Once again mist was forecast for this morning, but all I could see was evidence of rain. It still looks very damp outside as I write this. I guess the air was too warm for mist. My thermometers say it is still 10° C, as it was through most of the night. With some sunshine it could feel quite good, but it is forecast, and looks like it will be cloudy all day. Maybe, and this is only a guess, that the afternoon temperature may reach 11° C. The forecast says no rain at all today, but I have my doubts. The forecast for tomorrow looks very similar to today. I wonder if it gets changed a lot by tomorrow morning.
 
  It seemed unlikely, but yesterday seems to have been one of the better days, but I have no idea how that happened. Once I finished writing yesterday's piece I had my usual short rest, and then I had a shower and washed my hair. Maybe that set me up for a good day.

  There were some nice sunny spells yesterday, and despite saying it was unlikely I would go out, that is what I did. It was a sort of mini exercise thing - a slightly extended walk to Poundstretcher where I bought some stuff.  I initially headed to the ex-Wetherspoons London & Rye pub. Nothing has changed at the place. It is still looking like a pub inside with tables and chairs, plus bar, but there is no obvious booze in there. My latest theory is that the new owners, who are alleged to be a Pub Co, maybe the Antic group.

  The Antic group first ran the Catford Bridge Tavern, on Catford bridge, but the lease was apparently bought by Tesco who would have made it a large-ish Tesco Express store, and booted Antic out. Tesco were refused planning permission to rebuild the pub in their own image, and (probably) off loaded the lease to the Portobello pub group. Meanwhile Antic moved down the road to the very hastily repaired old Catford Conservative Club building. They renamed it to the Catford Constitutional Club.

   Several years later the building was effectively condemned with subsidence, and cracks in the walls, and other stuff. Once again they were booted out, and the council took over the building, and several years later, and a lot of scaffolding, are rebuilding it, and one lease option is for a community pub. It is possible that Antic may take it on. Antic had moved on to the old Argos building on the high street, and had big plans for it.
   It was a very brave attempt at a very bold venture. They took over the entire building, and put a bar at street level, and another on the roof. I was never keen on the beer they served, but they did seem to get a fair amount of custom at times. The afternoon were quite popular with women and prams, but they may only have made a single coffee last several hours. The roof bar had a few interesting views, but nothing worth more than a single visit, and was probably only popular in the summer months.

  The business rates on the big high street building must have been horrendous, and it seems that they were probably not doing enough business to pay them and make any profit. It may have been at the end of last November that they served their last pint, and then closed up. I didn't cross the road to look through the windows, but if it was like when they left the Catford Bridge Tavern, they probably stripped the place bare. It is my theory that they may be thinking of taking over the now closed London & Rye pub. It is probably a more manageable size for them.

  After taking the picture of The Constitutional I carried one walking to Poundstretcher. I think I ended up buying mostly food from there. I bought two packs of instant noodles - one was a 4 pack of Kimchi flavour, and I think the other was a 5 pack of Spicy chicken flavour. One thing I was disappointed not to find was any plain cake - with no sugar coating etc. I am sure I've seen something like that in there before, but not yesterday. It was probably a good idea because even with stuff like lemon drizzle, or icing, it would still have been fairly bad for me....but I did have a yearning for some.

  Maybe I just go to the wrong places, but I don't know any other shop in Catford that sells a useful range of sugar free drinks. Presumably somewhere must because most of then in Poundstretcher are usually getting close to their sell by date. I think I bought 8 cans of 4 different flavours. I have tried them all in the past, and yesterday I only opened one can, and it was the Apple flavour pictured on the left. It is quite tasty, but only seems to have a hint of apple. I am sure I can taste hints of other fruits in it, including peaches, kiwi fruit and others. This is not that surprising because I am sure there is no trace of any real fruit juice in it, and it is all out of a test tube.

