Fine Tolerances

Another gorgeous small human today - Gabriel, with his grandparents, our friends Alda and Manoel, in extra. 

Spent the day in Mora, helping our Dutch friends load the lorry (second extra) with the contents of their house - which was our home for our first week in the Alentejo; they had only just moved here themselves. We are sad to see them go, but it's been extraordinarily hard for them, and they really have given their all for these almost five years, so we're happy for them as well.

Gratefuls:
- working with other Mora friends all day, and going back to Alda and Manoel's for a lanche
- getting the job done, it looked slightly overwhelming this morning when we got there
- safety in the over four hours of driving, through fog, rain, and darkness on the way back

The Body, ch 11 - Equilibrium, p 216-217
We exist within extraordinarily fine tolerances. Although our body temperature varies slightly through the day... it stays within a decidedly narrow compass of 36-38°C. To stray more than a very few degrees in either direction is to invite a lot of trouble. A fall of just two degrees below normal, or a rise of four degrees above, can tip the brain into a crisis that can swiftly lead to irreversible damage or death. To avoid catastrophe, the brain has its trusty control centre, the hypothalamus, which tells the body to cool itself by sweating or to warm itself by shivering and diverting blood flow away from the skin and into the more vulnerable organs.