Wight Portal For The Isle of Wight Community

Ever had one of those nights when your brain will not let you go to sleep?

It seems to refuse to shut down and although the rest of your body is screaming for rest, your brain carries on merrily as though it's the middle of the day.

That's last night in a nutshell.

Having by midnight dropped the book I was reading a few times through falling asleep, I climbed into bed and low and behold sleep did not come.

I live in what has been the family home for nearly 40 years. My late parents decided to sale the shop they had in Newport and we moved here. I sleep in what was always my bedroom when I was a kid, it's situated at the back of the house. My bed is against the window and since the end of March the window has been left open, as this room gets red hot.
The house is semi detached and both my neighbour and I are overlooked by a couple of houses behind us leaving us with smallish gardens. My attached neighbour's neighbour (follow me?) lives in a semi that starts a terrace of 4 cottages, whose gardens are long and narrow and border on the bottom of more larger gardens that belong to houses in a different road, does that make sense?
OK so I'll never make it as an estate agent!

So there I am desperately wanting some sleep, 1am passes, 2am passes, 3:30am, the sky has turned from a dark grey, it's  never really black this time of year as it is in winter; we're also pretty lucky here, the back of the houses don't suffer with light pollution, especially now since the lamp posts have recently been replaced, they don't shine as bright, I guess they use low energy bulbs, to a washed out grey bordering on a very pale blue, the stars are gone and from one of the gardens from the road mentioned above who have kept chickens for as long as I can remember, their bloody cockerel starts up.
Normally you only hear him during sensible hours of the day. Apparently they only crow when they can stand upright and so I guess he is usually locked away at night for this exact reason, but not last night.
The skies are now brightening and by 10 to 4 the cockerel has given up to be replaced by the 'Thrush and Blackbird Ensemble' and what fine voice they were in this morning!

This went on for about an hour until the vermin of the skies, pigeons, decided to add their own chorus of woo whoo woo for half an hour, by which time the 'Ensemble' had cleared off to their day jobs.

It was at this point I left the outside world to awaken anew and refreshed, to make a gallon of coffee.