The Pond Refreshed

Just a little celebration of our freshly cleared and cleaned goldfish pond!

Let It Bee

just a few busy bees in a corner of our garden

snapshots on Mal's Picturebox

I've just posted a few macro snapshots of bees on a globe thistle, Close Encounters - (Bees on a Globe Thistle) on Mal's Picturebox.

where to begin

Just another typical morning; cup of cold coffee on the bedside table, clock radio spewing out a familiar mix of entertainment and banality and, I’m still abed, even though the ante-meridian hour has passed eleven!

Today’s the day I’m to visit my GP to check whether the medication, which she prescribed three weeks ago, is assisting me with sleep. Problem is, after the first couple of nights the familiar routine of restlessness, coupled with fitful brief snatches of slumber, still prevails. Most of the time, after a predominantly restless night, I’m drowsily awake around the time my beloved leaves for work (around 7.30am) before drifting off into the land of dreams. The period of drowsy wakefulness is, generally, when my beloved places a (hot) cup of coffee on the bedside cabinet [see opening paragraph].

For all the intermittently fluctuating pattern of sleep, my vividly Technicolor dreams frequently veer towards a nightmare scenario, one where the goal always slips from one’s grasp as one runs, walks, or crawls desperately towards it; walkways erode and crumble beneath ones feet, a doorway inevitably narrows just as you attempt to squeeze through, a bus departs just before you reach the stop. Normality and fantasy indelibly intertwined.

Sundry muscular and abdominal aches and pains, doubtlessly, contribute towards my fitful sleep, as well as the frustration of my daytime hours. I shortly go and see the doctor but, where do I begin? Suddenly I realize the appointed hour has arrived and, walking stick enabled / encouraged, I make my way to the Surgery.

On being called in to the consulting room, Dr D makes me feel immediately at ease. She notes the spinal related nerve pain in my left arm but, is more intent on finding out about my sleeping habits; meantime, a regime of occasional ibuprofen alongside the tramadol should be maintained to alleviate the sundry aches and pains.

The GP has suggested that I should try taking the mirtazapine at around 6.00 – 6.30 in the evening. The thinking goes that, as I’m really drowsy in the mornings, the mirtazapine is probably contributing to the drowsiness and, if taken earlier (than is normally suggested) it may well help induce sleep during the appropriate nocturnal hours. The doctor suspects that the dreams may well have been heightened by the medication but, that should settle down in due course; she also said that she would be contacting Julie at the Chronic Fatigue Unit, with a view to my having a refresher course to help me with my “pacing”.

the process of aging?

So, it's come to this; old age has got me firmly in its grasp and, I lack the stamina to even attempt to wriggle free!Recent weeks have borne witness to a severe deterioration in my sense of dutiful pride. My old familiar shattering aches, pains and nauseating sense of exhaustion has driven me to .... ! 

Pride still has a hold, on me, as I struggle to prevent the awful truth being broadcast far and wide but, it's no point trying to live a double life, the strain is just too great.

The honest truth is that I've been driven to watching daytime TV and, all I plead for is a little sympathetic understanding! 'Bargain Hunt', 'Doctors', and re-runs of 'Only Fools and Horses' have managed to fill the aching void of inactivity with a modicum of determined purpose. If I can't work up the enthusiasm, or find the necessary energy reserves to purposefully surf the net, tend the garden etc.; at least the vacuum can be filled by my determination to switch on the television over the lunchtime period, starting from a period frequently less than one hour after my emergence from the duvet realm.

The truly worrying factor is that, not infrequently, I'm actually enjoying the viewing experience.

Since last Christmas, I seemed to have had some of my appetite for reading restored, politics, biography, theology, as well as a modicum of fiction once more became a part my daily experience but, for the past few weeks, my stamina reserves have only allowed (primarily superficial) casual browsing. I tend to place some of the blame on the warmer weather, which has a knack of depleting my already limited reserves of stamina but, I can't help wondering if in fact the real culprit is Father Time.