Category: night

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Bleuuurrrgggh

Hey ho, switched on the computer and it took me four attempts to realise that the reason it wasn’t accepting my password was because the caps lock was on. When it occurred to me, I thought: ‘surely there’s usually a message to tell you that’ and then saw that there was one but I hadn’t noticed it. It hadn’t been switched off properly, so when I got on it went straight to Facebook and I started scrolling through that, ‘loving’ friends’ pictures of their cats and laughing at cartoons.

I’ve been to Sainsbury’s already this morning to find that they didn’t have any of the usual cat food (trust me, it’s not worth buying any other kind), and, more seriously that they didn’t have any Marmite. I asked a young man who was restocking the bakery shelves, and he showed me where it should be and said ‘it’s in short supply everywhere isn’t it?’ Is it? I didn’t know, and I’ve completely run out. ‘You could try one of the larger stores, or’ and he lowered his voice confidentially and pointed across the road: ‘Tesco’s!’

I will return to Tesco, but I wasn’t about to go over there with my three bags of shopping from Sainsbury’s, so I came home.

I had a bad night last night – they’re never good, but this was particularly bad, and I don’t know why. I tried listening to two programmes I’d downloaded, and they were both pretty depressing, one the fifth episode of a series, and I’m not sure if it’s the last or just the last I’ve downloaded, and the other the start of the second series of something else. They were oddly similar, both about feisty women in history, one being Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the other a fictional Icelandic woman from some period in history, which come to think of it could be about the same. The actresses sounded very similar, both with Northern English accents (in Eleanor’s case, presumably to emphasise her provincial back ground) – I suppose it could even have been the same actress, but I haven’t checked. I’m not sure I want to listen to any more of either of them, not even in the early hours – as I said, they were both very depressing, although Eleanor was the less sympathetic of the two.

Although I’ve lived with this insomnia all my life, so that it’s part of my life, I still keep wondering if there is any better way of dealing with it. I lay there doing my downwards-counting in my head, and thought: well, soon it should be warm enough to be worth getting up and sitting in another room when I can’t sleep, even though it’s never helped when I’ve tried it before. But I feel so tired when I’m lying there, I don’t have the energy to get out of bed – and that of course carries over to the morning as well, I never want to get up, but I also hate lying awake.

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Sleeping (or not)

Today I think I will plan on doing nothing – which is not the same as not planning to do anything, which is what I usually do. If it’s warm enough, I will sit in the garden – not sure about that at present, earlier it seemed nice and sunny, but has clouded over again. Yesterday I was cold most of the day – my therapist even commented on it, as she sat in her house on the Isle of Wight in a sleeveless summer top, and I huddled inside my cardigan in my living room. By the bay window, which is west facing, it can get warm in the afternoons, but the light is too bright for a good Skype picture, so I do it sitting on the sofa by the fireplace, at the opposite end of the room.

It’s not freezing cold, obviously, just a subtle discomfort – for example, since I sat down to write this, I’ve taken my cardi off once and just put it back on again. Also when talking (or thinking) about deep emotional stuff, it’s comforting to pull those two sides over at the front, like wrapping myself in a blanket. Maybe that’s why I prefer cardis to pullovers, or maybe it’s just for the convenience of taking them off and on.

Normally I’d say I’m quite insensitive to changes in temperature (or noise, light and other external conditions, but that’s a topic for another day), but this week I’ve been noticing it more than usual, and I’ve started wondering if it’s related to tiredness. I’ve noticed myself a couple of times almost dozing off in the day time, and always in the evening. I also got restless legs syndrome yesterday for the first time in ages.

I try not to get obsessed about sleep (or lack of it) but this morning I thought I’d check my sleep app, which confirmed that I’ve been waking up at half past four every morning (except Wednesday, when I slept in till quarter past five), and not properly getting to sleep till gone midnight. Long term, I know it’s not good for my energy levels, or my moods. I’ve stopped actively ‘watching’ telly after ten in the evening, but I listen to music through it, and wonder if that’s just as bad. In theory, my bedtime is eleven, but I get engrossed in crocheting and keep staying up to hear the next song.

My relationship with sleep has been messed up for most of my life, as you may already know if you’ve known me a long time. It is what it is, and worrying about it doesn’t help.

This morning I listened to the last three episodes of a serial that’s been downloaded on my phone for a long while. Sometimes listening to the radio sends me back to sleep, but not this time.

I need to call the garage today as they haven’t got back to me about the van. Otherwise, I think I’ll have a quiet day.

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Happy Days (Part 2)

In some ways these last few days have been quite idyllic. Wake up in sunshine, morning routine, breakfast in the garden – with su doku – blends effortlessly into sitting in the garden and crocheting, which blends into an afternoon of listening to the radio and crocheting, preparing dinner, eating dinner (sometimes in the garden), and watching telly for a couple of hours and crocheting, then listening to music and crocheting till it’s time for bed. Okay, yesterday I went to the shop, but that’s become more of a regular variation on the routine, rather than a major disruption.

These are the kind of summer days it’s easy to fantasise about in the winter, or on any cold, rainy or generally stressful days at any time of year, so I’m deliberately appreciating them and not taking them for granted.

The obsession with crochet could, of course, be something else, like reading, writing, su doku, gardening, cooking, weaving, cross-stitching, tapestry, jigsaws, drawing, painting, decorating, tidying… Why don’t I pour my heart and soul into any of those? It can be done, but at the moment I don’t feel drawn in any of those directions.

Is it because I find it easy? But that’s just practice. It doesn’t always work out. I’ve learnt to let it go, pull it down and try again, put it on one side and try something else, or shove it to the back of the cupboard and forget about it.

I guess that’s what I do with my writing as well – shove it to the back of the electronic cupboard and forget about it. And this morning it’s not working at all. The words don’t want to come. I am looking at specks of dust on my computer, looking out the window at the street (which still seems remarkably empty). Wandering round my head to see if I can pick up any scraps of thought that might be worth recording.

Emptying your head of thoughts is not a bad thing – I spend ten minutes every morning trying to do just that.

I’ve just remembered a moment from last night, just before midnight. I’d been sitting up too late crocheting and listening to music, and when I went into the kitchen, I remembered I’d left the door open for Miko, and she was still outside, so I stepped out into the garden. Despite the neighbours’ fairy lights and the still-illuminated windows, there was mystery out there, no moon (it’s too new) but a few stars in the stillness of the night air. I called her name, and heard her scraping the gravel before I saw her. It could have been any animal sound, but she came to me and jumped up into the patch of light on the steps and ran into the house. I thought of owls (though I hear none here in the town) and night and summer, and the cool air and the mysterious life of cats, and thought about a poem but it didn’t come.