me to take home the bottle of whisky she gave me as my Xmas present. It was also useful when I popped into Poundstretcher on the way home. I bought quite a few sugar drinks in there, and one drink that I should not have. It was Fanta grape juice, and it loudly proclaimed "no added sugar", and I have to confess I was suckered in by that. It was later I realised the horrible truth - natural grape juice is not much more than purple syrup. The small print did note that the product did contain a lot of natural sugar, but that no more had been added !
  Despite the later aches and pains, it was all worth it to see Angela. It was a lovely relaxed drink together, and Angela was most reluctant to go back to work. In fact she went back half an hour late because she wanted to spend more time with me. Not only did we part on a very warm hug, but on this occasion we had a little hug in the pub.
  One unusual thing while I was walking in the park, yesterday, was that some of the ring necked parakeets were in the lower branches of some trees instead of being at the top of the tallest trees. Maybe it was just one of those random things, and I just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, for some easy to take photos.
  Another parakeet looking down on me from maybe only 20 - 25ft up in a tree.
  These three ducks were on the riverbank on the far side of the river. I assume the one on the middle is just resting it's other leg, and that it has two of them, but I suppose I might have snapped a one legged duck.
  This squirrel posed for me on this wall. Prior to this he (or she) had been on the path, standing up like a meerkat. The photo I took of that did not come out well.

  I felt starving hungry when I finally got home, and I am not sure why...or at least not at the strength of my desire for food. I am usually peckish after a good walk, but yesterday it felt like I was starving. I gave in to it and had a quickly prepared pot noodle while a fish pie cooked in the microwave. After that I didn't dare check my blood glucose before I had my dinner just a few hours later.

  At least the pot noodle warmed me up a bit, but for the rest of the afternoon, and partly during the evening, I felt shivery. It was almost like I had a fever. Perhaps I did. With so many bit aching I took some pain killers before I went to bed. I was in bed early, and maybe thanks to those painkillers, I slept well for a few hours. After that it felt like I was awake for half the night. If I hadn't been keeping an eye on the time, and noticing that odd hours went missing, I might have felt I had been awake for most of the early hours of this morning.

  I had to get up early this morning, or to put it more accurately, I had to be ready to go out earlier this morning than I usually do these days. I had an appointment at the hospital for a diabetic retinopathy scan at 9.10am.

  The forecast says sunny, and indeed it is sunny ! If the forecast continues to be correct the sunshine should give way to sunny periods in the early afternoon, and then the sky will cloud over as sunset nears. The rest of the day will be overcast, but that won't matter too much because it will be dark. Early this afternoon the temperature should peak at 11° C. It looks like the rain will return at 1am tomorrow morning, but it may stop before sunrise, and the rest of the day should be just lightly overcast. It should be a mild day - starting at 9° C, and 11° C all afternoon. We have now passed the winter solstice, and from today the days will be getting longer, although it is going to take a while before it is really noticeable.

  Yesterday could have been another very lazy day, and I have to admit that most of it was, but at least I had a shower, and got dressed properly - but only to go out to do a bit of shopping. I was in the mood for more tasty food, and at first I thought I might go to Tesco, but once I got outside the place, and peered through the windows I saw that it was like a battleground in there. I couldn't face everyone getting in the way, and the long queues at the checkouts.

  A look through the windows of Iceland showed it was a bit busy, but not heaving with shoppers like Tesco. I decided I would go in, and buy some stuff. Some Most of what I bought would not compliment the dieting I had been doing up until several days ago, but I felt a strong urge to buy it anyway. At least one item was from the "Slimming World" range. As such it should be low calorie, although all too often not that much lower than a comparable non-slimming product. I haven't checked the sugar content, but I would not be surprised to find it is quite high.

  After Iceland I had a look in Poundstretcher. Once again it didn't seem any worse than a Saturday, and possibly not quite as bad. So I went in to buy some bleach, and, typically, came out with more than that. I checked their canned drink section, and although I generally don't like Pepsi that much, I bought two cans of sugar free Cherry Pepsi, and two cans of sugar free ginger Pepsi. The latter might be very nice, or very terrible. The cherry Pepsi can hardly be worse than Dr Peppers, or cherry Coke, but I am not expecting to like it....not that much.


