The curious incident of the leaky hot water bottle in the night

With nod to Mark Haddon for blog title, but it was a curious incident.

                          

Hot water bottles feature large in our non-centrally heated house. Winter = wood fires, soup, cake, long bracing walks, and, hot water bottles. We've had two faithful orange ones for several years now, uncomplaining items that comfort and sooth; items that receive a hefty kick to the floor as a semi-conscious foot finds a chilled, rubbery surface in the small hours.

Last night during a dream of seawater creeping across a beach I woke abruptly to find some truth in the dream except I was in a freezing bedroom and not on a sun-kissed beach. One of the faithful orange companions had developed a small hole at its shoulder area, enough to let the litre of water escape into the sheet and under me. For a moment I lay still recalling the same feeling from my early childhood: a large wet area which was currently slightly warm but would soon be clingingly cold. I think my mother would have reluctantly heard an only too familiar, Mum . . .? coming from my room and would have ushered out the soggy sheet to replace it with a clean one  at some hideous hour of the night. Anyway, in this case it was only water so I moved as far to the other side of the bed as possible (husband is away) and attempted to sleep on a narrow and cold strip of bed. 

At my current statutory waking time of 5:45 - in order to write - I got up, refilled the remaining bottle, made tea and set up my 'writing studio' - lots of pillows, H W Bottle against my back, and laptop with charger cable as the aged computer won't work unless connected to a plug socket when it wakes from shutdown. On this side of the bed there isn't a near enough socket so I attempted to write with the charger cable across the keyboard which pulled the cable from the laptop every few minutes causing shutdown again. Then the dog wanted to come back in after her habitual early morning rambling about in the garden, and I realised I had about ten minutes left before all the other morning routines needed to be addressed. I did manage to write four lines but some mornings that's all that happens anyway as my current work feels akin to painting and re-painting with words. A small sample which doesn't feature a hot water bottle.

I sleeped wewll but with muchly dreaming of silver, oversized vehicle which carved its way through the placid ocean of yesty. 

T-dui, the waters are less obeisant and All Hallows sways jerkily, spray sousing the oar-bods and Shouter who is in filth-mood after imbibing a skinful last darking.   

Despite the heavy waters we have progressed goodly and Alport High is vueable, its scattering of small isles bright yello with breezly-leaf bushes. I have been spake that Alport has a bainhouse and a resto that serves a goodly mixi-beast; other row-bods must be contemplating these glories as the pace axselerates.

 

Within a cycle we are safe, the nose of All Hallows bedded into a grey shingle shore. The Boreas howls through a decayed forrist of metal struktures atop the loftiess hill, a mournful and worrisome discord. I scurry to the eatery, a black-plank edifice from which emits sounds of merriment and smells of hot and spicy scran. 

Here and Now

I feel it's vital to remember, for us creatures roaming about over the earth and on/in the sea along with all the other mammals and fish going about their (much more sensible and less destructive) lives, where we are and to appreciate it even when dealing with the more tedious stuffs of everyday.
It's good to step outside of all that, into a field, park, or onto a mountain if you have one nearby; or gaze at a lake, a river, or even a municipal pond, just for a few minutes to remember where we are on this amazing ball in space. That's all we really have after all, this time, now, this instant.
A couple of days ago while climbing up into some hills above Port de la Selva in Catalonia, I turned to look at the sea and felt, more powerfully than I can ever remember before, one of those 'Here and Now' moments; points where you know a memory is being laid down, woven into your mind to be there forever, perhaps surfacing on a grim winter morning when everything is monotone and returning to bed with a hot water bottle seems to be an inexorable pathway.
It was perhaps a combination of the smells of new foliage, lavender I had trampled, the birdsong and the wedge of white-flecked sea in the distance. I had flung my arms up and shouted something, I've forgotten what but probably along the lines of 'Here and Now', and stood for some moments feeling the stretch in my arms and the tail of the Tramontana wind in my hair.
Luckily, no one else was about apart from a small hairy dog ahead of its party of walkers who appeared shortly afterwards. It might have smiled at me but it was difficult to tell through the beardy wisps framing its face.

