Bad O'Clock in the morning...

Sometimes sleep comes like a bolt from the blue, you are awake without a care in the world, the evening panning out much like you might have predicted  and then you are overwhelmed by an express train of tiredness, with you eye lids growing so heavy so quickly that you barely make it up the stairs and into bed before sleep overcomes you (you did clean your teeth I hope - dental hygienist ed),

Now, this all sounds vaguely interesting (nope - ed), but I haven't got to the point of this yet, so for once you are a little ahead of yourself Mr. Ed, so hold you horses while I write.

The problem, isn't getting to sleep, that appears to be as easy as one, two, snore; it is for me at the moment twofold, firstly staying asleep and secondly not remembering my dreams. Of, late, I have found both of these two in an unpleasant duet whirling around me as I am cosily snuggled up in bed.

Waking from very vivid, technicolour, tiring, exhausting, busy, endlessly active dreams and then to being too tired to go back to sleep (too tired to sleep? - ed)

So here I am, at bad o'clock in the morning doing a brain dump of my current mental state, to try and get back into the right state to go back to sleep.

Now, on the sleep hygiene front (strange term, but means the use of best practice techniques to get you off to sleep and keep you there until morning - medical ed). Using a computer is bad, well, not quite as bad playing computer games before bed, as all that colour and noise (in the games that he plays - entertainments ed) is more likely to enliven the mind than calm it. But I believe, emptying the mind of the detritus that the latest dream has just flung up and getting back to a calmer state by dumping the thoughts on to a post does seem like a useful action, certainly for me at this moment, at this bad o'clock time.

So, that leaves me with glasses on and in my favourite warm towelling dressing gown, sitting at the table in the dining room (sounds so grand - housing ed) typiing away. The room smells of white spirit still, well it is the room that the oil painting is done in, and the last painting is still on the easel slowly attempting to dry. The palette covered with a piece of cling film, as that does a good job of (a) keeping the blobs of oil paints from drying out too quickly and (b) stops the cats from getting various parts of their anatomy covered in oil paint, as they are such investigative creatures (that'll be the curiosity in their genes - zoology ed).

The blue LED of the big computer, rather than the laptop that I am currently using, is blinking at me, this tells me that it, at least, is asleep. As for me, just too wound up for the moment to sleep. Bad o'clock in the morning, seems to be continuing.The Faithless song, "I can't get no sleep", is starting to intrude on my consciousness, which is definitely not a good thing, as it means that my mind is starting to wake up. Currently my head is feeling like a big empy Cathedral; roomy, quiet, cold and with the potential of a lot of echoes, should someone make a noise.

I guess I could go back to bed and start counting sheep. Have tried that, but the little bleeders just look at me and say, "You want to jump that fence, do it yourself, baaaaa maaaare", which you have to admit isn't quite what you want when you are trying to numb your brain to sleep.

Strange thing is, it is generally not the getting off to sleep that is the problem. It is staying asleep once I get there (you don't actually go anywhere, you just twitch and snore on either one or the other side of your body, maybe with the occasional drool emanating from the side of your mouth - nightwatchman ed). 

So, have I got enough of the detritus out of my head to allow me to mooch back and snuggle up back in bed. Hmm, not sure, let me give it another few minutes and see if the drowsiness moves back into my brain, like an Autumn fog, slowly covering the mental landscape, muffling the noises and sapping the colours of my waking mind and transporting me back to the Land of Nod.

Aha, ten past bad o'clock and still here. Seems a wind has blown up a notch or two and cleared the mental fog so keeping me awake. Luckily for me I suppose, is that this morning is Saturday, and this is the time that would be called, "Having a good night out", if I hadn't been to bed at all. However, that not being the case, it is 12 minutes past bad o'clock and all is not at all well.

So, where do I go from here. On a positive note (really - ed), at least there is the possibility of having a bit of a lie in once I do get back to sleep, after this somewhat irritatingly disrupted time. Wish it were as easy as that, but unfortunately, the lie-in cannot be any later than around 09:50, as the car is in a public car park and is only paid up until 10:00am, simply ran out of change to put it on any longer than that.  For your information, we have no parking outside of the house (Victorian cottage on a narrow lane - housing ed) and so will need more money to be put into the ticket machine and the resultant ticket perched on the dashboard at the regulation height and distance, for the car to be allowed to stay where it is, otherwise, there will be blood, no, not blood just consequences (the traffic warden will come by and put a really expensive ticket on the windscreen - traffic ed).

(How is the brain now - medical ed), well definitely at the more tired than awake stage, might be best to finish this and slide back into bed and see if closing the eyes is fruitful (Sorry? What has fruit to do with sleep? - ed)

So, it is now just past half past bad o'clock in the morning and I am off to bed. I wonder if one of the cats has been kind enough to keep my side of the bed warm. (We must be told - investigative ed). If I remember I will let you know in tomorrow's (today's - ed) next installment. Good night, and I really mean that.