There shall be less wallowing

2017 needs to see significantly less wallowing. Reading this I expect many of you are thinking self pity. Though the level of self-inflicted injuries may partially determine that, what I’m actually talking about is wallowing around in bed. 2016 has been notable for a dramatic shift in my ability to get out of bed in the morning. It was bad before we got the electric blanket in the autumn, now it is just a disgrace. This morning would have been a wonderful time to be out on Wanstead Flats – a heavy frost, a clear day, it would be have been beautiful. As it was I lay under my duvet doing nothing other than wasting time. I wasn’t asleep, I was just wallowing in snuggly warmth. It was very nice of course, but I regret it, just as I regret most of the other mornings where I have done the same thing in preference to leaping out of bed and getting on with something worthwhile.

I mean even getting up and pottering around the house would be better than flopping in bed. I could water plants and check for bugs, I could fill up empty bird feeders, I could pick up things from the floor where the children have left them. I could do the recycling, I could clean the fish tank, I could unstack the dishwasher, I could crack on through my never-ending to-do lists…. I don’t have unstack the dishwasher on my to-do list by the way, that was just an example of the regular tedium that all of us have to bear, but doing useful tasks isn’t what I meant as an alternative to wallowing. Rather than tumble out of bed, shower and then head off to the salt mines, what I really want to do is go birding, go take photos in beautiful early morning light.

This is all feeling a little New Year’s Resolution-y. That’s not my intent either, but I really must pull my finger out. Part of the problem is that I go to bed too late, mostly as I am zapping around like a blue-arsed fly trying to maintain a thousand hobbies whilst simultaneously preventing Chateau L from descending into complete squalor. It does not help that I regularly get home at 8pm which doesn’t leave a lot of time for getting things done. I persevere of course, as I am spectacularly pig-headed and insistent that I will do everything. And then of course rather than a nice relaxing weekend which normal people use for catching up, I bugger off to foreign climes before the crack of dawn and return after dark on Sunday.

This is a state of affairs entirely of my own making. My own stupid fault. It has been like this for many years, and it means I am perpetually knackered, and that I – regretfully – really enjoy lying around in bed doing absolutely nothing. But for all my moaning, I genuinely really enjoy almost everything that I do which is why I can’t change the way things are. And the key thing that I do that I don’t enjoy is what unfortunately funds all of the other things…. so I had better get used it! Which of course I am after many years, being run off my feet is quotidian and I think I might miss it were it to stop. Imagine if I just took all of my plants to the tip, gave away my one remaining pair of binoculars, handed my passport in and sold my camera? What would I do all day? Stay in bed for a lot longer I expect!

No. I am determined that this will change. And fortunately the answer is close at hand and I don’t even need an alarm clock. Middle age and the tummy stuff I am on means that almost every day I now wake up at about 5am needing to go to the loo. At the moment I carefully replace the duvet to preserve the warmth before tiptoeing out. In future however I shall leave it cruelly cast aside and be forced to get dressed for warmth. And then I might go downstairs and make a nice cup of tea. I just need to avoid the sofa….