Insomnia Part 2

Ok, it may not be insomnia, but I simply cannot sleep. Take all of these factors into account and try and work out if you could either.

Firstly, the curse of the night-shift worker means that I cannot even attempt to get to sleep until 5am at the earliest. 5am was the time I wrote my last blog entry. I can never get to sleep for an hour at the best of times as my brain does it's usual things of playing life scenarios over in my head and gets me thinking about things. Take tonight for example, I thought about what it would feel like to be in an armed robbery, (which may well become reality soon with the nature of this job!), what it feels like to be in a plane crash, what it feels like to be friends with Bin Laden and what would happen if I got charged with the manslaughter of my best friend who went on a murderous rampage against my family, (Dont ask). That's not a joke either. I genuinely came up with that in my head and thought about it all. You can tell I'm not a cheerful fellow! So... 6am... I feel a little tired but I can hear the owls hooting and my brain still wants to think... stop thinking... please just sleep. You'll regret it..

Secondly, 6:30am.. The problem with this time is that around this time of the year, the Sun is up and it is as bright as it is in the daytime. Now, I've mentioned my new blackout curtains before, however, they are slightly too small so when the Sun does come up, a beam of sunlight breaks through leaving my room with a thin strip of light going straight through me and my eyes. How can a lad get to sleep with a beam of light across his eyes..? It's impossible.

Thirdly, it's around 6:45 to 7am now, and this is the time Father usually awakes to embark on another day at work, working normal hours like a normal person. However, the house, probably built in the Roman times, creaks like a 300 year old Mummified Egyptian so whenever my Dad walks on an uneasy floorboard, (which is pretty much all of them in this house built of polystyrene), the noise eminating from it resembles that of a stressed out cow and is enough to cause a medium-sized tremor across the town of Bedford. Aswell as this, the pipes in this house, (consequently also made created by Julius Ceasar's army), seem as if there are tiny men trapped in them who are trying to kick their way out. There are always little clicks, squeaks and knocks that after a while of noticing them just get on your nerves. It is a form of torture.

Fourthly, both sets of next door neighbours have dogs that seemingly awake at 7am as they bark constantly until they get their dose of Whiskas or whatever the dog equivalent is, Pedigree I think it's called. One of the dogs doesn't bark too loudly and I can just about put up with, but when the 2nd one joins in, it sounds like a rat being exterminated with a screwdriver. Mix the two together and any sane person becomes suicidal, let alone an 18 year old insomniac night-shift worker laying in bed as wide awake as he was 7 hours ago..

And finally, fifthly, (yep, I'm not joking), everyone in this house decided they were going to go to the toilet, drop multiple pans and metal bottles, talk at their normal volume and generally act as if it was the middle of the day. Now, come on, if this was you - with a night-shift sleeping pattern, curtains that's sole job is to block out sunlight, letting more sunlight in, a house made out of those squeaky toys that 3 year olds play with, pipes with dwarfs trying to rampage themselves out of, neighbours with pet monsters and a family that creates their very own circus at 7 in the morning, would you really be able to sleep? Exactly.

So I've decided. What's the point? The Sun is up, I'm angry now that I haven't got to sleep and I can feel the adrenaline inside me as I get more annoyed and these bloody curtains aren't big enough! What a joke! The whole thing is just a joke! I'm not getting to sleep now because if I do I will miss another cricket net session that I really do want to go to. Otherwise, come the start of the season I'd have no practice and bat like a kid with no arms. Or Geoffrey Boycott. Your choice. However, I probably will end up batting like a kid with no arms because I'd be half-asleep after being kept up all night by this house with a mind of it's own and next door's bears. I've decided I want to move to Greece. Now, I will think about what it feels like to live abroad for another half hour..

I've spent most of the last couple of days being annoyed about one thing or the other. Slowly becoming more depressed and angry over trivial things. Ever since I started work... I was depressed when I had my old job, then I slowly became more happy when I was out of work and now I am back in work... I am turning back to my old ways... Interesting... Jesus Christ! A giant just tried to kick it's way out of a pipe! That's the last straw! I'm going to explain to Mother Mitten. This just isn't good enough.

And Chris, the reason why I couldn't bat at nets this afternoon, (which as I'm typing this, hasn't happened yet), is because of this very reason. Giants in the pipes and neighbour's pet elephants.

Laters x