Day Five

Quite a busy day. Not woken by early traffic, but only because I slept with my bedroom window closed, I think. It was so chilly last night, felt like winter!
Again beat the alarm clock for my 8:45 pill by a couple of minutes. Mustn't get complacent, though.
Breakfast al fresco, at least for about fifteen minutes. A sudden squall drove me inside. Work called anyway. It's been a bit busier now the summer holidays are over.
Lateish cup of strong coffee, about an hour before my ESOL class in the afternoon, preceded by a meeting with our "boss". Who told me and my assistant teacher that in four months of classes we've used up way more than the proportion of our budget (which was much reduced from last year anyway). I can feel a rant coming on about a government that has the wrong kinds of priorities...
The class went well enough but I had prepped with students in mind who didn't turn up (which always seems to happen when I prep stuff), so we had to adapt quite a lot and I'm not sure I managed to match the material (Looking for a job and Job applications) to all the students in the classroom.
Came home to find a message from my younger brother and his wife in response to my letter to the family about ADD/ADHD, a very positive reaction that shines an honest light on their own situation. We're on similar paths, working hard to stay sane in a totally crazy world!
My very bright young private student came in for her Tuesday afternoon ESOL lesson. She's been coming for several years and has made wonderful progress from very little English to taking good grades home in her last year at High School. Proud of her.
After she left I sat down to take care of a translation job due at my client's by tomorrow late afternoon and honed that piece until it shone and is now ready for me to re-read in the morning and "ship" off.
By 8pm I was ravenous, hadn't had anything but breakfast all day, which is quite common. So, despite quite a bit of school work still waiting, I had a large bowl of home-grown lettuce (harvested the day before) with an organic tomato and some organic ham, sprinkled with some organic Fairtrade cashew nuts, plus a couple of slices of toast made from sourdough bread, with a little organic butter. (Yes, I do try to eat organic and Fairtrade products as much as I possibly can, even though they cost an inordinate amount of money. But I have long noticed a big difference in taste and the impact food has on me, so this is well worth it.)
Will see how this goes. I would have preferred tatties but the bread was going stale and I hate throwing out food. In the past I've noticed that my joints are much more stiff the morning after eating bread or pasta or rice, or fresh tomatoes. Seems they increase acidity a lot more than potatoes or cooked tomatoes, for example. And when my joints stiffen up, my sleep gets disrupted.
While eating, and after, I watched a couple of episodes of detective series (Gently..., Montalbano) on the iPlayer; now it's time for bed but I feel totally "wired".
Is Concerta making a difference? Not sure; it's hard to tell because I have a long history of irregular days, periods of intense, highly focused, mostly intellectual work that alternate with slumps in which I can't be bothered to do anything but watch TV – which I guess is ok and necessary and goes with the territory of being a freelancer, but is also really quite exhausting.
I don't know...