Sleepless in Surrey Hills

It's 3.08 am and i am awake. I am also tired.

I do not want to be awake.

I did not plan to be awake at 3.09

My mind is racing - i don't know why.

Yet i feel calm so why am i not deep in the land of nod?

The occasional car goes by - the headlights play across the wall, through that gap where the curtains don't quite meet.

There is a blue glow from the powerboard. ( since the fire i have invested in all new powerboards, individually switched, usb chargers included, surge protected etc)

I should be able to sleep. I changed the bed linen yesterday so i started the night between crisp, clean sheets. Now of course the bedding is a twisted, rescued from the floor several times, untucked, hot mess.

And the pillows, the pillows, have gone from being comfortable and just right to being either too hard or too soft.

Whinge, whinge, moan. My alarm goes off in less than 3 hours so that i can take my morning constitutional before work.

Wonder if anyone at work will notice if i have a nap this afternoon?

 

Posted with Blogsy

R.I.P. Beryl

Beryl pased away yesterday. She was 96.

I knew about Beryl before i met her.

Not long after i moved in one of the neighbours knocked on my door, introduced herself & proceeded to warn me about the woman next door (Beryl) who was, apparently, an international jewel thief, a satan worshipper and head of a (satanic) cult.

According to this neighbour I shouldn't invite Beryl inside as she was a very successful thief and would steal all my belongings without me noticing.

I was a litle bemused by this! And also was wondering what on earth i'd got myself into.

I mean Beryl was ( to my mind anyway) an old fashioned name, the car in Beryl's carport was a nondescript corolla (perfect for blending in i suppose) but she also sounded like a modern day Fagin.

Then i met Beryl.

She was in her 80's. she was small, she was frail looking, she sometimes used a walking frame. She moved quite slowly. She was quite frankly a little old lady.

I figured if she could steal something from me and get away with it she deserved to keep it!

She was also a lovely person.

Her family gave her an ipad a few years ago (she already had a hand-me-down laptop from one of her grandkids) and she loved it.

Presumably she was running her international crime syndicate online!

This time last year Beryl decided that she couldn't live on her own anymore & moved into aged care - she had her ipad & laptop so she could keep in touch with the world even if she couldn't get around under her own steam anymore.

I never saw any evidence that Beryl was anything other than a lovely lady ( but i did find evidence that the neighbour who warned me about Beryl was crazy like a loon) and i never saw any evidence of Beryl's satanic rituals or international crime syndicate.

All i saw was a lovely lady, a doting grandma (& great grandma), and an excellent neighbour.

R.I.P Beryl. you will be missed.

 

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#blog12daysXmas 2

I'm not one for the Boxing Day sales and tend to avoid them like the plague.

I used to attend the first day of the Boxing day test or, in more recent years, do the boxing day chute clearance at work.

But shoulder of doom has put paid to the jostling of a big cricket crowd, and the chute emptying so I found myself at a bit of a loose end today.

I watched the first session of the cricket on tv then decided i needed shorter curtains for the bedroom windows. (I know that seems unrelated but there is a method in my madness)

I had organised for a neighbour to come in and take down the bedroom curtains so that i could wash them (the curtains that is).

Because of aforementioned shoulder of doom there are quite a few household tasks that i can't perform -  anything that requires my right arm above shoulder height  for example  - so I have arrangements in place with assorted family members or neighbours for certain things.

So anyway the curtains came down and as I consider them a tad too long I thought i'd brave the shops to see if i could get curtains with a shorter drop.

It was lunchtime before i got to Eastland (naively i thought the worst of it would be over by then - how wrong was I)

I couldn't get curtains of the right length so I bought some new longer ones (in case i stuffed up the hemming). Which was just as well because organza should not be tumble dried (now they tell me) and my old curtains had shrunk (good) and had holes in them (not good) so now I have new curtains, cropped to fit, with the cropped ends coated with 'fray stoppa' to stop them fraying (sewing is another thing i am currently unable to do).

Don't know what i'm going to do when glaz (the neighbour) moves out.

#blog12daysXmas 1

We had our family christmas lunch on Sunday.

Luckily host brother's house is air conditioned so we were able to abandon our 'sitting outside on the deck' plan & replace it with 'sitting inside in the cool'

I was charged with supplying a ham.

So I ordered a delicious ham  (to be known hereafter as ham 167) from Cornehls & Blackburn my local butcher.

Ham 167 was a big hit. It was very tasty with minimal fat.

Messrs 5 & 7 had made a gingerbread house (with solid chocolate walls).

if you look carefully you can see the 'traditional' gingerbread ninjas ready to attack the house!

Mr 15 'made' an ice ceam cake (take a carton of ice cream, add m&ms, mini marshmallows, chopped up jelly snakes & mix together)

This was in addition to the christmas pudding of course.

Lots of food, lots of fun, lots of family.