09:40 BST

  Yesterday was a wonderful sunny day. The afternoon only reached 14° C, but it was definitely t-shirt/no coat weather.
  Today will be like yesterday, only hotter ! After non stop sunshine the temperature is predicted to reach 19° C this afternoon, although maybe only for a single hour, but 18° C is very good too. Even this evening may be a little less cool with 11° C forecast for midnight. Tomorrow may be an even better version of today with the afternoon forecast to reach 24° C after another day of full sunshine. The day after tomorrow may still see 19° C, but it will see the return of rain, although possibly not too much of it.

   Yesterday was a very good day, but it did have a small downside. The warm weather was a big plus point, and a longer walk than recently was also very good, but the walk made me feel ravenous, and while I didn't get too carried away, I was not as careful with what, or how much I ate than would be ideal.

  I started yesterday with good intentions, although that was mostly limiting my breakfast to a small handful of peanuts to hold down the cod liver oil capsule I took as part of my morning pills and vitamins etc. There is nothing worse than a cod liver oil capsule repeating on you all morning !
 
  I got off to a semi early start yesterday, and after I finished writing I had time to lie down, and I may have even had a short snooze. Sooner or later I had to discipline myself to go and have a shower, and get dressed. I decided it was probably not going to be quite warm enough for shorts (although it was), and I put on my smelly jeans instead of shorts. The smelly jeans have been in storage for at least 3 or 4 years, and have not lot their "new smell". Unfortunately that "new smell" is the smell of the black dye that seems like it is made from industrial by products in the country of manufacture - China. It is quite an unpleasant smell, and so the best time to wear and air them is when I am out walking alone.

  It is only recently, since losing far less weight than I am supposed to, that my shape has changed enough to make the smelly jeans wearable. When new I could not even do them up, or get anywhere near doing so, and that is why they ended up forgotten for years in a storage box. It is good to be able to wear them, but I hope that awful chemical pong fades away before the jeans wear out. Anyway, they were good enough to go for a walk yesterday, and it was slightly more extensive than recent walks.


  As usual, I haven't bothered to edit this screenshot so the first part of my three part walk is on the top, and so my explanations start with the bottom entry. The 0.327 mile walk was from home to Catford Bridge station. From there I caught a train to New Beckenham station.

  The middle part of my walk was from New Beckenham station to Lower Sydenham station via the "nature walk" - a path alongside the River Pool. It is quite a pretty walk.

  The last part was from Catford Bridge station to home, but not direct - I went via the little Sainsbury's Local Shop by Catford station. I bought some yummy food in the shop.


  I had only just stepped outside my front door when I came across Cous Cous - the cat previously dubbed "Fluffycat" (for want of a better name). He demonstrated to me how good the sun warmed pavement felt. I would have thought that with that very thick fur coat he would be seeking shade, but evidently not. One problem is that I had not adjusted my camera for bright sunshine, and this photo is a bit over exposed.
  I did not have to wait more than a few minutes when a train arrived. It was a class 707 "City Beam" train. I had hoped it might be a class 376 train. A photo sent to me by Jodie suggested that the class 376 trains have now all had their external refreshment (new blue livery) but at least one has had the promised internal refreshment. They were always a bit basic inside, but if indeed it was a class 376 train, Jodie says some seats now have a central table, and most seats now have USB charging points. I new need to do more train travel to try and see the new inside for myself.
  My train from Catford Bridge consisted of two 5 car units, and at New Beckenham station I could see that the back had a different number - 707009. I have pictures of every single class 707 train in Southeastern blue livery (but less that half of them in their old South West Trains red livery).
  I started my next walk from the moment I got off the train. I first had to walk through the subway to get to the right side for my walk to continue. As I was walking up the other side of the subway I took a snap of the New Beckenham station sign. That was a mistake, I should have taken it from the other side of the sign which was being lit by the sun. The side in this picture was in light shadow, and I had to do some photo trickery to make it look brighter.
  There was a sort of reason for the entire route I was taking. I wanted to see a few things that are currently outside my range of walking at the moment. One such thing was the usually very pleasant walk alongside the River Pool, heading in the direction of home. This footpath joins Lennard Road in Beckenham to Kangley Bridge Road in Sydenham. It is probably half the distance, and maybe much more, of the two roads by road.

  The walk is part downhill, and that is how the river flows, but the river does a big meander to avoid the hill in the middle of Kangley Bridge road. So Once the footpath ends, it is slowly uphill before the road starts to go down just before the turn off to the approach road to Lower Sydenham stations (and the approach road is down hill as well.
  The footpath, or walk, by the river is like a very narrow area of wild nature, and of course, like any patch of woodland in London, it now has ring necked parakeets living and screeching in it.
  I am starting to see these red leaved shrubs more frequently now. My guess is that they are a relatively recent import from somewhere, and can be bought from garden centres now. This one was in a low maintenance strip of land between the road and an "industrial unit". There is no housing for most of Kangley Bridge road, and it is all factories or offices for most of it.
  I have no idea what this bush of bright purple flowers is. It may be a Californian lilac before it grows into a bigger bush/tree like size. It is very pretty if you like purple. One the other side of the fence that can just be made out is a football field - one of the few things along the road that is not industrial or office space.
  Another break in the industrial units is an area used for parking buses owned/run by StageCoach. It is where they keep their training buses - double deckers in red, and single deckers in purple.
  This is a great example of how not to take a good picture. The rule is that the sun should be over your shoulder, and so it is lighting up the subject of the photo. In this case I was trying to take a picture looking almost into the sun.  The front of the train is in shadow, and I needed to artificially brighten it. With patience I could have done a slightly better job, but it was never going to be that good. The ironic thing is that this train is one I have not got in my collection of pictures of class 376 trains in this blue livery. I have got a picture of it looking slightly tatty in the old white livery.
  This is how a picture should be taken - with the sun over my shoulder, and the back of the train nicely lit by the sun. This picture I can add to my spreadsheet of pictures of each of the class 376 trains. Once again, I have a picture of it in the old white livery, but not in blue livery.  I ought to try and remember that although I have pictures of all 36 class 376 train, I have less than half of them in the, not so new now, blue livery.