  I came very close to walking one mile - just 0.05 short ! Maybe it was carrying a modestly heavy shopping bag home, but I seemed to feel I was doing well when I got to Poundstretcher, but after that it seemed to become foot dragging hard. It was also warm work. I assumed it would feel as cold as previous days, and put on, and kept zipped up, my thickest, but not hooded, winter coat. If I had gone for a longer walk, and if I had chosen a lighter coat, and possible left the front open, then maybe it might have been enjoyable to walk a bit longer. One factor could have spoiled that - my legs seemed to be getting quite tired after that almost mile, although the good thing is that I can't recall any chest pains or similar discomforts.

  I did feel quite pleased when I got home, and after putting my shopping away, I sort of rewarded myself with two wholemeal baps stuff with the now usual beef, salad, and horseradish sauce.  Once they were consumed I went back to what I am good at for most of the afternoon - laying on my bed reading, and snoozing. It was probably getting on for 4pm when I had a snack of cheese and rice crackers. I followed that with a small amount of ice cream. I am finding it easy to not get carried away with the current tub of ice cream because while it is "nice" it is not wonderful. I cans see myself buying a different ice cream before the current one litre tub is finished.

  I am very sure I ate other stuff, and just as I was about to say I can't remember what, it suddenly came to me - it was two small bags of Hula Hoops. I am stilld sure there was probably other forgotten stuff. When it came to dinnertime I had the second half of the beef stew I ate the previous night, but I more than doubled it's bulk with (probably) healthy cauliflower. The sad thing is that it wasn't nice. The cauliflower over rode the flavour of everything else, and cauliflower always seems nicer when eaten with something with a lot stronger taste.

  During the evening I watched several Star Treks, two episodes of The Simpsons, and finally an edition of Have I Got News For You. It was quite an old edition, and probably pre-dated Covid by a couple of years. That made it half interesting, and half "what was that all about?". Also, the Conservative government acting like a bunch of dicks seems to lack any novelty value these days.

  I was in bed very soon after 10pm, and I read for a while before turning out the light, and falling asleep nice and quick and easy. I sort of know I was dreaming a lot in the night, but this morning I can't seem to remember anything worth saying about those dreams. Maybe they were bland, or maybe too convoluted to make any sense. The only two notable things about my night were another night of not seeming to pee as much, but only an few times this time.

  The other notable thing was waking up at about 5.30am, and almost thinking it was time to get up, or maybe it was it seemed like I could get up, but didn't want to get up that early. I went for a pee, and went back to bed where I seemed to lay there for ages trying to get back to sleep. I have no idea how long I was awake in reality. It seemed like an hour, but the next thing I knew was that I needed another pee, and it was about 7.20am.

  I went for my pee, and this time I seemed to do more than usual. On top of that I also had a poo. I am not sure how big it was, but the first bit felt big, but seemed to have ducked out of sight around the U bend. There was one clue that it might have been quite big because it seems like I somehow managed to lose 700gm since yesterday morning. As usual, I wonder why I can't do that every day, and get my weight down to the point where I will have to buy new trousers !

  This morning saw what seems to be the rare pairing of lower weight, and low blood glucose, although the average of three readings is a tiny but insignificant bit higher than yesterday. The Contour meter read a good 8.1mmol/l. The GlucoRX meter read a slightly higher, but still good, 8.2mmol/l. The Sinocare meter bucked the usual trend by giving the lowest reading - a very pleasing 7.7mmol/l - that puts it in the light green in my spreadsheet colour coding (figures starting with 8 I regard as neutral, and don't have a colour code).

  It is easy to say what I am doing today. It is a Wednesday, and so I will be going for a couple of pints of Guinness for lunch in The Jolly Farmers. I am fairly sure I will be on my own, and unless Kevin gives me enough warning of his intention to join me, I won't be lugging his Xmas present with me. I probably won't because it would mean missing out on a train ride, and some train photography, but I am sort of thinking I might walk home from the pub today. It won't be warm and sunny, bit I suspect it will be fairly mild - mild enough that I will probably wear my newest leather jacket, and leave the front unzipped.

   1899 words today