That was a dark night - and I'm not talking about Batman

Niah Caves

Lately the gloomy weather has been leading to some very dark nights. It’s not normally a problem if I wake up in the night – given that our house is mainly glass I can generally see very well. Enough to know there are no monsters under the bed and enough to see my way around without disturbing Rob or standing on a cat. Not so at the moment

Spiders are only poisonous if you eat them

The offending camel stool

The same is true of snakes and indeed frogs. Animals are considered poisonous if they make you ill when you eat them. If the animal inflicts its poison via a sting or bite then it is in fact venomous. These are the things you learn if you have insomnia (actually that’s not strictly true as I guess I would have read the fact even if I was reading in the daytime) but it makes a good opening. Another thing you learn when you cannot sleep is that cleaning your house can result in serious injury. As you’ll know, I cleaned my house on Sunday and, as is my wont, I rearranged the furniture and, I might add, was very pleased with the results. Until last night.

            I’m currently having the type of insomnia that I call medium-bad. I fall asleep very well and get at least the two hours necessary for life to function correctly the next day. I then wake up. I don’t mind this kind of non-sleeping too much, I feel safe in the knowledge that I can drive relatively safely on two hours sleep but there are still down-sides to it. Probably the worst is that feeling when it approaches 4am and you know that if you leave it much longer to return to sleep you’ll actually feel worse in the morning. I have been known on summer nights to forget sleep altogether at this point and paint my nails instead.

            Last night I woke at 2:40 after a traumatic dream and (once my palpitations had subsided and my heart removed itself from my throat returning to somewhere nearer the middle of my chest) felt the immediate need to continue my latest read (see what I’m currently reading for details of this). It’s a large, hardback natural history book with lots of colour photos so it’s not the easiest thing to read quietly (as in without disturbing Rob – whose only brush with insomnia is having a wife that doesn’t sleep and even that doesn’t seem to bother him too much, usually) so I decided to take my book and read it on the settee, by torchlight.

            I do the torch thing for two reasons, firstly our house is open plan and using a light would still wake Rob no matter where I was in the house. Secondly I find that if I read by torch in a dark environment it aids sleep – it kind of dulls your senses to anything other than the book and the brightness of the page within the dark surrounds also has a hypnotic effect. Last night I needed only around 60 minutes reading and my eyes were getting heavy again. The downside to my bright light in a darkened room scenario is that your pupils are really contracted so, when you turn out the light, you are effectively blind for some minutes after (the effect of this is even more pronounced if you try to pluck your eyebrows using a spotlight and a magnifying mirror in an otherwise pitch black house). I always turn out the torch whilst still on the settee as I know the layout of my house very well and can return to bed, in silence, without the use of any lighting (and hence preserving Rob’s restful sleep). Until I decide to rearrange the furniture.

            Last night I managed to crash (shin and ankle) into the camel stool which I had repositioned on Sunday. This is just below the bedroom mezzanine – not only did the stool fly across the floor (rather noisily) but I fell to the floor, clasping my hand over my mouth and fighting the pain, in silence (in the vain hope that Rob would remain asleep). There was a moment of stillness where I tried to determine whether I could still walk – given that my toes had gone numb in pain – and then Rob mumbled sleepily,

            ‘I felt that.’

Which of course strictly speaking – he didn’t.

I get great joy from knowing that I can count to 1023 on my fingers...

But it doesn’t help you sleep – not at all. Now for those of you who are not familiar with electronic language or binary you may be tempted to stop reading here but please don’t. Even my sister (who doesn’t grasp consternation although she can use the word paronomasia in a meaningful sentence) can count in binary and understands the joys of 1023 on ten fingers. As a tool against insomnia you first have to recognise that each digit (thumbs included) represents 1 if it is up and 0 if it down, next you work from right thumb through to left little finger, so you’re viewing the numbers as if they were printed in a book.

            Starting with all your digits down on zero, you raise you’re right thumb for one and then lower it whilst simultaneously raising your right index finger – this is now two.  Then you raise your right thumb and add it to the index finger – making three (this is because we're working in base two remember). For four you lower your thumb and index finger and raise your middle finger – on paper this would be 100 (or four in binary). There are loads of videos to help on You Tube but this is the best I found.  I keep setting myself challenges in the hope that eventually I’ll answer every possible question and then fall asleep.

Now Thursday night last week was a particularly long although beautiful night, when I wasn’t counting binary I was star gazing (and the Anglesey sky is great for that job). In a desperate attempt at sleep I decided to see how far I could count if my toes were as flexible as my fingers – thus giving me twenty digits to play with. I kept getting tired around the third toe in and making mistakes, the answer – if you have all preceding digits raised at this point –  is 8191 but my sleepy counting is not so good. If you make a mistake you have to go back to zero. Luckily you feel tired by this stage and finally drift away – unless of course you’re in Anglesey and you know the stars outside the window are fabulous – then you just wake right up again… still when you tire of stargazing you can always count… actually perhaps counting sheep is better.

