Nature's Nurse

This small shop on the way down from the castle, called Contrabando, opened over a year ago, and I only went in for the first time today - which just goes to show 1)how many months I've been away this year, and 2)how little we wander round town in these Covid days - especially as a trendy little place like this is a complete novelty in Mourão. Impressed. I got some small things to post to family. Cláudia is an Alentejana, but from further south, wishing her huge success.

Gratefuls:
- finding a place - in Mourão! - to buy good bar shampoos
- chatting with Vizinho and his wife, Albertina, on the way into town and the way back, and finding a tiny nut he'd lost in the grass, from his olive beater
- meals from leftovers - quick, tasty, and free (sort of)

The Body, ch16 - Sleep, p310
'O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse' - Henry IV, Part II

There isn't any part of the body that does not benefit from sleep or suffer from its absence... Sleep has been tied to ... consolidating memories, restoring hormonal balance, emptying the brain of accumulated neurotoxins, resetting the immune system. People with early signs of hypertension who slept for one hour more per night than previously showed a significant improvement in their blood pressure readings.