Perchance To Dream

After a busy day of doing 'jobs', come five o'clock, we can be found slumped on the sofa watching 'A Place in the Sun', 'A New Life in the Sun', 'Help! We Bought a Village' or some other programme based on property renovation Anna, my wife, wants to watch.

Usually around property number two Anna will 'get more comfy' and assume the horizontal position putting her feet on my lap. Before property number three she will 'rest one eye', and stare at the telly like Popeye...shortly followed by the other. Convinced she has reached DEFCON 2 level of sleep or the nasal whistling has begun, I will reach for the remote control and have a flick... “I was watching that!”, “You were asleep”, “No I wasn't”, etc. 

This also happens on long car journeys, sometimes when she is driving! I'm chastised for not being able to sleep in the passenger seat when she is driving, “well someone's got to stay awake!” Having written off the car (by wrapping it around a tree when falling asleep at the wheel) near Saussay Vaussais, she knows she cannot win this one.

Gone are the days of a good night's sleep. When we climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire we will get into the same bed, but rarely do we wake in the same. Someone will be snoring, had a bad dream, was too hot, too cold, the cat was sleeping on their head, a fly was in the room, felt an earthquake, etc... and abandon ship to the spare room.

If I can't sleep I read. If Anna reads she will fall asleep; she has been reading the same book since 2015. 

“I had the most exhausting dream, last night” are usually her first words in the morning, followed by a blow by blow account of all the twists and turns. With plot lines more confusing than a Dickens' novel and a cast of thousands (usually people from our collage days or my mother), she is always the victim and I the villain. 

If it is not the dream she will list the various parts of her body which were causing her pain through the night and preventing her from sleep. I will be woken by the rustling of silver foil as she pops a couple of paracetamol from their wrappers, followed by swearing as she knocks her glass of water over. A menthol balm stick (similar to a Pritt stick) is always close at hand, which she smears across her forehead to ease headaches. A blue mat (I don't think the colour is important) can be chilled in the fridge and then slept on when all else fails. 

I am not without blame and my constant trudging to the toilet throughout the night must be extremely annoying. Unlike Anna I cannot see in the dark. But not wanting to put the light on will stagger in what I think is the direction of the door waving my arms in front of me, often crashing into the wardrobe en route. 

I am an early bird, she a slow starter. I start my day at 6.45 each morning and can often be told to “stop singing!” by Anna who is trying to have a lie in. Getting dressed in the dark means I later discover my jumper is inside out or my pants back to front. Another down side is I'm ready for my bed at nine in the evening. 

When I am hot, she is cold. I'm wrapped in several blankets and duvets and basting in my own juices like a nuclear reactor, she will be opening the window, clicking the fan on and huffing and puffing like a good 'un. 

Apparently Voltaire drank 40 cups of coffee a day and slept for four hours a night, not wishing to compare myself to the great man, as I struggle to think how to finish this month's article in my sleep deprived state, I will go to the kitchen and pour myself another cup of jitter juice.