Friday 19 October 2012

Sleep? What sleep?

Every now and then, I have one of those nights. I'm sure you know the type. You're tired. You get off to sleep easily, and then, after maybe three hours, you wake up again. And sleep, having deserted you, does not return. The night stretches out towards the dawn and seems to last about three days. No matter what you do, you can't get back to sleep. I've just had such a night.
I have to say, just about everything conspired against me having a decent night's rest. For one thing, cheesecake is not a great thing to have before you go to bed; at least, it isn't for me. And it wasn't just a cheesecake. It was a creamy, tangy, mandarin flavour M&S cheesecake. I suppose the other thing was the fact that I ate half of it. Well, you know how it goes. You buy a cheesecake, but there are only two of you there to eat it. You cut it into four, kidding yourselves you will eat a piece each tonight, and have the rest tomorrow. After all, it says on the box, consume within 24 hours. The trouble is, we consumed it in 24 minutes. And so I should not really complain about stomach cramps at 3am. Entirely my own fault. Of course, one's dear other half had no such problems. He slept like a baby. And therein lay the next problem.
To say he slept like a baby isn't strictly true. Babies do NOT snore like that. I didn't think any human being could snore like that. It sounded like the keening of some wounded creature. It would not stop, and there was no way I was going to sleep through it.
Add to that the headache. A dull pain is one thing, but this was more akin to being stabbed in the head with a fork. Over and over again. Painkillers wouldn't touch it, until two hours after I'd taken them, by which time the first golden rays of dawn were streaking across the Dubai skyline. And that wasn't all.
To mark Eid, the Dubai Mall is staying open for 24 hours at the weekend. The road outside our window, normally deserted at 3am, was busy with traffic, and some of those supercars make a lot of noise.
To cut a long blogpost short, that was the end of my night's sleep. So now, 14 hours later, I feel rather like a zombie. But never mind. Soon be bedtime. And there's no cheesecake left.

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