Tag: sleep

Creepy Ba**ards and Chavs

This could just as well refer to the estate agents currently attempting to sell our place, however it’s more fitting to refer to the eight legged bastard that decided to walk up my arm at 1:30 this morning, disturbing what was probably the most peaceful nights rest I have had for ages.

B**tard

It’s been so warm of late that the wife has requested the windows remain ajar at night. I don’t normally do this, due to the area we live in being so bloody noisy, it’s hard to turn off and sleep. Recently I’ve had to employ the ear plugs, a rarity when I’m not working a night shift.

So promptly at 01:30 I awake, I can fell something on my arm and I brush it, immediately I can feel it again and in one swift moment only lasting probably 1/1000th of a second I move from being horizontal to vertical standing beside the bed with the side light on, my wife looking at me as if I’d lost the plot. At that time I probably had. The next ten minutes were spent looking for said trespasser, alas nothing was found. I’m saying it was a spider, it could well have been a moth of a mozzie, but I’m sticking with the eight legged version.

Back to bed, senses at a high state of alert I finally drift off at about 2:15 and awake abruptly at 06:30 when a neighbour starts up a petrol lawnmower. Tempted to open the window and shout abuse at him i withdraw from the window and go make the first cup of tea of the day. The world seems a better place for 5 beautiful minutes.

The Chav of the avian world

Until the local Chavs of the bird world start clacking away outside the bedroom window. God the noise these ass holes make is deafening, one of the downsides of maintaining a garden, they go about bullying every other bird that enters the garden, a typical city bully boy with wings. And then the next doors bloody Parrot joins in, that’ll be him set off for the day now. The day is already getting worse.

Is it any wonder we want to sell up and move on?

And thats where the next creepy B**tards come in. The estate agents. For some reason these ones we are utilising do things differently, rather that bring interested parties around individually, this lot seem to ring up and say, “ oh we have a viewing for you next Tuesday at 17:30” “Ok” we reply, to then be told it’s for Twelve interested people. It’s a bloody party I tell you. Maybe we should be giving out canapés and drinks, because I bet you the majority of them are estate agent tourists as I mentioned in this previous post: Failures and time wasting. Estate agent tourists are people who use the estate agent networks to go nosey around people’s homes with no intention of buying, it is just a day out for them, just like anyone else would visit a stately home. They really are sad individuals who need to get a life, and they are rife up here in the East Midlands. And then they have the goddamn cheek to offer feedback after their day out, go shove your feedback up yer ass. I have told the estate agents that they can go take a running jump if they bring anymore such types, but they probably won’t listen, they’re just estate agents….bless ‘em.

Anyway I’ve taken too much of your time ranting and raving, but I do know two things. The bed is being pulled out to look for that 8 legged creep at a forensic level. And the bedroom windows are staying closed tonight.

Have a great day all..

The clock – heartbeat of the home.

Stick with me on this one, I’ll get there eventually it’s a bit of a ramble but I promise I’ll get there.

It’s 04:45 in the morning and I am awake. I’m beside my lovely wife in a bed in her friend’s house in Sunbury west London. It’s a lovely old house with a beautiful back garden in one of Londons leafier suburbs. I’m awake as I’m listening to a beautiful dawn chorus where the birds have awoken and are obviously discussing avian issues quite vocally and beautifully through birdsong. It s a lovely sound and one of natures most pleasant daily occurrences, by the sounds of it it’s going to be a lovely sunny day.

I’m blessed with exceptionally good hearing. Some may call it a curse but to me it’s a godsend. My wife states that i,”Can hear a fly fart from 50ft away” and she’s probably not wrong to be honest. It’s a godsend, as it seems the female members of her family, yes all of them, have particularly bad hearing and my dear wife is in fact registered as partially deaf, and if it wasn’t for her super duper high tech hearing devices she would more than likely be totally deaf. Therefore, my superb hearing doubles as her safety blanket when I am with her. It’s just one of those strange coincidences in life when you are magically paired with someone to be their help, in their time of need. I’ve already stated in earlier posts how she has helped and nurtured me through our life together. There is truly a mystical tie that binds.

