In the wee small hours

All my life I have ‘suffered’ from partial insomnia, frequently awaking during the night and for several hours in the early hours. I have deliberately put ‘suffered’ in inverted commas as there is a tendency to regard wakefulness as some sort of disorder if not depression. In fact it can be most useful. During the Olympics in Brazil the question was posed as to how you stay up all night to watch a key event at 2-30. The answer is you don’t have to. If you go to bed at 8-30, you could have six hours sleep and be alert enough to follow the action. So it was this morning as I have always been fascinated by US elections and I know the key time would be around 1 am onwards. By then the key results in the swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania would be apparent. The general view as I write this at 1.00 am is that Trump, having alienated if not offended the minorities, the latter would turn out whereas the constituency heartened by what he has said would not  do so in similar numbers. I can see the Republican majority in both houses being maintained. The fact that you vote on congressmen, senators and President separately has always struck me as an asset. I once lived in a constituency with a MP whose politics I do not share but she was diligent and vastly superior to a candidate who was a career woman who did not endear herself to her constituents nor even party followers which created a dilemma for me as I shared her politics. Against this, I find the American appeal to ‘this great country, make this country great again’ distinctly unattractive. If it’s such a great country, why cannot it produce two candidates better than a bigot who does not enjoy support from his own party and an old hand from a sleazy political family whose CV does not inspire confidence.

There is a group of us on the Rust who are around and awake in the early hours and not infrequently we will be in email communication. My brother is up and online by 4. My cousin living in New York is often in touch at these times. Once I arise at 5 am and listen to Radio 5’s Wake Up To Money I am sufficiently enthused and energised to get on with some work but in a positive way. The drawback is that come the afternoon, when I have already been up for 10 hours, a fatigue descends which can only be relieved by a nap. Fortunately as a retired person I can accommodate this. I always say “go with the flow”, listen to what your body is telling you and if it says have a nap in the afternoon, or you don’t need sleep at times when most do, so be it.