Or: The People You Meet When You Least Expect It

I didn’t have the best sleep in the history of the world last night.

According to my watch, the quality was 31%. According to how I felt when I woke up, it was about 15%. This is one of the reasons why it’s not a good idea to be too reliant on technology.

I woke in the middle of the night (no pasisonfruit was involved) and feeling faint. Who wakes up to feeling faint? Surely I could have slept that off and I’d have been none the wiser this morning.

Anyway, I woke up feeling faint so, remembering my Girl Guide days and my first aid badge, I raised my feet.

We were taught “If the face is pale, raise the tail. Face is red, raise the head.” I’ve used this countless times over my life and that badge was way more useful than having to do the Laundress one which I’m still annoyed about. Why didn’t the Scouts have something similar? That’s a whole other story of my indignation at having to learn all of this when my brother and didn’t have to do something similar. This seemed unfair and I certainly didn’t want to be doing the ironing for the rest of my life all because I had learnt how and I couldn’t work out when the boys were going to be taught.

I digress…

I started to feel a bit better, though it took me a very long time to fall back asleep. According to my watch, it was 2.5 hours. I like a good app. It also told me that my heart rate hadn’t dropped significantly before I felt faint which was an interesting fact to know. Not sure what I’m going to do with that one. My heart rate low came a bit later in the morning while I was still trying to fall back asleep. Looks like my heart was resting before the rest of me was.

I had been planning on a walk / run this morning and when I received a text shortly after 6.30am confirming that my potential fitness buddy and her fur kid were still keen, I decided that I would still go.

It was set to be a stinking hot day so the earlier we started, the earlier we would finish. I hadn’t exerted myself a lot yesterday either so I figured some form of physical activity would be a good idea.

Out of bed after drinking 500mL of water, clothing changed, teeth brushed, shoes on and I was outside and walking the 3.5km to our meeting spot. I had decided not to run as doing this when I’m this tired can be a recipe for disaster. I struggle walking at times. Here I was about to walk and talk so I thought I’d better not push my luck and peak too soon.

I had been mulling over what I would write about today and nothing was jumping out at me.

Meeting up, we started going around The Bay. We chatted about all sorts of things. Still no ideas though I did take a photo of an overturned blue row boat which I may use at some other stage.

I didn’t fall over.

Our usual coffee drinking spot was closed so we made our way to the next one.

Our chatting continued when I saw one of my former bosses, with her man, walking her two fur kids and a new baby. This was my first time meeting the rest of her family.

I hadn’t seen her since I was in Japan and we were chatting about my leaving. Unbeknown to her, she was already pregnant at that time. Lucky it wasn’t a big night with sake, wine or sushi.

We had a brief chat and I’ve been invited into the office for a beverage either coffee or wine depending on my timing.

This confirms a number of things for me:
1) it is always a good idea to get out of the house and walk or run or whatever form of exercise takes your fancy.
2) stopping for a coffee is more than an opportunity for a rest and hydration.
3) one of the 974 things I like about Australia is being invited for beverages can be either alcoholic or non and it can occur at work.
4) I also like the social structure of the work environment in that I am able to be invited by one of my former managers to drinks. This would happen for me in Hong Kong. It is unlikely to happen in Japan. I would more likely be invited out by colleagues or some of my former team.
5) It is possible to lie fairly motionless for 2.5 hours and not think about anything. Every now and then, rolling over does seem to become necessary.
6) a blog idea can come out of anything yet the post itself can still be about nothing in particular.
7) I should keep some jellybeans beside my bed.

Ten kilometres later and I’m back at my current residence feeling ok yet though still less than stellar.

At least I’ve exercised, socialised and written my blog.

There was also coffee.

* Thanks to INXS for the title to this post. Their website is currently a celebration of their 40 years of existence and is full of interesting facts.