Can't sleep, won't sleep

Fear of insomnia...that's what keeps me awake at night. I used to sleep so well. Midnight, snoring, nothing could wake me. Phones, alarms, children...once in the land of nod I was there for keeps, well, 8 hours. Yet I was never one for over sleeping. I liked to be up and about in the morning, not idling by the hours til lunchtime. Yes, sleep was an ordered pleasure.

But not so now. It could be the MS. It could be the hamsters. Sometimes it's the hands on fire, sometimes it's the pliers on toes and sometimes it's just...wide awake time. But whatever it is, something wakes me regularly, however tired or fatigued I may be. Whatever time I hit the sack I'm awake sometime between 3 and 4. And there is a whole strange world that goes on between 3 and 4.

The cat for instance, can hear me coming up the stairs (yes, our house is upside down) from three gardens away. She can be through the cat flap and by her food bowl before I've reached the top step. If perchance I decide to turn over and hope sleep returns the cat has other ideas. Yo, Dave! Wake up, Come on, I'm upstairs. Come on Dave. You know you're awake! Stop fooling yourself... All this is said in a wild miaow that sounds like the onset of being possessed in a sequel to the exorcist.

Talking of being possessed...youngest child at 4 in the morning. She sneaks ever so quietly in from her perfectly adequate single bed to make our double over crowded. Then she has the ability simultaneously put her feet in your head, back, face and chest whilst stealing the quilt with a devious slip of the elbow. Whilst we sleep vertically she gradually turns horizontal until I'm reduced to lying on my side, balancing precariously on the outer 3" of the mattress. Enough is enough and I decide to take my chances with the possessed cat.

Now I'm upstairs I may as well do something...I know I'll switch the computer on and get on with the blog...What shall I write about? I know...Fear of insomnia...that's what keeps me awake at night.