… day it’s been today. And I don’t mean just this last twenty-one hours, but all twenty-four hours since 21:45 last night.
With having tea – the other half of Sunday’s pizza – already prepared, it didn’t take too long to eat and to come back in here. With not very much to write last night, I’d soon finished. It didn’t take long to do the stats and the backing-up either, or to sort myself out ready for bed. As a result, at 21:45, I was crawling into bed under the covers.
And how much sleep do you think that I had?
One of the side effects of one of the medicaments prescribed by Emilie the Cute Consultant is “insomnia”. Ad as I have enough trouble sleeping already, it doesn’t take much more for me to have what the French call a nuit blanche – a night where you don’t go to sleep at all.
So there I was, head tucked under the quilt, tossing and turning, doing in-bed physiotherapy and all kinds of things, but sleep just never came and I lay there awake all night.
When the alarm went off, I managed to haul myself out of bed, but it took a good while for me to find the strength, courage and energy to stagger off into the bathroom.
In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and took my medication and then came back in here to see if there was anything on the dictaphone. And, to my surprise, there was too. I must have gone to sleep at some point during the night.
What the boat is doing being fitted out in my dreams, I don’t know. But the story of the exploding battleship reminds me of THE MONT BLANC – an ammunition ship that exploded in Halifax harbour after a collision, taking half of the town and half of its population with it in its way to the hereafter.
Whether that’s the reference to the collision or not, I wouldn’t know, but ships on blockade duty colliding with each other was a regular occurrence.
This sounds like several villages in which I’ve lived at one time or another, although I wouldn’t be the type of person to report anyone to the police.
But it does remind me of a sign that I saw once in Fredericton, New Brunswick, that read “on this day in” … (some year or other) “nothing happened”.
Isabelle the Nurse breezed in, all happy and relaxed after her week’s rest, much of which was spent with her daughter in Paris. I told her about my encounters with Emilie the Cute Consultant and the pills that she’s prescribed for me. She asked about the cough, so I explained that they were trying to sort out a thoracic scan and an appointment with a lung specialist.
After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.
Today, we’ve been working through the story of Anna Komnena, daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos. She wrote a biography of her father, which is said to be a fascinating eyewitness account of the Byzantine Emperor and the goings-on therein during the period 1081 – 1108.
There’s a translation of this into English, dated 1928 and I’ve actually found a copy to download. It will make interesting reading if ever I have the time to read it.
But that’s Miller’s book finished, and I certainly did learn a lot, which is the whole point of reading. Tomorrow we start a new book.
Back in here, I started a couple of things, but the next thing that I knew, it was 11:20. I’d fallen asleep in my chair for about two hours, and I can’t say that I’m at all surprised.
It comes as no surprise either for me to say that after that, I just couldn’t concentrate on anything. Most of my effort went on trying to stay awake.
However, I remixed the soundtrack for the concert that I’m preparing for the radio, and it’s a much better mix than the one that I prepared yesterday. It’s even a couple of minutes longer too, which means that I don’t have to write as much text.
Anyway, the text is all written for it now and I just need to find the time somehow to dictate it. There’s quite a bit building up in the pipeline right now that needs dictating.
There were the usual interruptions too. My faithful cleaner turned up to do her stuff and she chased me into the shower for a good scrub. While I was in there, she changed the bedding so the nice, clean me is going to have a good sleep in a nice, clean bed, if this insomnia has worn off. Which, judging by however many times I’ve almost fallen asleep this evening, it probably has.
There was still some time left at the end of the day, so I tried to prepare the next radio programme but my heart and my head just weren’t in it at all. I managed to make a few notes, but that’s about all. I shall have to do better than this tomorrow.
Tea tonight was a gorgeous bowl full of pasta and veg in a vegan cheese sauce, followed by more trifle. It’s beginning to break up now, the trifle, but it’s still delicious.
And that reminds me, I have to cover the chocolate cake with chocolate sauce.
But that’s tomorrow because right now, I’m off to bed, hoping for a better night than last night.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about ships and collisions at sea … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends was telling me about a ship carrying blue paint that collided with a ship carrying red paint.
"Really?" I asked. "What happened?"
"The survivors were marooned."
