Sunshine. Soup. Plastic. Sleep.

 It’s another fine, bright December day with 0% chance of rain forecast. So I began the day with a run round the village. I’m not quite so organised as one of the neighbours who had her washing out on the line by 9.00 this morning. By the time I had done my washing I decided it was not worth hanging it out to dry as I would bring it in again a few hours later, still very damp, not to say wet! Perhaps another day I’ll be more organised.

I have, however, wrapped some more Christmas presents and chopped vegetables to make soup. This is definitely a soupy time of year. I have plastic boxes ready to put said soup into the freezer once prepared and cooled down. 

It’s difficult nowadays to imagine a world without plastic. Who knew, when it was first put out there, that it could cause so much havoc in the modern world? I like to think that by re-using all my plastic boxes I’m doing a little to help the environment.

“Nurdles” sound quite harmless, don’t they? It sounds like the kind of name the two smallest grandchildren invent for imaginary creatures in their various games. But in fact “nurdles” turn out to be little plastic globules that are melted down and used in the production of all kinds of plastic objects. And according to this article they get spilt in transit, lost along the way and are now found in almost all the sites of special scientific interest around the country.  Because they are tiny, they look like seeds and birds and small animals eat them and are poisoned by them. Such is the cruelty of the modern world.

At the same time it seems that sewage works use little plastic beads, “biobeeds”, as part of their water treatment process. Recently there have been spillages of these “biobeeds” leading to the need for massive clean-up operations on beaches. Once again, these “biobeeds” are mistaken for food and consumed by birds and small creatures. Here’s a link to an article about it.

And here is columnist Zoe Williams writing about a drug for narcolepsy, a drug which might have a spin-off in helping find a cure for insomnia at the same time. She writes also about cataplexy, which can involve falling asleep after strong emotions. And I was reminded of a friend I had in sixth form whose parents were going through a messy and upsetting divorce - something rather less common in the 1960s than in modern times. My friend used to curl up and go to sleep in the sixth form common room to escape her troubles. We would realise she was missing at the start of a lesson. Our teachers quickly realised what was going on and would dispatch one of us to find her and wake her. This led to her seeking out more recondite but less comfortable places to fall asleep, such as the Spanish department stock cupboard! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!