Heated

Posted: Fri 23 June, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Insomnia, Thoughts, Weather | Leave a comment »

As I wrote about the other day – and as just about anyone in the UK already knows – this week has included the warmest June day in at least forty years, with Wednesday hitting 34.5°C (94°F) . As always, I know that people in other countries will be pissing themselves laughing at the way we’re unable to cope with temperatures at extremes (or at least what the UK sees as extremes)  but that’s because for us they are extremes – and as such, we simply don’t have the infrastructure to cope with them.

We get hot periods during the summer, but we’ve not been this hot since 1976.  So we don’t bother with air-conditioning in houses, or anything to deal with things like train rails expanding, tarmac melting etc. – because it only happens for small occasional periods, instead of months every year.   It’s the same in Winter, if we end up with serious (for us) snow or freezing conditions – they don’t happen often, so we don’t invest in snowploughs, or underground systems like places that have deep snow for weeks and months on end.

Personally, I don’t mind warm (and even hot) days – but I hate hot nights.  The other part of this week’s heat has been that there’s little to no breeze, so it’s been stifling and claggy at night, which makes it (for me) massively unpleasant. Indeed, on Wednesday night I even ended up giving up and going to sleep out in the garden instead, which helped a bit – although also resulted in interrupted sleep because of the cats.

In that context, it’s all made for what feels like a really long week…

Changeable

Posted: Sat 11 March, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Business, Domestic, Films, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Seeing Films, Sociable, Stupidity, Theatre, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »

The last couple of weeks – and the coming one – have been… chaotic, to say the least.  I’m used to this in general, but it’s felt like it’s been even more frenetic than usual this month, and there’ve been a lot of contributory factors that have all conspired to make it so.

Work-wise, I’ve been ending up on-site at least twice a week, rather than the usual one day a week, and that’s just disturbed things a bit. Usually I can take my work laptop on-site on a Monday, and then leave it in my own office for the rest of the week, rather than constantly lugging it around.  This month though it’s been on-site, in-office, on-site, in-office etc. etc.

Around the work stuff, there’s been a lot of other bits going on, with stuff in London on some evenings, as well as other social stuff and going to the cinema.  And it all adds up.

For example, this week has involved…

  • Monday – on site
  • Tuesday – working from home, then going to London to Mere in the evening.
  • Wednesday – in office
  • Thursday – on site, then seeing Kong: Skull Island in the evening
  • Friday – in office
  • And then just my usual idiocy in the coming weekend, another trip to London to see friends, and a social-and-food even locally on Sunday

Next week is no different really, including two London trips to the theatre, as well as all the usual work. I’m vaguely hopeful that I won’t be on-site more than once, but I’ll only find that out during the week.

Once next week is done, I’m hoping that things will be a bit quieter again. That’s certainly the plan – if nothing else, I need some downtime – but we’ll see how it goes.  In fairness, I can handle the multiple days on-site or I can handle the other stuff – it’s just when it’s both things at once that it gets somewhat harder to deal with.

A Decade

Posted: Wed 22 February, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Change, D4D™, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Thoughts, Time | Leave a comment »

For a number of reasons, I’ve been thinking a lot about time past, so I had a look back at what was going on here ten years ago.

Man, there’s been a lot of change in that time.

Back then, I was newly in Norfolk, living with Herself (and Hound and Psycho Cat, of course), still in the rented place and in the process of buying the Norfolk place. Working in Cambridge, and generally settled for the time.

How time flies, and all that piss.  Food for thought, etc etc

Restorative

Posted: Tue 22 November, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Health, Thoughts, Travel | Leave a comment »

Looking back over the weekend, and the twatted ankle, I do find it interesting that whatever I’m doing (or have done) to myself, I still appear to be lucky enough and healthy enough to repair and heal pretty quickly.

Considering that I fit with no-one’s image of a fit person, and that I’m also capable of doing 13-15 mile walks in a day with no further ill effects, that all makes me a lot happier than it maybe should.

Of course, if I were less of an idiot, and more open to allowing small injuries/damage to put a stop to plans, I’d probably heal up even quicker, but that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

Maybe it’ll change as I get older, but for now, I’m pretty content with how things stand.

 

Reduced Insomnia

Posted: Mon 3 October, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Bankruptcy, Business, Change, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Insomnia, Rebuilding, The Future, Thoughts, Travel | 2 Comments »

During the week in Cornwall, I slept better than I have in absolutely years – to the tune of about 2 hours more sleep per night. It’s the first time since I started recording my sleep times with the Fitbit that I’ve had more than four hours in a night – and it happened all week.

So, it looks like the possible cure (or at least improvement) in my insomnia is :

  • Move to Cornwall (or somewhere with equally remote areas)
  • Walk at least six miles a day
  • Sleep in a house miles from anywhere, in absolute pitch-black darkness and silence.

At the moment, none of that is massively feasible. But in the future, it may well be. I need to look at how things work, what I do and what I want to do, and how to get to where that kind of plan might be possible.

So, that’ll be fun.

Automagic

Posted: Fri 3 June, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, M1, Thoughts, Travel | Leave a comment »

I’ve got another weekend of driving ahead of me, and because I’m still not 100% confident in the Saab, I’ve rented one again for the weekend.

This time, for variety’s sake, I went for an automatic – no idea what type yet, but automatic.

I haven’t driven autos that much – I rented one back when I was in Norfolk, which I wasn’t massively impressed with – so figure I might as well get some more experience with them, and see how it goes on a weekend that involves a fair number of motorway miles.

Part of my thinking is that (assuming I don’t mind it) it’s something that I may consider in the next car, because I seem to drive primarily on motorways, and in traffic jams- occasionally at the same time.  I’ve noticed that, when I’ve had a really bad day of slow-moving traffic or city stuff, it can make my legs hurt, purely from just using the clutch all the time, so it’s something to consider, at least.

I’ll write more next week, once I’ve done a bundle of driving in it. One things for sure though – it’s going to be interesting.

Slowdown

Posted: Mon 7 December, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Health, M1 | Leave a comment »

Having had an utterly chaotic and busy three months – I’ve covered 1,500 miles just in the last month – things are finally calming down.

This weekend spent in Manchester was my last full weekend away ’til mid-February, although I still have a number of things booked in for days, and a couple of busy weekends doing lots of stuff, at least I’ll be back home in between for each one.

This is definitely A Good Thing.

 

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