Another week is now done and dusted. It’s been a ‘different’
one for want of a better description.
The notable high point was Gareth came home from work and
brought me a massive bunch of roses on Friday with a bottle of Silent Pool Gin
and a lovely big gin glass. He came home from work on Friday, said to stay home
and cuddle the cat and took the dogs to the park. I found the flowers and gin
in the kitchen 45 minutes later with a note propped up on the front simply
saying ‘Happy Friday’
Low point – As I posted last week, Monday’s torrential rain brought down a massive
tree / bush in the back garden. I had a gardener round on Friday to give us a
quote to get rid of it, along with a load of other general ‘grooming’ work for
the garden – the bill will be 4 figures to get all of the work done but I’ve
seen sense and I’m going to have them come in for a couple of hours each month
going forwards o keep on top of it. We actually dissected the thing yesterday
in the sunshine. It’s really rewarding to be doing something so physical, but let’s
be honest, I got a bit carried away did
far more than I should and properly broke myself as a result. It’s now down the
side of the house waiting to be taken away either in the week if our friend can
get his Landover and trailer down the lane or at the weekend by the gardeners.
I’ve also discovered a new reading experience – something completely
out of the norm of my usual fiction diet of vampire, werewolf and big kids ‘action
stories’. Gareth had bought the book ‘Why Do We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker. I had
to buy my own copy as Gareth is actually reading a ‘real book’ one made of
paper. Mine is the eBook variety, but I’ve also ordered the Audio Book version
to listen while I’m working (I’m listening as I type) The concept of sleep as a
prescription for human beings and it’s benefits for physical and mental health.
There are some incredibly simple concepts about how and when sleep provides
benefits to us.
I should add that whilst I often ‘nap’ on the sofa in the
evening these days which I’ve put down to the side effects of my thyroid going
on the frisk. I’m pretty rubbish at going to bed it’s usually around midnight
on weeknights or at weekends. My alarm on weekdays goes off at 7am so I’m
functioning on 7 hours sleep at the most. The research and studies in this book
show that is the equivalent of losing a whole night’s sleep each week – which is
pretty obvious really when you bear in mind that 8 hours a night is the
recommended amount for general health and wellbeing.
At the risk of becoming an anorak about the subject, the
Light NREM sleep,, Deep NREM sleep and REM sleep time and duration has proven
to be fascinating. Explanations of why our behaviours and type of sleep have
proven really fascinating. I’m going to make some changes to how I sleep and do
a little ‘research’ on myself’ to see if it makes any changes. I’m thinking
that work won’t be up for the idea that a 90 minute nap early afternoon will be
beneficial for my overall daily productivity but I’ll certainly be going to bed
earlier in the coming weeks to see if it has some beneficial effects.
I have my monthly bloods this Friday the first batch of year
5 – I’m still rather nervous at the idea that this is my last year of bloods –
I’m going to not mention that it’s only for 5 years again at the doctors, just
go in each month and see if anyone notices that it’s only supposed to be for 5
years.
Yesterday was Father’s Day here in the UK, always a little poignant
but yesterday even more so as it was also a year since Gareth and I took our
cat BamBam on his last journey a year ago in order for him to cross the Rainbow
Bridge and join his old friend Gizmo again – I hope they’re having fun again
together as well as ‘hunting’ – I put the hunting in quotes as they were both
pretty talented at ‘hunting’ BBQ food and would through the summer bring home successfully
‘hunted’ Kebabs on sticks, bits of burger or just lumps of unidentifiable BBQ’d
goodies. Anyway what I was getting round to (slowly) is that for father’s day
the animals and I bought Gareth another bottle of the nice scotch that I got
for his 40th birthday.
I’ve not done the video for YouTube yet – this is simply
because it hasn’t stopped raining here in the UK all week. It’s been wet and
windy and really quite crap. Today the weather seems to be better so if I can
get Gareth to help I will have a crack at recording it tonight perhaps at the
dog park if it’s nice and not too windy. Failing that it’s likely to be later
this week or the weekend (I’m tempted to wait until the garden has been done
and it’s prettier since I want to do it outside with the dogs wandering around
and doing their thing) – I’m not going to welch on my promise – I promise J
Anyway that’s enough from me for now unless something
exciting happens over the course of the week.
Stay well and try to get a good quality 8 hours sleep
xx
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