Why is sleeping in late so damned tiring? I don’t know when to get out of bed, and when I finally force myself I can’t make my ass move any faster than a … a really tired, slow thing that can’t stop yawning. Sorry, I’m still half-asleep as I write this drivel.

I can get out of bed a lot quicker when I do it robotically at five o’clock in the morning, then time when the alarm clock usually starts to bleat. On a work day I can move with a purpose; on a day off, I have so much time all to myself that I hardly know whether to shit or get off the pot.

I’d set my alarm for maybe six or seven, just to take the problem of deciding when to get up out of the equation, but then My Darling B would make fun of me. She doesn’t have any problems at all with sleeping in. Never has, that I can remember.

The cats love her for it. They curl up on either side of her to keep warm and do what cats do best and most often, sleep the day away. Of course, that’s after the oldest one wakes up between five and six and wanders from room to room, howling at the dead people for about an hour. You’d think that by now he’d be used to having the spectral denizens of the afterlife wandering through the walls of our house, but no.