Look! I made some bread!

the huge bread, inspired by a loaf from a local wood-fired bakery

There's been a flurry of bread-making posts on all social media over the last year, and I salut this!! Make bread! it is really easy - honest, and you don't need a huge clunky plastic item to clutter your kitchen worktops; just a large bowl, a piece of marble for kneading (if possible) wooden spoon, flour, water, salt, bit of oil - if you like, plus extras if desired such as sunflower seeds, olives, dried tomatoes, marmite just kidding.... and an oven. Bread tins are good but Mark (king of bread-making - and has been doing so since student days back in the carboniferous period - he-he, just a joke, dearest) has just created this amazing medium cat-sized pain de campagne in an old pyrex baking dish as we can't find a metal oven 'sheet' that will fit in the ancient, 70s relic that we we cook on and in.

                               The 70s national-grid emptier - but actually the oven is very efficient 

We have an ancient bread-oven in the spider-filled not-yet-developed part of the house, or at least the surround and opening - sadly the actual huge igloo like oven of this region was taken away at some point - and I would dearly love to reconstruct it. There are people who can do this in the locality but as we have more pressing renovation to attend to it will have to wait. But it is nice to know that the ghosts of all those loaves still inhabit the room and maybe we can add to them with our own range of breads one day.

The bread oven waiting to live again...

the cat-sized loaf featuring an usual marbling effect due to a two dough experimental try-out

This blog

I've been writing it since 2009 - a lot of posts, a lot of life passed by.
Most of my current writing (novel) is set in post-apocalyptic 2073, and one of the reasons for the world's - or rather its human societies'- imaginary cataclysm is the internet's demise.
In my tale, this particular event occurs in 2038, mainly due to someone attempting to upload a half-hour film of their cat trying to open the fridge - the final straw, in effect.
I suspect that the denouement will be somewhat closer in time - not that I'm a pessimist, I think that nearly everyone must secretly harbour this thought . . .
Anyway, as an old git, and real paper/card/ink/leather, book enthusiast, I'd like to preserve my body of  blog-work into a graspable thing with pages. Not particularly to sell - from my tentative peeks so far, nine years worth of blog to paper is yeekly expensive - more as just a record of our lives in this place called the Hot-house; all the small, mostly unremarkable happenings - dogs and other pets homed, musical/art/writing triumphs and failures/ boy's progression through the various stages of school/art college; jam made, celebrations held/ sadnesses acknowledged and got over, love and laughter treasured, plants planted and passing seasons enjoyed.
So, big correction progress underway - I think my grammar has certainly improved over time . . . should have done! Photos re-jigged, a few posts discarded and forward to the grand loading-up onto Blog-U-Like or whatever site looks easy to use - before the cat and fridge episode is upon us.

                                 

Possibly my favourite photo of this year so far - direct line to God in a Toulouse church.

Unknown stuff

While sitting in a café recently, I took out my laptop to do a bit of editing and noticed they advertised Wi-Fi free - being in French this actually means, free Wi-Fi, or weefee, with the accent. I thought I might as well check an email or two and logged on.
The list of surrounding weefees was extraordinary - about thirty different 'types' from Orange to Chez Felix or wherever it was that I was sitting. How can you escape all this, if you want to? Difficult. There is a man who lives in a village near us who has apparently spent thousands on 'Bacofoiling' his entire house and himself such is his angst, or perhaps very real fear/reactions to this peculiar air-born, invisible . . . thing.

                                        