I dropped my wife off at her friends house about 11 days ago, just prior to me heading back north to begin a stint of night shifts. It’s allowed the two of them to have some real good time with each other to catch up and do the things they enjoy doing. Her friend as you would already know, if you follow my journal posts, had some quite serious issues last year with some mental health issues after the passing of her long time partner a couple of years back. The wife switched into full time angel mode to help her, and I remain so proud of them for what they have both achieved. You don’t just suddenly get better from such an episode, but she has improved so much she is pretty much back to the old her we used to know, and have always loved. Thankfully my wife has a constant eye on her, and is speaking to her at least 3-4 times a day, so there is really no chance of her sinking back into the abyss she has just come out from, as my wife firmly has hold of the support rope keeping her back from falling down once again.

The very clock I’m talking about

Now the clock analogy. I love clocks. Good old fashioned clocks that tick mechanically, not the digital versions that silently do their thing within the scope of silence. I’ve stated that my hearing is above par, and you’d think noise would be a curse. Well it is sometimes. In a silent house such as our own that has those very same digital clocks, I do hear everything. It’s an old house that makes noises. Pipes clank, floorboards creak and changes in temperature cause expansion and contraction noises all around. My hearing is such that I’m not at peace until I can associate a noise with the potential creator, yes I overthink even when I am attempting to sleep, i want total silence and that is not possible in an old house.

However at my wife’s friend’s house it is different. It’s an old house, digital clocks do not exist here and all clocks are mechanical, this house has a heartbeat. I have something to focus on and that comforts me into the most peaceful sleep, and awakes me at the other end with the most wonderful birdsong from outside. I love it.

When I delivered my wife here 11 days ago I had focussed on that clock heartbeat in our bedroom only to be mystified as to why, half way through the night the clock had stopped ticking, its heart had stopped. Why?

It became apparent the next morning that I looked at the clock that the hour hand was bent out of shape, and on its journey around the clock face the minute hand had clashed with it and it had come to an abrupt stop. This had occurred, and come to light when her friend had spoken with her step-son and found out that he hated the sound of a ticking clock and had fumbled in the night to hide it away causing the damage to the two hands.

Now as you know, I love fixing stuff and this item needed my help. The hands were very delicate and to be honest I didn’t think they were strong enough to take being bent back into shape. I used some tweezers and gently moved them back into position and I was able to restore that heartbeat.

I sit here now writing, getting great comfort from that ticking in the background. I don’t know why, I can only presume that like a child laying against its mothers breast, they gain great comfort from hearing their mothers heart beating. Maybe it’s the same with me? That constant, accurate non stop repetitive sound gives me something to focus on, turning my good hearing away from all the other little distractions that keep me awake.

I know one thing, I’m on the lookout for a good old fashioned mantle clock, or wall clock to have within listening distance of the bedroom at our house, that I can focus on.

I wish I could have been a horologist, working on clocks is tantamount to being a heart surgeon in my eyes. A most fantastic invention, and how I would love to be someone who looks after these fantastic mechanical masterpieces, however my eyesight is what lets me down here. But guess what? My wife’s eyesight is perfect. See, we are truly made for each other!

A house needs a heartbeat.

Have a super day everyone.

I can’t get no sleep

3am in the morning and I’m wide awake. Damned annoying as I know what the cause is. It’s been an issue that has pestered me in excess of 30 years now and it’s called –

Shift work

Says it all

I’ve been working shifts in my job for about 35 years now and I still haven’t come across a way to get your body to adapt to all the changes that shift work burdens upon you, and number one in that list is insomnia.

Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder where people have difficulty sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep for as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood. It may result in an increased risk of accidents of all kinds as well as problems focusing and learning.

Wikipedia

As if you need it explaining to you. Now I don’t suffer from permanent insomniac conditions, mine is purely based around the segment that involves night shifts. My shifts cover 24hrs and are on a five week rolling cycle. They involve three main sets of shifts and those shifts are 0600-1400hrs, 1400-2200hrs or 2200-0600hrs and at weekends they are either 0600-1800 or 1800-0600.

I have just finished a run of 11 consecutive night shifts after one of my coworkers has been taken ill. And that’s the problem. I finished at 0600 yesterday morning and deliberately did not sleep beyond 11 am as I’m now having to swing back to daylight timings, as I now have the weekend off before transferring on to the early mornings shifts from Monday. I was suitably tired last night, in fact I was all day, but I resisted the urge to nod off as I wanted to try and fool my body clock in to getting back to normal habits. But my body clock doesn’t work like that and isn’t having it.

