Who’s in the garden this morning?
- 6 warthogs
- 6 bushbucks
- 4 kudus
- 38 mongoose
- 33 helmeted guinea-fowls
- Frank and The Misses
- 2 hornbills
Last night was one of the worst night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time. Ironically, in yesterday’s post I’d posted that a bad night was not worthy of mention. Today, feeling like a wreck from a fitful night, I couldn’t help but bring it up. Surely, it will impact my entire day.
Fortunately, all of the laundry is done and most of what we’ll eat for dinner is prepared. I need to respond to a zillion email messages and take a pleasantly anticipated WhatsApp call from one of our loyal readers, Otherwise, I can be as lazy as necessary to get me through the day.
My FitBit says I slept 6 hours and 15 minutes, but I did not. It counted the time I lay there, quiet as a mouse trying to get myself to drift off. I listened to soothing music on my phone, using earbuds, in a desperate attempt to get to sleep and miracle of all miracles, it did work, about 10 times for short bursts of sleep. The FitBit shows I awoke 12 times from midnight on. As a result, I feel “out of sorts” today.
As for “out of sight,” I kept my phone on the nightstand and didn’t do my usual game playing during the night, thinking that avoiding the screen may help me get back to sleep. By 3:00 am, I was “out of my mind” doing the worst thing I could do…worry about not sleeping. It’s pointless to do this. Nothing good comes of it.
As for “out of time.” I awoke for the last time at 6:15 am and no matter how relaxed I pressed myself to be, it was hopeless, I’d truly run “out of time” and decided to get up and begin my day. Every usual morning routine took everything I had, but here I am now, showered, dressed and put together for yet another day.
I even went as far as folding and putting away all of the dry laundry from the rack, fixed a broken fingernail and cut up some carrots for today’s visitors. Once I’ve uploaded today’s post, I have a few “business matters” to handle and of course, do no less than corrections on 10 posts, a schedule I’ve held myself to diligently over this past month. Yesterday, I passed the halfway mark.
We had a great day and evening, nothing that would precipitate a poor night’s sleep. The day was pleasant and entertaining with more visitors than we could have imagined. At 4:00 pm we headed over to Rita and Gerhard’s house on Hornbill, the same house we’d rented in 2013/2014.
I only drank two glasses of low alcohol red wine at their house and when we returned a few hours later, I drank only caffeine free iced tea for the remainder of the evening, as usual. Once back home, dinner for me consisted of a few fried eggs and grilled chicken breasts. After dinner, still feeling a little hungry, I had a chunk of Emmenthal cheese…that’s it. No sleep disturbing foods or sense of fullness, and above all, no life changing thoughts on my mind.
Never once did I think about this upcoming, June 30th, when we need new visa stamps. We’ve resigned ourselves to that reality. We’re either going to Kenya for a few days or the US for a few weeks. That’s it. No other options are available with Covid-19 restrictions everywhere. Why worry about that?
It will be good when today is over and I can hopefully get a good night’s sleep. I have no doubt many of our readers have experienced such a poor night’s sleep and struggled the next day, like I am doing today. For me, the likelihood of a nap is slim when I am not a napper. Also, it would probably be best to stay awake and try to recover tonight.
It’s another beautiful and cool day. Although it’s likely we’ll have a few hot days in the months to come, this cooler weather, as we roll into winter, is blissful. There are less insects, less mozzies and typical for cool periods, less snakes mulling around our garden. Of course, with the almost daily visits of dozens of mongoose, who kill and eat snakes, its a mini insurance policy against the uninvited reptiles.
At the moment, Tiny is drinking water from the birdbath, Chewy, our jaw-cracking bushbuck is munching pellets, his jaw, making noise with each bite, and two hornbills are banging on the kitchen window, their usual preoccupation. Fred and Ethyl are permanent residents here and hang around day and night. They are the first pigs we see each morning and the last to hunker down at night.
We’ll make the best of the day, regardless of how I am feeling, hoping tomorrow I’ll be back to my usual self.
Be well.
Photo from one year ago today, May 24, 2020:
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| These two cape buffaloes, close to the dirt road, with their horns stuck together made it easy for us to get these photos. For more photos, please click here. |