I ushed a film this evening

It was a film about economists and fiscal irresponsibility.  Usually I can shut the doors once the event starts and sit peacefully in the lobby but the older men in the audience were nodding off and the auditorium was periodically rent with the farty sound of raucous snoring. So my duties included Snore Control which involved creeping around and poking anyone sleeping too noisily.


It was a long bus journey back to my hipster loft with the taupe-coloured-cats-that-match-the towels-and-carpets. The Snoring Control made me hungry so I just have eaten a tin of sardines (straight from the tin of course) I now realise that was a big mistake and I am going to be eating those fish all night and the kitties want some too

Ths is my niece

she is four years old.

This is me and her uncle

the sweetie is for me and the snail is for her uncle who isn't here this weekend which means that she can share my bed.

at bed time the niece is tired and looks like this

I put her into my bed

At my bedtime I tuck her up a little then get in beside her

mostly we spent the night like this

I snoozed intermittently then woke up around 6.30 - her face close to mine

seeing my eyes open - she said

I have been waiting all night for you to wake up

Double Bedding

 

bedroom in russian house by andrew qzmn

I need a new mattress so I went to the place I last bought a mattress from but it has closed down.

I came home and looked on the computer for bed shops, I also looked at the Gumtree small ads where I saw a suspiciously large number of ‘brand new still in rapper (sic) mattress’  advertisements for a variety of mattresses , they are all in the same part of town (Bedminster - really!) I called one of the numbers and spoke to a man asking him why he was selling this mattress.

Because they deliver me two

It turned out that his mattress was not the right size so I called another of the numbers and spoke to someone else

Why are you selling this mattress

Because they deliver me two.

The Longest Monday

This is where I finally put my head down last Monday night, it is where I will be staying for the next couple of weeks. Our journey to this place seemed interminable because time kept slipping as we chased the sun round the world.

1am Monday: Got out of my lovely warm UK bed met two Camera Boys, collected 28 cases full of filming equipment and drove to airport.

8pm Monday (at least 24 hours later): Costa Rican customs lady does not have the correct paperwork for our trolleyloads of cases and threatens to impound it all for a few days.

10pm Monday: Arrive at Thrifty Car And Van Hire, we booked a van, it says so on our booking reservation, we have been given a People Carrier, it is full of seats, there is no room for our cases, Thrifty Man insists that a bigger vehicle does not exist and Thrifty does not do vans, I ask for a second vehicle, the laborious task of filling in documents goes on while the Camera Boys pack as many cases as possible into this first vehicle. When 20 cases are firmly wedged in, the second vehicle is brought over – it is bigger and has less seats – we can put all our luggage in this one.

I go back into Thrifty office, make Thrifty Man tear up all the documents and start again, meanwhile the Camera Boys unload and reload the cases.

12 midnight: Santa Rosa National Park, the road got distinctly lumpy as we approached our destination, it is very very dark and for the last ten miles, dozens of Nightjars chose to squat on the road, flying up in front of the vehicle only as it is about to drive over them, I am driving and getting confused about whether this is all part of my plane dream which involved machete-wielding octopi.

When we get to where we have been told to go, all doors are locked, no notes and no-one is around except for other visitors who are sound asleep. We creep around for another hour or so until we find a hidden section of buildings with our names on the doors and keys in the locks.

The next day I get the email telling me about the change of plan.

Noisy Head

It was very late, I was in bed reading but not sleepy, my husband walked into the bedroom, fell on the bed and appeared to be instantly unconscious. I put the book down, turned off the light and tried to sleep but my head was too busy. I kept still as still could be.

After half an hour I heard him mutter

Please go to sleep

I muttered back that I was not moving

He hissed in exasperation
I can hear you thinking

Sleeping Arrangements Part II

30th September
It’s an age thing isn’t it, wanting your own room to fart and snore away in to your heart’s content. But as a child I loved sharing a room, especially with other kids. Between the ages of five and eight years I slept in a lot of other households and had some very ‘formative’ experiences, mostly in a good way. There was the Grandmother who let me share her big feather bed - I imagined it as our ship, sailing through the torrid waves of smelly, peach-coloured full-body corsets, vests and big knickers that surrounded our vessel. My grandmother would fetch us coffee with a big slug of rum in the morning and then we’d sit in bed getting sozzled while she read me the latest episode of her blood-and-guts novel.

The only sleeping place I wasn't keen on was at the Sunday-School Aunties who had picturess of morbid subjects like The Slain Wives of Bluebeard on their walls. When I stayed here, a door was laid over the bath for me to sleep on - which was a bit like having an en-suite now I think of it, except that other people could come in and have a pee in the night.

Sleeping Arrangements

29th September
Last week some camera kit needed to go to Paris – urgently, to be fixed and for various reasons it needed delivering in person.

I went for the late sleeper train on Thursday evening. The kit was packed in a large orange rucksack which was so heavy and full that I couldn’t take any personal stuff apart from the toothbrush and spare knickers that I stuffed in my jacket pocket. I was at the station early and staggered with my load to the nearest table in the cavernous station restaurant. A waitress ran out, shouting at me and sent me to a table of her choice. At this point the drunk in the corner lit a cigarette and the waitress transferred her wrath to him. The drunk tried to leave but was too unsteady, he heaved his rucksack on and fell backwards, lying like an upturned tortoise until the furious waitress gave him a hand to help him up and fell on top of him. So - a comedic start to the evening!

I was a bit nervous about the train journey, I wasn’t sure what to expect from these mixed sleepers. In my wagon, nearly all the six berths were already filled, I climbed to a top bunk and there, across the bunk space, a mere arm’s length away was a virtually naked, gorgeous young man. Below us in the middle bunks were a father and his daughter and in one of the bottom bunks an elderly man. I’d just settled myself, when a lot of huffing and puffing, shuffling and grunting sounds came from the corridor, our carriage door opened and a little woman with big crinkly hair wheezed into our carriage struggling with two cages full of birds, she was anxious and distressed and talking incessantly to them/herself. The semi-naked god leaned over from his bunk and calmed her down, she got her birds settled and there was no further incident.

In the few French homes I’ve visited I often see rooms filled with beds where everyone bunks down together when they come to stay, it made me consider the cultural issues of personal space and what we (me/my friends) think of as acceptable. Earlier this year, two writers came for a week to our UK production offices to work with us, I suggested that they might prefer to share a two-bedroom apartment rather than have hotel rooms. The idea was unacceptable because it meant they’d have to share a bathroom.

By contrast, when I got involved in a student exchange to Romania. The Romanian students gathered to claim us and take us back to their homes. Irena took me and another girl to her family’s tiny apartment in a vast Stalinesque neighbourhod on the outskirts of the city. Her parents and grandparents would sleep in the one bedroom she said, then led us into the living room, the sofa was given a push and lo! A bed was produced for the three of us girls to sleep in for the week.