   Just along the shelf from the canned drinks I came across these bottled drinks. They proclaim themselves to be sugar free - so that was a good start. I found it very curious that each one says "orangeade" on the label despite none of them being orange. At 45p a bottle I bought these three varieties as pictured.

  When I got home I put them in the fridge to chill, and then later on I tried one of the green versions, but to be honest I can't remember if it was the "gorgeous green" or the "emerald green" first. The first one didn't taste a thing like orangeade, and I didn't expect it to. It did taste of pears, and was quite nice. The second one I tried had a taste I couldn't quite place. It was a very weak taste, and maybe it had a hint of lime about it.

  I haven't tried the "bubblegum pink" but I am rather expecting it to taste like bubblegum. That wouldn't be horrible, but it would not be nice either. I think they had at least one more flavour on the shelf, and it was a dark colour - probably some sort of cola flavour. If they are still in stock the next time I go in Poundstretcher I may well buy a sample of that, plus any other untried flavour. I think I will also buy another bottle or two of the pear flavoured one if I can remember which green it was. (I know it was the first I tried, and the empty bottle may be a little deeper in the recycling bin....may be !).

  It is not unusual to see Xmas trees dumped out on the road after Xmas, but very unusual before xmas. I saw this tree on my back from shopping. There is a clue as to how it came to be there. It is dumped on the path outside the local primary school next to their big rubbish bin (industrial scale wheelie bin). I assume it came from within the school, and now that the current term has ended, and the kids won't be back until after Xmas, it had no further purpose. It still looks in good condition, and I would not be surprised if it doesn't end up in use somewhere else. Ideally it could have been offered to a charity, or something.

  After getting home from my shopping trip, about the only notable thing I did was to eat ! I had a small fish pie for lunch, and a pile of BBQ chicken wings for dinner. It wasn't until after I started cooking those wings that I became worried about their sugar content. I never did check, but I can imagine that part of the BBQ glaze could have been sugar based. By then it was too late. Fortunately I think I can blame my slightly raised blood glucose on other things this morning.

  For once I had an early night. I think I was asleep very soon after 10pm. On the whole I slept well, but did have a few notable dreams. The first was just before I woke up at around 1am. The bit I can remember was very short. I was standing outside my bedroom door when there was the most mighty clap of thunder you can imagine. It was not that local because there was a small pause after the brilliant flash of lightning that caused it. t had the strength (and brilliance) of a small atomic bomb. I actually felt a pressure wave pass me by. Upon checking for damage I found none at all, but the window in the spare bedroom was open, and rain was coming in. After closing the window I woke up. I wondered if there really had been a thunderstorm, but all seemed calm, and it wasn't even raining.

 The second dream took weirdness to a new level. I can't seem to recall a beginning or an end to it. It featured a half, or even third sized Dalek that was initially in a cupboard. It seemed to be a co-operative Dalek because I sent it into the spare bedroom to try and sort out an infestation of small scorpions - the sort that used to be, and maybe still are found at Ongar station, and (I think) Tilbury docks. In real life, and in the dream that were about an inch long, and pack a sting that is said to be worse than a mosquito bite, but not quite as bad as a wasp sting. I think the Dalek started zapping them with it's Exterminator, but my memory of the dream becomes very hazy at the end.

  This morning my weight is still not going down again, and my blood glucose is higher than desired, but still lower than it was before I started to do something about it. My blood pressure is still low. On the whole I feel fairly good ! My mood, and hence how I feel, is elevated by the knowledge that I should be seeing Angela today. I just hope that nothing unforeseen doesn't happen that will prevent her going to the pub at lunchtime as she was intending to do in her last message to me on Thursday.

