Sadly my: head on pillow – “goodnight” – 5,4,3,2,1 asleep; routine has disappeared!

I used to almost always fall asleep before Andy, but recently we’ve swapped, and I often find myself falling asleep to his breathing/snoring. Poor Andy it means he’s more likely to get poked or shoved, in the effort to get him to turn onto his side so that he snores less! He never used to get this abuse when I fell asleep first, because once I’m asleep I’m a heavy sleeper.

I’ve learnt from doing sleep-ins at work, that I have a ability to sleep heavily, but still be able to wake up to the sounds I’m tuned into. At work this was sounds of them getting up to go toilet or having a seizure. Granted the seizure sound for one chap was hard to miss as it was quite loud. The poor chap sounded like a deep voiced version of seeing something scary, and looked like it too. But if he went to the loo I needed to wake to check he got back to bed safely.

I used to do some stupid, probably illegal shifts at work. I used to have to wake up & physically get up & check on the above chap twice during the night, and I’d work 5-10 ’sleep-in’ 8-10, if not longer! I’d only get measly sleep-in rate, even though I GOT up twice!

My boss was a work-aholic, and it’s much harder to say something to someone whose life is their work, because you know if you couldn’t do a shift she would probably do it herself. She rarely went home or had a holiday! She’s a very poorly lady now, fighting cancer. To see her, she looks the same, but apparently the cancer is too advanced to defeat. She’ll battle on until her body gives up!

This post has digressed! What was I saying… Sleep. Yeah, I’m getting old, I now need to go to bed earlier & give my brain time to switch off.

I’ve had to work Thurs 22nd, Fri 23rd, Sat 24th, Mon 26th and Tues 27th. I started to get symptoms of a cold on Thursday, and got worse, so that on Saturday I was feeling pretty rubbish!

Other than the illness and working before and after Christmas lots, it was nice.

On Christmas Day

We woke up crazy early. I’m not quite sure why, I mainly put it down to feeling ill, rather than excitement, because I can’t say that I felt excited. I really would have liked to have not worked so much on the run up to Christmas, but that’s another story, and is basically my fault… so ho hum! I didn’t feel like I had enough time to mentally prepare for Christmas, because the last week kind of went by in a blur… a stressed, anxious, I had the have-I-done-the-things-I-need-to-do-before-it’s-too-late worries, and in some cases, I had failed to do things in time – like sending cards abroad before the last posting dates!!

Andy also woke up quite early – what happened to us having lie-ins?! There’s no child to wake us, nothing we have to do before church other than get up, clean and dressed!! ANYway, we decided to give up on failing to sleep and get up at 6am and start opening presents. At this time in the morning I wasn’t feeling too bad, a bit sniffly, but it didn’t spoil present opening! We opened presents from each other, ’stocking’ gifts from my parents Mum and ones sent from family/friends. We then started getting up, in no major rush, played with new toys a bit. I got an iPhone 4 – I’m finally catching up with technology and mobile internet without wifi! I can actually CALL people without checking my pay-as-you-go balance first, and being as quick as humanly possible, or just cranking people and getting them to call me back!!

Sorry I digress, yet again! We started getting ourselves ready for the day, and what happens? I start feeling REALLY unwell. The full force of the cold/virus/flu/head storm was upon me! Stuffy head and crazy energy low – shaky hands (low blood sugar style)! But we struggle on, so stuff was grabbed, Keith (my bro & neighbour) was dragged out and off to church we went. Andy was very full of cold too, so he couldn’t have driven, I did seriously consider getting Keith to drive, but decided to just battle through!

We just about got to went to church, arrived a bit late, made even later by struggling to park, and were glad to see that Mum and Dad had saved us seats! After the service, and a cup of non-alco mulled wine, mince pie and chat, we gave my parents some presents to take back to theirs for the next day and wished them Happy Christmas!

We drove home to pick up over night stuff and presents for Andy’s family and take some more cold & flu meds, before the 30 (ish) min drive to Andy’s parents.

At Andy’s parents we opened some presents, played with the dog, ate a lovely meal, opened the rest of the presents. We relaxed for a bit, then took the dog for a nice long walk around the village – a good clear out for the nostrals! We returned to the cottage, and Ross (Andy’s bro) got given a lift home, while the rest of us got comfortable in the spare room, watching TV. We enjoyed the Dr Who special, then chatted for a bit, then went to bed, because Andy and I had an early start, because I had to be at work at 9am!

Somehow in all the dental work, a small remnant of baby tooth stayed in my mouth. It was between my two molars on the inside at the top. At one time when the dentist had numbed another part of my mouth, he tried to pull out that chunk of tooth, but it hurt so much he had to stop! There was no root left, but was in one of the hardest places to wiggle!

For years this bit of tooth has annoyed me, because it was jagged, but the idea of an injection in my mouth (when it’s not necessary for work on other teeth) has put me off getting it pulled out!

