Blog 19 – Sleep

“To sleep, perchance to dream…”

We all know the quote from Hamlet but for me sleep is something I hate. I loathe it. I suppose, to be fair, it’s not actually sleep I hate, it’s getting to sleep.

For someone who does need about 8 hours of sleep so I don’t feel super rough, I hate the fact that I struggle so much getting off to sleep. I find it all terribly frustrating, I can’t get comfortable, I don’t feel tired, it’s too hot, too cold bla bla. A couple of nights ago I had a really rough night and got about 5 hours sleep from about 8am to 1om, the next night I had about 11 hours, the night after that was about 6 hours on and off.

Frustrating! I go through phases where sleep seems okay and I don’t have many problems, then there are phases like this.

If only we had a switch we could flick on an 8 hour timer. Mmm that’d be nice.

The 3am Idea!

As I said in last night’s entry, I was going to find and type up the passage I had been looking for in one of my books.

The book in question is the Grumpy Old Men Handbook, written my Stuart Prebble. It’s a book I’ve read more than once and never tire of its truths and observations.

I did attempt to search last night but I was so tired I think I started hallucinating and I could’ve sworn Kate Beckinsale was fanning me with peacock feathers as I lay, flicking through the pages while dressed in a toga. I’m no longer sleepy, I’ve skimmed through the book and I have found the aforementioned passage. So without further ado, I bring you the wise words of Stuart Prebble:

“No, the problem with the World Service arises if you wake up at 3 a.m., which I not infrequently do, and turn on the radio to help you stop thinking about all the things that will inevitably make you depressed at that time of the morning. Depression comes all too easily then. So much so that I’ve now had to make it a personal life rule to remember that anything I think at three in the morning must be bo***cks, merely by virtue of the fact that it’s three in the morning.

This is a digression, but it lays the foundation for the typical day in the life of a grumpy.