I had a bizarre day today (yesterday by the time this posts).
I seemed to wake up, not too early, not too late, around 8.00, get up pretty sharpish, do a few things, and then all of a sudden it was 18.00 and here I am (there I was) in my evening chill-mode already, not even haven eaten dinner yet, but dead-set on doing nothing else other than finishing off the last 3 episodes of series three of Vikings on Netflix.
I'm just writing this to try and figure out what the fuck has happened to the day, it's just, err, gone! Some days are just like this.
8.00 - I woke, up, turned on the gas heater, it went out shortly after which forced me out of bed (I knew the bottle was likely to go) to change it - which turned out to be not so simple as once I'd disconnected the old bottle and shaken it I discovered there was still some gas in it, so back on it went, lasting about 10 minutes (I'd started on breakfast by this point), so I just put the new bottle in, it wouldn't work, so I tried it on the hob outside, it worked fine, so back into the gas heater, this time it worked, and then the old almost empty gas bottle onto the hob, which worked, and FFS what a shitty fucking start to the day that was.
NB - it was COLD this morning, here's my pan of water I'd put out ready the night before - frozen!
I guess almost empty butane bottles are just temperamental when it's cold or something?
Anyway, I was most definitely awake by this point, so I did a quick tidy around and finished breakfast and tea off, so that was my first hour.
9.00 - I sorted out my documents for sending off my UK driving license, which involved a bit of Google Translate for the cover letter, and some faff, had to reply to a car matriculation email and a few other emails involved translating stuff, did a bit of dicking about on Hive and Leo, but not too much and all of a sudden it's 10.45.
10.45 - 13.30 - I drove to Castelo Novo, did an 8K run (hilly, 50 minutes), got some spring water on the way back, almost had a moment with a narrow gap and a tree, but not quite, had a shower, got changed, by now it was 13.30. So I guess running takes quite a bit of time!
13.30 - 14.15 - lunch - I only had a ham and cheese sandwich and some coffee, but it was nice and sunny and warm so I lounged around a bit.
14.15 - 16.00 - Had another couple of emails I had to respond to, played some Splinterlands (I'm messing around with different times of the day), trawled Hive and Leo a bit more, dropped in a few comments, wrote one blog post for my main blog.
16.00 - did a few tidying up chores, like the washing up.
16.30 - By now I'd just given up, with the feeling that I hadn't really achieved anything with the day, and so this hour was just lounging about, had another coffee, did a bit of Duolingo Portuguese practice, and now it's 18.00.
Lessons Learned
- Going for a long run and the aftermath takes a good 2.5 hours, I just need to accept this!
- I'm crap at afternoons - I need to really work on making these more productive!
- I'm just going to have to accept that my mornings are going to be full of admin type chores - that's just the way it is! TBH I don't mind this too much, it's short term, but I do object to the fact that quite a lot of it is all induced by States. Wankers.
- Besides the run, the best bits of the day were the two tidy sessions - I think I need to try and habitualise these - two short tidy sessions are about right for one day!
The final takeaway is that I really need to get my head around making these afternoons more productive - 14.00 to 17.00 is plenty of time to get a decent chunk of 'intellectual work' out of the way - that's one to really try and nail for the rest of January!
Postscript
I don't know what was up with my gas bottle this morning - it's been running my heater for 3 hours now today and it's still going, so it really was a long way from empty!!!
I imagine that butane gas is sensitive to the temperature changes, density of the gas inside the bottle changes maybe and so the pressure inside which affect how the pipes and valves work.
Yes I've determined there are basically two variables:
Simply put the more gas there is the less it's affected by the temperature - in the same way that it takes a large body of water much longer to cool down/ heat up.
Thankfully the temperatures here aren't too cold at night, marginal effect on a few nights of the year! And with a full gas bottle it's fine, so I just swap a fuller one in last thing at night for use in the morning when it's colder.
Welcome to being happy!
I petty much know that I wake up at 5:30-:600 am.
I know that go to bed at around 9 pm (funnily enough, watching the last 10 episodes of vikings)
Te time in between, 7 day a week, a last approximately....3 hours?- ish...maybe...I dunno, but it doesn't seem very long...
The less happy I am, the longer it lasts...Pesky time.
Note to self: be more miserable, and have a longer life!
I dunno, I think I'd rather be happy and have the days go by in a daze!
Vikings is pretty awesome - but I've just burned through Netflix and don't fancy taking out an Amazon Prime subscription to watch the rest!
I can send them to you...? - I have them all downloaded...
I would never advocate anything illegal, perish the thought - but I know you can get the whole last 10 episodes in one file.... on pirate bay...so I've heard...
Oh shudder the thought of getting them illegally!
I'm sure I can source them!
Might I make a couple of suggestions sir?
Afternoon naps are something I enjoy - come summer I don't think I'm going to have much of a choice around these parts!
I'm always grazing, so snacking I think I've got down!
I should have known your snack-power was strong.