I WANT TO BE ASLEEP NOT TYPING THIS RUBBISH

The days biggest pleasure for me, is that moment when I get into bed at night. My bed is incredibly comfortable, a firm mattress, a goose down duvet, goose down pillow. And when I first get in two other pillows positioned just right for me to sit up against.

I slide between white sheets, that are so old they feel like silk, and at their best have been freshly laundered and hang out on the line to dry and so have that smell of the breeze in them.

I stretch my body down the bed, wriggling my toes to enjoy the feel of my body lying straight and I relish the coolness of the sheets. I particularly like it if my body is cold as well, as I know I'll warm up quickly.

I always read before sleep, and usually I'm so tired that it will only be for about 20 minutes before I know I need to throw the sitting up cushions on the floor, switch off the light and snuggle down.

Snuggling down is greatly improved if the weather is foul outside. I love the noise of the rain pattering down on the window, or the wind howling.

I start off on my left side, getting sleepier, and when the moment is just right I turn over onto my right side to drift off into sleep.

And that's when it all goes bloody wrong. My body responds night after night to this highly enjoyable procedure by giving me a sodding hot flush just as I want to drift. So off goes the duvet to cool my body down, and I'm wide awake again.

I've tried not turning over, I've tried lying on my back, whatever I do nothing stops the pre sleep hot flush. These hot flushes aren't treatable either, cause although they are related to the menopause, they are more related to the cancer busting drugs I take and are a side effect.

So I don't mind that I have them, the choice is a no brainer, medication or not, oestrogen inhibitors or not, life or death, there is no other way.

But it does frustrate me, but eventually I do go to sleep and then the fun really starts......

I wake up around 1.30 for a pee, that's fine I usually go back to sleep after another hot flush.

Then we get to the wondrous time between 3 and 4am, when I awake again. And like today I'm wide abloody awake. I don't want to be. I want to be asleep. But I'm not. Some nights this means going downstairs to make a piece of toast and a hot drink. Others it means being on the computer. Or reading for a while. But most often it involves lying with my eyes shut, tossing and turning around the bed trying to find that elusive thing called sleep.

I will go back to sleep eventually usually as it's getting towards 5am. This didn't used to be too bad, cause I'd have another two hours till the alarm went off. But now I have the hound of the Baskervilles to contend with, and around 6am she wakes up and starts mithering to go for a walk. Fortunately she now does understand that I'll fumble downstairs open the back door and fumble back to bed till I can cope with getting up or the alarm makes me.

I get very bored with clients telling me they don't sleep and expecting me to do something to help them sort it out. If I could, I would have started with me! What I do know is I can cope on very little sleep and some nights of very disturbed sleep and if I can do it, so can they. So the sympathetic counselling approach is definitely not present when sleep disorders are being presented!!!

I know that the lack of sleep tonight was inevitable as I went out for dinner with friends and eating late and having coffee doesn't suit me. But I'm not going to stop my social life for the sake of a nights sleep. Cause there is always tonight to look forward to, and that might provide me with one of the rare nights when I sleep all night..... LOL. That happens hardly ever, unless drug induced and I still get up for a pee.

So I'm sorry I've bored you with this sad saga of my being awake, but I've managed to get to 4.24 and it might be that I can now turn off the light and hopefully go back to sleep for a while. The birds have started singing and dawn isn't so far away.

And I need to have a little more sleep as later I have the very last of my birthday celebrations as I'm meeting Wake up in Wilmslow for lunch. We're meeting in the shoe dept of Hoopers, which is a very posh dept store with attitude and great shoes, so purses have to be kept locked till we are able to leave the store and go for food!!!

The photograph was taken on Saturday night when I was out with Queen Vixen and Trousers having a wonderful happy evening with them celebrating my 55th and Trousers 39th birthday, and raising a glass to Lady's birthday the day after.