Apart from one short, half-hearted snow-globe moment this morning, it’s been dry. Sullen, but dry. And absolutely freezing.
I tried treading on the pavement out front, felt the ice crust crush into a footprint-shaped slide patch, shuddered unmanfully, and came back inside. A painter-decorator man drove his van up to where I’d stepped, slid into the kerb, shrugged and gave up. I reckon a lot of people have done the shrug and give up thing today. He grinned at me standing in the window, though, and made a rude sign at the snow-heavy sky.
That made me laugh.
It’s discouraging or at the least very ill-timed to receive the advice that too much sleep shortens one’s life. Not the best of timing in the depth of a stop-at-home winter when repeated naps are the only way to get through a long, grey day. Apparently six hours is healthier than eight. Sounds to me as though that particular expert (on a BBC discussion page) might have been reading too much of Napoleon.
Me, I love it when I get six hours unbroken sleep. Eight is my idea of heaven. Mostly I bone-ache drearily awake after four, slide gingerly off the bed, and tiptoe off to the kitchen for a hot bevvy and a bit of Internet distraction while my bones settle their internal arguments. Then back to bed for another two or three hours. It’s a strange way to get through the night and very seldom results in a properly refreshed up-and-at-’em state when I finally wake.
Small wonder I’ve come to depend on an afternoon nap.
And then it gets dark, it gets colder, and I feel guilty that another day has passed without spending ten minutes in the car on the drive running the engine to heat the poor beast up during this protracted below-freezing spell. Doesn’t seem to bother the little silver Ford too much but I was brought up to be suspicious of antifreeze and its sustained efficacy.
And… I itch. I itch with a fearsome mid-winter old-man’s itch. I use a ‘moisturising’ body wash and Graham applies coconut butter unguent to my back and other itchy bits but still… I itch.
Sleep too much in the winter? I’d go in for hibernation any old time if I knew how.
