Three Day Vegas Bender

It’s official. I now cannot properly function if I have anything less than seven hours of sleep the night before. Less than six and the next day is a complete write-off. Furthermore, it has come to my attention that the 7+ hours of repose I require must also fall within the 10pm-8am window, though preferably with a wakeup time no earlier than 7. At what point did I suddenly become so tied to a sleep routine? What a wimp!

There’s no way I’m going to have a midlife second wind at this rate. I had imagined I might restyle myself as an enfant terrible writer once the kids were both of a sensible age - join the Groucho Club and start drinking neat whisky and write about all of my most debauched modelling tales from an armchair in the corner on the first floor. Wearing a ripped lace dress and huge faux fur coat. Well I’m not going to be very terreeeblay if I have to be on the train home at 6pm am I? (The fact that I’m also not young enough to be classified as enfant hasn’t escaped me, either.)

I’ve never been great on less than eight hours sleep, it has to be said, but recently I have noticed that if anything at all disturbs my general routine (lights off 11.30pm, wake up 7.30am) I am utterly useless. You’d think I’d just stumbled off a flight from Australia after doing a fortnight on I’m a Celebrity. My eyes hurt, my bones ache, I can’t string a coherent sentence together…

Rich just came in from the cabin (my new office at the top of the garden, progress photo above, do keep up) and said this to me:

‘Are you only having beans on one side?’

It took me a full five seconds of intense concentration to work out that I had no clue what on earth he was on about.

‘Baked beans!’ he shouted from the utility room. ‘Do you only want baked beans on one side?’