Take it to the Max
Created | Updated Mar 18, 2009
Sleepless in Suburbia
I've had many sleepless nights. But in the past year or so, it's mostly to do with that bloody dog.
Insomnia brings out the accusations: It wasn't my idea, I had voiced my reservations, but he was dead keen on a dog. And not just any old dog but this particular breed, big, and energetic and wilful as they are. Max was a fussy sleeper from the off, waking early in the morning and barking to be let out of his crate. 'Early in the morning' became 'the middle of the night', as his waking time drifted from a barely tolerable 5.30 to a tortuous 4 a.m. Just letting him bark wasn't really an option, given the disturbance it caused to neighbours, but we solved that one with an anti-bark collar. Sort of. Now when he woke he didn't bark, but just scratched his crate frantically until released. This had the advantage of not waking the neighbours, but it still woke me. Only me, mind. Everyone else in the house seemed capable of blissfully sleeping through the agitated scraping. I used to rise, stumble bleary-eyed down stairs, let him out for a pee, and then doze with him on the couch. Then I started going back to bed and leaving him on the couch. And more recently we've dispensed with the crate altogether and just let him sleep on the couch all night.
At first that was working well. He was quite happy there until 6.30 when we started getting up (at a vaguely human time), and everyone got a decent night's sleep. But the odd night he's hard to settle, and bounds up and down the stairs doing his best baby-elephant –on-speed impersonation while we're trying to drop off to sleep. On these occasions, we're inclined to lose patience and put him outside in his run.
And that's when I really can't sleep. I keep imagining I hear him whine, or climb the wire fence. Or bark, even though I know he's wearing the anti-bark collar. I wonder just how cold it is out there tonight, and whether we are being guilty of animal cruelty by depriving him of a warm bed.
There's a multi-layered orchestra of sounds going on in the middle of the night. Like a colour wash base for a water-colour painting, the motorway half a mile down the road provides a dull background hiss. It's probably the loudest noise happening when scientifically measured in decibels, but the muting provided by distance and double-glazing, together with the repetitive nature of the rumbling, means it's easy for my brain to tune out.
At the other end of the scale there are the noises of my own body. The pumping of my heart is rhythmic enough, but the odd gurgles from my stomach are more random. Beside me, there is snoring. It's not too loud, and again given that it's rhythmic I can more or less ignore it.
It's the noises in the middle distance that annoy. The dawn chorus seems to start somewhere around 3.30, and it's one that I find very hard to tune out. I guess that's cos it's not as rhythmic and predictable. The milkman tends to arrive at 5.30, and I register the clink of the bottles, followed by the hum of his electric van. But it's a short-lived disturbance. The bin men arrive early, but only once a week. In fact, since they alternate collections of black and green bins, and seem to come later for the green ones, their nocturnal disturbance is but fortnightly.
And so I'm straining to listen for the dog, fearful that he might be waking the neighbours. But at the same time I'm trying not to listen for the dog, desperate for some sleep myself. And then I'm listening in case Max has actually heard something untoward, and is giving us a warning which would be unwise to ignore. And that's when the really annoying noise starts. The one that no-body else can hear. The one that's completely inside my head. I probably heard the song earlier on, listening to the radio. Or maybe it was a jangly hi-tempo trailer for some programme on the telly. Whatever, it's stuck in my head like a vicious ear-worm and I cannot shift it. I try to replace it with the gentle strains of Debussy's Clair de Lune, which I used for self-hypnosis in the past to put me into a calm and relaxed state. I put a little drop of lavender oil under my pillow, and concentrate on my breathing. Usually to no avail: Kaiser Chiefs are back belting out RUBY RUBY RUBY RUBY in no time. And hark: was that the dog joining in?
