Late

What time do you go to bed and wake up currently?

Early to bed, early to rise, just isn’t me!

I think my circadian rhythm is out, because over the last few months I’ve gone to bed later and later. Then I eventually sleep for a few hours, before waking up around dawn. Then sadly I look at my phone! Spend an hour or so catching up with videos and messages, before falling asleep again and waking up in the late morning.

I don’t want to be this way, I sometimes need to be up and out earlier, but insomnia and an overactive brain can see me struggling to sleep. It doesn’t help that I have to wear a mask at night to help me breathe. I also do have painful joints and my arm is still very shaky and sore (I sound like a wreck!).

One thing to do is to think the word “the” over and over to yourself. This was recommended by my friend and it works when I remember to do it. “the” is a word with no connotations, it interrupts your train of thought and gives your brain time to disengage (at least that’s what I think!).

Anyway hope you all have a good night’s sleep. Best wishes!

I’m late!

The white rabbit was at the New Victoria Theatre, artist unknown.

Time, delay, late, always late.

I can’t sleep due to insomnia. So when and if I do sleep I can’t always get up.

So I’m late, it takes me time to get ready, I have the best intentions, but by the time I’m sorted out its sometimes too late to get things done or go somewhere. I do hate it, thank goodness I don’t have early starts at work like I used to.

My car clock broke (I think its mechanical mechanism froze this winter), so I don’t rush to appointments any more, I’m not trying to beat the clock as it isn’t there. I have to try and work the time out by listening to the radio. If the shipping forecast is on I know it’s either very early or late at night!

Forty years ago

Distant memory

A memory of something that happened to me when I was at college just popped into my head. We wereon a London trip to look at Art galleries and museums. For some reason wewere given cloakroom tickets (raffle tickets) instead of actual train tickets on the way down. We spent several hours visiting the National Gallery, the Courtauld Institute, the Tate and the Whitechapel Gallery. But then I miscalculated the distance from another gallery to Euston Station via the Underground (the map is very beautifully designed but the distances are altered to make all the stations fit. And so me and my friend arrived on the platform at Euston as the train yo Stoke-on-Trent started to pull out. I ran but couldn’t jump up to the train door. We had to go to the station ticket office with our raffle tickets! After explaining they agreed we could catch the next train, two hours later we were off. But unfortunately it only went to Stafford, I don’t know how we got back from there but we did… Bus I think, yes, I couldn’t afford to get a taxi the twenty miles we were short on a student grant…

Christmas cactuses, late

Only a couple of weeks late, but gloriously in flower now. It’s amazing how the tiny tips of flower buds grow swell and then unfurl. We have bright red, and pale pink and dark pink it’s a riot of flowers in the kitchen. Plus we have a cyclamen and a money tree. I like it at this time of year. It disguises the dying hanging baskets outside in the yard.

Growing

I need to start gardening again. I haven’t emptied out the old pots and put in new compost yet. It’s May and I’ve hardly been round the garden. We are trying to save money and so we have delayed making a start. But the perennials in the main garden are growing. The Russian vine is growing like mad after the rain. We have lots of lesser celandine and bluebells coming up, plus wild garlic. Geraniums are getting big enough to flower and the bushes keep growing. Oh so much to do and not enough energy or strength!

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Late presents…

I need to send some late presents. I didn’t receive my orders until a couple of days before Christmas so it was too late to catch the post to send the presents on. If things had been normal my sister would have come to collect them and taken them with her when she went to visit my other sister. But that wouldn’t work this time. I posted something to a friend well before Christmas and that took ten days to arrive. Goodness knows where it went in the meantime.

Giving presents means a lot to me, I like sharing things with people although I’m not bothered about receiving them. I usually try to fit the present to the person, but this year the things I’ve ordered are a bit more generic. Maybe next year I will be more creative. I hope things get better by then. We are living through a moment of history that cannot be helped but must be endured.

Surprise Apple

You don’t normally find apples still on trees at this time of year. But this was plucked from the back of an apple tree, that sits amongst lots of bushes, this afternoon. Never found one this late in the year before.

Speaking if late apples, hubby bought home four or five little crab apples from branches overlooking the canal on his walk last weekend. I told him not to bring more home as this will be food for small animals or birds over winter.