Andrew Kay: Alarmed

Sleep. It’s the oddest thing. There are moments in the day when my energy flags and I feel that I could literally sleep standing up. Then hours later, back home, I can lie awake for hours on end. Maybe it’s time to introduce the continental siesta into my life, or even just an afternoon nap.

I read everywhere about power napping. I’ve even tried it, but it makes me feel awful. A snooze in the afternoon leaves me feeling like I have had a boozy lunch, even when I haven’t, and I seldom do these days.

So am I accruing another trendy concept, a massive sleep debt?

I hope not, because with a schedule like mine, I can see no way of ever getting out of the slumber red and into the slumber black. In all honesty, for all those years in my twenties and thirties, when I thought nothing of staying up all night, drinking and dancing, I would be slumber bankrupt with no hope of ever getting out of that debt.

These days my sleep pattern is weird. Tired in the afternoons, awake in the evening until the early hours and then, as always, up with the proverbial lark, or as my old mate Dame Edna would have it – up with the cock!

Yes I am an early riser, late to bed and early to rise. Most mornings see me awake at around six and out of the flat by seven. I like it in some ways. There is plenty that can be achieved before the phone starts to ring and the relentless bleep of detritus starts popping into my email in-box. I can walk into the office at leisure, I can even stop on the way for a spot of breakfast, usually the naughty fry-up kind – well few of the healthier ones are available at 7am.

Funny that, you can get a good old fry-up as an early riser, but the healthy option that would seem the perfect out-of-bed-fellow to early rising is seldom available. That’s not unlike the fact that when I need a strong coffee, before a busy evening out, most coffee shops have shut their doors and gone home. Surely a missed opportunity – so many of us do not want a pub at that time of day.

Getting out of bed has never been a problem for me. I can wake, shower, dress and be out in 15 minutes if I need to. I can even manage without an alarm most days as my body clock is simply set at 6am. At least I think it is. And for those terrifyingly early starts required to catch international flights at unearthly hours, I usually find my eyes open minutes befor the alarm goes off, which is, I guess, a bonus and far preferable to an insultingly confrontational bleeper or the inane ramblings of some late-night DJ.

“I would love to put my head to the pillow and drift off to dreams of fluffy white mashed potatoes and celestial pork pies”

The truth is though, that I would love to be able to go to bed and fall straight to sleep. I would love to put my head to the pillow and drift off to dreams of fluffy white mashed potatoes and celestial pork pies. And then I would like to be lulled gently into wakefulness with a cup of hot tea and a few slices of white toast and salty butter. I’d like to get dressed slowly, and get to the office for a relaxing day at my desk or out meeting lovely clients over a coffee or a bit of lunch – maybe the occasional glass of something nice to wash it down.

In my dreams, it simply isn’t going to happen. And, in truth, I’m not that bothered. Being busy certainly reinforces the knowledge that I am alive, very much alive.

Friends tell me that I should slow down, and maybe they are right. Maybe I need to take things more steadily, maybe… No, I’m not likely to do that am I? I’m more likely to keel over one day, mid-meeting or mid-meal, hopefully with a joyous smile slapped right across my face and surrounded by the people I love and like. One should look down at my body at peace at last and say: “Ah well, he died doing what he liked doing best. Odd really that not stopping finally made him stop.”