Pillow Talk

This hasn’t been a good week for sleep.
I haven’t been ill (I’m not allowed to be) but on the rare occasions that I feel unwell, I just want to be left alone to hibernate silently in a corner of the bed. My children, on the other hand, are keen to share their illnesses and the detailed descriptions of their symptoms at all times of the day and night.
It’s only when I have interrupted nights that I remember what life used to be like about five years ago. In those days it seemed that my ear was fine-tuned to the slightest noise my children made in the night. Muffled yelping and snuffling meant bad dreams which needed to be calmed with a gentle motherly hand on the forehead. Rapid breathing indicated a high temperature, which required a brisk but dextrous dose of the Pink Panacea. A sudden gagging noise resulted in instant SAS siege tactics of leaping across to the bedroom and dragging a green-faced floppy child to the toilet bowl, all in one manoeuvre.
My, how things have changed.
These last few nights each sickly child has had to stand beside the bed and yell my name about five times before I have even stirred. At one point I even incorporated the droning noise into a particularly satisfying dream where 'Muuuummmm' was being chanted by a chorus of young (but strangely attractive) Buddhist monks.
Until this week, I didn't realise how much I have started to drool in my sleep. Each time I was woken up, my cheek appeared to be stuck to the pillowcase. It got increasingly difficult to find a dry bit of pillow. I have long been used to avoiding the damp patch in the bed, but on the pillow? I wonder if H is aware of this particularly attractive new habit. Does he wake up in the night with amorous intentions, only to take one ardour-quenching look at his dripping corpse of a wife? Given that it's dark, I suppose he can't see me lying there with jowls like a rabid dog. If he were to put a randy hand on my pillow though, he would probably think my head had been leaking slowly all night. I'm not even sure what exactly is leaking out. Saliva? Excess wine? Venom? When the pillowcase finally does dry out, it looks like a piece of parchment, so it could be that I'm oozing slaked lime.
Maybe I am just getting to that age where bits of the body start to re-align. Hips and knees are well documented for developing worn-out hinges, so there's every possibility that my over-worked jaw no longer closes properly. It won't be long before the body parts which used to operate in pairs start to strike out on their own, demanding to be acknowledged as individuals. That's the point at which I will start referring to 'my good eye' or 'my bad leg' or 'my good ear'. God knows what will happen to my breasts - one will probably shrivel away quietly while the other joins a line-dancing class, and then has a whirlwind holiday romance with a Masai warrior.
At least I only need one hand and one mouth to enjoy this Friday’s cheap fizz - a bottle of Cave de Lugny Sparkling Burgundy (Ocado £5.99 down from £7.99 until 3/7). It’s dry and biscuity (sounds like a cure for seasickness) and although it tastes like real party juice, it lacks a good finish.
If it starts oozing out of my head tonight, I wonder if it will still fizz when it hits the pillow?

Domino Effect

Two of my kids have been struck down with a mild flu virus. They have been too ill to go to school, and have spent the last couple of days wafting around the house like tragic laudanum-soaked characters from a Victorian novel. It started me wondering what the collective noun for slightly ill children is. A wheedle? A wilting? A drape?
Part of me was tempted just to sit them in front of the all-powerful TV, simply to get them out of my hair for the day, but since they would view this as the ultimate treat, I know I would never be able to get them back into school for the rest of the year.
I thought about descending on them like one of those mad-eyed women who threaten their children in high, sinister voices that 'we're going to have some fun now, aren't we?' But after so many years of maternal neglect, I'm not sure they would have coped with the sudden overdose of attention - it would probably have brought us all out in a rash.
I tried suggesting brightly that they do something 'educational' but they treated that suggestion with the contempt it deserved, by simply staring at me with their rheumy eyes until I went away.
In the end, I (rather conveniently) decided to let them get bored senseless, so that they would be clamouring to be allowed back into school tomorrow. Unfortunately most reality TV isn't on until the evening, and there are no politicians pontificating during the daytime schedules either, so we had to look for our tedium elsewhere.
Prolonged staring at the wall did the trick, but resulted in them falling asleep for most of the afternoon, so just before bedtime they were fully recovered and bouncing off the walls.
It was at that point that I finally turned to drugs - for them, not me, although a crafty swig from the Night Nurse bottle wouldn't have gone amiss. Putting my trust once again in St Calpol (the patron saint of a good night's sleep), I am praying that they will both be crashed out for the whole night - or more importantly, that they won't wake me up every couple of hours.
I thought about having a hot toddy myself this evening, as a preventative measure of course, but they usually cause me to sweat like a pig, and I don't want to wake up thinking I have somehow slipped into the menopause overnight. So instead, I have opted for milder medication in the form of a glass of Oyster Bay Chardonnay (Ocado £6.39 down from £7.99 until 3/7). It is fresh and subtly oaked, and it's having a wonderfully relaxing effect on me.
Unfortunately, I am also realising that even if both children are back in school tomorrow, the third is probably just about to come down with the same illness.
I think I am going to need more medication.