Monday 6 December 2010

The benefits of insomnia

Last night I woke at 3am, for no apparent reason.
It follows one solid night's sleep, and a previous four nights with similar rude and irrationally early awakenings.

It isn't very dark in our bedroom: the streetlamp casts a glow which reflects off the snow giving a general feeling of light. That doesn't help with getting back to sleep.

But now I've discovered the benefit to being awake. The Ashes Test Match. Clearly this won't work the-night-after-next, when the Adelaide match is finished, but it is an excellent way to use up time (and yes, some would say, to fall asleep again...)

My scheme now is to creep out of bed (don't want to disturb husband who actually has to save children's lives at work in the morning!) and to check the score on the BBC website. Then I turn down the sound on the computer and switch on the TMS commentary. I then gradually increase the volume again until it is just audible ... and then a bit more to be able to be heard from the bed (about 4m away, with door open). Then I can snuggle back into bed and hear England (a) pile on the runs or (b) take crucial wickets.

I'm not sure this really helps come 6.30am when the alarm goes off, but for those awful moments in the middle of the night when sleep eludes me I get great joy from the TMS commentators ... particularly when the Australians are struggling to think of anything positive to say about their own team!

And in the morning I can bounce into my son's bedroom, full of beans, calling on him to wake up, get up, time for breakfast, got to go to school (all said in one breath with Mary Poppins -like enthusiasm) and then cheer him up with the end of play score. Oddly enough he never seems quite so happy about hearing it at that point.

Still, at least at the moment the news tends to be good for us England supporters. What on earth will we do when Australia get their mojo back? I might have to resort to sleeping again!

3 comments:

Muddling Along said...

I love TMS - its nice to have something interesting to listen to when my smalls won't sleep (we've had the tummy bug doing the rounds) - strangely Littler seems to find it very calming

The bike shed said...

I like the nights when I can't sleep - I can read and read. Its the getting up bit that is hard

Catharine Withenay said...

MaM: I think TMS is quintessentially English and even on cold winter nights it seems to evoke long, hot, sunny summer days. Inexplicable, now I put that down in print!

Mark: I do the reading before going to sleep. I'm always a little afraid of waking OH up if I put the light on in the middle of the night ... although, to be fair, bombs, earthquakes and lightning bolts would be unlikely to shift him!

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