Dark morning

Yesterday was the worst morning. It was Monday, which didn't help, but it was also the first morning we had to put the light on before we got out of bed. It's been getting slowly darker in the mornings but up to now we have managed. It wasn't even bad weather - quite nice, in fact - so we can't pretend that it was just one dismal dreary morning and tomorrow will be brighter.

From now on it will be all downhill until March. First of all it will be too dark to go down the garden when I get home from work; then it will be dark when I get home; then it will be dark when I leave work. Soon we'll have to put the heating on, and that means shutting the bedroom window for six months. And working in the kitchen without the back door to the garden open, and the windows steaming up.

Yes, it also means nice cosy evenings round the fire. But I'd rather have the sun.

Tall Boy is back

I have blogged before about the kids going in on my train to school in London and what fun it is to watch them and their little dramas. I had thought that most of them must have left school at the end of last term and that I wouldn't see them again come this September, but I'm very pleased to say that they all seem to be back again. Tall Boy is back, and so is Blonde Bits, even blonder and curlier and wearing a one-shoulder top with a teeny tiny white spaghetti strap over her bare shoulder. He still isn't noticing the nice plain girl.

There is another group as well, much younger, who get off at a different station and obviously go to a different school and one of them is the most obnoxious brat I've ever seen. I've had glimpses of her for a while but she is getting harder to ignore. She seems to be spoilt rotten, and acts as if she was ten years older than she is, with airs and graces that she must have learnt from television. She has also got the loudest voice I have ever heard, so all the awful platitudes and inanities come out at full volume. Maybe it is all attention-seeking, maybe she comes from a shocking home and is pitifully neglected. Even so, I can't think that a good slap would do her any real harm, and it would do me an awful lot of good to administer it.

York

I haven't blogged for ages and that is only because I just haven't had time. Which is a shame, because it means that I haven't had time to stop and think about what is going on and how I feel about it, or even to remember all the good things that have happened.

The first of these was three days in York, nearly two weeks ago now. A good journey up and back on the train, a nice B&B, fine weather, enjoyable days wandering about with lots of stops to eat and drink.

And when we got back home, what did we say? How on earth are we going to catch up with all the things we should have done over the last three days? Somehow, somewhere, a holiday turned into a backlog.

4 ways of going to sleep

Time was when I could lay my head on the pillow and sleep for twelve hours. Those good times have gone and now, more often than not, I need tricks to get me off to sleep. Here are four of the best.

1. Try to stay awake. This is an old tried and tested piece of advice - when you can't get to sleep, don't even try. Instead, try to stay awake. The easiest way is to have a chiming clock within hearing and force yourself to stay awake to hear the next quarter strike, then the next hour, and so on. It doesn't help when Son has switched the clock to silent, but it can be done even by watching a digital clock ticking over. And staying awake is harder than you think.

2. Dead lions. Much of the impediment to sleep is the tossing and turning. So, instead, stretch yourself out straight - on your back, legs straight out, arms by your side, like an effigy on a tomb. Make sure that you are quite comfortable. Then don't move. Quite soon the desire to turn over and go to sleep will be impossible to resist.

3. Get really cold. (Not so easy in the summer, I admit). Kick off the duvet, all but a little flap to cover your middle and guard against chills. Make sure that arms, shoulders, legs and feet are all exposed. Then wait until you start to feel really cold. And then wait a bit longer. As soon as you weaken and snuggle back into the nice warm bedclothes, you will drift off to sleep.

For really bad nights, methods 2 and 3 can be combined. But the absolute winner is,

4. Monday morning at 6.13. I guarantee that when the alarm goes off on Monday morning, that's when you will infallibly be able to sleep.

Middlemarch to Deptford

Finally! I've finished Middlemarch. And what a slog it was, too. I'm still not sure that I understand the plot and I don't really care what happened to everyone. But at least I got to the end.

Now I've started on Fifth business, by Robertson Davies, advertised on the back cover as, "the first novel in the celebrated Deptford trilogy". So I was expecting a dour Scots novel set in East London. And it isn't - it's Canadian. And it's really really good. I was hooked from the beginning.

Sample: "... Dr McAusland was compelled to read the Riot Act to him, in such terms as a tight-lipped Presbyterian uses when reading the Riot Act to an emotional Baptist".

Yes, it's funny as well. Beats George Eliot into a cocked hat.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi

Why do we feel we have to justify an act of compassion? As if it was a bad thing?

Just because some people can't tell the difference between justice and vengeance.