  I need the exercise so I shall be walking to the pub by some route or another regardless, and I'll have at least one pint of Guinness with or without Angela, but I think she will be there of she can. I hope she enjoys her Xmas presents. I know she will definitely like one of the two parcels I have for her. Before all that I had better give myself a good scrub, and I think my hair needs a good wash and condition too. I had better get on with it !

  I think it may have stopped raining before 9am this morning, but otherwise the forecast seems like it may be correct. The latest revision has not changed anything of note. I should be an overcast day with the temperature peaking at 9° C, and 8° C for almost the rest of the day. The only potential flaw is that as I write this I can see patches of blue sky, and it got very bright just now. It was almost sunny, and from the look of the sky, the chances of a sunny interval seem very possible. Of course it could change to follow the forecast in half an hour, but for now there is some tiny hope of something better - even if only for 2 minutes. Tomorrow should be dry until 10pm when rain may fall again. The morning is predicted to be sunny, and sunny spells should continue until mid afternoon. The afternoon temperature could reach 11° C.

  Yesterday was another subdued day, but I did do a few important things. It was also a day when I didn't fancy going out. Not even to the corner shop, and so it was a day when I only had the most superficial of washes, and never did put on any outdoor clothes. Mostly I just slobbed around in lounge/sweat pants. They are thicker than lounge pants, and so I guess they are sweat pants. I have no idea how they were described on the label.

 The two most important things I did was to do some hand laundry, and to finally, after maybe 5 years, fix my 24 port Ethernet hub/switch. I can't remember how long ago it was that I took it out of service because the bearings in the cooling fans had dried up, and were making an unearthly shrieking noise. I probably could have got away with just disconnecting the fans.It is an industrial grade device, meant to feed loads of data hungry computers. By comparison my usage is very light - which should/could make it run cooler. On the other hand, the two fans in it are to cool the power supply, and not the digital board. Keeping the power supply cooler will lengthen it's life, and so I fitted two new fans. They have different mounting points so I glued them in with silicone sealant.

  While I was re-installing the hub in my back room I took a look at one of my old wireless access points. It had stopped working some time ago, but I never paid it much attention because I have two others that are working. Upon examining the access point the most obvious thing was that it was stone cold. The lights all worked, and the internal power regulator appeared to be working OK. I concluded that the little processor chip had probably died, although that was no more than speculation. The hard fact is that even if I could do a more accurate diagnosis, I lack the tools to do repairs I could do quite easily when I was at work.

  I think that access point may have come out of a skip originally, and so the 5 years or so of service I got from it made it very good value for money. My other two access points give more than adequate coverage, and there is no need for a third. One of them I think I bought for about £30 years and years ago. It was simple to set up. The other is actually a re-purposed Orange branded ADSL modem/router/wifi access point. I bought it from a charity shop for about £10, and it works well. I had very little information about it, but the configuration options seem to make sense, and setting it up to be no more than a wireless access point proved to be fairly simple.

  I mention the ease of setting up the two working access points because I have a third access point that I did pay good money for - but not that much because it is a cheapo Chinese branded thing. I have a vague memory of testing it when it was delivered to work, but for the last 5 or so years it has stayed in it's box. Yesterday I thought I would give it a test - mainly, and erroneously, because I thought it could be used on the 5Ghz band. I thought it would be interesting to see how well that band worked. Firstly, it doesn't support 5GHz as I thought, and second it is a bastard to set up - and I don't know why. I got it to the point where I could configure via a direct Ethernet connection to my laptop, and the wifi was working. I could connect to it from my phone. What I couldn't figure out was why it was routing all stuff on the WAN (Wide Area Network) to the wrong IP address. All data was going down a hole because there is nothing on my network with that address. I gave up on yesterday, but I think I have a few ideas, and may try again today.

  One other thing of note about yesterday was my eating. It was another day when it seemed I was having a rest from my diet. I didn't actually go mad, and still tried to eating nothing that would raise my blood glucose level too high. For instance, for dinner I had grilled Lincolnshire sausages with "no added sugar" Heinz baked beans. One curious thing about those beans was that they are in a sort of intermediate sized tin. It contained more than a half sized tin, and less than a full sized tin. It was actually probably about the right size to serve one person (like me !).