Being a bit of a luddite myself I can understand the worry over something that has crept into our world insidiously and taken over our waking, and sleeping hours.
I still regard Microwaves with a certain amount of suspicion, and all phones with what I regard as a healthy disregard. Phone = useful device with which to contact or be contacted by people in a situation where information needs to be relayed: 'help, I have driven into a ditch,'  'can you remember to get more cat food,' and more importantly things such as: 'my neighbour's house appears to be on fire.' Most other yakking, checking how many Likes one has or playing Discontented Slugs, or other latest App drivel seems, to me anyway, a tad alien. Hm!
Anyway. WiFi. Mark, being an occasional insomniac like myself, read a report somewhere recently that suggested turning off the device at night was likely to promote better sleep - possibly common sense, but good to be reminded of such things, just as people need to be reminded that perhaps sleeping with their phones under their pillows might not be a good plan (arg! Why would you do that?)
So we did, turn it off, and . . . yes it could be total placebo BUT, I do sleep better - deeper, longer and with even more bizarre dreams than usual (a good thing, I think). I used to wake up at the slightest sound: a dog's collar jingling downstairs, a cat prowling over gravel outside, now - nothing.
It was as if I had been on standby not really OFF; ready to receive information streaming from our small white box downstairs: celebrity hair, Donald Trump's latest verbal gifts to the world, recipes, junk emails from Uncle Amazon; people inviting you to invest in their money-laundering ideas, tweets, reminders, Waitrose wine (how the F did I get onto their list?) gadgets, maps, reports . . . and so on.
The brain needs sleep: big, wide, profound sleep to repair itself and the body, and anything that can be done to assist this is of huge value - just a tiny switch- click-off; maybe it doesn't have any real effect but if one's mind can perceive it as an aid to total night time obliteration - great!
I read this morning about a Dutch study on growing cress placed next to wireless routers. One set of plants in a room with no routers, and another placed between two routers - result, the cress close to the radiation didn't grow . . . mm.
Anyway, just for saving energy alone, everything should be turned off that is normally on standby, and all chargers removed from plugs even when connected to devices; it all adds up to higher bills, general electricity waste and more stuff bombarding our already sore brains.
Goodbye, off to put this onto shutdown, not sleep.

cat-shaped space

Bronzino has been with us about fourteen years after someone said did we want a ginger tom kitten.
Good timing as our small runty cat, (Scrabs) had been stolen by someone passing by in a car, according to our neighbours of the time  - odd (and sad) as he really was runty.
We went to see Bronzino (who was living in a car at the time as the person had twenty or so cats in their house) and decided he would fit into our lives just fine.
And he did fit in; a perfect feline, really. Not too clingy, but happy to occupy a lap in front of the fire in winter. He caught mice, rats and rabbits, and, as if having listened to us, not too many birds.
He had his territory, would see off other cats, and would follow us (pack of assorted humans and dogs) down the road until his self-appointed patch ended and would yowl plaintively as if warning of dangers ahead to be encountered while visiting the bread shop, chemist or whatever.
I never had to take him to the vet and he was a good solid specimen of feline-ness until recent weeks when something happened internally and he shrunk into ultra old age causing Mark to finally take him to the for-mentioned place.
I will eradicate those final few weeks from my mind and think of him as the ginger king of the garden that he was.

Down the plughole

Are we heading for it - the end of everything?
When I see things like this, I fear for mankind - well some of us. There are plenty just getting on with their lives, not taking too much, not willfully destroying everything for the sake of More Stuff.
Things Like This in this case happen to be plugs. Sinks come with plugs - on a chain, or the pop up variety, which do have a lifespan, true, but it's usually the mechanism that dies, not the plug itself. So it is unlikely that any of us really NEED a new plug with a cat on it.
I'm sorry, whoever had this terrific idea/designed them/manufactured them and then sold the idea to this particular DIY store, but I just don't understand.
Why not design something that would actually be useful like a traffic warden-detector, or a special gismo that you could put under a café table leg to stop it wobbling, or some sort of herbal drug that would make gardening fascinating for kids.
I held up people-traffic in the shop while I just gawped at these Things. I've been chuntering (what a great and seldom used word) on about wastage of world resources for some time now, and trying to make our own small changes - little packaging as possible, recycling furniture, clothes, food (soup just gets better and better the day after and the day after) but on sight of such utter non-usefulness, well . . . I just don't know. Blogger stomps off to make more tea (loose, with organic milk, in second hand mug) what is the world coming to . . . grr.

Belligerent magpies and indifferent doctors

Hello cyberspace!! Hello people who might stumble across this page, and hello me - oh hello, you must be the one who loves writing stuff, but has been lurking in other rooms away from the computer, throwing the odd furtive glance onto the blue bar after tapping in something to do with face pain, vitamins and mineral baths (to quote Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot).
It's still here the pain (see last post or two, IF you want a wee insight into trigeminal neuralgia) but I think I'm working out when to do things - like this - and avoid a fine, sharp blade slicing into my upper gum line. SO, anyway, that's the last time I'm going to mention it.
The main soundtrack of the moment in the Hothouse, apart from me swearing a lot more than usual, has been the almost continual cackle of magpies. After a couple of days of the said noise I went out and sat still until I became part of the garden and thus un-worrying to the resident bird population. It transpired that the reason the sound was moving to different areas of our compound was the magpies tracking down the cat and mobbing him.
I watched, fascinated as he lay in the sun, tail twitching, as the two birds hopped up to him and pecked at his ears, their cries becoming more strident. Occasionally he would stretch out a lazy paw and whack one of them; they would retreat and then start again. Why? I wondered; what had our cat done to them? Ezra suggested a stolen egg or chick, but it's perhaps a little late in the season for that. Then I noticed one of the birds had no tail feathers. I assume Bronzino attempted to catch the bird, failed and was left with a mouthful of shiny feathers, for which he is being persecuted relentlessly.

