30 hours of straight travel ahead, door-to-door, and all night it’s been Nature loud in hoot and chirrup at my house.  There is a cricket stuck inside in the the sitting-room somewhere, making more racket than you think a single cricket in a house could.  I’ve been up twice trying to bash it/release it lovingly back to the wild, but every time I turn the light on it shuts right up and I can’t find it.  But worse than the cricket were the owls!  Two of them!  I don’t know if they were getting it on or having a tete-a-tete, a heart to heart, dancing beak-to-beak or what but they had a lot to say to each other and it sounded like relationship stuff. 

“Get a room, owls!”  I silently shrieked. 

Silently, because Problemchild 2 snuck into bed with me at about 3 and by then all sleep would remain just a crazy, waking dream.   

So, up, fully dressed and leaving an hour earlier than I thought becasue I couldn’t check-in online last night for some reason and that’s making me nervous.  Why? Why can’t I check in?  Why is that?  I figure if I’m there an hour earlier, more shouting and bawling can be packed in if there’s any problem, and shouting and bawling is a more efficient use of my time than listening to owls getting it on while a cricket plays its mournful, incessant dirge for freedom.  On the other hand, maybe cricket-squashing and owl-slaughter are more efficient uses of my extra hour.  Oh, If only I’d remembered to exercise my constitutional wotsits and become a gun-owner. 

Byeee.

xx