Tag Archives: napping

The Nap Trap and Problems with Class

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Last night I got stuck with the sandwiches.

“I feel very tired,” said Julia, yawning. “Can you do the sandwiches?”

Well, I can’t really say no, seeing as she does more housework than I do. I, on the other hand, do more eating, poetry and driving than she does, but I never get any credit for this when the subject of my laziness comes up for discussion.

The sandwiches are cheap paté from ASDA and the vegetarian accompaniment is sliced water melon. It beats carrot sticks. However, carrot sticks are probably better for me. Cardboard would probably be better for me too, as it would fill me up without too much in the way of salt, sugar or carbs.

The evening started badly when I made up for my poor overnight sleep with two substantial naps. The second started around 11pm and lasted until 1.30am, which is always bad news. At that time I get up feeling like I need bed but have to make sandwiches. This in turn wakes me up, meaning I sleep badly and will then fall into the nap trap again.

Really I should just go to bed then get up early to make sandwiches, but I’d be so scared of oversleeping that I’d never get off to sleep properly.

The real solution is, I suppose, to make the sandwiches at 4pm when I return home, but I have always made them as late as possible to keep them fresh. It’s one of those habits you get into. I always feel that if you leave it late you can use things like cucumber and tomato, which would make the sandwich too soggy if left for too long.

Do you have any old-established habits which you would like to change?

When I win the lottery I will have Julia send the butler down at regular intervals with sandwiches, fresh fruit salad and ice cream. I’d probably have a fresh shirt delivered for the afternoon too, though I’m not sure if that would be a job for the butler or whether I’d need a valet for that. That’s the trouble with being brought up as working class in a class-ridden society – no matter how much money you may dream of winning, there’s always that basic insecurity of never being quite sure which servant does which job.

 

 

Boxing Day

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Christmas day passed quickly. It’s now the early hours of Boxing Day. Several meals, presents, chocolates, Bailey’s, Strictly, Love Actually and several naps filled the day in a most satisfactory manner. We also had phone calls from the kids and I spoke to my sister so all the family stuff is done too. I am, as I have said before, a man of simple needs and it doesn’t take much to make me happy.

The Ancient Santa card is on the left, the other is only about 25 years old.

On the writing front, I allowed another deadline to slip by without submitting anything and reminded myself that there are two more to look at before the end of the month, which isn’t far away. I’ll get round to doing something in the next few days I suppose, but if I decide to sit with Julia and watch TV instead, it won’t be  a tragedy. I quite like sitting and watching TV  with Julia.

Boxing Day sees my favourite meal of the holidays – turkey sandwiches with cranberry jelly and stuffing. I usually add mayonnaise to, but I’m planning on heating  some part-baked baguettes for tomorrow and I’m not convinced that hot bread and mayonnaise will go together that well. The day after Boxing Day usually features turkey sandwiches too, but they aren’t such a novelty by then.

Santa and Snowman figures

The pictures show our Christmas decorations by candle light. The Santa card is 33 years old. Julia always brings him out for Christmas and I have gradually phased out buying other cards, so it proved a wise investment. The Santa and Snowman figures are part of Christmas tradition too. I tried several different settings to allow for the colour temperature and managed to produce a number of odd effects. None of them quite captured the magic of candle light.

That’s about it. Another ordinary day in a dull life.

 

Wednesday Again

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Today I got up late, as I don’t see any point in having a day off and flinging myself out of bed at dawn, or any time approximating to dawn. The benefit of having two days off together (as I did this week due to a rearrangement of our days in the shop) is that you can work into the early hours of the morning, pretending to be creative. I say ‘pretending’ because I’m not sure I do my best work when I’m half asleep.

I read for the first hour of waking, then went downstairs.

I had written four haibun last night and, after replying to comments on the blog and reading a few other blogs I got down to work.

All four needed considerable tightening up, and that’s what they got.

Then, at 12.00 I decided to have lunch, as I hadn’t actually had breakfast. Sourdough toast, tinned plum tomatoes, fried mushrooms and scrambled eggs, in case a future reader is interested. It’s not exciting or healthy, but it’s what we had in the fridge. A bit like my writing, which is what happens to be kicking around in my head when I sit at the keyboard.

That turned into a short spell of watching TV and a rather longer one of napping. I don’t know why I needed a nap, perhaps because I could.That led on to doing the washing up and doing a bit more writing. After that there was more TV, a discussion of shopping lists, a meal of stir-fried vegetables, the on-line shopping order and this blog post. Actually there was a previous blog post but it developed in a way I couldn’t be bothered to complete, so it is now resting in drafts.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Light and Shade

TESCO have increased the delivery charge – I am now paying them £4.50 to pick and deliver my groceries, where it used to cost £3. That’s £75 a year, though if I had to drive to the shop every week I suppose it would cost me about that in car running costs and time.

That’s it for now. The post is drawing to a natural close, midnight is approaching and I need to do my sandwiches for tomorrow.

It’s tempting to ramble on a bit to try for 500 words, but I’m going to stop now. Three hundred and eighty nine will have to do. (If I’d written 389, it would only have been 385 and I wouldn’t have been able to add this sentence and top it up to 412). I just noticed, on  adding a title to the second photo, that the word count went up. Strange…