Honey, I think the clock is backwards?....
Well, its that time of year here in Northern Europe. That wonderful season when you can almost miss the daylight if you forget to look out the window. Its not that it isn't there, its just so cloudy and dark, that you may not notice it. And, it doesn't last all that long. Sunrise (if you can see it) is about 9am and sundown is about 4 pm. Our friend from Germany says this is because Ireland is really in the wrong time zone, but I'm not sure about that. In Sweden, the sun rises at 10 am and goes down at 2am, that's a geographical problem, not a time zone one. In any case, for people who work outside the home, this lack of sun is frustrating. Its produces an exaggerated version of what people in the US experience when they leave for work in the dark and then come home in the dark. If you work at home, and tend to be a night owl anyway, Winter can do some really interesting things to your sleep cycles. I know that scientists try and tell us that we all have a natural rythem to sleep at night and be awake during the day. But sometimes I think my family must have missed an evolutionary step somewhere. Its not just me, but my husband and our house mate too. We can all three happily stay up all hours and never notice. Well, I notice in the Summer when the sun starts rising up into my office window, at 3am. But it still doesn't make me go to be any sooner. Most of the year, I do manage to force myself to bed sometime after midnight and to get up sometime between 9am and 11am. Since my husband is up late writing (or making jewelery) this works for us. And, I still have some "day" to get things done. But occasionally, things get a bit weird.
Take, this "morning"....I woke up and noticed that the room was very dark and gloomy. The cats were looking drowsy as usual, and given the level of light in the room, I thought it must be about 9 o'clock. A quick glance at my tiny clock showed the hand to be horizontal across the face. Ah, it must be about a quarter to nine, I've got a whole day ahead of me. So, I got up and looked out the window; this was when I began to realize that something was not quite right. Even though the sky was mostly grey, the hints of sunlight were not coming from their proper direction. In fact, they seemed to be on the completely wrong side of the sky. I am now begin to wake up and realize that it is unlikely that I have been transported to a another planet while I was asleep. One where the sun rises in the West and sets in the East, no its much more likely that I have misread something. I turn around and the arms of the clock have now moved a bit. The big hand is at the top and the little hand is at 3:00. Why, its wasn't 8:45, it was 2:45! And now its 3PM! Oh MY GOODNESS! I've slept until 3 o'clock in the afternoon! Worse, there's only one more hour of daylight left!
I quickly run downstairs and discover that husband has been up for hours and had no idea that I was still asleep. He thought I'd been in my office doing something productive like weaving or writing or something. He did noticed I wasn't in the kitchen, but since he had a few pieces of bread left, this didn't bother him much. After yesterdays live yeast, I think he is giving a pass on paying much attention to my cooking experiments for a few days...
At this point, our house-guest shows up, before I can even get my morning cup of tea. I do my best to look like someone who has been up for hours, instead of horizontal. But fail miserably. I break down and explain what happened, and make a pot of tea. House guest is very understanding (he's night person too, when he isn't working full time). He gives me time to wake up before asking difficult questions like, "how are you doing?"
After that, what was left of the day got better, and I even managed to make The Glob bread. Too different batches in fact. One was very light and rose well, the other was more rock like and may turn into bread crumbs. Unfortunately it was the white rolls that didn't rise, and since my husband is known as "Mr. White Bread Only" I think I will be trying a second Globe Bread experiment tomorrow. I like the whole wheat ones myself and they seem very good, at least to me and thankfully our house-guest.
However, its now 1:30 am and I am not the least bit tired. I know I need to go to bed so I can get up "this" morning, or this whole situation is just going to keep repeating itself. I'm not sure what to do next, finding a really boring book sounds promising. I know counting sheep won't work, we used to keep sheep and I know far too much about them to find them peaceful and sleep inducing. Thinking of sheep makes me think of chasing down sheep who have run amok and are about to devore the next door neighbor's gargarden plants. Tiring in its own way, but not really sleep inducing. Perhaps I'll try a hot bath, now that we have hot water? Yeah, that's it, a hot bath a boring book and nice flannel pajamas..that should work. Uh oh, I just noticed that the cats are waking up. They think this is a great time to play Chase The Other Cat and Leap from the HIgh Shelf! After all, cats in the wild sleep most of the day and hunt late at night. Now I remember; what my husband reminded me last year when we had trouble sleeping,
"They're Cats: They're nocturnal you know......"
Disaster Cat....now hunting for those lost daylight hours