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Thursday 17 December 2015

Daily Prompt: Because The Night

Are you a night owl or are you the early bird? What’s your most productive time of day? When do you do your best work?

Crows over Feldbrunnen

The questions we are asked. As the years go bye who cares. First of all the word “work” no longer really exists as such in the golden oldie vocabulary. It becomes a way of passing time. Reading a book all day or playing with the computer is not the meaning of life. Of course, you can take a walk, if the limbs and joints allow it.

Even golden oldie night owls have problems. There comes a time in the evening when your eyelids have the weighed down lead eyelash feeling and then you know it is time to go to bed. At last a night’s rest to awake revitalised in the morning. At least you might think so, but things are never as they should be. The arrival in bed is a relief to all the aching parts of the body and so you close your eyes and prepare.

“Did I fill the cat’s bowl with water, and does the cat have enough food in his dish” are the first thoughts that play around in my head. I lay there thinking it over and eventually there is only one solution, go and see. Not even an hour’s sleep up to now, but think of the cat. To reassure yourself you make your way to the kitchen and Mr. Swiss has already filled up the cat’s food dishes for the night. He is still watching TV and is surprised to see me. I decided to retire again to the bed, but make a turn on the way, remembering I forgot to take my tablet.

Eventually you again arrive in bed, stretch and begin perhaps breathing exercises. For some strange reason you have cold feet, but when you check they are not cold. Must be some sort of circulation problem. In the meanwhile all is quiet, everyone is in bed and now you can relax and close your eyes. Two hours later you wake again and notice your recycling process is calling, so you grope your way to the toilet. You return to bed ready for part two of the sleeping session. Now this is the great test: does it happen or not? Sometimes it does actually and your next return to the living world is in the early morning hours around 6 o’clock when you hear that you son is having his shower and eating breakfast before going to work. Often it does not happen that you sleep again, but probably you do, but you do not notice it. Oh, to be a vampire, they have no problems with sleeping during the night, they do it during the day.

And now for the other side of the problem. No, I am not an early bird, have no intention of being one, but what is early? A matter of how you look at it. My alarm goes at 7.30 in the morning. Yes, even a golden oldie has an alarm, you really do not want to miss anything. Actually I make my first movement at approximately 7.00 a.m. Mr. Swiss is usually already in action somewhere in the kitchen, so I really do not want to disturb him and remain in bed, but my brain has begun to operate. I reach out for my iPhone, which replaces my night light next to the bed and transfer from flight mode to day mode This term probably comes from the vampires again that generally like to fly during the night. I check first of all for the time and then I check my e-mails. The iPhone has been switched off during the night and you never know what might have happened. I then check Facebook to see if any likes have arrived, note the latest films about dogs and cats, and the latest development which is showing how to cook various tasty dishes. I notice these tasty dishes all have the same ingredients: pizza dough, tomato, grated cheese - 50 varieties on a pizza theme. I then move on to WordPress to see if my sites still exist. I then check the SRF Nachtrichten (Swiss News) to see the latest developments in the world and if these developments will disturb my day. 

At 7.15 I am usually through with all this and exhausted from my iPhone enquiries I usually close my eyes and go into a sleeping state of mind, only to be awoken by my alarm at 7.30. It is now preparation time to get out of bed, which is more easily said or done. My day begins.

Eating breakfast at the computer, clean through the apartment, have a shower and either go shopping or clean something special - we have bathroom(s), a kitchen, windows. My day is never boring, there is always some sort of excitement. I cook lunch and afterwards collapse into my bed to catch up on the sleep I lost during the night, generally 2 hours. Afterwards I am fighting fit and ready to go: either to my computer or perhaps a walk in the great outdoors. 


I am glad to be able to reach the end of the day with no accidents. I just do not do best work, I am just happy to survive.

2 comments:

  1. I remember this subject from the last time they used it, too. As before, I'll just say that I'm a night-owl, rarely go to bed before 2am. I'm not a morning person at all, however I still have to get up early to go to work.

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    Replies
    1. No more work days for us. Mr. Swiss is more the night owl than me, but usually arrives in bed about an hour after me. I like to go under at about 11.30

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