Dear LPG readers,

Since retiring, I have become one of life’s night surfers.  I think that I need to explain in a little more detail.  I know that I am not the only pensioner that finds getting a good night’s sleep a little more difficult these days but when I do wake up in the middle of the night I find just lying there looking into the dark something that I can only do for so long before those depressing thought start to take your mind to places that no one needs to visit. 

So I have a question for any reader who finds themselves doing a bit of staring into the nothingness that the middle of a dark night offers your eyes and all too often your mind as well, even if your sleep is broken by a need to pop to the bathroom.

 When I was young, and at those times when my parents forced me to go to bed before my system dictated, I am sure that I was not the only one who adopted the ‘book or comic and torch under the bedclothes’ method of falling asleep.  Where many other children of my age spent their pocket money on sweets, batteries were at the top of my list because of the many times that I fell asleep and left the under sheet night light on all night.

These days there is no need for the dark because there is no one checking to see if I am not doing as I am told but sometimes, especially in the winter, the thought of even reaching out for the light can give your brain terrible thoughts of just how cold your hand’s journey to the bed-side-lamp switch can be.

Now, the solution is much easier.  I just keep my tablet under my pillow ready for action.  Google has replaced all those magazines and comics of yesteryear while reaching under the pillow, doesn’t constitute a serious bit of exploration that exposes the hand and arm to that cold zone where the blanket or duvet ends and the pillow begins.  It is a much warmer experience for whichever hand you use for retrieval, and I have to say that the subjects to be found are endless.  I have even learned to talk to Google when asking many of my questions which often means that I don’t even have to overexert a finger or thumb to point at the information I am looking for.  

One subject leads to another and though an online visit or two might send me off to sleep again, the time-out will ensure that my batteries don’t run out too quickly, and a quick look at my browsing history the morning after will often tempt me back to what I learned the night before.  If you get someone to set your mobile phone to stay on for a couple of minutes longer before it automatically times-out, and your eye can focus on the smaller screen, a smart phone works just as well.

You only have to take a look on the internet to learn that we are advised not to use screens in the bedroom but we older people are much less likely to find ourselves checking out texts and emails instead of sleeping and the advantage for us is that, as we get older, we are less likely to have to get up at a certain time in the morning.  

Even the internet advises that we stop interacting with our electronic friends at least an hour before bedtime, and I completely agree with that sentiment, but I cannot begin to tell you of the things I have learned, during those intimate night-time sessions with my screen when I can’t sleep anyway.    A little google search does the trick for me and perhaps it might be the solution for a few other readers who double as insomniacs…

NF, Crofton Park