 For my lunch I had a Sainsbury's Greek salad fortified with a small can of tuna, and some mayonnaise. Apart from the mayonnaise, it was still a pretty healthy sort of meal. The bad things were some crisps and some nuts eaten as snacks during the day - the nuts mostly in the evening when I was drinking beer. In some ways it was not that outrageous. I didn't dare weigh myself again this morning, but I did check my blood glucose for the first time in a couple of days. My last reading was quite high compared with what I have achieved most days for the last 2 or 3 months. This mornings reading was higher than I am aiming for, but not much higher than average.

  The peculiar thing about yesterday, and for that matter, some previous similar days, is that while I can't seem to account for the whole day, and what account I can give makes it sounds like I did so little, it seemed like yesterday passed by very quickly with no hints of boredom....well, maybe just a teeny weeny hint of boredom, but that was cured quickly by watching a few more episodes of the 1966/1967 Batman TV series - episodes featuring Catwoman. I can't remember what my thoughts were when those old series were originally shown on TV here, but now, as an adult, possibly a mature adult, but more like a knackered adult, I am totally in love (or lust !) with Julie Newmar (as she was 50 years ago when she played Catwoman).

  I spent the last hour or so of the evening in bed reading New Scientist magazine (it is a special seasonal edition, and so thicker than usual). Once my eyelids started to drop I put the magazine down, turned out the light, and within minutes I was asking myself why I couldn't get to sleep. Another few minutes and I was asleep, and apparently sleeping well. After drinking 4 cans of beer I had to get up a few times in the night, but no more than the new normal.  I think I managed to stay in bed until the first hints that the morning was getting lighter. Sunrise was at approx 8am this morning, and so I guess I started getting up a bit before that.

  This morning I feel generally OK apart from some lethargy. I don't feel terribly keen on running around today, and I almost certainly won't be. I may possibly go to the shops, but at this time of the year (just three days to Xmas) the shops will be heaving, and I am not sure I can be bothered to go and buy stuff that I could buy in 5 days time without any great loss. Tomorrow I will be inspired to get out and do some walking. It may not be a 3 mile epic, but I will be delivering Angela's Xmas presents to the pub, and that is at least a mile in total if I take the shortest route.

  Today I will probably end up doing some housework, and maybe a lot of reading. I may also be a bit more careful about what I eat today - I have to start getting back on the straight and narrow for when I see the Hospital Diabetes Nurse next month (either the 2nd or 14th - I really must remember to check which date it is for the diabetes nurse).

  Finally, since my cable broadband connection came back up yesterday, after some unspecified external fault, it has remained stable, and a check on my download speed shows all is well (the upload speed is always lousy on a Virgin domestic connection).

  I'm not sure what time the rain actually stopped this morning. It was still raining when I first got up, and it seemed so horrible outside that I went back to bed, and slept for a couple more hours it seems. I woke up again to bright sunshine ! We are now in the forecast period of "sunny intervals", but if the forecast bears some semblance to reality today, by early afternoon it will be overcast, and by sunset it will be raining again - probably for the rest of the night. As this morning ends the temperature may reach 11° C for an hour or two, but more of the day will be just 9° C. Tomorrow is currently forecast to be dry after some very early rain, but it may stay overcast all day. The maximum temperature may, once again be no more than 9° C.

  The most important news from yesterday was that late in the afternoon my broadband internet connection died. I feared it was the result of the heavy rain we were experiencing, and I was possibly right. I was hoping that it wasn't my individual connection that failed, because if it were something more general, serving many people, the possibly thousands of Virgin Cable TV customers, who would also be affected, would take the pain of trying to report the fault to Virgin. Meanwhile I could just sit back and wait for it to be repaired.

