Time

The clocks went forward this morning. Of course, being ditzy me, I failed to realise and thought my PC was playing me up when it told me it was 6am rather than 5am when I gave up on sleep and staggered downstairs for my morning internet fix, and so was rather surprised when the neighbours offered me morning coffee at what I thought was 8.30am but was actually rather later. P fared somewhat better and was actually on a train to visit his father by the time I gathered enough wits to phone him and make sure he had more nouse than I did.

We both visited P's father on Thursday evening. He is making progress but his condition is very distressing, and the hospital, frankly, sucks. I am sure that the nurses are doing their best for him, but of course they can't be everywhere at once nor give him the individual attention and more importantly mental stimulation that he requires. I felt horrible leaving at the end of the visit. But he continues to improve and so, no matter how slowly that improvement is, it's good.

I know this is supposed to be a CRON blog but this last week, I certainly haven't been CR-ing. Apologies for that (if anyone is expecting deep and meaningful CRON revelations, that is; I'm not apologising for not CR-ing!). P and I have had a lot of meals out; a neighbour injured her foot and was unable to stand, so I've been cooking for her and her partner, and those evenings have been somewhat convivial as well. I have, however, apparently completely revamped her concept of how vegetables can be served and cooked and she, like me, is now swooning over the simple pleasures of steamed purple sprouting broccoli and kale. Steamed carrots tossed in a teaspoon of grain mustard and a teaspoon of honey (warmed 10 secs in the microwave) have met with approval too, and last week I made a salad with cannelini beans, lots of flat-leaf parsley, rocket, tomato, cucumber, black olives, lemon juice, garlic and chilli that went down a storm. I do love to cook.

Today I went to an open day at a herb farm and came back with lots and lots of packets of seeds - far too much, really. With the extra daylight I have started to sweep out my courtyard and plan where to put pots of salad mix and other veggies and herbs that I want to keep close to the house. It's still a bit early to think about planting in the soil (and it's water-logged anyway) but I might set up some trays of veggie seedlings in the kitchen, to pick for micro-veg in salads.

I very much like this light evening thing. It's a little bit of positivity. I need to hang on to the idea of regeneration, and the cycle of life right now. Things get better, they get better. They must.

Still here

A brief and boring update, just to keep myself in the blogosphere... :-)

Not much going on worthy of CRON note. To be honest, full CRON has been fairly far from my mind with the situation with P's father - which doesn't really get much better but at least isn't (and please GOD won't) getting worse. It's really, really horrible to even contemplate that someone can go from more or less decent health (give or take a dodgy aorta) to being unable to move or speak or see in one slice of a knife on an operating table. We are so, so fragile beings.

Life goes on though, busily busily. Have managed to get more of a routine back into my weeks - weekends and three full days at home (good nutrition; good CR!) and two days in London (not so good, but then never bad, nutrition; CR on the back-burner); that helps. Am planning what to grow in the garden this year and have a bunch of seeds already picked out: various lettuce varieties, kale, chard, spinach, courgettes, butternut squash, beetroot, green beans, peas... Last year, what with the wedding and growing all the flowers for that, the veggie garden was a bit neglected in the end - and it didn't help that all the weird and wonderful squash varieties we thought we were growing turned out to be ornamental gourds and inedible. But this year I am optimistic. It's lovely seeing the world wake up again; one can take heart from that, in a way.

I also think I am winning the battle against the Christmas weight, finally. Which is good. I'll feel much better when I am back down at an upper weight of 112lbs rather than the 114-5lbs I'm at now; even carrying a little extra feels more uncomfortable than I'd like... but anyway, that's not really the point; I do wish it didn't matter to me but it does... Although not as much as eating well. April says she feels the lack of good nutrition when she's not fully with CRON and I do too. Yesterday I was craving chocolate, for heaven's sake - ordinary, sugared, crappy chocolate. I just hadn't hadn't had enough green for lunch.

Enough inanity for now... Later!

Insomnia

Someone on the CR list posted about the effects of CR on sleep. I don't know whether it's CR, or me aging, or me not needing as much sleep as I used to and still trying to get as much, or what, but in the last year I have had more episodes of bad insomnia than ever before. Like this one. 3am. Meh.

Still, I watched No Country For Old Men earlier in the evening. I suspect that has more than a little to do with it. What an unrelentingly cruel movie; fabulously done, but so so so bleak. I guess being awake is preferable to being in the half-daze of troublesome dreams it left me with.

The Inspiration of the Long Distance Runner

101 year old man intends to run London Marathon.

And there was me feeling quite pleased with myself having managed to get to the gym 4 mornings in the last week so far and do my 30 minutes treadmill stagger each time!