Sleepless

One of the luxuries of vacations, Friday nights and retirement is the lack of anxiety about sleeplessness because there is no need to wake up early if you cannot fall asleep right away.  At least, I assume it is a luxury since I rarely have trouble sleeping.  Tonight however it is a different story and I have been sitting up at the computer playing solitaire (a recent vice), puzzles and finally I have taken to writing in order to make myself tired enough to fall back asleep! 

I’ve often thought about wandering outside at night to view the stars once I retired and could actually stay up late.  Since I have never done this in my last 60 years I am dubious about whether I will actually ever get around to it.  Tonight is not the night for experimenting as we are still in a deep freeze so I will have to channel my romancing into a story all the while trying to type softly in order to not wake up Mother.

As I lay in bed wondering whether I should get up or not I thought about Downton Abbey and wondered, in such a huge castle of a house, would the family wander out into the “yard” for a midnight stroll?  I would think it would be very scary to wander around the halls, never mind finding your way into the grounds, at which point who knows what they would meet out there?  Clanging chains and moaning ancestors trying to get back into the castle, poachers, or just ordinary wayfarers of the night?  Then I looked at the clock.  Only 10 o’clock, that’s what comes of aching pains and going to bed at 6.  I turned on the night light and found Thumper sprawled across the foot of the bed sound asleep.  I should have been resentful of his peace but I smiled instead.

And there was Mother sitting quietly in the kitchen eating her “midnight snack” of rye bread and brown sugar!  Who knew what went on in the house in the still of the night?