  I didn't exactly sit back and just wait though. I rushed out to the corner shop to pick up a new 3 sim card, and a £20 top up voucher to get my 3 USB dongle working again. After a bit of mucking around it came up, and I was able to go on 3's web site to enter my top up voucher code. I spent the whole of the £20 on an "add-on" that gave me 12GB of data for the next 30 days. I thought that ought to see me OK even if my cable broadband was out for the whole of the Xmas period.
  By 10am my connection started working again, and although I could have done it using the mobile data dongle earlier, I finally went to Virgin Media's Service Status page. It confirmed that there was a know fault in the area, and that it was estimated to be fixed by 2pm today. Evidently it was faster to fix than estimated, although maybe there could be other outages if the first fix involved a bodge, and a proper fix will be done later. In the meantime, I have registered that I was affected by this fault in case it takes longer to properly resolve, and I can get a rebate on my bill for the downtime.

  Hopefully all that's left to be done now is to think of ways of using up the 12GB of mobile data I have bought. Maybe on some dry day I will take a laptop to the middle of the park, and do an update from there. Maybe I will take the laptop to a pub and do an update there. The latter seems a better idea !

  I'm wondering if I will ever finish writing this. I have just been distracted while making sure my 3 mobile broadband dongle works on one of my laptops. It did, and once again I got a "your computer is not recognised", and one of my accounts was temporarily suspended until I could prove it was really me. It happened yesterday when I used the broadband dongle for the first time with the new SIM card in it. Google went into panic mode, and I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to sort it out again.
  The weather forecast said that it could have been raining, or if it wasn't raining it should be overcast as I took this picture on my way to so a bit of shopping in Aldi yesterday. Evidently the forecast was wrong ! I was in a strange shopping mood when I went to Aldi. I didn't want to buy anything too outrageous, but I did want to buy some stuff that I have been avoiding for the last few months. What I did buy, for instance a couple of Chinese Ready Meals, will do my blood glucose level no good, but I felt like a break. Maybe the cold, wet, and very short days wore me down. Maybe the 5.2% beer in the pub the previous night wore me down.

  Anyway, sitting in my fridge are two chilled, but not frozen "Chinese" meals this morning, and sooner or later both will have to be eaten - probably both as two halves of one meal. They were probably the worst things I bought. Much of the weight of my shopping was made up of liquids. On the small side was olive oil. Slightly bigger was the 4 bottles and 4 cans of beer. Topping the weight was four 2.25 litre bottles of Diet Coke. There are still 4 days to go, but I shouldn't go thirsty over Xmas (although the corner shop will probably be open on Xmas morning if I really need anything).
  The strangest purchase I made was these three flavoured instant coffees. I don't drink coffee (not even sugar free coffee as the jars proudly claim). I bought these for Patricia to add to the three less weird flavoured coffees left over from her last visit. Now I hope that Patricia will be able to come to England next summer (or spring), and that if it has happened, Brexit won't cause too much problem for her.

  On my way back from Aldi I bumped into my neighbour Michael who was on his way to Aldi. We stopped to chat for 5 or 6 minutes. While there he handed me a Xmas card sealed in an envelope. I didn't see it until I got home, and when I did see it I loved it. It was the perfect card from one miserable old got to another miserable old git. It sums up why I spend Xmas on my own (although it has been many a year since I had an invite I could turn down). I believe that even at the age of 70 Michael still has "family duties", and is expected to drive down to the south coast to spend 2 or more days with family. He says he will be very bored before the first day is over, and will be wanting to go home at the earliest opportunity. I don't blame him.

  My afternoon was mostly relaxed until my broadband connection died, and then as partly explained above, I was rushing around like a blue-arsed fly ! In theory I could have been relaxing right up the time I went to bed nice and early - maybe 9pm, or even possibly earlier.

  What actually happened is that I spent longer watching TV than usual, and didn't get to bed until after midnight ! It was fortunate that I found a few watchable things on TV to watch. It was mostly either QI or several episodes of Red Dwarf. Even when I did finally go to bed I had to read until my eyelids were dropping before I felt relaxed enough to sleep. I think it was as late as 1am before I went to sleep, but once asleep it seemed I slept well.