Over the years I have tried many ways to try and evolve my body clock to understand when moving from Night shifts to day shifts. I’ve tried not sleeping at all, but that results in irritation to all those around me, and a general malaise that is unproductive and non conducive to a friendly peaceful atmosphere. I’ve tried the couple of hours in bed routine but that again is problematic as you fall in to such a deep sleep, so quickly that whoever is tasked with waking you up undoubtedly gets both barrels and you don’t speak for the rest of the day getting labelled as a miserable old git. Or you can just go to bed and wake up when you feel fit to, as I did yesterday and here I am now, in a blacked out bedroom putting my thoughts into this post, quietly as my wife sleeps beside me.

I’m totally wide awake and ready to go. But I don’t want to go anywhere…just yet.

I know I will pay the price later today by feeling tired and tempted to take a nap, however I have to resist that temptation and try to get back to a normal sleeping pattern tonight.

I must apologise in advance to all those individuals who I will meet today who think “He’s a miserable old git.” If I’m nodding as we talk it’s not that I’m bored it’s just I’m lacking the one item you have probably had plenty of.

Sleep.

I can’t get no sleep….(to quote a superb tune)

I can’t get no sleep

There you go. I said it was a great tune.

Peace and plentiful sleep to you all. Stay safe.

Morning..probably

Are you more of a night or morning person?

Working a 24hr shift roster as I currently do it’s hard to give a true preference. I have never had a problem in rising though and am quite proud to say I have never been late to work in my life, for that I can be totally relied on.

I love an early rise, I like my cup of tea or two before the rigours of the day kick in, yes I’d say I’m more of a morning person.

Shift work really throws your sleep patterns out of kilter though, and there are times when you have changed from night shift to early shifts when you just don’t want to wake up early, but your body says different. There you are due to rise at 04:45 for an early shift but your body and mind decides you are going to be awake about 3 hrs earlier. This is where fatigue steps in.

However a week or two’s holiday sorts this out and after a few days your sleep pattern is sorted. So I’m now quite confident that I’m definitely a morning person. It’s lovely to rise early before the world is totally motivated and get the day underway, nothing is wasted.

Have a lovely day. Peace to you all.

Sleep? Maybe, maybe not

What are you doing this evening?

To be honest I’m not really sure. I suspect as I have work tomorrow it will be shower, and to bed. I’m currently reading some Charles Dickens book that I should have read years ago, so I suppose I will do that until I feel tired and then drift into a lovely deep sleep.

Now that’s not going to happen is it? My brain will wake up when I go horizontal and throw silly questions into the night such as, “Why do penguins live in the cold?” And “Why are there so many stars in the sky?” And lots of other irrelevant observations. So I’m probably planning an interrupted nights sleep and I’m going to wake in the morning miserable as sin and like Alf Garnet on acid (he’s a miserable sod from the 70s who was a tv character)

So that’s my evening sorted.

Not jealous are you 😂

Have a super day.

A little shift here and there

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

Anyone who works shifts as well as I have for the last 30+ years will testify that setting times for sleeping and waking up is about as much use as a chocolate fire poker. It just can’t be done.

I sometimes drop like a log in the early afternoon and have a nap. I’m sometimes walking around the house at 2 in the morning wide awake and ready to go. Shift work does that to you it kills any remainder of circadian rhythm.

I do what my body says. And I’m a slave to that. Forget what all the “Specialists” say in that you must have your 8hrs sleep – pure tosh.

They need to get with it and realise this world is on shift work and the nine to fivers are a rarity in these times we live in.

I sleep when my body says, I wake when it tells me. And that could be at anytime within a 24hr period.

Have a good day people. Just take a nap. You’ll feel better for it.

Is it worth being Passionate?

What are you passionate about?

I only ask, as being passionate in anything sometimes makes people question if you are just being obsessive in your actions.

There’s obsession in relationships that can more often than not be one sided, and lead to a number of unwanted and uncomfortable situations and poor behavioural traits such as stalking.

There is passion in your work, that can also lead to you being seen as a person who doesn’t see black and white, there’s no other option it’s your way or no way!

Passion seems to partner obsession in my opinion, maybe I’m looking to deep and need to step off the gas a little.

What am I passionate (obsessed) with then?

I’m passionate about time keeping, and competence. I simply hate incompetence in anything and it is one of my pet peeves.

I guess I’ve woken up in probably not one of the best frames of mind to answer this question. I’m passionate about a good nights sleep though, but that’s about as rare as rocking horse s**t these days.

Keep obsessing all…