                         

Shall I compare thee . . .

to a well-organised (but not overly obsessive) wood pile. What could be more beautiful? To those who heat their house in this fashion would undoubtably agree; there's nothing quite like standing back and admiring the stacks of oak, rescued chunks of builder's planks, and branches cut from the previous years fruit tree pruning.
Now I just have to get the chimney swept. Sweeps are sought after here in September and October. Organised folk might have got the job done in the spring, but somehow the whole winter experience becomes lost with the first warmish evening and we move on to all the next season's jobs; the fire left full of last ashes and the chimney forgotten.
The first sweep I called had done the Aude region and was now moving onto the Ariege. The second arrived yesterday, took one glance and said: 'Non madame, c'est pas possible' - he had back ache and our particular type of 'insert' fire is complicated and heavy to deal with.
So back to the Pages Jaune . . . Success: Mr Bladel is coming on Saturday and has assured me that his health is fine and that any type of fire is no problem.
As the weather seems stuck firmly in late summer at the moment, fires, blanket and hot water bottles all seem mysterious things, but will no doubt all be soon revisited.

2767

This was the number of times I wished I was asleep last night, or thereabouts.
We all have terrible nights, and I know on a scale of human disasters, they are nothing when we have a soft bed to sleep in and four walls surrounding us; but last night must have been in my top five, or even two.

It was so farce-like I have to write it down while it's fresh in my mind; it could be useful, or at least it needs to be documented, for my own personal record of Stupid Nights I Have Known.
We have all been suffering from some flu-like thing over the last week; the residue of which, in my case, has taken up residence in my lungs like a dusty old crow, rasping and fluttering.
The night before last I slept for about an hour between bouts of coughing and kept Mark totally awake too. So last night in order to protect the main bread-winner of the household (and because of the fact I quite like him) I opted to sleep in the spare room.
Snuggling down with a hot water bottle (one of about three things I like about winter) I told myself that this would be a good and restful night filled with that sort of rich, thick, blanketing sort of sleep that we only, as adults, achieve very rarely, due to worry over bills, too much caffeine, snoring loved ones etc.
I had just dropped off, when Mark entered the room: "Ezra's been sick." Flung hot water bottle aside and went to join in the mopping up, soothing of boy etc.
Back to bed, hot water bottle positioned, many layers drawn up against the general fridge-ness of that particular room, and the coughing started. That little twingy tickle that you try to ignore: maybe it will just subside. No – full on donkey noises for five minutes: tried sleeping on back, front, sides and finally sitting up, head lolling as if on a train. Nope.
Eventually, I discovered a sort of nonchalant style that seemed to work. If I put all the pillows in the room in a stack against the headboard and then lay against them as if trying to stop a fence collapsing, I could nod off; almost as if I had to pretend to my own body that I wasn't really trying to sleep. What's that about? Surely elements of me should be taking an interest in keeping me going, not providing sleep deprivation torture.
Anyway it worked for at least fifteen minutes, then the runty dog got out of his bed and announced that he would like to go and bark uselessly at mysterious things in the garden. This is always a mild form of Russian Roulette: does he really want to go out to have a pee/poo? or does he just want to run around the house like a mobile tripod asserting his non A-dogness.
I left my nest and let him out so that he could bark, a LOT. Then on his return, shoved him in his bed, wrapped him up and went back to my bed, refilling tepid H W bottle first.
I was just wandering around a flowery summer market when violent footsteps overhead broke the images. Abandoned bed again, this time considering for a moment whether whatever was going on upstairs might just settle down then I remembered Mark's mad schedule in the morning and went upstairs. He was standing, looking bleary, in his tartan pyjama bottoms and a top that has a skull and the words Protest on it. "Ezra's been sick."
Forcing the Mark-cormorant (will explain another time) back to bed, I cleaned the bed, boy, linen, etc and went back to bed.
The fence-leaning thing no longer worked, so I sat up and did some editing until all the words fused into one: Insomnia, then eventually drifted into a light sleep, to be woken by Runty dog, again. This time I bundled him up and said: 'stay in your dratted bed you small annoying rat', or something more lurid.
So, the bed, yes . . . tried the leaning thing again, but as I was cold now, had to keep making tiny adjustments in the bedding: cover the foot there, oops, neck exposed, where are the tissues . . . just a tiny stretch . . . shit, covers all slump to the floor. Flopped them on again, then . . . what was that small clicking sound? I can't sleep with dripping taps, was it a tap? when I filled the HWB did I leave the tap dripping? SHIT. Right . . . into the bathroom. Nope tap off, clicking still going though. I looked around, wrapped in a towel, really cold now: nothing.
Back to bed. Total exhaustion. Did slip into some weird dream about an old lady coming to stay in the B and B and wanting to know if she could hire a gun. Woke up abruptly (quite good, as the dream was annoying) and the dog was prancing about again.
I looked at the clock: 5.00 am, As we seem to have to get up at 5.30 at the moment anyway, I thought I'd make some tea.
Discovered he had woofed in order to let me know that he had DONE a poo but he wanted to go outside to tell everyone else about it - kicked him out and went into the kitchen to get cleaning stuff; stepped in a lake of dog wee and, nearly, a large offering from Big Dog.
Cleaned everything, told the dogs and the cat to F OFF and went back to bed with a large cup of tea and dozed fitfully while Brian Rix, a vicar and a large-breasted woman chased each other around the room.

