~This Morning
2004-10-02 - 11:12 a.m.

9:26 AM 2/10/2004

Well, I couldn't in all honesty say I slept very well last night, but I did have a better sleep. I still woke up often, but I felt cosy and went back to sleep again. I still woke up early, but I was able to doze and eventually rest fairly peacefully. It would be nice if I could say why last night was better than the previous two nights, but there are so many possible reasons. I took off my quilt and had about three layers of blankets, which still kept me warm but somehow meant I didn't really have that coocoon of heat I often get with my quilt on bad sleep nights. Then again, maybe it was just a cooler night, or I wasn't sleeping as badly for other reasons, so I didn't get hot? The point with the layers of blankets, anyway, was that I could take some off if I needed to and not be left with just a sheet, which is the case when I've got only my quilt.

Tangent: In Melbourne one really must remember to wear layers. I don't mean this is the case nowhere else, but in other places around the world, or even around Australia, it's fairly easy to look at the forecast, look outside the window and say "It's going to be sunny and warm today." or "It's going to be rainy and cold today." and sally forth to meet the day with appropriate apparel. In Melbourne, it's often fatal to judge the day by how it looks in the morning, because an hour later it can be pouring with rain, or the clouds may have cleared and the sun begins warming things up - or sometimes it takes a few hours, or switches between a series of different weather conditions. Melbourne is a cool (or is it mild? I think it's officially cool) temperate zone, so the weather doesn't have extremes like snow and then a heatwave in a day, but you can certainly need two layers of long sleeves for the morning and by the afternoon be glad that beneath your jacket and cardigan you're wearing a t-shirt.

So, back to my sleeping, which has always been one of my all-consuming topics of thought, so tends to get a lot of diary time...(actually, I think it's sometimes also that other things that stress me are almost too big to sit down and write about. It's hard to go through all the stress, including explaining them adequately in here - look how much detail I put just into my sleeping habits! - and then still have to deal with them in real life). Another reason I may have slept better is that I really tired myself out yesterday. I was reading my $3 50 Instant Tips for Better Sleep (which amuses me because that implies that you don't have to wait for the tips, not that the sleep is instant) and it reminded me that exercise is often a good way of getting out all the niggles. I've certainly been overtired this week, but that kind of tiredness didn't seem to be making things any better. I went shopping and bought The Sound of Music on DVD (which is faulty and I must replace), some material for a puppet theatre for school, a few second-hand books (Mistress of the Empire: Janny Wurts/Raymond E. Feist; Our Lady of the Snow: Louise Cooper; The Toll Gate, Faro's Daughter: Georgette Heyer) and a gym ball (which may be too small to use at the computer, but my Physio said yesterday when he saw me waiting for my massage that he'd give me some tips for using it, and I might try sitting on it more for just watching TV and things). I also spent a long time trumping around looking for some t-shirts , but do you think I could find any? Of course, the answer is obviously "no", all the t-shirts these days are either ridiculously small and tight, just too short to suit my stumpy body, too big or some pale pink/green/blue/fawn colour that makes me look jaundiced and fat hehe. Pale does not suit Janettie.

I could also have slept better for typing in my journal immediately before going to bed. Obviously, I didn't post it last night, but typing out all of those thoughts may have been very cleansing. It could also have been due to a mixture of those things, or some odd mental/physical thing that just decided it was ready to sleep regardless of what I did. I certainly didn't sleep well, but I did sleep better, and that's very important. We don't want to slip back into that always-tired, always-headachey, often-sick mode, do we now??

And now, my sweets, I must go and start doing a few morning things before Viv comes over and we play No. Thingy Baker St. and then go and see Wimbledon.