South Wales Evening Post column, November 08, 2024

 BACK in July, I was a Bear. For some strange reason, in August, I became a Dolphin. This week, it turns out that I am now a Parrot.

Confused? Please don’t lose any sleep over it. Leave the worrying to me.

Here’s the explanation: as part of my cardiac rehab regime, I wear a fitness device on my wrist which monitors how many steps I take every day, how my heart is performing . . . and how well I sleep.

When you get to my age, sleep is very important.

Back in my teens and 20s, ‘pulling an all-nighter’ was an idiom which summed up those occasions when you needed to work or study through the night.

Today, ‘pulling an all-nighter’ has a different meaning among the group of oldies I meet for a weekly coffee.

A successful ‘all-nighter’ today is that glorious occasion when you manage to get seven straight hours in bed . . . without having to get up to go to the toilet!

These are occasions as rare as hen’s teeth and need to be stamped in red on the software app that runs my fitness device.

The app monitors my sleep like some sort of mad science experiment.

It checks sleep schedule variability, sleep start time, the time it takes before sound sleep, sleep duration, deep sleep, REM sleep, restorative sleep, sleep stability, nights with long awakenings and, finally, days with naps.

Happily, I can plead not guilty to sneaky naps in the daytime (for now), but I must admit that checking the sleep function on the fitness app can become a bit obsessive.

It’s not reached the point where it’s keeping me awake at night, but I am probably overthinking the whole thing.

I’m getting a bit too freaked out by the app’s insistence on creating labels for monthly sleep patterns.

This month, I am a Parrot. Apparently, this label says the following about my sleep patterns –

‘Parrots tend to keep a consistent bedtime, and don’t sleep too early or too late. They typically reach sound sleep quickly, and usually get a good amount of sleep each night.

‘Once they drift off, Parrots sleep deeply, but they can be light on REM (for the layman, REM means Rapid Eye Movement - the stage of sleep where most dreams happen).

‘Parrots may wake up briefly throughout the night. Most of these wake-ups are so brief they might be forgotten, usually leaving Parrots with an adequate amount of sleep to avoid naps the next day.’

Apparently, the Parrot label reflects the fact that the birds have ‘lively attention spans and lots of energy’.

Back in July, the Bear label reflected the fact that ‘after a long day of foraging, most bears settle into a long, undisturbed sleep’.

And, in August, the Dolphin tag was ‘because dolphins need to stay on the move, only one half of their brain gets to sleep at a time’.

At various stages of my career, sleep (or the lack of it) seems to have featured prominently.

Once upon a time, with my media consultant hat on, I did some work for an innovative firm which brought organic mattresses to the British market from a small factory in Tycroes, near Ammanford.

It was interesting work, but the fringe benefits of the job did not include being allowed to sleep on handmade mattresses lovingly made of the softest lambs’ wool and organic cotton.

Notable parts of the publicity campaign did, however, include shipping beds and mattresses to Instagram locations in Wales, where models would ‘cwtsh-up’ and be pictured enjoying restful sleep in the open air.

On another memorable occasion, we saw Prince Charles (now King Charles III) visit the factory. Predictably, attempts to get a photo of the then Prince lounging on a mattress failed.

And another event at the factory, back in 2015, saw the then Bishop of St David’s, Wyn Evans, arrive to give the factory a ‘blessing’. Yes, it was a ‘believe it or not’ moment, but good publicity, as it happens.

Back with my ‘hack journalist’ hat on, there have been plenty of occasions when sleep has had to take a back seat to the demands of newspaper deadlines.

Working all night covering General Election and Senedd (Welsh Assembly) elections for this fine newspaper always proved to be good fun, with the adrenalin of the events driving you through to dawn and the treat of a full fry-up breakfast at Wyn Price’s Continental Grill in Wind Street (a much-loved institution and meeting place which, sadly, no longer exists).

Another all-night work shift which sticks in the mind surrounds the death of Pope John Paul II back in April, 2005.

The Pope’s health had been declining for some time and the team at the Evening Post had worked hard to prepare a 24-page ‘special supplement’ tribute to the life of His Holiness.

The special was locked down ready to print, but someone was needed to man the hotline at the old Evening Post HQ in Adelaide Street. The task was simple as all the hard work had been done. All I had to do was ring the printers as soon as news came through about The Pope’s death and tell them to put the ‘special’ on the Press.

Stuck in Adelaide Street, I couldn’t do my usual dad duty of dropping my son off at school.

My absence from the school drop-off was noted by some of my son’s pals.

“Where’s your, dad?” they asked.

My son (never known for giving long explanations when only a few words will do) replied, “He’s in the office . . . waiting for The Pope to die.”

On that note, I shall finish scribbling for the day . . . I think I can feel a nap coming on!

Twitter: @rlloydpr