Last night, in between the heaviest showers the sky was clear enough for a brilliant crimson sunset (picture further down the page). Traditional weather lore said that today should be fine and bright - and it is ! The latest revision to the weather forecast says the first sunny spells should start at 10am, but the sky has been blue, and the sun shining since at least 8am. With luck there will be sunshine or sunny spells until at least 4pm today. All that sunshine will only raise the temperature to 17° C.  Tomorrow could be a reasonably good day as well. It could see a lot of sunny spells, but maybe some duller periods between them, and once again the temperature should rise to 17° C.

  Yesterday morning seemed as if it passed rather quickly, or at least it didn't seem like there was time to do anything. It was almost midday when I washed my hair, and had a shower. Once I had recovered from that I got working. When I say working I mainly mean doing a small backlog of washing up - only a day and a half's worth. The most important bit of it were the glasses for an afternoon beer tasting session with Jodie.

  With the glasses washed and polished, and the cooking stuff and cutlery clean, I did a bit more work in the kitchen. I did the first stage of cooking dinner. It was to be a diced pork stew with potatoes, bell peppers and red chillies cooked in a spicy/peppery gravy. The initial stage was to put the pork and potatoes into stock, and zap it in the microwave oven for 20 minutes. I then let it marinate in it's own juices until late afternoon.

  Jodie was lucky in that it was bright and sunny as she made her way here. We mostly drunk more of the Brewdog beers, but also had a few others. Only one of the Brewdog beers was particularly nasty. Once again it said "New England" on the can, but it was a New England Lager instead of ale. I should do some research before coming up with theories, but I am thinking that "New England" may refer to a type of hop rather than a brewing style. If so, I would recommend burning the entire New England hop harvest !

  It seems I am half right. There is no single New England hop variety, but a regional style/breed of hops. All seem to have nasty characteristics according to my pallet - and quite a few other people's too, and that often, but not always includes Jodie. She is certainly not a fan of the way Brewdog use them ! This pages says more about New England hops - https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product/new-england-style-hop-selection-pack/
  These are three of the beers we drunk yesterday. On the left, "Hazy Helles" - a New England lager. It was fairly nasty. I think this was the one that Jodie took one mouthful, and pronounced it "minging". I ended up drinking Jodie's share as well as my own (where "drinking" means forcing it down !). The only thing wrong with the "Cold Beer" was that it was rather insipid apart from a slight wet blanket taste. The "Just Desserts", a pecan and toffee stout, was very delicious !

  I think it was about halfway through our drinking session when it came over all black outside, and minutes later it was pouring with heavy rain. There were many flashes of lightning with peals of thunder, although none seem to approach very closely. Jodie had fears she would have to go out into the middle of a thunderstorm, but that turned out to be the least of her worries.  Part of the turning dark was actually sunset. As quickly as they came, the black thunderous clouds moved on to reveal a nice crimson sunset.
  With a sunset like that weather says that this morning had to be a very nice morning, and indeed it was - past tense ! As I write this it is looking grey and cloudy outside. It could be some time before we have another sunny spells - if we do ! Of course this problem is minor to the trouble Jodie had. When checking times for then trains we saw that there were two trees across the line - one between Ladywell and Catford Bridge, and the other near West Wickham. I'm guessing they were not whole trees, but maybe just a branch because they seemed to clear the line quite quickly, and trains were running again a few hours later, but Jodie couldn't wait that long, and got a 54 bus back towards home.

  Before Jodie left, and in between beers, I added the last ingredients to my dinner, and gave it another 15 minutes in the microwave. Once Jodie left I tucked into it. I have to say it came out better than expected. I only used half the diced pork in the pack, and could almost duplicate that dinner again for tonight, but I used the last bell pepper yesterday. I think I may have been a bit too generous with the baby potatoes - I'll use less today.

  TV was very spotty last night. Sky Arts showed a few music concerts, but none really grabbed my attention. The best was ELO performing somewhere or another. I listened to some of it. I think that was followed by a Status Quo concert. I do like Status Quo, but only in small manageable quantities. Halfway through the second song I switched off, or changed channel. The only thing I concentrated on was an old repeat of Have I Got New For You on Dave. That was amusing. It finished at 10pm (or was it 11pm ?) and I went straight to bed.

  I couldn't sleep initially because it sounded like the Victoria Falls outside - the rain was exceptionally heavy ! I read until the rain seemed to ease off a bit, and then tried to sleep. That didn't work because I had started to feel uncomfortable. I found it hard to pinpoint just why I felt uncomfortable, but a couple of powerful and vile farts gave a strong clue. The odd thing was that until I was actually sitting on the toilet it didn't feel like I needed the toilet. Once I sat down and presumably allowed muscle to relax, I was rather glad I was sitting on the toilet.

  Past experience suggested it would need more than one visit, and so I didn't go back to bed. I sat at my PC and read some stuff for maybe almost an hour before realising that nothing more was going to happen. I then went to bed, and started some occasionally troubled sleep. I actually remember very little of the night. I am certain I got up to pee at least three time, but it is a sort of dreamlike memory. At some point I had a dream that I think was about identifying birds by their poo - I am fairly sure it was from the DNA in their poo rather than, for instance, what it looked like, but really it could have been anything because my memory is so vague about the dream(s).

  I managed to have a long lay in this morning, and I did it without trying. I am not sure if I was asleep through the whole 90 to 120 minutes. I have vague memories of being awake a lot, but I thought they were more dreams. The only thing I know for definite is that my blood glucose was a bit high when I measured it soon after getting up. It was 9.1mmol/l. That is not too bad, but I am going to have to be careful what I eat today.

  I'm not sure what I am doing today. I don't feel very dynamic this morning. One possibility was to go for a short walk through the park to see if I can spot where the tree fell on the railway line, but it was cleared so quickly that it must have just been a small branch. I doubt there will be anything to see now, and it would be a waste of time looking for it. I think I will consider my possibilities after I have had a wash or shower.