  In fact I didn't sleep well, because when I woke up at 3am, and then at 5am, I realised I had only got 4 hours sleeps. The silly thing was that I sort of felt wide awake, and partly got up. It was around 7am when I went back to bed, and slept for over 2 hours. I had only been out of bed for about 10 minutes when I first started writing this. Since then I have been running up and down stairs rebooting the Virgin Media router/modem, and I have done lots of other computer related stuff in between writing paragraphs here.

  I think now I can try and work out how I feel this morning. On the whole I think I probably feel generally OK physically. I feel too mentally scared to get on the scales, or to check my blood glucose level. On the whole this is all a bad idea considering it is now less than a fortnight before I am hoping to show the Hospital Diabetes Nurse some good readings (it may be just over three weeks time if I have mixed the date up with an appointment forced upon me to see the Hospital Dietician to discuss how I should be eating. Once again I am hoping to show that I have pre-empted any advice, and my own method actually works - as it has until the last few days.

  I feel I should go out for a long walk today - particularly with the sun out (as it is again at this moment). It would be a lot easier if I had some destination to walk to. I had originally hoped the pub would be a possible destination of I took the scenic route there. I was hoping to see Kevin, but he is probably not available until next Tuesday - if indeed then. I think I might stay in, and do some housework. I probably need to hoover upstairs, and I have a few t-shirts that need washing. If the sun could stay out a bit longer, even if my garden is in permanent shade at this time of year, I could do a bit of gardening. There is the back right hand corner of the garden that still needs sorting out, and I need to finally define the layout of the garden (and use all the bricks and rubble to define things like flower or vegetable beds). Maybe I'll just do some quiet reading !

  It is rare to see a 100% chance of rain on a forecast, but that was the prediction for 7 and 8pm, and it turned out to be correct ! The rain has certainly slackened off now, and maybe it has actually stopped for the moment. However, the latest revision says there will be a 100% chance of heavy rain again at 10am, but I can see some brighter bits of sky that the more optimistic might think that there is a possibility of 11pm actually having a sunny period. With luck the rain will finally fizzle out early to mid afternoon. From then on it may still be overcast, but possibly dry. It is going to be another slightly mild day, although today's 10° C is poor compared to yesterday's 13° C. Tomorrow may almost be the reverse of today. When it is dry today it might rain tomorrow, and when it rains today it might be dry tomorrow. The temperature will probably be very similar.

  Yesterday felt like it was a good day. The morning got off to a good start, or maybe that should be late morning. The most significant thing is that instead of rain there were 10 - 15 minutes of sunshine. Being as it was also about 13° C it seemed an opportune time to go to Tesco without a coat. It felt really good, like being free, to do a brisk walk with the sun almost in my eyes, and fresh air around my body as I went to Tesco. It was duller when I came back home, and that made it feel a little bit cooler, but not enough to give any discomfort, although I did think I felt a little moisture on my face as if it were trying to rain. It did rain about half an hour after I got home.
  The view from the back bedroom window was the easiest to take, but it doesn't show how blue the sky was to the south (the opposite direction to this view). The entire sky wasn't blue, but there were far bigger areas of it, and that is why the sun was shining as I walked to Tesco.

  There were several things I wanted in particular when I went in Tesco. Generally it was vegetables, although I did buy a little bit of meat - mainly sausages. More specifically it was sprouts, and even more specifically it was sprouts with bacon and chestnut. It seems years since they had any in the freezers, but this year they did !
  I had to make a bit of room in my freezer to fit these two bags in, but I probably don't need any icecubes, freezer blocks (those bottle like things you can put in cool bags) at this time of year. In five days time I can take these bags out of the freezer and they could, and maybe even will be my Xmas Breakfast, Xmas dinner, and Xmas supper. By boxing day I should have enough flatulence to run a gas cooker !!!

   I was a bit annoyed that Tesco appearered to have run out of my favourite whisky - their own brand "Special Reserve" - but only of 1 litre bottles. So I bought a 1.5 litre bottle. I was tempted to also buy a bottle of Haig whisky until I realised that this time they got the special offer round the right way. It was the 70cl bottle that was discounted - and not by that much. More economical was to buy a bottle of Bushmills whiskey which was also on special offer. I think I now have a choice of at least 5 whiskies to get drunk on if I need to.

