Today - 2nd January - simply didn't happen. 

   I got up around seven, knowing damned well that I wasn't really awake, but nature was calling.  I had a drink, took my stay-alive pills, went to the shops because there wasn't enough milk to make porridge, and then came home.

   Spoke to a couple of neighbours I've not seen since last year ;-)  Saw an empty house showing that yet another one had moved away.

   I checked for emails, none, and decided that I felt so dislocated from reality that I might as well go back to bed for a while.  Sometimes my pills do this to me, unless I've a strong motivation to press ahead.

   I got up again a few hours later, still not really with it, and had lunch.  The plan, such as it was,  had been to make bread in the afternoon and restock the freezer.  But the baking spirit wasn't moving me at all, and - total clincher here - there was still a day's bread in hand, so I just lounged around, reading, and fell asleep again.

   One of the glories of being retired from regular work is that you can just go with the flow - more like a slow circular eddy - on days like this.

   By 7 pm I'd caught up with myself, made an evening meal, and now the bread is proving, the mixer put away again, the kitchen is cleaned, and there are still no emails awaiting my attention.

   Sometimes it's enough ;-)

   Gyppo

   02-01-2023

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who can fill a day doing absolutely bugger all.  When I first retired I felt mildly guilty about it.  I started work when I was 16 and, apart from statutery holidays, worked continuously until I turned 70.  Doing nothing seemed a bit - well - lazy.  Then I thought, So what?  If 54 years' work aren't enough to earn it, what would be?

Quote from: Jo Bannister on January 05, 2023, 09:43:53 AMIf 54 years' work aren't enough to earn it, what would be?

Quite.

The habit of being busy never leaves entirely.  Well, not so far.  Medieval farmers believed in letting a field 'lie fallow' for a year to restore itself.

We'd probably shrivel up and die if we did sod all for a year, but a day every now and then does seem to work wonders.

It's a bit like the way a restart can sometimes revive a computer which has grown sluggish through running too long without a break.  It wakes up again, with all it's ducks properly in a row, and works much better.

I was terrifyingly efficient for a few hours the morning after my Day of Sloth ;-)  Almost manic, but that's something else I've learned to just go with whenever it happens.

Enjoy your periodic downtime, it's good for you ;-)

Gyppo

I don't think I do enough on each and every day. I haven't learned to enjoy retirement as Dick has. He loves having no calendar of travel or even days of just going to the office - even when it was here at home.

I do not have enough productive things to fill my time and I am not a fan of this. But not disenchanted enough to actually go find a job and go back to work. Just mildly discontented.

Some days when I feel an ocular migraine coming,I just go back to bed...I learned to recognize the warning signs..

The last thing I want to do is push myself lest I collapse

I hope it passes quickly, Frank. Sounds miserable, but also sounds like you've learned how best to manage.

They are very infrequent... normally Brought on by anxiety or lack of fluids.

I usually get vertigo before hand

I've had a couple of these too.  No symptoms except a visual disturbance in the top right-hand corner of my vision.  The first time it was as if a line of the page I was reading leapt off the paper and shot upwards, where it shimmered and remained almost but not quite readable.  I was too tired to panic so went to sleep and it was gone when I woke up; but I saw the optician the next day.  It happened again a couple of weeks ago, but much more briefly - if I hadn't known what it was, I'm not sure I'd have noticed.

The weird things bodies do!

Mum and her mum both suffered from this occasionally.  I could tell when it was happening because they'd both walk around with their head tipped back, in a vain attempt to 'see under' the shimmery curtain which seemed to slowly descend from the top of their vision.

Mum always described it as a 'wet windows' headache.

Gran got the classic migraine pains as well and would need to lie down for a while in a darkened room.  Or wearing a thick face mask to cover her eyes.  Mum rarely got the pain, just the visual effects.  An hour with her eyes covered was usually enough to send it away.

I sometimes get a shimmery line at the top of my vision, like a heat haze on a road but no headache.  Not that often I'm glad to say but only when I'm really tired and won't/can't give in.  This never happened at all before I reached my mid fifties, so I guess that in my family at least this is age related.

Perhaps this more common than we think.

Gyppo

It's odd,I've never expirienced headaches. The worst case scenario involves nausea and intence sweating for 10 minutes...

Several days ago I had shimmering waves in the corner of my eye.Turned off the phone and closed my eyes,felt better afterwards