When I started writing this post, I was trying to remember when I had had the hernia operation. According to an email message in my inbox, this took place on 9 October. I came home the following day. By now I am therefore well past the four week mark in my recovery. According to what the nurse told me, I have a couple of weeks to go.

The wound site was never really painful, and over the last few weeks has become gradually much less sensitive. It was always a bit worse in the evenings, when I generally felt more crummy. Now I am only conscious of the wound if I do something it doesn’t like. Yesterday was one of those days.

Sweeping the courtyard was one of the jobs I had been putting off. This procrastination isn’t unusual for me, but in this case I was conscious of all the bending down this job would involve. (Bending from the waist is better for me at the moment, as it puts less strain on the wound site.) By now, though, I thought that I could probably handle a little task like this. Sweeping the courtyard always makes it look neater and more inviting. Afterwards, I pictured myself sitting out there in the shade of the umbrella, enjoying my handiwork.

This was pretty much how it transpired. The sweeping, picking up all the debris into the big garden bag, putting some of that into the compost, and the rest into the green waste bin, all took about an hour. Along the way I re-fixed some shade cloth I have rigged up over the daphne in the front garden. I interspersed these with hanging out a couple of loads of washing, including the towels. (All these little tasks took me over my step target for the day, without having gone past the mailbox.)

I did notice the hernia wound after a while. It wasn’t painful exactly — just enough for me to think, okay, that’s about as much as I can manage right now. But I enjoyed being outside, getting things looking a bit better, and having a closer look at the garden.

The main problem I’ve had over the last few weeks has been my sleep. I think this has to do, at least in part, with my not being able to exercise as much as before the operation. (I did resume a modified exercise class just last week.) Consequently I have been getting, on average, an hour and ten minutes less sleep than I was having before the operation. I have also been waking several times a night, and getting up in search of something that will knock me out for a while. So the sleep has been both shorter and more fragmented.

The other reason is to do with my sleep medication (Stilnox), to which I have been gradually becoming habituated over the years. I really need a new one. Whatever I take, however, has to not interfere with the Zolodex — while I remain on that treatment. I will be seeing Dr P on Monday week to discuss all this, together with my most recent blood test.

I have had insomnia for about 25 years now. Over this time I tried most of the sleep treatments around. None delivered a cure, so I just learned to live with it. The last four weeks has been an extremely sustained patch of sleep deprivation, however, and I have been finding it pretty tough. I hope that gradually getting back to my full exercise program will help.

I am also going to investigate contactless shopping for groceries. In this scenario, I drive to the supermarket, open the boot of the GT, and send a text to the effect of “I’m here”. Someone will put the bags into the boot of my car, I drive home, and at this point my beloved will bring the bags inside. This way I will get a mini-outing, and she will have the chance to catch up on her work a tad. From each according to his ability, to each according to her need.

We did some old-style shopping over the weekend. Our dishwasher packed it in last week. (I think the noisy, thrashy thing is about 20 years old.) I read lots of reviews, and measured the recess in which it sits under the kitchen bench several times. Yesterday we headed to one of the nearby big box stores to kick some tyres. Did we want a two or a five year warranty? Would a cutlery drawer be a good thing, or would we make do with a basket? All the alternatives were worked through, and we chose a German make with which to replace the tired old Dishlex. The credit card was unfurled to good effect, and the new dishwasher — a Siemens — is being delivered on Friday.

In the meantime, my beloved and I have had some slightly nostalgic times handwashing our dishes, and drying them with a tea towel. I seem to remember Mum and Dad having sotto voce arguments while doing this. Like them, we have fallen into gender roles — my beloved washing, me drying up. We haven’t had any arguments so far, though, even when I queried her practice of putting the cutlery into the sink first. I will remain a cutlery-last man to the end of my days! (I hope this preference will soon revert to being a theoretical one.)