Tag: insomnia

Pandemic Pondering #421

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderingsLeave a comment

Life is starting to stack up. With every slight loosening of government restrictions our lives @theoldmortuary get a little busier. In many ways it feels as odd as the sudden deceleration of our lives over a year ago. We are not even pushing ourselves to the max possible.

Lunch indoors with one set of friends yesterday followed later by a meal inside a pub with different friends was lovely and an enormous pleasure but it felt both exotic strange and exciting to behave almost normally for once . Just as lockdown deeply affected my sleep patterns, last nights sleep was disturbed by recalling the days events. We also have some longstanding domestic admin that keeps us awake and an art exhibition to organise at the end of the week. Just as Covid-19 has the physical nasty that is Long Covid, all our lived experiences will suffer from the after effects of this pandemic for a long while even if we have been lucky enough not to catch the wretched disease.

Another period of sleeplessness will not be welcome in this house.

Some people are, of course, oblivious, although even this doggy naughtiness is Covid related. Thermal socks for outdoor socialising and post swimming are the best for chewing and there are plenty of pairs to be stolen.

In other news, the Advanced Blogging course has been announced for October. Alongside this announcement, the delightful Gentle Author has decided to return to teaching the art of blogging. I will pop a link below, his courses are wonderful.

https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/spitalfields-life-1516790/departure-arthur-beale-8006014249

So in a fine example of art imitating life everything is starting to stack up.

Pandemic Pondering #107

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art2 Comments

I don’t think I’m alone,as a creative person, in having utterly failed to fill the pandemic lockdown with a meaningful career defining response to these strange times. I’ve drawn,painted and sketched. Written obviously. My Magnum Opus is,so far, eluding me.

My Mistresspiece is missing.

It will come as no surprise that I am utterly disappointed by this definition of Mistresspiece.

An outstanding example of female beauty.

What utter bollocks!

A Mistresspiece is career defining creative work by a woman.

It stands alone and is not in my opinion mistress + piece, after masterpiece.

Rant over , time to continue the pondering about my missing Mistresspiece.

To be fair, a missing Mistresspiece is just a symptom of Lockdown Ennui. Expressed by so many people who have failed to do tasks or achieve goals, during Lockdown, that has previously been excused as a failure because of time constraints.

There is something going on in my studio. I doubt very much if it is the Mistresspiece. It hovers somewhere between collage and Palimpsest.

It is an attempt to get down in 2D the swirling thoughts of Pandemic Insomnia, which in turn seems to involve a return visit to those complex and often sinister repetitive dreams of childhood.

To be continued.

Pandemic Pondering #78

On By theoldmortuary.designIn insonia2 Comments

There has been a lot written or broadcast in the news recently about research by psychologists into sleep disturbance and vivid dreaming during the Pandemic.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/insomnia-and-vivid-dreams-rise-pandemic-anxiety-180974726/

I seem to manage both in the same night. I can struggle to sleep , often not knowingly getting any sleep before the dawn chorus starts and then sleeping deeply and having vivid dreams.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/campaigning/let-nature-sing/birdsong-radio/

The link above is the sound I gently drop off to sleep with. Although most mornings here there is the 4am Harley -Davidson commuter . His motorbike farting its way past the house with the familiar deep thrum, recognisable by most of us and adored by many, it is not a great addition to the sounds of nature.

I won’t put a link in here for an audio clip of a Harley-Davidson. Far too brutal a sound for this pondering. This is a blog that feels tranquil even though temporary insomnia is hardy a soporific subject.

Maybe it’s the abstract sounds that then fuel the vivid dreams. Recently the theme seems to be lost or misplaced things. Whole paintings that I have never painted and then go missing, these worry me greatly in the dreams and it takes a good bit of resolve not to go hunting for them when I wake up. Last night it was missing photographs. My wakeful hours at night don’t seem to be particularly troubled by overthinking. Like everyone, I’ve got a fair bit going on in my head during this pandemic but sometimes I just lie awake because sleep is simply eluding me.

The birdsong link is something I would really reccomend as a lovely listen and a blog about temporary insomnia is as good a place as any to share it. For the same reason I’ve filled this blog with Allium photographs .

Alliums are the epitome of tranquil expressed as a flower. Solitary and calm, I love them.

Pandemic Pondering #62

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Fitness1 Comment

Insomnia/Dungaree Day/Exercise

I’ve been struck by Pandemic Insomnia. The causes are multiple and the Italians warned us all that it would happen. You would think hard Labour would give some protection but despite shifting tonnes of gravel yesterday my head was very busy overnight. Contrary to popular wisdom Blue light can make me sleepy in a way that a book does not. So I have some constant companions on my night time sojourns into smartphone enlightenment.

Messrs Google, Guardian, London Evening Standard, and a little Instagram and Facebook.

Last night the main topic of my swiping and browsing was stay at home exercise. My guru is Joe Wicks but yesterday I listened to a podcast of Joe talking to Lennie and Jessie Ware on Table Manners. I’ve reccomended this podcast team before.
https://play.acast.com/s/tablemanners/58b1f7e1-a06b-476e-83a8-e0590acb45f4

Joe said his wife, Rosie, sometimes used other on-line fitness coaches. No shock at the virtual dining table as Jessie’s husband is a fitness coach and she also used someone else.

Not being married to a fitness coach I feel no need to be unfaithful to Joe. Last night I browsed other sites, gazed with only a reluctant shoppers eye and decided to stay with Joe.

Last night, I learnt some adjunct useful tips that I can apply to our fitness regime.

Some we’ve initiated without the help of the internet. Baked bean cans have been ditched in favour of proper dumbells. The cans had a life of their own, once put down, and the exquisite pain of a can being exactly where I plonked my commodious bottom is a Covid-19 memory to cherish.

Apart from bottom injuries, uneven weights can cause harm when you exercise. I mention this not because my beans were uneven but because some unevenness occured coincidentally this morning, more of that later.

The internet warned about being obsessive about home exercise. This morning I took heed and didn’t wear lycra, bringing a certain casualness to the event.

Now to the unevenness of weight during an at-home exercise session.

Hugo is an empathetic dog. He has lived his life predominantly with 3 women . He is in tune with our emotional and hormonal states. An emotional or hormonal state brings Hugo to his true purpose in life. To calm and console, with a cuddle that is as close as he can possibly get to the woman in question. He also mimics the symptoms so he has in the past suffered from horrendous hangovers, romantic break ups,shocking grief and menstrual cramps. Insomnia is unknown to him and is more difficult to understand. It is rare if not highly improbable that a dog would actually suffer from too little sleep. Hugo decided that my cure would be his constant close attention.

An uneven weight for indoor exercise.

So now onto the blog I should have written today.