To Sleep, Perchance to Dream…
Sleep? With all this racket going on?
Our bedroom may well be the noisiest place in the universe. If it isn’t aircraft zooming overhead, it’s the heating pipes tic-tac-tacking all flippin’ night or the cats hissing at each other, jumping onto the chest of drawers and knocking over the water jug.
Then there’s hubby, god bless him. I don’t know who he’s fighting in his sleep but someone’s getting a good kicking. In his youth, he was captain of the First Team so football plays a big part in his dreams. He flails his arms out from under the duvet and the ensuing gust of cold air shoots all the way down my back.
Sleep is vital to health. Everyone tells us so. I’m not disagreeing. I just wish I could get some.
It starts off well enough with a warm bath before bed and a milky drink. Not a problem dropping off. Sometime during the process, I sense Elsie jump onto the bed and in choosing a place to sleep, often settles onto my legs. She’s a hunk of a cat at 15 pounds and her weight effectively clamps me in place — but okay, I’m used to it and tired enough to sleep in any position.
Things start to get raucous around 2 a.m. Hubby is gnawing at a bone by the sound of it. Then the pipes start. I probably wouldn’t have heard if I’d been sound asleep, but as it’s a cold night, the heating has come on automatically and the expansion in the pipes sounds like a smith working in a forge, hammering out a length of glowing-hot iron.
It’s a new heating system. Supposedly simple to use, it comes with a booklet of instructions 12 pages long. Neither of us can understand or control it.
The noisy pipes wake me and I have to get up to go to the bathroom. On returning, Elsie has shifted up a bit and I have to ease myself past her, which means the duvet doesn’t quite cover me. After some tugging and adjusting, we’re both happy again.
I’m just getting back to sleep when cat number two decides to make an appearance and leaps onto the pillow beside me. It wouldn’t be so bad, but she likes to present her bottom to all and sundry — and it’s often horribly stinky.
I end up pushing her off, but now hubby is having a mumbling argument with someone. Trina jumps back up. Smelly bum in my face. I push her off again. Elsie leaps down next to her. She hisses. They both run off. Something in the kitchen crashes to the floor.
We could lock the cats out of our bedroom, but they’d scratch at the door all night to get in so we wouldn’t get any peace that way. My husband and I could have separate beds, but I love the feel of his warm body next to mine. Love having the cats with us too, if I’m honest.
As for those blessed pipes, if they’re not making their infernal racket on expansion, they’re doing it when they cool and contract. It’s happening every fifteen minutes or so — tac-tac-tac-tac.
If you have a quiet, serene bedroom, I envy you.
