Unhearing aids

Thanks to the wind last night I ended up reaching for earplugs.  Just as I have yet to find the ideal pair for motorbiking, I have never found a pair I could sleep comfortably in.  These ones (not the same earplugs I blipped before of course but another pair from the pack) I figured were worth a shot because sleeping was what someone at work recommended them for.  I established on the first day of Holz, back in April, that their decibel-reducing qualities were underwhelming at 70mph, but perhaps they would help with gale force 8 outside the house at night when all my mind does is take fright at every thundering gust and fixate* on the noises of the tiles rattling on the roof.

The good news is that I slept.  Mostly.  The good news is also that they didn't fall out in the night, and I didn't subconsciously pull them out.

The bad news is that I mostly slept, because I was subconsciously aware of the pressure in my ears from them.  So I was still tired waking up, yesterday's headache hadn't quite gone away, and quite frankly I was relieved to get out of bed, get the damn earplugs out of my ears, and get going with work.  Some of my usual over-the-counter pain meds kicked in by the afternoon and I felt a bit more productive by then.

But it's nearly the new year and that means one more day at the controls and then a chance to unwind for (almost) a couple of weeks. Yay!

* the condition is called hypervigilance and it is exhausting