I just checked - quite common apparently. Here's another mog (same colour as ours )being attacked (photo treknature.com)

If the doctor, or specialist I went to see yesterday could be portrayed as a bird, I would say perhaps a whispy-headed cross between a supremely snide vulture and a bored owl.
I had made the RDV two months ago and had waited with interest and slight angst for him to reveal great truths and wisdom about the thing I wasn't going to mention again . . .
A dear friend took me- thanks Chris- as my driving might have been somewhat more erratic that usual.
After climbing the spiral wooden staircase in a backstreet building I sat in a sweaty waiting room flicking randomly through estate agent brochures and hunting magazines, listening to the occasional laughter that issued through the walls of the doctor's office.
Good, I thought, he must be approachable and warm, someone who will listen intently, taking down all the little details I had amassed, before forming them into a comprehensive diagnosis (after a bit of a poke about, presumably). He would then shake my hand and wave a contented and relieved me off down the stairs to return to his office feeling, no doubt, satisfied and full of human spirit; reaffirmed in his role as an upstanding example of the medical profession.
Not.
Bonjour, madame . . . come in, sit here, no there. He turned drab, bespectacled eyes on me; eyes that had seen a million frightened patients before them, and were now probably looking forward to their retirement.
I scrabbled in my folder, through photos of my brain from various angles, through bits of paper to do with the social security system and found my LETTER. Mark and I had concocted this, thinking it would be helpful to him to understand a little of my history and relationship with the affliction, including a few homespun theories of why this had happened and what it might in fact be.
He leant back in his chair after snapping the paper from me, then read to himself, waggling his copious eyebrow hair and smirking at my ideas - (I'm not a doctor, but I think that the person who lives with the affliction should be given a chance to theorise - just a little).
He slapped the papers down and glowered at me.
'Non, Non et NON, madame. NONE of this is remotely possible - that bit is nowhere near that bit; there is no possible connection', etc, etc . . .
'But what about . . . '
Deep sigh: Comme j'ai dit . . . it's not possible - pas-du-tout!'
'But what about the fact that this all started when I got up suddenly after a nap and something went criiisszzzkkk in my neck?'
'I will now perform an investigation.'
He gestured to chair; I duly sat in it and he span me around facing him, disconcertingly close, with my knees wedged up agains his . . . well, bollocks, really.
'Open your mouth, Madame and say eeeeee,'
I did, and after producing a long thin piece of steel, proceeded to insert it into my throat without much warning. I retched like an inexperienced porn actress and he sighed again - 'bon, ça va pas, huh! we will pass through the nose, alors'.
After a spritz of anesthetic spray he nonchalantly threaded the long boingy steel tube down one of my nostrils while I thought helplessly of various torture scenes in sci-fi films where the baddie introduces a ravening brain-killing slug or similar nightmare into the captive's nose.
'Non, rien. Nothing, madame, not so much as a nose flea or a wayward brain cell.'
'But what about this sore lump here that I have had on and off for thirty years, eh?'
'Non, c'est rien du tout, you may have a little neuralgic plinky plonky obnidextrouas conflabnigation there, but it's nothing. REALLY!'
'But, what is that?'
He stood up abruptly and signaled that I should follow suit. 'See your doctor again, and if the condition persists you will be offered teyrhetsuidjnfbduuaaaaasge.'
'Does that have undesirable side-effects, Monsieur le Docteur?'
'Perhaps if you take it over a long period of time. That will be 45 euros, Madame.'
'But I have CMU.'
'No, you do not.'
Yes, I do, here is the piece of paper.'
'It is not the right piece of paper.'
'Yes it is - see there: CMU.'
'Ah, oui, humph.'
I collected together my scorned-upon documents, kneed him in the groin (shook his hand), and left.
'Goodbye, Madame,' he said, shutting the door with as much condescension as possible.
At home later, I found several useful bits of info that I am now putting into practice, and will work towards my own doctorate in the treatment of elderly depressed retired 'specialists' in the hope I shall one day welcome him into my own practice room and be thoroughly NICE to him. Ha.