Now here’s a brilliant little recipe if you’re pressed for time, you only need three things from the shops and you may just have some of those in already and then you’re good to go. There’s no way you can get a take-out any quicker than you can make this little beauty. I first made this heaps of years ago – before I travelled in fact – so I don’t know where I got it or if I’ve altered it at all but if you want to have a good search through Good Food Magazine archives I would guess I got it there.

Hot Smoked Salmon with Honey Mustard Dressing

Ingredients:

Smoked Salmon (about 100g per person)

New Potatoes

Green Beans

Honey

Mustard (I use a mix of Dijon and wholegrain but use what you like)

Juice of a lemon or sherry vinegar (optional)

Olive Oil

Here’s What I Do:

Put the potatoes on to boil (halving them if they’re large) and top and tail the beans then halve the long ones. In a dish mix together your dressing ingredients – for the two of us I used a teaspoon of each mustard, the juice of a lemon (it makes the dressing looser and gives it a tang), a bit more than a teaspoon of honey and then a generous amount of olive oil. You really have to keep tasting it until you think it’s to your liking. 

When the potatoes are just getting tender add the beans and drain after a few minutes (they should still have crunch). Meanwhile begin to fry the salmon in a bit of olive oil; you’ll need to do it in batches but you’re not cooking it – just making it hot and brown in places. Pile the beans and potatoes in the centre of your plate then top with the hot salmon, the dressing and some parsley if you have some knocking about.

            Infinitely better than take-out.

I don't normally do bad things but...

Yesterday was one of the exceptions. We were on the road for seven and a half hours, driving through torrential rain, broiling clouds, mist and sunshine – it was one of those days when your sunglasses were on and off more times than a Guide’s nightie (or is that a bride's nightie?). We drove through Welsh mountains, Hereford hills and lastly the Wye Valley before we made our way across the Severn and landed up in Exeter and our first experience of a Jury’s Inn.

            The journey was a dream for anyone who identifies themselves as tea and cakes aficionados. The whole distance (A5, A49 and then A466) was punctuated by tearooms with almost clockwork regularity – rather like those lame horror films that you used to watch in the nineties – the ones where you knew someone was about to die because a further 12 minutes and 16 seconds had just elapsed (watch Halloween 5 if you don’t know what I mean). We had cheese on toast and filter coffees in a walkers’ café near Capel Curig before descending into a rainy Betws-y-Coed, staring wistfully at the beautiful shops and resisting the urge to park up and have an early cream-tea. If you love days out with views, tea-rooms and every possible variation of outdoors’ shops then follow this route. There’s no point me recommending any one café over another – just stop when you cannot bare the thirst anymore and make sure you have a cream-tea or maybe some of that Welsh cake.

We stopped in Leominster for our afternoon stop but if you haven’t been along this route before then I would suggest you stop in Hereford and make sure you visit the Cathedral and the Hereford Mappa Mundi. It’s expensive but one of the most breath-taking sights in England. If we hadn’t been in rather a hurry to get to Exeter I would have paid the fee to go and see it again. The anticipation of the sight is as wondrous as the map itself. A corridor of history around the map, punctuated with detailed translations of the various parts of the world as it was understood at the time. Detailed annotations such as ‘There be monsters…’ how I would have loved to have been able to explore this World – the one where it was believed that Heaven and Hell were integral parts of our Earth along with seas and lands full of ogres.

Finally you enter an ante-room and already the temperature has dropped, in this room your eyes adjust to the dulled lights and you await the slow sweep of the vast glass doors as you are at last allowed into the map room itself and stand in front of this splendid relic from our past. If you want to read more about it before you visit you could click here.

Drinking a beer in the bar at our hotel whilst ruminating over where to eat – we decided against the hotel menu of overpriced mediocre food with very expensive (and no doubt ordinary) wines, opting instead for more reasonably priced mediocre food and less expensive (but still rather ordinary) wine at Café Rouge – we worried for a moment or two whether this was going to be the best venue for sleep, given the abundance of men in various states of fancy dress and women dressed in very small dresses and precarious heels. This was Saturday night in Exeter in summer and Jury’s Inn seemed to be the place to stay for stag and hen dos.

Still we had a pleasant evening at Café Rouge, a gentle stroll around the Cathedral and returned to our comfortable beds having forgotten our fears and I drifted easily into sleep. Anyone who has suffered insomnia will know how special this kind of sleep is and how badly you react to being woken from it at 03:28 by inconsiderate groups of revellers who proceed to continue their party in the room next to yours. And continue it until some time around 5am. I am not normally murderous but everyone has limits.

I consoled myself with the fact that I would get my revenge in the morning and finally drifted back to sleep when the party people quietened just as it was starting to get light.

As I said, I do not normally do bad things so I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the revellers who were taking some well needed sleep this morning. It was me who gave you those wake-up calls between 07:30 and 07:45 – I know you didn’t actually book them but it was a lovely morning and it was a shame for you to miss it. Hmmm, it was also me who hung the ‘Please Make-Up This Room’ sign on your door – sadly I had to go to a Baptism this morning so I wasn’t around to see that bit of fun.

