Day 227

Perhaps I should just give up going to bed on a Sunday evening and officially declare every Sunday night Official Weekly Insomnia Night. I got all of three hours sleep last night. I was tired, went to bed at the time we go to bed if we need to get up at 6am when M is on earlies. It was her first day back after 2 weeks hols today, so it was really important to me that I didn’t rock the boat. Lights out, no sleep. Wait for a while, and do meditation breathing. Nothing. Wide awake. Got up and read for a while, sat in the warm night, and looked at the moon until I felt very tired indeed. Back to bed. Nope. Not even an inkling of sleep or tiredness. More of the same exercises. Then my right foot started hurting again. Out of bed again. I ended up sitting in here and recording a song I’d heard a few days ago so I had a copy of it, and finally dragged myself upstairs in the dark, past one sleeping cat and one hyperactive one-eyed cat. It took me another half an hour or so to finally fall asleep. Craziness.

Hours since I wrote the above.

The library is taking shape. The comfy chairs have left the office, and a big old Persian rug one of the storage sheds, and found their way into the library, and a reading standard lamp from in here has also joined them, so we’ll have a nice little reading corner for M and myself in our dotage (before we move to AN, of course). And all M’s work (and the pic). I have just sat at this desk since 06:30, and gone for my walk, and not much else. Greek, of course.

And M even found time to cut my hair just now. Aging writer in front of less than glamorous shed showing off water butt arrangement. It’s just so rock ‘n roll. Honestly. But actually that brings me to one serious point. So many people think I have such a cool life, and many even think I just sit on my backside every day doing nothing. That being a writer (as well as an employee, actually, remember) is just that, sitting around, waiting for words to come, and waiting for the world to come to me. It doesn’t actually work like that. I would still like to be able to peddle my views and my words and my works on national media (yes, M calls me a media whore). Yes, I’d like to be able to write reviews for a living, and novels for a living. But that’s not my real life, not right now. And that’s not real life for 99.9% of authors or painters or poets or songwriters or singers. And even the 0.1% who’ve made it big can’t just sit back and do nothing. The need for publicity and marketing never stops. And I think many of us just think we’ll settle for the being creative bit and just earn our living some other way.

Having said that, I just heard earlier today that, after almost three long years away from the hallowed studios of BBC Radio Norfolk, I’m able to go back in there to share a few moments of my friend Stephen Bumfrey’s show on Thursday at 14:30. I’d take that any day over being in the BBC national studios, because the first time we met, he was just a voice down an ISDN line, and the first time we met in person I had ten minutes to plug Dead Men, and after that we grew into being proper friends, men who have each other’s mobile phone numbers and can call each other late at night if they need to. And I’ll get to plug Marina’s new song, and this blog, and talk without having to think about the levels on my mike the way I have to do when I’m standing in my studio here. And, in truth, I’ve missed him, the way you miss good friends. We are fortunate in our friends.

AGGIE’S ART OF HAPPINESS – CHAPTER 180