Soundscape

Our personal one here in The Hothouse at the moment is the emerging summer sounds of nightingales, who also sing throughout the daylight hours, the next door's cockerel - clearly not on the correct timer - who calls throughout the late morning, their goat, various parrots, the donkey-birds (see post last summer, swallows and various chorusing frogs.
This small green one, hidden in the pampas grass was making an electronic beeping noise. It emerged onto the terrace - much to the cat's interest, and I picked it up to have a closer look.
Isn't nature a totally incredible thing? That colour, the eyes, the toes. It just sat there calmly while we stared at it, amazed that such a tropical-looking creature had appeared in our European garden.

Youtube

Incredible source of information, imagination - and, an unimaginably huge, black hole where hours just disappear.
I looked up Tommy Cooper this morning as Ezra had said juslikethat for some reason, and all the memories of that manic hulking man came flooding back. Before I knew it I had spent fifteen minutes, not looking at Tommy Cooper, well, I did for the first five minutes then noticed one of those X factor things - man who died on stage during, whichever thing it was. Of course I had to look. Actually it was pathetically bad, but I clicked, like an automaton onto the next, and the next . . . STOP: jobs must be done, money earned.
After the jobs, I thought I'd just do a quick youtube experiment.
I put in CATS and wondered how long, going off on any presented tangent, it would take me to get back to CATS.
Armed with cup of tea and notebook, I started. (I didn't watch most of these, otherwise I would no doubt still be writing this on Sunday evening)

CATS.

Cats sleeping in funny positions compilation 2013
The Russian sleep experiment/I read creepy pastas??
Awkward escalator (LAHWF, there are hundreds of these, so about ten pages later, I nearly gave up) Hypnotist gets out of speeding ticket, (not paying rather than stepping out from a speeding ticket I assume)
How to touch beautiful women
How to touch ugly women (not really)
How to use negative suggestion (some bloke who had posted about three zillion films – fast forward many pages)
Alan de Botton on pessimism
The pleasures and sorrows of work
thinking like a genius can improve our lives
The genius of Marie Curie
Albert Einstein - how I see the world
Black holes - what are they
People who still walk on all fours
Radioactive wolves of Chernobyl -  this could have been a death metal band, but wasn't.
Gangland female gangsters
Girls in da hood
Girls not in da hood (ha)
Girls in raincoats without hoods (ha ha)
Camping cars - challenger. What!
Five shocking medical experiments on humans (how-from camping cars?)
Twenty-five scary bridges (followed by millions of twenty-five other scary things)
Top ten strangest and weirdest things on earth
Ten weird things found in an x-ray
Something in Russian I wish I hadn't clicked on
Something else in Russian about sex
Many, many things in Russian . . . another tea later, finally an English entry . . .
Life in North Korea
The giants of Iceland
Real-life Ukrainian Barbi
Real life Ken and Barbi hate each other - I did see this and I think it wins the award for 'uh? how is the human race still going?'
Louis Vuitton condoms - see above award.
Inmate found stuck in wall trying to escape from prison
I want the world's smallest waist - actually, this could be the award winner.
Worlds longest dreadlocks

and  . . .

World's fattest CATS.

Odd that there was hardly any sex, music, DIY; no food and only a bit of space exploration to get back to my chosen subject.

Our own cat sleeping in quite a normal position for him.

Second hand dogs

Back in September we finally went to collect Gala, a rescue Spanish Greyhound, (see previous posts) after visits had been made by members of the association to check we were suitable for the dog, vice versa, fences high enough, the cat wouldn't get eaten, etc.

One thing they never did check is what sort of sleeping arrangement she would have.

I must send them this picture of the poor, long-suffering hound on her sun bed where she spends quite a bit of time when not on the indoor sofa or on a 'walkies'.

At least we managed to give one of these incredibly graceful hounds a good home; sadly there are thousands of others each year who live a life of beatings, stab wounds and finally a death that I cannot write of as my keyboard will become soggy and thus useless.

For anyone who would like to adopt a Galgos/Galgas check out this link. There are other associations too in France, UK, Netherlands and elsewhere.

Good choice of dog for exercise. Gala will hike happily all day, or make do with a couple of fifteen minute walks and then lie about looking beautiful. They are, or she certainly is, completely docile with people, kids, dogs and cats (in the house anyway). She smells faintly of warm toast, drops virtually no hair and came to us house-trained. She woofs very occasionally, and it's usually for a good reason - help, my bladder is full, or the other. 

