Last night I had one of the worst nights sleep ever.  For some reason my usual soft, firm, warm pillow with laundry fresh pillowcase jacket  turned against me.  We usually sleep well together, like two peas in a pod, but last night was not going to be that night.  We rowed.

9.30pm           Eyes sore, contact lenses dry and scratchy, can’t focus on typing properly and keep typing ‘hte’ instead of ‘the’.  Time for bed

10pm              After cocking about needlessly for a bit, pottering around walking from room to room for no good reason and making a half arsed attempt to tidy up the living room I finally make my way to the bathroom to wash and brush my teeth.  My feet are freezing on the cold tile floor so I hop gently from one foot to another while I brush my teeth.

10.45pm        Finally in bed, my blissful King size bed with its memory foam mattress.  It hugs me and I am content in the knowledge that soon, very soon I will be in the warm, cosy land of nod. Sweet dreams till sunbeams here I come.

11pm              Bed finally warming up.  Although have made a rookie error.  I have stayed in the foetal position far too long, I want to stretch out but the rest of the mattress is cold.  I suddenly feel restricted and trapped, and awake.

11.07pm        Have made the bold move to stretch out in the bed to try and warm the rest of the mattress.  Slight initial panic when my feet poked out from under the covers into the winter air, but this was quickly rectified with bedsocks and flipping the blanket back over my feet.

11.24pm        I am warm again, just need to nod off now. I try hard to concentrate on nothingness, but my neck is at a weird angle.  I lie on my front, not working, try on my left side for a while but for some reason my arm goes dead. I finally move one of the pillows away so I’m sleeping on just one.

11.37pm        (feels muchlater) I have woken with an onset of a headache.  One pillow is too flat and I feel that maybe a rush of blood to the head happened.  I was stupid to think one pillow was going to cut it. Need two pillows back STAT.

11.58pm        Second pillow back but its cold and unfriendly. Feels far too high and can’t snuggle into it.  Try hard to forget it and convince myself it’s the way the pillow feels all the time.

12.25am        Had dozed off but now awake, face was buried into the pillow and have become too hot.  The cool side of the pillow I threw away an hour before is now craved. I flip the pillow over and soak into its coolness.

12.50am        Throw my head heavily into my pillow to create a dent, feels good, and feels like I’m comfortable, yes! I am comfy. I can relax and sleep.  But I now spot the alarm clock and am aware that I am way behind on sleep hours.  I will never catch up but I can try.  I’m warm and comfy and can at least get a good few hours in.

1.27am            I was wrong.  Am sure I can feel pressure in my neck which has woken me up and is not comfortable.  Force myself to believe all is ok and that I can sleep.

2.30am           Finally forced sleep works and I manage to get to drift off.  Not to the land of nod but to a land of disjointed dreams, which are disturbing, even though in the morning I wont remember them.

6.30am           Awake. Not refreshed.  Am the opposite of well rested.  Have puffy eyes, a crick in my neck, pyjamas all twisted and have lost a sock under the bedclothes.  This is not going to be a good day…