The other week I while having a burger king kids burger & chips (not my choice of location, I was working), that pesky bit of tooth disappeared. After finishing a mouthful, I was suddenly aware that there was no longer that tiny chunk of tooth, behind which food liked to get stuck! I must have swallowed it!

So at 30 and 9 months, I finally have no bits of baby teeth in my mouth!! Shame I don’t really have room for the two wisdom teeth at the bottom, half of one has emerged and the other pops out from time to time (the skin breaks & I can feel the corners)!

Anyway talking of work, I’d better go and start my 2nd short shift of the day. No wifi here, so have to post this later.

I’m considering the idea of crazy work stories, but we’ll see… Need to see how well I can do it whilst maintaining confidentiality.

This week I decided to try out the pool on the other side of the city, which is the only other pool that does a water workout (named Aquafit this time). I had Tuesday off work, so I decided to go to go to their Tuesday morning class. I got the 8.45am train, for the 9.30 class – great way to get me out of bed on a day off!! I thought the class was pretty good, maybe not as good as the one at the local pool, because there’s a lot more people who go, but worth going to if I couldn’t get to my local pools classes. On Friday morning, I decided to go back to the pool on the other side of the city again. I tend to get the train over there, because its an hour walk, or 2 bus journeys (more expensive & timely) or a 15-20 min drive (across the river, & very busy at rush hour). The trains only £2.10 return, & takes 15mins.

Aquafit is not a way to get-fit-quick, but it’s low impact on my joints, so it doesn’t hurt my hip joint, which can cause me discomfort from time to time. I’ve stopped taking cod liver oil to help my hip and am now just trying to exercise more, so far it seems to be working. I’m one of the youngest in the classes, but I don’t care, the older ladies are often the more friendly.

When I was setting up TPS for him, I went through all the landline nos for other people I support, and myself, and realised that we’re already on telephone preference. Now silly me, I’ve been kind enough to some people online by giving out my landline, so I’m not quite sure whether calls I get now are due to that, or just the randomness of “cold calling”.

I love how the companies that phone to sell/advertise/inform/ask questions… always do it during the day. So all the 9-5ers out there probably don’t know they’ve been called.

I had a call earlier, where they had someone elses name, and address. They persuaded me to talk to them. They asked for my postcode, which I resisted giving, but then I thought “well they don’t know exactly where I live from that, because there’s lots of homes with that postcode”. When he asked for my house number I refused. He went on and asked me the other questions, and at the end tried to get me to tell him my house number, but I refused, told him he could guess. He might not be selling me anything, but the people that he will pass the information onto will want to sell.

…While writing this I’ve had 2 calls from “out of area”, which I’ve ignored. I can’t be bothered to answer and say no to someone else.

I’ve found this ‘trolley parking’ approach to be a great solution in large supermarket, when shopping with Andy, because it means we can leave the trolley at the end of the aisle, and go up different aisles to get different things and have a place to meet up. I’ll admit to you my silly fear… I have on a few occasions lost Andy in big supermarkets, and have dashed up and down the middle aisle, with increasing panic setting in: “where is he?” “why can’t I find him” “has he been raptured and I’ve been left behind?!?!” Panic = silly Anne!

Today, I entered the bread section, ‘parked’ my trolley where I thought it would be least in the way, and wandered around the section trying to decide which bread to buy (as I wanted something different to the norm). Way too much pondering later, having chosen some bread, I went to put my bread in my trolley to find it was no longer ‘parked’! I couldn’t see it, but I knew that on the back of the trolley was my collection of random plastic bags, so I knew what to look for. A bit of a quick search later, I spotted it… When I pointed out to the lady who had mistaken it, that it was my trolley she was very embarrassed and apologetic! I reassured her repeatedly, not to worry, it’s easy to do! I did then try to make a point of not meeting up with her in the store again, to try to help her avoid any further embarrassment! It was definitely worth having the plastic bags on the hook at the back of the trolley, as I don’t often do that!!

I saw this done on another blog, and fancied doing it myself, so here goes:

1. Been in a helicopter
2. Had a child
3. Travelled further South-East than parts of Europe.
4. Drunk a whole cup of coffee (I hate the taste of coffee in ALL forms)!
5. Been on a surf board
6. Been sailing
7. Had a tattoo
8. Worn contact lenses
9. Lived in a bungalow (but have lived in 2 houses, a maisonette and a flat)
10. Owned a cat or dog (my Dads allergic to them, hubby hates cats & allergic, flat too small for a dog).

As I drove home from his place, I was driving down the main road, I hear a siren, and spot a good space, where there was space to pull over and allow the ambulance through, I also pulled forward enough to let the vehicle behind me into the space as well. I ended up pulled up behind a bus, but the van in front of me decided to overtake the bus, but instead of moving around the bus, they just stopped next to the bus – in the middle of the road! Perfect example of the conversation I’d had at work!