And you get to have a dog that might have appeared in a previous life in any number of Italian Renaissance court paintings at the feet of some royal person or other.

http://www.galgosfrance.net/adoption/

http://galgosdelsol.org  (UK)

Meandering road trip

So, while everyone else headed to the ski slopes for their winter holiday, me and Ezra headed for a bit of South-Western France where there was sure to be no snow.
We had a vague idea that Agen might be interesting, mainly as it is the hyper-centre of prune production in France, and we like prunes.
We set off far too late in the morning and ate our picnic about three miles away overlooking a particularly favourite view of mine.

Auch was the first stop with its majestic hilltop cathedral, of which I only have a picture of this door,

lots of shops, huge, racing brown river and I'm not sure what else as we got caught in a massive downpour and retreated to the car.
We were going to stay in Agen, but got sidetracked into visiting a small town called Lectore as it had a hotel called Hotel de Bastard - very glad we did as it was a charming place, and the hotel doubly so. It looked way above our budget, but an out of season room was actually no more than the boring motel-type room we stayed on the following night.
It's odd how certain days on a trip end up being right in every way. That was one of them: great hotel, weird and wonderful meal in a local café and inspiring walks/drives/observations etc.

The next day was less successful. On arriving in Agen we walked about, went in the museum, ate a pancake and found not one solitary bag of prunes. The one remaining 'prune specialist' shop was shut, and as six stuffed prunes (stuffed with further prune) seemed to have a price tag of nine euros, I was quite relieved.
Drove on to visit two of the 'plus beaux village de France' which were indeed beautiful, and tourist (other than us) free; then, in the spirit of meandering holidays, decided to drive to Bergerac.
It was rather a long way. The ancient, elegant and faded hotel I had been imagining didn't exist. The tourist office offered 'The family' hotel' and 'the Europe', near the station. Both looked dull, and one was shut. We eventually found three huge hotels in the middle that the tourist office had obviously not seen. Chose the cheapest and sank gratefully into a hot bath before stepping out to experience a fabulous meal.
The place I had decided on was having some sort of function and everything else looked too expensive so we went in "La Scala' where the food was unmemorable but the menu translations were worth the drive to Bergerac.

Egg stink with its fingers of bread in fois gras.
Duck wipes
Omelette of the leader
Salad of crudeness with its greenery 

This can only be surpassed by a restaurant in our town serving:
Side idiot of tomato and paving slabs of salmon.

We left early the following morning, bought a couple of croissants, drove about ten miles out of Bergerac, realised we had left all the maps in the bakery, drove back and out again. Then sallied forth into the lovely rolling hills dotted with impossibly beautiful buildings that is the Dordogne.
Ezra wanted to go to Cahors, mainly to look at the train station, so we did. Had a fine cup of tea in the station café and wandered about a bit.
I decided that we should do something madly touristy and headed off to Saint-Cirq-lapopie, thirty two KM away from Cahors along a stunning winding stretch of the Lot Valley.

(borrowed from wikipedia pic)

I'm glad we did, and I'm glad it was in March. I can imagine how impossible it would be to get there in July; the amount of spaces reserved for coaches was a fairly good indicator - this tiny fairytale place, like most of the other 'Plus beaux' villages obviously becomes a seething mass of people, ice cream, and nicknacks as the summer starts.

Set off homewards, wishing we had bought more food, and wishing both of us hadn't eaten quite so many dried apricots . . .

The best shop front of the trip

The best cat of the trip

Contrast in dining experiences: The elegant dining room of The Bastard, where we went mad and had the buffet breakfast. And the formica splendour of the 'Café du coin' where I had an excellent 'Pot au Feu', soup, wine, and Ezra a basic but comforting spag bol, all for the price of breakfast at the hotel.

The best hotel name

And the best nightclub/church experience

GPS assisted shopping and gourmet cat food.

OK. A good Sunday rant, after a stirring bout of housework.

Here, portrayed below, is a selection of Gourmet cat food sachets that Mark bought for our ginger feline. I assume he was captivated by the pure irony of this product, and he did have the beginnings of flu . . .

Some basic points about cats:

They are finicky bastards.

The pet industry know this.

They can make millions of euros/pounds/dollars out of this annoying cat-fact.

Cats do not eat vegetables, let alone a 'julienne' of them.

This however, is useful for the pet food people: put veg in - costs virtually nowt (talking about EU reject veg I imagine) and people somehow feel good that their felines are hoovering up veg particles as it will be good for them.

