A New Day or Get Up and Start Again

A New Day or Get Up and Start Again ©

By

Michael Casey

I’m yawning I’m had my breakfast and the pain is subsiding, yes it’s boring for you to hear this you just want to hear the next story, but pain does slow the Writer, me, down. So today I’ll talk to you about Sleep, I just decided 2 seconds ago after the yawn that I’ll be sleep talking, or rather talking about sleep. Yes my ideas are as clever as that, so let’s see where the story will take us. If I were clever I’d sweat over the words the meaning and the commas. As this is Radio I never worry, and frankly its what the words are and how they flow off the page, or from my mouth that matters. Note to writers who cannot write, I won’t read anything that is badly written, no matter how good the ideas. I got that tip from Mary a radio producer at the BBC maybe 30 years ago. And the rest is History.

I’ve probably sent you to sleep by now, but sleep really is so important, I speak as somebody who wakes every 2 hours, and on some occasions when I wake I say “that was deep sleep” or if I have to get up because of the pain after an hour or two up I go back to bed when I’m so tired I’ll sleep through the pain. Sorry I’m boring you again, by the way Boris in Poland YOU never have that problem because you work so hard you sleep like a baby. Besides which your wife helps you sleep.

When we are kids we don’t want to go op bed we want to stop up and watch Grimm on Tv, so dad has to carry us up to bed and tuck us in. This is all fine and good, but carrying kids up the stairs to bed when dad is tired is dangerous. Once in the children’s bedroom I tripped over the bedsheets while still carrying a child, and fell heavily on the bed. Breaking the bed. Yes really. If suddenly 115 kilos falls on a bed it will break. In The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker Patrick and June break the bed and have to superglue it back together,but that was while creating a baby, before June was carrying a baby inside her. And that was 30 years ago when I wrote it, then Patrick was made organise a fete for the children’s home as a penance set by his priest, go read the book.

So sleep is so important, especially for kids, nowadays just switch off the Wifi and they will soon go to bed and sleep. In the old days we would listen to the radio and fall asleep with it on bedsides us. I got hooked on radio when I was maybe 8, and I remember missing the end of The Ghost and Mrs Muir on the Book at Bedtime, my brother had to tell me what happened, we had the radio in bed with us.

Gentle music does aid sleep,as does gentle lighting, nobody had screens and phones and so on when I was growing up 50 years ago, yes I’m that old, but still so handsome, swoon all you ladies out there, ok just remember to rinse your false teeth and put them under your pillow. You do have to prepare for sleep, wash your feet at least, and any other important bits. We used to wash in the kitchen sink, an old Belfast sink as they call them, then a bath at the weekend. Yes the good old days, but we did get an inside toilet when I was 10. Before we got rid of the lodgers from the family house my dad used to carry down a piss pot belonging to an old lady struck off doctor, yes such sweet memories.

Yes, darkness is needed to sleep, so thick curtains might be needed like they have in hotels. But you may hate total darkness so you leave a chink in the curtains, or you sleep with the landing light on. All of which is great until your cat becomes a teenager, 2 in our years. So I am on my 2 hour catnap, and then Totoro wakes me up, not the children or anybody else, just me. She claws at the window, its not a burglar, just a cat wanting a tin roof because she’s so hot. I wake suddenly so I have to let her out the window, telling her not to come back pregnant. In actual fact we think she’s adopted a little Polish boy a few doors away, or it could be the Indian corner shop owner, we’ll never know as cats don’t tell,  they are as quiet as the Sicilian Mafia, or the grave.

Meanwhile I go back to sleep, back to my one sided position, my scars don’t allow me to rotate like a kebab on a spit any more. Sleeping in the nude means my scars on my legs rub together, and lately my nipple on the left chest is mega sensitive. If you blow on my nipple I’ll scream and jump 2 feet into the air. Apart from that I have perfect blood pressure. Then I drift off dreaming my dreams. We all have our dreams but I’ll keep mine to myself. Some things I don’t share.

Most people toss and turn in their sleep,its almost like watching sailors using flags for messages, all the various positions. Beds and sleeping are so much nicer nowadays.Though I have broken 2 other beds.My main bed, a pine bed lasted over 20 years. I replaced it with a metal one, only it buckled under my 17.5 stones, or 112kilos of tossing and turning, that was when I could toss and turn and rotate like that kebab on a spit. So we left it outside, the legs like a collapsed giraffe. A passing Pole in a van took it away, then once he was at the corner he took it out and banged it back into position. I’m sure he must have though that fat bastard is just too fat, this’ll do for me and my Maria. So God Bless him, and Maria and all their babies.

The other broken bed was actually a wooden one, it had a tiny crack in it when I put it together, then 3 years later the crack kept on growing. BANG. In the middle of the night it broke on one side and I was in a mattress sandwich. So then I bought an industrial strength bed. I could barely lift it and fix it together. This was over 3 years ago, before the heart business. Its a really nice looking bed, but if ever we do finally move house, it will stay in the house as I could never shift it. Some days I can barely carry the shopping home, remember my breast bone was cut open to fix my heart, and the arthritis comes and does so I limp or don’t limp.

Anyway lets get back to bed, now there’s a offer, no Boris not you, I only really like Oriental girls, my wife is a Shanghai girl remember. So in the old days Duvets were not even invented.You just had 6 blankets on top of your bed in winter, that’s why you have such strong arm muscles, pulling the blankets over you. You really need a pulley to pull them. We did have an eiderdown 50 years ago, just the one on my brother’s bed. But duvets were not even invented. Just a note,when you went on holiday you had to bring your own sheets and pillowcases, so as a family we had 6 cases for the Casey’s bed linen.

I remember now I had a fold up metal bed, that I used to strum on the big springs at the side, thinking I was musical only for one of my brothers to shout shut up we want to sleep. I spent a lot of time in bed when I was unemployed, then one day I just decided to changed and then my Protestant work ethic kicked in, I’m catholic by the way Boris, hence my 1,200,000Words sending you all to sleep.

The other thing about my own sleep experience is shift working, I did 14 years of night shifts. So I used to go to bed at 9am and sleep till 5pm, this really does ruin your body. But I did get to see naked Dawn every morning, the Sky Boris not the girl in the flat opposite who never closes her curtains. As children Christine at the bottom of the garden always used to undress as far as her bra and knickers before only then retreating out of view, this was our sex education. She would be 80 now. But Dawn, in the sky was fantastic and we all used to stop work at 5am or so to watch her over the Blues’ ground.

You are always tired when you work shifts,the 1^st day off is recovery day, then you enjoy your other days, but suddenly you are back on nights again, 50% of my working time was nights. My mother once woke me with the news that John Paul II had been shot, I remember crying before I’d even got out of bed.

I could tell you more about sleep or is it beds or sex education? But I have to eat now and eating always important, you cannot sleep or work or even enjoy sex on an empty belly. Though I’m sure Boris in Poland and his cousin in Ukraine have stories of their own, maybe they’ll start their own blog instead of reading mine, or are they just stealing them and calling themselves Boris Casey the Pole in Birmingham? I don’t know, so long as I can see a few readers on the score board, sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite. One final thing Boris, I used to work another shift pattern when I got home at 3am. We discovered it was the perfect time to conceive, so you can either get a job as a bouncer and come home and play doctors and nurses at 3am. Or set your alarm clock. Sleep tight Boris and wife, but in 9 months time you will only have sleepless nights…