  The last part of my walk was to home, but going by the little Sainsbury's "Local" shop by Catford station. It was 0.461 miles instead of the 0.327 miles of home direct to Catford Bridge station. The total of all three parts of this walking exercise was 1.776 miles. That is a bit longer than the 1.6 miles I have been doing between home and Ladywell, and back again - but admittedly, not by much.

  Having a sit down on the trains made a lot of difference. On the final walk to home I felt tired, and my ankles were hurting a bit, but not to the extent of being crippling as has been the case while I try and regain my stamina for long walks. It really felt like things were improving. Maybe the most telling thing was the walk from New Beckenham to Lower Sydenham. That was almost a a full mile, 0.988 miles, and although I stopped now and then to take pictures, I did it almost non stop. I couldn't have done that without the small amounts of practice I am putting in. It almost feels like I could be ready to git my teeth, and try for a 3 mile walk.

  I must admit it was still very nice to get home, although it was not just because I had finished walking, even if that was most significant, but also to go to the toilet. I was not desperate, but I might have been in another half hour. Of course the real joy of getting home was that I had bought some yummy food in the little Sainsbury's shop. I could not wait to scoff a couple of packs of sandwiches, plus an (alleged) Greek Style chicken salad.

  I also bought a couple of small ready made fruit salads, and I would have one of those as an excuse to eat more ice cream than I should have. I still have another fruit salad for today, and another salad type thing with grains and stuff in it, to also eat today. After eating my fill I laid on my bed, and I tried to snooze, but I don't think I was able to fall asleep. maybe I was too hyped up after a significant bit of exercise - and admittedly using a train, to extend my range.

  There is not a lot more to say about the rest of my day. After I felt ready to do stuff I transferred the photos from my camera to my PC so I could select the best, or more interesting, and edit them to show here. That took me almost up to dinner time. My dinner was some "crushed baby potatoes" that came in a foil container too big to go in my mini oven, and also some sort of white sauce to pour over them towards the end of cooking.

  I made those potatoes my first course. My second course was "pulled chicken" that needed 20 minutes in the oven to finish cooking. The reason why it was the second course was that I did not have room to cook it at the same time as the potatoes. The chicken was not all that wonderful, and I won't be buying it again. My third course was fruit salad with ice cream. I made the big mistake of scooping the ice cream onto the ready made fruit salad while watching TV, and while in front of the TV. Had I done it in the kitchen, and put the ice cream back in the fridge, it would have stopped me from being unable to stop eating the rest of the ice cream in the tub.

  After the usual TV I went to bed at 10pm, or maybe 11pm (I forget). I think I fell asleep fairly quickly, and I seemed to sleep well, although I seemed to be in no rush to get up this morning. All the sugar in the ice cream didn't seem to wake me to pee much, but I did have a fairly big pee once I got up. It was fortunate that I had a poo later, but before I had my breakfast - a single medium sized packet of instant noodles.

  That poo, together with, and mostly, a pee dropped my weight just enough to show no gain or loss since yesterday morning. That is a bit of shame after doing that exercise, but it was only to be expected after all the fresh air and exercise making me feel ravenous again. Somehow I am going to drop this bad habit, and relearn how to make do with a smaller dinner.

  While I got away with no weight gain, I did see a small increase in my blood glucose level. It was not significant - the average of all three meters was 7.40mmol/l this morning, and yesterday it was 7.33mmol/l. Today I take my next Mounjaro injection, and the small blood glucose increase may just have been the last dose of Mounjaro starting to wear off.  Meanwhile, my blood pressure at 117/56 remains very good.

  Today marks a special event. As I write this it seems warm enough (definitely helped by no significant wind) to open my bedroom windows for the first time this year. It is good to get some fresh air into my bedroom, and let the nasty smells out. I really must take advantage of the warm sunny weather today by going out for a walk. The only trouble is that I don't feel keen on the idea, and I will have to go out under protest (to my own brain). Maybe I will not attempt anything more than a simple walk to Ladywell and back. I feel that should be enough, and I also feel I may be able to do it almost non stop (except for photo opportunities). If I don't go out, and maybe even if I do. one little job I must do today is to removed quite a few plants happily growing in the gutter of the lower roof. Fortunately I can do it using my extended special tool, from the back bedroom window. It is a fairly quick job, and I am unsure why I have to wait until it is almost serious before I take action.
   2569 words today.