  A bit more good news came through sometime after I got home from Tesco. I think I mentioned that I had found out the reason Angela was not at the pub on Wednesday was that she had a works Xmas dinner to attend. I was hoping that maybe I might see her today, but rather than waste my breath I sent her a message asking when was the best day to meet to give her a Xmas present. She replied really quickly to say next Monday, and ended her short reply with 5  or 6 kisses. The amount of exes (x) was almost longer than the rest of the message ! I expect she will be going shopping this lunchtime, but she does sound keen to see me on Monday. I shall look forward to it all weekend.

  One of the packs of sausages I bought from Tesco was "Mediterranean flavour" chicken sausages. I was not impressed on two counts, although one count was in reality a good thing. The worst thing was that I could hardly taste any of the promised flavours. The second thing could really be an asset at any other time, and it was that those sausages had a very low fat content. I was relying on them having enough fat to line my stomach before going out for my Thursday drink. I may consider them again as an aid to weight loss, and while they didn't seem to taste of the promised herbs and spices and stuff, they did taste very much like sausages.
  The weather forecast heavy rain for when I wanted to get the train to Shortlands, but as the picture above shows there was actually some blue sky to be seen. It is dark because it was almost 10 minutes after sunset when I was walking towards the station. It was certainly nothing like I expected.

  It was a good night at the pub. As well as the core drinkers, me, Chris and Steven, Paul, who has had a lot of sickness recently, made it last night. Plus we were joined by Alan, who had come down from Suffolk, and Andy (and Pear, his Thai girlfriend) who had come up from Brighton. Finally there was Jodie, mostly a regular, and Mark who drops by mainly to pick up Jodie maybe every second Thursday. All in all, a really good attendance.
  This picture was taken by Pear on her phone. She sent it to Andy, and he sent it to me. For presentation here I have tweaked it up a bit. The original, taken in dim lighting, was both dim and rather red looking. Some faces now look a little red or yellow, but I think I have made the best compromise possible to get to something near to natural colours - on average ! Around the table, clockwise from the left: Me, Alan, Chris, Paul, Mark, Sarah, Steven, Andy and Jodie.

  It seemed that everyone last night had come prepared with a pre-written set of Xmas cards for everyone. My Mantlepiece doesn't have enough room for them all now, and they have overflowed onto the bookshelves ! I think at the end of the evening I only had three pints of Bexley Brewery's "Crook Log" beer - a 5.2% winter ale. One of them was bought for me by one fleeting visitor. It was Carrie who had dropped by to pick up the photos I had printed and framed of her on stage at the Petts Wood Xmas Carnival. Being an actor and singer, she has no difficulty with liking photos of her, and it seemed she really loved my pictures. She went away very happy - unless it was good acting, but I got a pint of boor out of it anyway !

  I did leave a little later than usual last night, and that was partly because the train I might have got was cancelled. It was when I got back to Catford when those chicken sausages really failed me. I already had a possible plan of popping into Sainsbury's, which is handily right outside the station, to buy some salad, but the beer had affected me enough to lower my resolve to where I felt sorry for the sandwiches left on the shelves with reduce price stickers on them. I guess I still had some will power left because I didn't buy them all, but it was very hard to ignore sandwiches reduced down to just 80p instead of over £2 in some cases.

  The rest of my evening was pleasant, apart from the guilt of eating sandwiches as well as salad and yet more sausages. Unfortunately the pleasant turned to unpleasant soon after as my hangover kicked in hours before I might have gone to bed. I wasn't sure if I was tired enough, but I was in bed by 9pm, and I think I might have been asleep not that long after. I guess I had a pretty average sleep. I had a strange anachronistic dream that I suspect was set in the early 1970s, but featured me using a sort of tablet computer.