Napping

What is this weather?
I suppose an awful lot of people are saying this as they look out at horizontal rain, hail, and birds trying to build nests in trees bent over from gale-force winds.
We have a garden: I know this, but I haven't actually stepped foot in it for days. The thought of struggling rose heads and flattened lavender is too much. I have cleared the in-tray, investigated the top of the kitchen cupboard and cleaned out a cupboard, made phone calls and got round to jobs that are well at the bottom of any list I have ever written. We have also napped.

Here is our cat, Bronzino, king of napping, hugger of his own legs. The total bliss a cat radiates while asleep: you can prod him and he will stretch out purring, a smile on his face then curl up again into a fury snail shape.
Napping is only a speeded up version of hibernation. I know this as when coming out of a particularly good siesta, the sleep pulls you back: look out there, it's pissing down, the wind is knife-like, why would anyone go out there unless they had to? Why don't you just close your eyes again, pull the covers up, call out for another hot water bottle from anyone left in the house who is not already under the influence of warm sleep waves.
The best naps are after physical work outside: mowing someone's lawn, cutting wood, a long, vile, worthy walk in screaming wind. The fire must be lit so that one does not sink into depression at the thought of cover removal and stepping into a frigid room.
Take a dog: preferably a small hot water bottle-size, non-smelly one; lie on sofa, put dog in crook of knees or close to chest and drift off, preferably to the sounds of someone making a delicious cake for you when you wake up.
Almost there - into the sleep world . . . the wind is now howling; God it must be nasty out there . . . not on this sofa though, even though it's full of crumbs and cat hair; it must be the most comfortable place on this planet just now: me and dog on red sofa, in house, on tiny patch of earth in small French town, South of France, European land mass, world, universe . . .

Things in odd places

Went for the normal stroll round the field to get the day moving. It was a lovely morning, and everything looked just as it always does, usual trees in usual places - surprising if they weren't - the minutiae of this same daily walk: rusty coil of wire, boulder in the middle of the river, the hill of a hundred cypress trees, and . . . a hot water bottle - in the middle of the path between the two fields.

Apart from the mud, it looked quite new, rather an unusual colour for such an item, almost electric turquoise. Ours are all faded pastel pink and blue. How did it get there? Had someone experienced a particularly strong sleep-walking episode and taken the bottle into the middle of a muddy field? A farmer with need of comfort in the recent cold snap had lost it due tractor tremor? Or a passing plane: someone at 50,000 feet had somehow flushed it through one of those aircraft loos that make that scary sssccchhhhhlep noise.