The pattern of my insomnia has changed. I’ve never slept reliably well and, for many years, I found it hard to fall asleep, but then slept soundly all night. This changed in my forties, mostly because I was worried and stressed by my mother, so I fell asleep and then had the 3am worries for years. This pattern remained, even after I learned not to worry in the night – first, I read by torchlight to distract me, then read or played card games or listened to the radio on my phone. You only hear about the downsides of having a phone by your bed, but it has its good points.

But now, after the best part of 30 years, I’ve gone back to lying awake for ages before going to sleep, sometimes until 4 in the morning. I do turn the light on to read if I can’t sleep, but getting up and doing something else has never helped me. The only thing that makes it worse is fussing, so I take the view that I’m getting some rest, anyway. But I’m finding it hard not to fall asleep in the evenings, which is a really bad idea.

Sleep should be so natural, really.

I’ve ordered some Christmas food. The nice little farm down the road needs all the help it can get. The other nice farm has enough money behind it to have enlarged, with a lovely new shop and restaurant, but this one is run on rather a shoestring. I’ve got two of my children and families coming here, there will be ten of us. No one wants turkey but, while nearly everyone likes pork, one doesn’t. So I’ve ordered a big chicken with sausages, bacon and so on, and will get pork either from the other farm or from the butcher in town. I’ll get a tree from yet another farm. It’s not easy, trying to support everyone when there’s only one of you.

The injured cat, Solo, is doing well and comes twice a day for food. When I wasn’t quick enough this afternoon, he came close and nagged me, to my amusement. I asked on the local Facebook page if anyone recognised him and had several hopeful people ask for more details, but he’s not any of the missing cats, it seems. I thought he was feral, but it was worth asking. “Is he neutered?” someone asked. “Is he chipped?” I’d already said I couldn’t get within 5 yards of him, I can’t find out either of those things. Not that I took it amiss, they were trying to help.

When I had to cancel a hygienist appointment on 27th January and there wasn’t another one until the end of March, I asked to go on to the cancellation list. I had a phone call this morning. For tomorrow at 9 o’clock. That was rather earlier than I expected, but it seems churlish to turn it down, so I’ve set an alarm for an early start tomorrow. Because the one night I’ll sleep like a top is the one where I’m supposed to wake early.