Today has started off very wet after rain through the night, and light rain may continue until midday. It seems to have stopped raining for the moment (as I type this at 8:19am), but the grim grey clouds promise much more rain yet. It is currently about 10° C, and the forecast says the best we can hope for today will be just 12° C. The last few hours of daylight may feature some sunny spells. Most of tomorrow may be dull, but there could still be a lot of sunny spells, and maybe even a full hour of sunshine. The temperature may reach 16° C.

   Yesterday was generally a good day, but it was also a very tiring day. To some extent it was a good sort of tiring...maybe. It involved fresh air, and exercise....and some rather interesting eating. Eating that didn't seem wise at the time, but maybe it was. It even produced a few pictures to show today.

  I was determined to get out in the sunshine yesterday, and after I finished writing, and had my rest, I washed my hair and had a shower - after all I would be mixing with the great unwashed public....well, sort of. The hard choice might have been between leaving early when it was full sunshine, but still warming up, or leave later when it was warmer, but only sunny spells. In truth there was no choice because I was not ready to go out until the full sunshine was finishing, and it was warm enough. It didn't really get much warmer because the the wind was making me feel cool at times.

  The first bit of my exercise was to walk to Catford Bridge station. I remembered to start the tracker as I left home, and from home to some way along the platform, where I waited for my train, was 0.386 miles. Unfortunately I did a silly thing and forgot to stop the tracker until I was getting on the train. With the wait for the train it seemed like the walk had taken15 minutes, and that made my speed seem to be just 1.54mph. I can only guess it was possibly a bit over 2mph.

  When my train got to Elmers End I readied myself for a longer walk, although I am unsure how I did that, or even if I did that ! The longer walk was to the Arena tram stop. It was the same walk I did when I walked around the South Norwood Country Park last week, but this time only one side of it.

  It was a 0.69 mile, and that is very similar to the distance from home to Ladywell station (or the Jolly Farmers pub). As such it was about the longest I can walk before I get angina pains starting, and need to rest for a minute or two. I deliberately walked quite slowly because I was looking for the third rail insulator pot I saw there last week. It reduced my speed to just 1.474mph, but I still felt like I was on my last legs when I got to the tram stop. It was a handy place to rest because I was waiting for a tram. I could have, and maybe with hindsight, should have sat down for a few minutes, but I didn't, and didn't even sit down on the tram for the few minutes I was on it.

  I'm getting slightly ahead of myself. Back at Elmers End I spotted something In had seen before, but never paid it much attention. It is the clock in the picture above. It is for the bus stand just outside the railway station. As can be seen, it was 1:11pm when I took the picture.

  One thing I didn't do last week was to take a picture of the start of the footpath - footpath 666 ! - although it doesn't say that on the sign. The sign suggests the footpath goes out as well as in. The outward direction just goes across the car park to Elmers End station entrance. It doesn't seem much of a footpath to my mind.

  It was just 11 days since I had walked the path towards the Arena tram stop, and the foliage at the side of the path, and the stinging nettles had really grown in that time. I was trying to spot the 3rd rail insular pot I saw on my previous walk. It is possible that a friend had gone and got it for me (or himself), or maybe someone else recognised it as a sort of antique (leaving it with the date, 1954, prominent may not have been a good idea), or maybe it was just invisible in a thick load of nettles, but I could not see it.

  I did see a clamp for it though. The clamp is pictured above. Four long, square headed screws, hold the metal down onto the railway sleeper, and hold the clamp closed around the base of the porcelain insulator.  There could be a date stamped in it somewhere, and it may even been older than 1954, but I didn't think it was interesting enough to lug home.

  As mentioned further up the page, I was able to have a 4 or 5 minute rest at the Arena tram stop while I waited for a tram. There was a seat I could have sat at to rest my feet a bit, but it looked to be quite uncomfortable - which is probably intentional to deter dossers. Although the destination is not visible, it was a tram to Beckenham Junction. I would get it as far as Birkbeck tram stop/national rail station.

  It is annoying that the only way to go from the tram platform to the national rail platform at Birkbeck is to have to go down a long staircase to road level, and then up the other side. It was sort of worth it....probably. It is an unusual sort of station around these parts. For one thing it is only served by Southern trains intruding into Southeastern territory. It is also a completely unmanned station, and it is on a single line. Once there were up and down lines, but the line was singled ages ago. The trams took over the where the other line used to be.

