Demi book group cinema trip

As I feared, I suffered painsomnia last night, mainly in my ankles/feet. I was so uncomfortable that I hardly slept at all. This was in spite of taking painkillers and lathering my joints with ibuprofen gel.

After hours of waiting to drop off, I got up at just before 4:00am for a very early breakfast of jam on toast and a glass of milk. I considered just getting on with the day at that point, but eventually decided that it might be worth giving bed another try. My Garmin recorded 3'28" of slumber between 4:05am and 7:33am.

I was pretty wiped out most of the day. However, I was pleased to head up the road for a 10:00am(!) trip to the Everyman cinema to see Tár with my demi book group, i.e. the four of us who are retired - myself, LauraMuir, Ridgeback13, and Winsford.

I enjoyed the film and I am glad that I have seen it. However, I think that it could have done with some severe editing, especially in the first hour. I found it rather frustrating at the start that the audience was exposed to a lot of information across conversations between characters without any clue as to that which needed to be retained as crucial to the plot. If the film had been a book, I would have been leafing back to the first few chapters over and over again as the story unfolded. I also felt that some of the scenes were over-length. That said, Cate Blanchett was amazing, and I love her more than ever.

I would have liked to have spent some time with the others afterwards to discuss the film, especially since there was a split of opinion. LauraMuir seemed to have reservations similar to mine. Ridgeback13, and Winsford were far more enthusiastic.

I needed to rush home for three reasons: (1) because staff from Scottish Gas were coming to check our requirements for a new boiler; (2) to serve lunch to Mummy hazelh; and (3) to eat my own lunch before an online PhD supervision at 2:00pm. It was rather annoying that the student didn't turn up for her meeting because I think that Mr hazelh would have happily dealt with commitments (1) and (2) on his own had I told him about the possibility of a post-cinema lunch date with my friends.

I was sorely tempted to go to bed this afternoon to catch up on my lost sleep, but managed to force myself to stay awake. I hunkered down in the sitting room with the fan heater and gas fire full blast and blankets over my knees and shoulders. My mother did the same. I mainly worked on comments on a draft journal article related to Marina's PhD.

This evening we caught up on the latest episode of Happy valley.

Exercise today: small amount of walking (6,941 steps).