Every January I find myself preaching the advantages of hibernation. I tend to daydream about what it would be like to avoid the dark freezing days and instead have a gorgeous long warm cuddly snooze waking in the spring with renewed hope and a belly ready for a big feed.
This year I subconsciously took the plunge. For the last fortnight I have basically hibernated. I would race home after work, turn up the heating, get under a rug and spend the rest of the evening alternating between watching TV and napping. Occasionally, if I needed to warm my bones I’d have a long lazy bath with lots of bubbles and an entertaining book.
On Saturday I got up so late in the day that it was beginning to get dark again and it was at that moment I reluctantly realised I can’t wait for this elusive Spring any longer – I have to wake myself up! Quit the sleepatahon, get some exercise and start planning for the year ahead. My first goal was to go back to sweaty yoga, which I did yesterday - the first time in a month. Afterwards I felt totally energised – full of life and optimism. Why didn’t I do this sooner I wondered – it’s so much better than hibernating. I felt so alive!
But that was yesterday. This morning as I fell out of bed I realised that just about every muscle in my body ached. For the last month the most I’d stretched was my arm to the back of the fridge or my index finger on the remote control. Yesterday’s yoga session had my body declaring a state of emergency. Looking at my computer screen at work I noticed that now even my neck muscles ache, not to mention a bizarrely localised spot on my ribs that was protesting yesterday’s activity with a dull throb.
I’m comforting myself with the thought that I’ll be able to flee home to the warm safety of my couch in only a few hours. Spring doesn’t officially start for ages yet, I could easily fit in another few weeks of serial napping.
you need to rest. You have a trip to Cork to ring in the springtime to prepare for!
alan – true, maybe I should take a holiday before that so I’ll be sure to have enough energy
As I dragged my sorry ass out of bed this morning I thought that being a cave man would be ideal – wake up with the sun, go kill a diplodocus, drag it home by the tale, get wife to cook it.
Then, while wife is cooking said diplodocus I could go out to the bar and dance the night away to giddy hits like “neanderthol boy” with the other cavemen who’ve ‘left their wives at home’….
Anyway, the point is that being a caveman never, ever involved going out to do a meaningless task that served to make me tired and to get someone else rich.
And it never meant having to get up early and deal with the métro.
Well, as Jenny always says, exercise is bad for you. Clearly your body is protesting at this unaccustomed torture and is telling you to get back under the rug and continue hibernating. It’s really the only sensible course on dark, gloomy, cold, hostile winter nights.
And as Travelling says, how come our leisurely existence as cavepeople turned into a frustrating work and money treadmill?
travelling – look at the bright side, at least the métro is warm!
nick – you are so right! Jenny is a wise lady.
Gah Yoga! Very hard to do without farting frankly. Take heart sweet one. I’m sitting here at 10:53pm in a sarong with the fan blaring and a nice heat rash in the crooks of my elbows that’s making me itch . .time for some phenergan . .now that helps you sleep!
well done on the nomination old buddy, old pal!
http://awards.ie/blogawards/2009/01/20/2009-irish-blog-awards-nominations/
And for best music blog too! GO you. The campaign starts here
awww your making me feel guilty. It’s snowing right now. I have to go running tonight…..but wait, tv……..sweet tv…….
baino – as this cold north sea wind blows me away it’s hard to feel sorry for you, I’ll not lie
alan – it’s an impressively lengthy list isn’t it
red leeroy – watching TV will not make your muscles ache tomorrow – it’s an easy choice really
I had the exact same thing. I started Iyengar and tribal fusion dance classes after a month of being ill and this is the fourth day my muscles are aching and I really can’t tell anymore whether it’s the yoga or the dance training. I need to hibernate. Besides having lost quite a lot of weight, the cold outside really isn’t funny anymore. I need more fat on my bones to make it slightly comfortable.
lol. i have two tins of biscuits, half a bottle of brandy and an industrial vat of dry roasted peanuts to get through before i come out of hibernation. exercise indeed, shame on you so early in the year!! i have a rotation of duvets to lie under. one for when the fire just starts and its cold and one for when i’m warm but still want a blankie.
impressively lengthy it is.
So impressively lengthy I can’t seem to find my name!
marjolein – this is what I worry about – and the pains on the second day are always worse – eek!
towny – that all sounds perfect – I’m be round to yours this evening
alan – it’s clearly an oversight
Why exercise when you can always get lipo in a few years – he said half jokingly but then sized up his gut *sigh!*
winter and hibernation actually sound like beautifully romantic notions in a city where they don’t exist. i find myself missing them.
Emerging all pasty and pot-bellied from underneath the smelly winter rug is never the best way to present oneself in the Spring, Conor, especially if you’re going to display yourself in Cork of all places. They would be sure to point and sneer. I should know.
Maybe horizontal yoga by a sunny window on the floor? Your cheeks could use a bit of colour.
Now don’t be durty.
XO
WWW
quickroute – true, but lipo sounds very painful indeed
red – it’s not quite as romantic when you’re freezing your ankles off going to work in the dark
www – wise words indeed – I’ll try your horizontal yoga idea
*giggle* I am sorry I am not giggling / laughing at you. It’s just the way you describe things.
Good Morning!
gaye – hehe people laugh at me all the time – I well used to it
I’ve been trying to hibernate for the past three weeks. Having to get up for work keeps interrupting though! Lousy.