  The train took me directly to the end of the line at Beckenham Junction station - the same place as where the tram would have gone to and also terminated. This train was formed of two 3 car units, and both had numbers I needed for my huge spreadsheet of train pictures. It feels like a long time since I last had any new numbers to add.


  The next stage of my walk was to walk from Beckenham Junction station to New Beckenham station. It is a walk that I don't think I have ever walked before, although I have walked a similar walk from Beckenham Place Park. If I was as fit as I was several years ago it might have been quite a pleasant walk.

  Unfortunately my legs ached, and my feet were aching even more by this time, and the walk felt like it went on to eternity. The distance was only 0.662 miles, or a little less than home to Ladywell, and it was also slightly downhill. It would once have possibly been not only pleasant, but invigorating. Some how I almost managed to do it at 2mph, but once I could have done it at 3mph, and maybe even faster.

  I say my feet ached, but "ache" feels a bot mild for the real pain I was feeling. It felt like the soles of my feet were on fire. I was also just starting to get angina pains when I got to the station. In theory I had easily sufficient time to go down the subway to the other platform to get the next train to Catford Bridge. I opted to wait, still standing, to get pictures of the next Hayes (Kent) bound train before crossing, via the subway, to get the next train to Catford Bridge.

  I definitely sat down on the train for the 7 or 8 minutes to Catford Bridge. It was still not a pleasant experience because only a few seats away was a man who was terribly smelly. It was a relief to get off the train, and into the fresh air at Catford Bridge station. At that point it would be logical to go straight home, but even though my legs and feet were complaining, I went the scenic route.

  In this case "the scenic route" was to go via the Sainsbury's Local shop by Catford station. I started off thinking I would just buy a couple of their delicious salads, but in the end I spent £18 in there on sandwiches and other stuff plus the salads. It is a sort of curious how a very slow walk around even a small shop seems like a rest. I left the shop feeling like I could walk for miles. By the time I had reached the top of the road bridge over the railway (and almost Catford Bridge station) I had a very different view.

  From Catford Bridge to home, via Sainsbury's, it was a 0.464 mile walk to home, and somehow I managed to get that up to an average of 2.035mph. I guess it was the call of home that somehow made me walk the fastest. I have to asay that the last bit was almost agony. It was great to be home again, and to spread all my Sainbury's purchases on the table to slect what I would have for a very late lunch.

  Before I could think of anything else I needed a pee. After that I stripped down to my underpants, and weighed myself before putting on indoor clothes. My weight, and part hoped, part expected, was wonderfully low, and this morning it seems some of the loss has stuck, although I have no idea how. My lunch was quite extravagant. I think I started with a sort of (fake) Japanese dish of rice and chicken with some bits of vegetable with a vinegary tasting sauce.

  After that I had "whipped Feta cheese" with some finely diced green stuff, and probably some olive oil. That was particularly delicious, and while not cold, it seemed almost as good as ice cream. I finished with a Coronation Chicken sandwich with apricots and sultanas in it. I found it very disappointing. Somehow it just didn't seem to taste fruity like Coronation chicken should.

  After eating I started to get the photos ready to show here. There were many more than I have shown. They included 4 good tram pictures that I will be adding to my spreadsheet of pictures of all the trams and their numbers - when I get around to making that spreadsheet. I felt dreadfully tired, and I was greatly tempted to lie down and have a snooze, but it was about about 3pm when I got home, and somehow the hours seemed to fly past. It seemed like it would soon be time for Star Trek: The Original Series on the Legend channel at 5pm.

  That Star Trek episode was not a very grabbing sort of episode, and my attention was more often on the copy of The Metro I had picked up at the station when I started my outing. There wasn't much news in it (except continuing stuff about the Pope popping his clogs), but the quick crossword took a lot of my attention. I think I managed all but about 4 clues. I was just too tired to spend more than a minute or two looking at the cryptic crossword, and realising I was in totally the wrong sort of mood to try and solve a single clue.

