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How to… Sleep

This column is inspired by a recent trauma suffered by my Mum. How important a good night’s sleep is, and how many things conspire against it!

The most efficient way to ensure years of fatigue is to procreate. To date my toddler niece has woken up her mother by ramming a finger forcefully up her nostril; pulling up one eyelid and shouting “Helloooo!”, and being sick on her face.

Almost as good as small children are pets. It’s vile when the cat brings in a mouse and crunches it on the duvet, so we keep the the door shut and listen to him yowl and scrat the landing carpet instead. Then every morning (the exact time varies, but it’s always too early) the dogs decide they’ve had enough of each other’s company and need to come and see Mummy urgently. Molly took all the paint off the kitchen door before we started tying her to a table leg, while Bessie employs shrill and frantic barking.

Insomnia can be a horrible, persistent disorder and admitting to it brings a raft of well-meant but utterly useless advice – surprisingly enough, it has already occurred to most insomniacs to try warm baths, hot milky drinks and flipping “Kalms”!

Anyway – back to Mum’s tale of woe. One night she was awoken by a sinister “Ssk… Ssk… Ssk… Thump… Thump… Thump…” noise in her bedroom, “like something being dragged out of a pond”. Opening one eye, she was petrified to see a white, blurry face looming at her in the darkness. Drenched in sweat and heart beating wildly, she scrambled for her glasses and snapped the light on… to find my niece’s 30” tall, mechanically-powered “Hello Kitty” doll had somehow activated itself and walked across the bedroom, getting jammed on the side of the bed.

My favourite part of the story is that in her indignation she dumped said toy on the spare room windowsill, whereupon a neighbour later complained that its leering visage gave him a nasty fright as he was walking back from the pub.

Insomnia is never a problem for our cat.