  I was awake early this morning - the obvious result of going to sleep early. I tried to fight waking up for as long as possible, but eventually I found I just could not get back to sleep again. This morning, as a direct result of the strong beer, and the sandwiches, my blood glucose was high, and my weight had crept up a bit more. Fortunately the latter has just about been taken care of by three later very productive visits to the toilet. Even my blood pressure has gone up, but only by a couple of points, and still well below target/normal (whatever that is).

  Today I am mainly waiting on a message from Kevin. I messaged him yesterday asking if he fancied an afternoon drink today. He eventually replied to say yes, but only in theory. It seems his mother-in-law dies last week, and his domestic arrangements are in turmoil. So if he thinks he can get out, without rocking the boat too much, I shall be boozing this afternoon, although I suspect that this time it will be closer to the "swift half" that I suggested so Kevin can get back to his household before he is too missed (and probably not in a fit state to do much).
  In the last year or three that I have been drinking at The Shortlands Tavern, I have never noticed there being a door on the way through to the toilets. Last night there obviously was one because it was closed (maybe to keep the draft out). It is possible that it is newly fitted. I know that upstairs is being refurbished to make it a bigger performance space. It is possible that the door, as pictured above, was used upstairs somewhere. It is obviously a relic from when the pub had split bars. Probably a public bar (spit and sawdust), and in this case maybe a combined Saloon and Lounge bar (carpets and easy chairs).

  I don't know what time the rain stopped this morning, but it still looks very damp outside. The latest revision to the forecast has hardly changed since the early morning version in the screenshot above. At the moment the supposedly light cloud should be giving way to heavy cloud. I can't say the cloud has looked particularly light at any time this morning. Sometime after midday we can expect rain. Initially it might be light rain, but when I want to go out at approx 4pm it could be very heavy rain. Once I am safely in the pub the rain will ease off (maybe), but it won't stop until I am back at home (maybe). The day has apparently started off at 12° C, and for a few hours it will peak at 13° C - which would be very nice in sunshine, but nothing to get excited about in the pouring rain. From 9pm we may get a break from the rain for 3 hours, but it will be back after midnight, and the rain will continue halfway through tomorrow.
   I must admit I got a bit excited about going out yesterday on the basis that surely I would see Angela. It is lucky I had no idea that I wouldn't see her or I may have not gone out at all. I wasn't feeling that good, and I had to really push myself to get out the front door, and push even harder to follow the route I had set for myself.

  It was actually the first part of my walk that was pre-planned (maybe in a vague sort of way), and as usual the end was made up on the spur of the moment. I am currently on a mission to make each walk at least 3 miles long, and when you consider that it usually involves a stop off at the pub about halfway through, it takes some creative thought to add extra distance to what could be as little as half that 3 miles there and back.

  My solution this time was to walk past Catford station, and up Ravensbourne Park Road. In this case "up" means literally up a hill. My general thought is to avoid hills because they are hard work. It was hard going getting to the top of the hill, but it turned out to be less hard going than I had feared. Maybe I am getting fitter after all this exercise. One thing is for certain, I wasn't panting at the top, but my legs were starting to feel fatigued - a feeling quickly forgotten as I started going downhill again.

   Walking through the park could have been really quite pleasant with some sunshine, but while the day often seemed almost bright, I can't recall much in the way of direct sunshine. On the other hand I do have photographic evidence of how bright the southern sky was....and maybe I do have photographic evidence that there was some sunshine.
  This is the view looking down into the park after entering from the Ravensbourne Park Road entrance. The picture certainly makes it look like it was sunny, and that the sky was blue, but for whatever reason, I don't remember it being that good.

  Although I felt a bit refreshed when it came to walking downhill after walking up the hill, and even if walking up the hill didn't seem nearly as bad as I had imagined, I was still feeling some weakness, and trying to keep my walking speed up was a matter of mind over matter (or something). I did manage to keep my average speed to a little over 3mph for most of the walk to the pub, but it felt like hard work - particularly in two places. The first place was going over the curly-wurly footbridge across the railway. I put every once of energy I could muster at the time to do it as fast as possible.