Voiceless

This is strange. I don't cough, have a sore throat, high temperature or show any other symptom of something being wrong - yet for some five days now I have only been able to speak at the lowest pitch and very quietly. Quietly to the point of being inaudible in the factory din, so to communicate I have to try and raise both pitch and volume; and little as I can manage that anyway, it makes my voice rasp so much that it resembles more a loud whisper than normal speech.

Où sont les neiges d'antan ?

Sure, even in my childhood a white Christmas was something rare, only talked of as commonplace by the old ones (whose own memories may moreover have been distorted). But proper snow, one which would not only settle, but last for several days even in towns and cities, at some time during the winter, was something we took for granted. During my four winters in Glasgow I hadn't experienced snow that would outlast twenty-four hours once, which I put down to the place's climate, but I'm not sure I've seen it ever since in the two cities on the Continent where I'd spent the following five winters (including this one) either. I miss it. What kind of winter is it without snow? Like spring without blossoms, summer without sun or autumn without turning and falling leaves ...

Off key

I lost the ability to sing in falsetto so long ago that I've learned to accept it as an unalterable fact. I've grudgingly accepted it too when later I noticed that my vocal range was progressively getting narrower. But when I decided the other day to learn the lyrics of A Guid New Year to Ane an' A', and discovered that despite having heard it umpteen times I couldn't sing it in tune, it was a rather nasty surprise. I'm exercising it and getting there, but heck, it should come quite natural ...


(originally posted on WordPress)

Less pub time

It’s odd, but so far I’ve only been to a pub six times this year, each time for three pints on my way back from work. On the one hand I’ve only managed not to go after work once; on the other hand I’ve always managed not to go on a day off. What’s possibly even odder is I don’t really miss it. (Admittedly the winter cold and the uncertainty about whether there’d be an unoccupied table help.) And from tomorrow it’s my night shift week: as likely as not I’ll no go once …


(originally posted on WordPress)

Variable sleep duration

It seems that recently I have been very rarely able to manage the 'prescribed' seven or eight hours of sleep. Either I wake up after six or less (sometimes as little as one or two) and can't fall asleep again, or I sleep and doze for nine or more before I can force myself to at least start reading in bed before actually getting up. For a while the short sleep - long sleep days even seemed to simply alternate.


Edited to add the next day: Not untypically, having written the above I did sleep for about seven and a half hours last night. But pondering that reminded me of one point I hadn't made clear: In the long term I was getting the 'prescribed' sleep duration on average, only usually not in particular cases.


(originally posted on WordPress)

New Year stroll

I did some laptop work on the first day of the year, but as the sky was clear all day I decided, about an hour before the sunset, to go out and see if I could have a few pints with a book somewhere.

The Carpenter was closed, so was (as I expected) the Union; the place inside the Marriot, which I’d never been to before and which looked invitingly pleasant from the outside, was open, but inside looked too posh, ‘too comfy’ for my liking, so I just turned around and headed back. It wasn’t a disappointment, though: I had a pleasant placid stroll in the sun, and then a pleasant placid time reading The Coral Island in my room’s armchair with a beer can at hand.

Somehow all this made me so sleepy that after a fag outdoors I finished a chapter in bed and after 6pm fell asleep – and only got up again the next morning, goaded by the alarms telling me the working year has begun as well.

 
(originally posted on WordPress)

Diligent Christmastime

Usually I have great plans about all the things I would do during my holidays. Usually I end up doing very little, getting distracted by this and that. Not so this time. It only lasted six days, but during these I managed to do basically everything I had really wanted to do, even a bit more, and yet without hurry. (Maybe what helped was not having unrealistically big plans in the first place. And its being too cold for visiting a pub.)


 
(originally posted on WordPress)