Anatomy of a sleepless night:

12:30 AM: After a fun day of hanging out with friends and placing 2nd in the Geekest Link pub quiz (albeit with a team of 10 people, which disqualified us from winning the prize money, though that was a moot point seeing as we were trounced by a team of 3), I climb into bed and play Scrabble on my iPod until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.

2:00 AM: I wake for no apparent reason other than that I am freezing cold.

2:30 AM: Still freezing cold, I get up and turn on the heat.

3:00 AM: No longer quite so cold, but now wide awake, I sneak my iPod under the covers and start a crossword puzzle.

3:30 AM: I finish the crossword in record time and start another.

4:00 AM: Not having much luck with the second crossword, I turn off the iPod and try to fall asleep.

4:30 AM: After staring at our bedroom furniture in the dark for half an hour, I turn the iPod back on and search the Ikea site to find out whether I can buy sliding doors for the wardrobes we have (the site tells me nothing).

5:00 AM: I decide I’d better attempt sleep again.

5:30 AM: Now boiling hot, I get up and turn off the heat.

5:45 AM: Our consumptive upstairs neighbor commences hacking and coughing.

6:15 AM: As I’m drifting off to sleep, I think I hear dripping water and am promptly wide awake again. I keep hearing the sound and finally get up and poke around the room to pinpoint it, with no luck. The sound eventually stops.

6:45-7:00 AM: The seagulls become active. They’re loud.

8:30 AM: Jeremy’s alarm goes off, and since it wakes me up I must assume that I finally fell asleep, though it feels as if I had just closed my eyes.

9:15 AM: I tell myself I should get up, then I roll over and close my eyes again.

10:15 AM: I finally schlep myself out of bed, feeling somewhat like I’ve been hit by a truck. A big truck full of sleepiness.

10:45 AM: The coffee machine heats up at last and I fix myself the first of what will undoubtedly be many cups of the sweet nectar which will get me through what is going to be a looong day.