This particular pack is hyper-irritating as some PERSON in an ad meeting has come up with a fantastic idea: 

    'Excuse me, Mr Vanpooperstook, what about if we add a little phrase on the packet - something like 'Recettes du chef'.

    'Brilliant, Mr Beenhereforever: recipes of the chef - get onto it.' 

    'How about a chef in one of those hats, stirring a copper pan?'

    'Don't be a stupid arse, Miss junior ad-type, do you know what's really in cat food - we just have to GIVE the impression . . . '

I opened one of the said packets this morning; nano-sized pieces of slop fell out (about an egg cup full) the ginger beast fell on it and devoured it in five seconds - well, fifty cents gone then.
So, Bronzino, let's see what was in your delectable sludge, shall we.
(Cat holds up packet).
Colin à la Florentine.
Not Colin of Bracknall done in the sauce of a Florentine resident, I hasten to add: Colin being Hake, and Florentine . . . err, isn't this normally a chocolate coated, nutty fruity biscuit. Oh, I see, à la Florentine, in the way a Florentine would cook Colin/Hake (if they did) and spinach and carrots.
Anyway . . . what is actually in this:
Meat and by-products of meat, fish and by-products of fish (Hake being 4%) Protein of vegetables (of which spinach and carrots 4%) a lot of water presumably and a whole list of other scientific sounding stuff.
To break it down more: 14% protein, humid constituents (translating from French here) wet stuff (not greasy conservative representatives) 79%, 2.5 %fat, 2.2% ash, .05% cellulose. Mmmm. So, mostly grease, water, and 14% protein.
Kicked the cat out in the direction of the shed with a photo of a mouse.

So, supermarket 'GPS' system. (I don't know what it's actually called.)
This has to be the most pathetic invention to date.
I was watching Telematin yesterday and on came the guy who does the occasional feature on the Latest Technology.
SOMEBODY has come up with a sort of half-pair of glasses that you don when entering the supermarket. Somehow, the mini-computer inside them knows (I missed this vital bit) that you are searching for condoms, and then shows you by a series of arrows on the lens where to go. So you walk robotically for the section and then it tells you what to do with them, what size, etc and then you nod your head like a slow motion chicken and it buys them for you.
Fab: next stop, ravioli - compare the makes, the cooking time, recipe suggestions, nod, bought.
Supposing you sneeze while passing the chain saw section, or the most expensive wine aisle - bottle of 1968 Chateauneuf du Pape - bought, only 328 euros.
The woman in the feature duly went around nodding like one of those car back window dogs, and then went out to load up her vehicle, thus negating all that tedious talking to people, using your instincts as to where they have moved the tomato paste and queueing, where you can idly look into other people's trolleys and wonder what they are going to do with twenty-three baguettes and a bottle of carpet cleaner.
The idea is being developed in Holland, where apparently they are spending millions on it. Useful.

Napping

What is this weather?
I suppose an awful lot of people are saying this as they look out at horizontal rain, hail, and birds trying to build nests in trees bent over from gale-force winds.
We have a garden: I know this, but I haven't actually stepped foot in it for days. The thought of struggling rose heads and flattened lavender is too much. I have cleared the in-tray, investigated the top of the kitchen cupboard and cleaned out a cupboard, made phone calls and got round to jobs that are well at the bottom of any list I have ever written. We have also napped.

Here is our cat, Bronzino, king of napping, hugger of his own legs. The total bliss a cat radiates while asleep: you can prod him and he will stretch out purring, a smile on his face then curl up again into a fury snail shape.
Napping is only a speeded up version of hibernation. I know this as when coming out of a particularly good siesta, the sleep pulls you back: look out there, it's pissing down, the wind is knife-like, why would anyone go out there unless they had to? Why don't you just close your eyes again, pull the covers up, call out for another hot water bottle from anyone left in the house who is not already under the influence of warm sleep waves.
The best naps are after physical work outside: mowing someone's lawn, cutting wood, a long, vile, worthy walk in screaming wind. The fire must be lit so that one does not sink into depression at the thought of cover removal and stepping into a frigid room.
Take a dog: preferably a small hot water bottle-size, non-smelly one; lie on sofa, put dog in crook of knees or close to chest and drift off, preferably to the sounds of someone making a delicious cake for you when you wake up.
Almost there - into the sleep world . . . the wind is now howling; God it must be nasty out there . . . not on this sofa though, even though it's full of crumbs and cat hair; it must be the most comfortable place on this planet just now: me and dog on red sofa, in house, on tiny patch of earth in small French town, South of France, European land mass, world, universe . . .