Even though it’s competing against a substantial sleep deprivation rap sheet of late, last night saw my worst nights kip for many a year. In fact, as I lay awake at 1.45am, yours truly concluded I don’t think my slumber longevity has been this poor over a sustained period since working night shifts during the 1980’s/90s.
An era when I was unable to sleep for more that four hours a day when my rota arrived at the overnight shifts. Twenty years of my adulthood spent where 25% of the time I muddled through life in a barely conscious state; one week in four surviving in a state similar to jet lag
Anyhow, this current degradation in my slumber is worsening to such an extent today it was nearer 2am when I commenced putting pen to paper…… And I thought the 5am writing starts experienced within the last ten days were bad!
By the time the clock turned 3am, having already written a 600+ word narrative, I was sketching a mug shot of singer H from the band Steps to accompany this piece, which I titled There’s No I In Team; But There’s An H In Steps.
This prevailing slumber zeitgeist is now really starting to irritate me. The fact I’m surviving on a handful of hours sleep on a daily basis means I’m functioning on autopilot as each day progresses into eventide. Consequential of this vicious sleep deprivation circle, GJ Strachan is ordinarily asleep by 9pm; securing a few hours kip before reveille in the early hours of the next day.
Being awake before the larks is a pain in the ass. The notoriously early rising avians seeming bemused when noticing I’ve risen first – Upon seeing me awake, their befuddlement clearly exhibited by them holding their watches to their ears to check the pieces are still ticking.
Clearly, as wearing a watch around their wing would introduce flight instability, larks’ veer towards adorning pocket watches not the wrist variety when timepiece selection occurs. Unless they haven’t got a pocket, in which case they fly to the nearest town hall to ascertain the correct time.
Obviously, larks don’t have pockets. In fact, they’d have about much use for one as I currently have for an alarm clock…… Well, apart from if they did own a pocket watch – A scenario which’s unlikely to come to fruition.
Unlike a capricious human body clock, avians have no need for timepieces while going about their daily business. Their birdy biorhythms, along with no requirement to know when Coronation Street starts on ITV, ensuring they’ve no need to visit H Samuel jewellers for a time keeping aid.
Well, apart from in the unlikely event they need to buy a human the gift of a watch. As I’ve never seen a lark in H. Samuel’s, though, I guess that’s a pretty rare occurrence….. Although, saying that, it’s a rarity I venture into that particular jewellers, so for all I know it could be a scene which plays out with surprising regularity…… However, I think I’ll go with my hunch that it doesn’t.
