30.03.26 - a week, a day, a whinge

 Well, after writing a lot about a book, I haven't been able to write anything else for a bit. That's alright.  I haven't done much. 

I've had blood taken twice,  both from the same arm, but Philbert the Phlebotomist has been practicing on both. Apparently my veins need grooming. 

Still been getting over this bloody awful cold, but I'm pretty much better now. And i had a bit of an eye thing too.

It is not easy to take a photo of your own eye

Still, at least I'm not a ferret. It looks like an exhausting life. 

Anyway 

Apparently Dan is the one with the charm and personality 

So. Most of my trips out of the house have been to the shops or to drs things. 

19.03.26

A long cow

Generally just a trip out to shops, coupled with the usual ferret/ house maintenance leaves me pretty knackered.

But I find things to entertain myself

So here's how a typical day usually goes. Waking up is awful. And it doesn't actually matter so much about the time. I can wake up before my alarm, and lie there trying to go back to sleep, but not being able to because I'm aware of Things To Do (or possibly the counting down of possibly lie in time). I can wake up early and get back to sleep and wake up feeling worse than I did the first time. I can wake up with my heart pounding, or I can wake up feeling cosy but guilty, or needing as much pressure as i can get from the duvet, even if I'm hot. I have been known to lie asleep, or half asleep, feeling as if I'm made of lead and have to struggle through the tiredness just to wake up. 

I suspect that no one in real life wakes up and instantly leaps joyfully out of bed like in cartoons, but come on. Is it so much to ask to feel rested and ready to wake up?

Me, morning

So after lying in bed convincing myself to get up, getting up (with promises to myself that I can have a nap later) I get up and start the day. 

Luckily once I'm up I often start to feel a bit more optimistic and sometimes tell myself I will get so much done, get through without a nap and go to bed at a reasonable time. Ha!

So the next couple of hours are mainly ferret related. If I don't have to work I will attempt to relax while ferrets run around me (although that usually involves doing stuff on my phone and thinking about what I want to do on my phone), and attempting some tidying (when the Ferrets are out i can't do a lot of stuff in the bedroom or kitchen, so a lot of the tidying then is limited to 'cleaning up after ferrets as they wreck the place'. If I'm working, then I'm working as ferrets  wreck the place in the background. Either way, i need to get their food out, change puppypads, water dishes, etc. If I'm good I'll eat a cereal bar or something while this is going on. I can't eat when I've just woken up,  so food needs to be something I can prepare (open) or eat without fuss/interference. I can't eat BEFORE ferrets come out cos then I'm sat going 'i need to be getting on with stuff' and that makes it difficult to eat. 

After ferrets are all settled away again, if I'm not working it's very tempting to go lie down and read for a bit. This can lead to a nap. Sometimes I'll have a 'second breakfast' snack first. Sometimes I'll be lying down reading and be getting into nap-mode, when I'll get hungry and have to get up and have some lunch. This is probably actually the better scenario as once I've had lunch I'll more likely push through (although if I do nap it will then be later). If I nap through lunch time, I'll have gotten the nap out of the way earlier, but I'll also have missed lunch. 

Three coffees, no lunch

Obviously if I'm working none of this is an option. And if I'm not, I'll often try to get on with some tidying and stuff to resist the nap. However I will get to a point about 3-4 where everything becomes awful again. Being awake and upright is exhausting. Now, depending on when I'm working (sometimes i finish at 3, sometimes 5) I will often end up taking a nap at this point. Naps are usually 2 hours, not including the time I lie reading before sleep (I can't just 'go' to sleep). So if I go lie down at 3, I'll probably be up before 6. Napping any time after 5 is ridiculous and if I haven't gone to sleep before 6 then it's not going to happen. 

Evenings vary depending on naps. If I've napped early then i may have thrown my eating off schedule, but I'll at least have energy for the evening and enough of it to do stuff (I may go into more detail on the stuff on another entry, I think this one is self-indulgent enough as it is). If I've not napped, I will go through an hour or so where just sitting on the sofa is a struggle but then I will get a second wind. If I've had a late nap then by the time I've got myself together to do stuff, it'll be late by the time I've done my stuff. 

Minimum for evening 'stuff' is dinner (eating and possibly cooking), the Ferrets evening run and checking on our neighbour. And of course trying to get enough tidying done that I won't have much to do the next day (this is physically Impossible, there is ALWAYS more to tidy).

Happy Easter. Have some bees

One variation to the schedule is of course, if we go out shopping, which either means late nap as soon as we get back, or no nap/ more tired. 

Then of course, there's the whole revenge-bedtime-procrastination thing and trying to get to sleep. If I lie down with a book in the middle of the day I'll usually be asleep within an hour. The same rule does not hold at night. Yes if I've gone without a nap I'm more likely to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, but we're still talking 'after midnight'. 

So that's a day. How has the week been? I finished reading this one - advertised as a mix of Scooby Doo, Famous Five and Lovecraft (Dan says Scooby Doo is a mix of the other two anyway). It was fairly entertaining but I could not understand why the text kept switching to a script format. At first I thought it was going to be some sort of meta-commentary, a layers-of-reality thing (I really enjoyed that format in 'Horror Movie' by Paul Tremblay) but in this it just never seemed to turn into anything. There were a few similar running bits, like the coca-cola watches, that I similarly couldn't figure out the reason for (best guess for the watches is they're a hint to the plot point about CO2? It felt at times like picking up clues in a point- and-click game). Overall it was fun but I had the impression I was missing a few things. 

Ferret cuddle break

So since I've had a few dr/hospital appointments this week or two, I've tied that in with visits to shops and things while I'm out. My appointment at the Freeman meant a trip into Newcastle, so I had a look in the Amnesty book shop

I was pretty tempted by this one, but I don't know enough German to make it really worthwhile. Hopefully someone perfect will find it. 

After coffee with a friend, mooching around shops and far too much indecision, I decided to eat in the place with the most sparkly lights. 

Also Dan had said 'go for a curry' but I don't like going for a full curry on my own, so street food portions worked. 

Took some photos from the window, where I was sitting in a swing (not the best part of the experience)

A couple more photos on the street

On a separate outing involving charity shops, Dan was very happy to pick up these interesting salt and pepper shakers. I'm sure they will be very useful.

A different appointment had me over in Washington, so we had a quick look in the galleries. It was an experience.

Oh look. Gonks.

Take for instance, this inflatable cow balloon. 

'How is it inflated?' You ask

Or cute little breakfast plushies

Or how about a romantic bear with a soap rose growing out of it's head?

Even the notebooks in the shop looked sad to be there

And a few more secondhand treasures 

Anyway, that takes us up to last Wednesday so I'll leave this for now (I think this entry is quite long?) And shall discuss more Books and Stuff later.