  Before long it was time for the BBC 6 O'clock News, and also time for dinner. After my very late, and rather big lunch, I didn't need much, and I almost convinced myself I didn't need much. In fact I came close to convincing myself I didn't need/want any dinner ! I did have the other sandwich I bought, a beef and horseradish sauce sandwich. It was very nice, but in a way that made me think the white bread was full of sugar or something.

  I did have a dessert after that sandwich. It was 4 pieces of fruit - a small-ish Golden Delicious apple, a nectarine, a very ripe pear, and a plum. My excuse was that the fruit would provide essential fibre/roughage, although it has not had the desired effect yet. After the news finished I retuned to Sky Mix for another episode of Star Trek: Vogager. It was almost a good episode, but a bit too saccharine sweet for my taste.

  Voyager finished at 8pm, and my plan was to pass some time reading, and then go back to the TV at 9pm for an episode of QI (or was it Have I Got News For You that was on first ?). That didn't happen. I did read for long enough to finish the last few pages of the Philip K. Dick short story I was reading, and that I decided I was quite ready enough for sleep. I don't think that was much later than 8:30pm, and I was probably fast asleep 5 minutes later.

  I still woke every 2 or 3 hours for a pee (often a big one), but I must have slept so well that I was almost ready to get up quite soon after 5am, but even though it was starting to get light, I decided I was going to try for more sleep. I did sleep, but it was quite light sleep, and I think I woke very briefly a few time until I finally got up a little after 6am.

  I seemed to have another unusual sort of dream last night. It was very unusual in that it featured very few visuals, and a lot of it was a bit like listening to a radio play. It was about a resistance unit in case we were invaded by America (anything is possible with Trump in power). Thousands of people were digging out, or using natural caves to hide in all the cliffs on the south of the country, ready to emerge behind the enemy to create havoc for them.

  Part of the story was that it was known that American satellites would see any work going on, and so it became a news story about how a few families were using a few caves as shelters from falling bombs. The hope was that with a good explanation for some works going on, the Americans would not look too closely at what was going on. There was probably more detail in the dream, but that is the best overview of it I can manage.

  I knew I had peed a lot in the the night, even if maybe one or two times less than most nights. That should have been a good indicator of my weight, and bad indicator of my blood glucose. I think I was still surprised when the scales said I had lost 800gm, and was almost teetering of the edge of dropping to the next whole kilogram down. I've been near here before, but there has always seemed to be a disaster, and this lunchtime's booze could be it today.

  My blood glucose was either up a bit, or up a terrible amount. Bother the Contour and GlucoRX meters gave an identical reading of 8.8mmol/l. That is a little higher than I would like, but still in the "OK" area. If both agree so closely it must be correct, and the Sinocare meter was having another of it's weird turns when it insisted my blood glucose was right up to the red line at 9.9mmol/l - a quite dangerous figure.

  It might mean walking in the rain, even if it seems to be drying outside at the moment, but I shall be going to The Jolly Farmers for my usual couple of pints of Guinness at lunchtime. I don't know why just two pints is enough to make me feel so rough on the way home. The last time I tried walking all the way home I was almost on my knees when I got there, and I don't know it make me feel like I haven't eaten in weeks. It is so easy to eat terribly after my lunchtime drink.

  Today I will go my usual route via Catford Bridge station, where I pick up copies of The Metro, and get the train to Ladywell. I don't need to stop to get any shopping on my way home, and so I could force myself to walk home, but I'll probably get the train back to Catford Bridge to split the walk into two more manageable sections. The only fly in the ointment is that I could possible have an Amazon delivery today. Whenever it comes, it will be a new pair of trainers. I have paid a bit more for a pair that may be more durable, but more importantly, come in a wide fitting that may suit my feet better. Maybe they will be the key to unlock less painful walking.










  I almost forgot this picture. I saw the poster as I was back from Sainsbury's yesterday. It seems there will be another Catford beer Festival in The Catford Bridge Tavern. The beer selection is usually of not that good beers, but at least some should be good. The best bit is that it will be within staggering distance home if it should be that there are many beers than have to be tried. The "live music" could be good or bad, or even terrible if they have a so called live DJ providing it one or more nights. I must try and find out what bands may be on a bit closer to the time.