FYI

A quick little plea from the heart before I find my anti-histamine pills (as close as I get to sleeping pills) and drown them with decaf tea: Please do not text me before 11am UK time.

I really need my sleep these days and it's so difficult to come by.

I find it unusually difficult to fall asleep these days and if I'm woken up by an unusual noise - somebody knocking on the door, the phone ringing or, yes, a text message - I'm awake. Some days I manage to nap. Most days I do not.

Why do I keep my mobile by my bed? Firstly, because there might be an emergency and people should definitely contact me then! Secondly, because I might wake up feeling very bad and I need to be able to contact the outside world.

I love hearing from my friends but I also need to be able to function. And I need an enormous amount of sleep in order to function, alas.

Now I do hope that I'll be able to get back to sleep soon because I have a brain scan lined up for today..

When I Say Bad, I Mean BAD

Danish blogger Emme has a category of books she calls "matadormix" - "mixed candy". These books do not ask much of you as a reader: they're easy to zip through, leave you feeling slightly bloated if you overindulge and there's a bit of everything in them. "Mixed candy", indeed. These past few days I've made my way through such books.

Background: I do have a pronounced weakness for regency romances for which I blame my mother (who has an almost completely collection of Barbara Cartland's books). I also grew up on a heady diet of Jane Austen and fashion history*. When I encountered my first Georgette Heyer, I was clearly doomed. Heyer wrote sharp-witted books filled to the brim with historical costume design details, eccentric characters and frothy plots.

Unfortunately, most regency writers are not Georgette Heyer. And even more unfortunately, I have not been reading Heyer. I've been reading atrocious, atrocious books involving dead clairvoyants, pervy lords, stupid heroines, serialised novels .. oh, and a kitchen sink too. I feel bloated and unhealthy now. Time for something a bit more fibrous: Heyer, here I come.

(* indeed, I neglected studying for my third grade history exam because I was convinced my superior knowledge of fashion history would dazzle my teacher. Sadly I was given a question on Iron Age agriculture)

Boom-Di-DA-DA-Boom

Let's be positive! My downstairs neighbour is not a hypersensitive man who complains that I 'type too loudly'. He is not a schizophrenic albino who loves Celine Dion and talks to his absent father whilst hiding from the people in the walls. He is not a Norwegian couple who argue until 4am, then shag and who will eventually leave me with two desert rats called Legolas and Gimli. Let's face it, I survived all those people, so why should I be so grumpy about him being a hippie stoner who puts the same prog rock song on repeat until 2.30am.

I must be getting old. Well, I did take up crocheting the other week..

Now, to paraphrase the amazing Flight of the Conchords: it's Hospital Time.