Whirlwind

The insane insufferable tiredness of sleep deprivation. Eyes hot and gritty, body sore and tired from battling gravity all day. Another Tuesday night saw me struggling before the return to work. Then a whirlwind day - outside a gale whistling round the portakabin, rain hurtling at the windows, and inside girls missing appointments, coming at wrong times, being double-booked, refusing to come, and in one case racing about my room with great glee on my wheeled desk chair.

Big Snow

Curtains open on a white world of whirling flakes, God and friends having a massive pillow fight, looking like the classic snow storm in the little glass bubble and everyone's movie idea of a white Christmas. The car is a fluffy thing says L. Sitting at work all day in fear of this coming before I headed for home, I am so happy now to watch it from inside my cosy house. Apparently next week it's going to be 10 degrees so the cold snap is leaving us with a flourish.

Drift

Tanyas

On Tuesday night I danced to the dear old Be Good Tanyas and it eased my troubled soul. Tonight we checked out their website to learn two things
a) they are playing Manchester on 1 February and it is sold out
b) Sam Parton was injured in a car accident in September and is currently unable to tour with them

If you don't know the Tanyas this won't mean much, but trust me it would be worth your while getting to know them....

Stress

Forecast is for more snow and probably rather a lot of it, just not clear exactly when. Really hoping it's sooner rather than later and the school just announces it is closed first thing, so I don't have to make an agonising decision about going in tomorrow (car? train? not at all?) Colleagues regaling me this morning with stories of walking home through blizzards really didn't help. They mostly live only a few miles away, I more than eighteen miles away.

Meanwhile sleep better but still a problem. Looking forward to the weekend more than usual!

Whiter

It is so quiet up on the tops, and there is no one around. One of the wind turbines moves at a desultory pace, the other not at all. The sun pours light onto the snow, which has been touched with frost overnight, and resembles a vast carpet strewn with tiny fragments of diamond, as if crushed underfoot by some careless giant. Loose and powdery with these feather-like crystals balanced on top, the snow still creaks under my wellies, but quietly.

White

The staring frank whiteness of the lilies L bought for me on my first day. Their scent. And baby's breath or gypsophila as we like to call it on these shores, also white, playing tiny and delicate to the huge bold statement of the lilies. And outside whiteness too. Snow. An inch or two. A little hat on the gatepost, a covering on the roofs and walls. Above clouds over blueness. Gentle now, but the forecast is for fierce ice.

And on we go.

The new job has begun well, though I have struggled with sleep. People are kind and welcoming and the journey is straightforward and almost free of traffic if I leave at 6.45!!

A fire is burning in the wood burner, and I am filled with gladness.

Epiphany

Conversation in the pub

FB You're in the gym at quarter to seven?? You get up at five o'clock!!??

P (Smiles slightly) Yes.

FB What time do you go to bed?

P About midnight...

FB You can manage on five hours' sleep?!!

P Sometimes I sit on the sofa when I get home and doze for ten minutes...

S Oh God I can't do that. I get horribly depressed if I go to sleep for a short time.... Anyway, FB how much sleep do you need?

FB I dunno - seven or eight hours I guess. (Thinks - or nine...)

P That's just habit...



I fear come Tuesday night my habit will be broken.