I am on holiday for one more day but will be posting recipes here soon.

Game Two - Things you only know if you work from home.

Let’s start with the buttons at the bottom of the page – the ones that ask you what you think of my blog. Well, to be honest ‘cool’ (one of yesterday’s options) is not a word I would use – these were the buttons foisted upon me by the powers that be at Blogger. Now, a day wiser in the blogging field, and I realise I can change these options. Please note the new option ‘zeitgeist’ far more one of my words and also topical – fellow insomniacs could try using it at the end of an alphabet sentence – certainly more interesting than zoo and zebra.

            Regarding the alphabet sentence game – please don’t feel that you should miss out if you are lucky enough to sleep well each night – post your sentence even if in truth you wrote it through the day – I look forward to reading a wide selection.

            So, things you only know if you work from home or are retired (and happen to be at home rather than in Spain or lunching in Harrods) – firstly you know when a fox is eating your chickens. This is a good thing – last time a fox decided to eat my chickens I was at work. It was a gloriously sunny day and I’d cycled to work then taken an extra-long route home in order to benefit from the sunshine – only to be treated on my return to the site of feathers and corpses decorating my lane and driveway. That day I jumped off my bike, picked up the nearest corpse and, cradling it like a baby, sat at the top of my drive and cried. I had half hoped someone would find me and comfort me but, living in the middle of nowhere, this was unlikely. Anyway, yesterday I was working from home so was instantly aware of the fox from the din my hens were making.

            This was rather like one of the scenes from a horror movie – my chickens kicked off a good ten minutes before the fox appeared in full – it must have been lurking in the long grass or the bushes, tormenting them and me. I kept going out, wandering round my house, trying to calm my chickies and put said fox off its intended lunch. You end up in a state of limbo – every time you sit back at your desk you hear the chickens and cockerel crowing with fear and you jump up again – not sure whether to continue typing or go and have another futile look.

            About ten minutes into this game the stakes changed – now my chickens were running. I dashed onto my verandah only to catch sight of the fox sprinting past me intent on catching one of my babies. I did my usual fox prevention act – which normally works a treat – standing on my verandah screaming and shouting obscenities (not sure if the fox understands but they make me feel better) and flapping my hands noisily. My throat hurts afterwards but – until yesterday – it has always worked. This time it did not.

            The fox continued in its pursuit managing to grab one of my young Marans by the tail. I ran across the grass until I was maybe two metres from the fox who was still trying to de-feather my friend. I had only one option – I threw my car keys (for I was actually due to leave the house), managing to hit it on the head. (From a health and safety point of view I should point out that this is not a recommended deterrent – especially when the fox is in long grass standing next to a stream though on this occasion the fox did scarper and my keys were located quickly and unharmed.)

            On a lighter note, the second thing you only know if you work from home is how nice your bin-men are. Mine are lovely and they really brightened my post-lunch reverie.

            Lastly, I thought I would close by telling you about last-night’s sleep-inducing game, reminded to me by my youngest sister but I fear I have written enough for one day. So, a taster for tomorrow – I shall begin with binary and no, it does not help you sleep.

Game One - What I thought about when I wasn't sleeping

Suffice it to say that the path to recovery from insomnia is a difficult one. Currently I tend to sleep well for five to seven days before I have another sleepless night. There appear to be two kinds of sleepless night – the kind where you fall asleep and then wake – wide awake – and the kind where you just cannot fall asleep in the first place. Last night was of the latter variety.

            I have read all the self-help books and I know for sure that writing a blog about my sleeplessness is probably enough to perpetuate the problem as I will be reaffirming my insomniac behaviour rather than trying to think around it; indeed by discussing my sleeplessness I may well deny myself good quality sleep for months. That said, as I lay awake last night thinking of my current venture into writing and understanding (with a clarity never afforded to me during the working day) that I need to start a blog if I am to be successful I found myself in the curious position of not wanting to fall asleep for fear of forgetting anything.

            All the books on creativity tell me I should keep a pad and pencil by my bed for just such occasion. I, on the other hand, choose to repeat each valuable thought and sentence two to three times, all the while mulling over any new insights, in order to ensure that my creativity is not lost to the twilight hours.

            It doesn’t help me sleep.

            In desperation, having tried the plaiting wool and staring at blank canvasses techniques to no avail I devised a new mind-numbing game. I decided to write a sentence/passage where each new word started with the next letter of the alphabet. The first six words came surprisingly easily – and I liked them.

            Afterwards Barry could definitely enjoy food.

Now the trick here, if you are playing the game properly, is to prevent your mind from thinking of anything other than the next word and that word must begin with ‘g’ – are you getting the picture? Eventually I came up with:

Afterwards Barry could definitely enjoy food; good honest ingredients jostled kindly, lamenting most natural overtures peacefully. Quite relatively, Sandra took up violence with xylophones - youthful zealot.

I was pleased with my idea – it made (some) sense and I hadn’t got out of bed to make use of a dictionary.

Still, I was not asleep. Now I was thinking how to make this into an internet game – perhaps challenge people on my blog – are now there was an idea.