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Summer sleep

Saturday arrives and the Yorkshire summer is still trying to hold on. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic to feel warm but….. I don’t sleep well these days at the best of times. To have a chance I need to be snuggled under a warm duvet, not lying on top of the covers feeling uncomfortably warm. So the warmth has made sleep even less likely. I’m now getting use to operating through the day with two hours sleep at most. Weeks upon weeks on that. That’s not ideal, it’s not healthy but that’s how it is.

The brain so easily just boots up in auto pilot mode. The body is awake, the brain less so.

It’s Saturday, so I start the day with a yoga session. And thats what I remember doing. So why then after about 15 minutes do I suddenly realise yoga isn’t about throwing a kettlebell about. I can’t even remember taking the kettlebells outside with me. Maybe it was sleep kettlebelling….. Still could be worse. At least I was clothed. At least it was my garden I was in. At least I hadn’t just fallen asleep on the yoga mat.

The worry is that the home at school project restarts on Monday for another 7 week block. The return of the early morning alarms calls are not going to help the sleep.

But on the bright side I have not resorted to early hours QVC or pointless reality TV watching. I am using the extra hours awake to focus on what is truly important to me. That’s why I can still do this. That’s why I might be tired but I’m smiling this Saturday Summers day in Yorkshire.

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Hot air

It’s early. I should be sleeping but I can’t. The mad dog wants to go outside and have is morning constitutional….. So without bothering to get dressed I dragged myself out into the chilly garden. Don’t laugh but the dog won’t do what dogs need to do without having someone stood next to him. So I stood bear footed on the damp lawn, looked the other way and whistled.

That’s when I noticed the hot air balloon. Right over the top of me. The balloonists got to see what I wear in bed….. Sorry about that.

By the time the dog

had finished. By the time I ran inside to get my phone, the balloon had moved on a bit.

Well that was a different start to the day.

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Path

Follow the path and see where it leads….

No sleep. Technology problems. Word Press in more scheming than Skynet from Terminator. Part of my life seems like a real bind at present. Hard work. Uninspiring. So unlike other elements of my world.

I could really do with walking along that path right now. A time to relax and gather my thoughts again. Problem is that it’s been at least 16 months since I walked here. It’s certainly not being walked today.

And that path. Where does it lead. Well keep walking straight. Straight over the small hill. Dead straight across two more fields. You get to my garden fence.

A path I have trod so many times. A path I love. But heres the thing. I never once walked it with another person. I’m sure there is a message in that thought somewhere.

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Night

It’s 1am and I’m not tired. I should be but I’m not. No point going to bed yet.

Can’t be bothered to watch TV. More to life than some random movie or Pointless bathroom renovation show, although my bathroom could do with a lick of paint but not at 1am.

Reading. No. Can’t concentrate. End up having to read the same page several times.

Music. Too late for German Death Metal so it would have to be Cohen or Pink Floyd. Don’t fancy listening to such up tempo music tonight….

Jigsaw. Just No

Check on the school at home schedule. But the prospect of checking on school when it starts in less than 8 hours and sleep has not yet started is very depressing.

Eat. I’m on a diet.

Meditate. This is not the time for a juicy hip extension. Is there ever a time for that.

Do some Astronomy. Come on, this is Yorkshire. It’s chucking it down.

It’s clear what I need to do. Make a herbal tea and day dream. Day dream until hopefully they turn into real Night Dreams.

That’s a plan.

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Salvador Dali

A quick look at this mornings weather forecast sent me scurrying outside to cut the grass. Thankfully not cutting the farmers fields. I will leave that up to the cows.

I’ve heard of sleep walking but never heard of sleep mowing…. But it felt like I was doing that this morning. Today has been hard work. The body and mind have started to grind to a halt on the back of not enough sleep. Last night it was one our kip. Similar to the night before. And the one before that……

I won’t show you my attempt at nice straight lawn stripes. Think more Salvador Dali and his Persistence of Memory painting.

Add to sleep mowing, today I added sleep working, sleep parenting and sleep housework.

I have been barely functioning today. Not ideal when your trying to explain Double Replacement Chemical reactions. So add either sleep teaching or sleep chemistry. It’s odd what ever I did today resembled a Salvador Dali creation.

Maybe I’ve sussed out the secret of Salvador success. Maybe he wasn’t an artistic pioneer. Maybe he couldn’t sleep, he did sleep painting.

Salvador Dali, 1931
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Wake

How I start the day makes such a massive difference to me. My day seems to go better if I exercise early in the morning rather than after lunch. Get my breakfast right and my dieting becomes easier. Avoid caffeine first thing and I feel less on edge for the rest of the day.

But there is one morning thing above anything else that has the biggest impact on my day.

How I wake up.

Do I wake up under my own steam or am I suddenly woken by some external factor. The pesky alarm…..

If I wake up naturally, even if that’s after a night of little sleep then I’m usually good to go. The day seems in synch. Even nights without any sleep at all, I find work ok for me. I can do this single parenting gig.

But if the alarm brings me abruptly to life and it’s all so very much different. Today was like that. Not much sleep until after 5am and then I crash out. All too soon the noisy alarm ends the dreams. But it has not brought the real me to life, it’s the zombie version of me. I can barely function, certainly can’t think straight, parenting is seemingly beyond me. That feeling of being completely out of synch stays with me all day. These are the days I really struggle to overcome depression.

All because of how I wake.

Am I alone in this?

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Insomnia

It’s odd how you can get used to so little sleep. It’s basically been over a year now, lucky to get 4 hours kip a night. Often less than 2 hours and all too frequently no sleep at all.. What would 6 hours feel like…..

I hate first thing in the morning now. Feeling as if I’m wading through treacle and all without a functioning brain. Still there are some advantages. No need now for Movie Directors to train up actors for creepy zombie roles. Just film me in the morning, straight out of bed. That sight will scare the pants of people. Never has the phrase ‘need your beauty sleep’ been more apt…..

So here’s to another day of yawns, dropping things, crashing into doors and generally scaring the local wildlife half to death. Here’s to INSOMNIA.

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Rickety

There’s always been a tree house we occasionally pass around here. Never seen anyone ever up there. Probably a good thing looking at how rickety it’s looking these days. But if there is ever a great flood I might just give it a go.

Currently getting through the day on zero sleep. Even watching Avatar didn’t work last night. After an hour no sleep was coming and I was bored out of my mind. So it was time to give up. At least I’ve maintained my record of never being able to sit through one complete viewing of that movie. Sorry I just don’t get it at all…..

Homeschooling is feeling very rickety this morning.

No information or class material for maths. So we guessed the subject. I tried to teach probability. That’s TRY. Remember no sleep…..

Then for French we did get a pack to work through the only problem was that it seemed like it was in a foreign language…….

Then Science. Absolutely nothing. Going to sound old here. But in my day they split science up into separate Chemistry, Physics and Biology. They never met….. At least you knew what subject the teacher was wittering on about. Now it’s Science. So when you get no support you end up even having to guess which branch of science to look at. In the end we plumped for Physics. Just because it’s my better subject. I them mumbled my way through trying to teach wave theory.

Is it bad to say I’m ready for bed already and it’s only lunch time.

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Sleep

Tonight … sleep won’t arrive.

I get these nights. Frustratingly it’s often when I feel like I need sleep the most. When I’m really tired. Am I really TOO tired to sleep. As the night slowly passes by my mind is becoming increasingly active. It’s become a time for thinking. Not good when I’m supposed to be asleep.

You know it’s one of those nights when I’m writing a blog as the sun is nearly rising.

But here’s the thing. At the best of times English often feels like my second language. The first being drivel. No make that incoherent babbling. But at this late hour. Hang on is it early hour!!!!! English doesn’t even feel like my 10th language. Constantly wracking my brain for words and then clueless on spelling those words. I spent several minutes trying to work out why the tablet doesn’t like sleep spelt with 1 E….

I keep clock watching… just a couple of hours before the alarm blasts out. That will be a fun day with no sleep. First homeschooling less Maths then French. Doesn’t get any better than that on no sleep 😂😂😂😂😂

That’s it last throw of the dice time. Now or never. What are the two most sleep inducing things I know. Trying to read Tolkien’s Silmarillion or watch Avatar….

Wish me look.