Go to sleeeeep, go to sleeeeeep, go to sleee-eeep, my baybeeeeeeee....

Obviously, singing in the style of today's title rarely helps lull Andy to sleep, what with it being common and raucous, but such is the severity of his T.A.T.T syndrome (Tired All The Time - yes, that's what our Dr Chuckles calls it, so it must be a REAL condition) that we'll try anything and everything to get rid of this problem for good.

So last night there was a TV programme on the Beeb called 'Ten Things You Didn't Know About Sleep.'

'We must watch this,' I said to Andy. 'We might learn something useful.'

I use the Royal 'we' as a show of solidarity because, luckily, I rarely have sleep issues. In fact, my response to the question 'How did you sleep last night?' is usually, 'Well, I just shut my eyes and away I went.' Even if I wake up, I generally drop off again quite quickly. My worst sleep time was when I was still teaching and weighed more than 3 stones heavier than I do now. Unfortunately, Andy can't give up teaching. He could give up being a vet, which he is quite keen to do, especially at the moment in his current temporary senior vet role. And he admits that losing weight would probably help him sleep better but we all know you have to be in the 'zone' for losing weight and all the while Andy is being temporary senior vet and needs comfort food therapy to blot out the horrors of the day, he won't get anywhere near the diet zone let alone in it.

'I am in the zone,' Andy insisted this morning when we were discussing this very matter and I was weighing out a portion of my lovely new crunchy breakfast cereal in order to prevent me eating the whole packet in one fell swoop.
'Not THAT zone,' I said. 'The OTHER zone.'

You see, Andy is a multi-zoned character. Sometimes even I don't know which zone he is in, unless it's the one where he wears a blank face with his bottom lip sticking out and then it's definitely the 'playing with my computer game system' zone. If this blank sticky-out lip face is accompanied by the emitence of the occasional 'Ssssshhh!' then it's his 'Doctor Who' zone.

Anyway, back to last night's telly prog.

A couple of the 'Top 10s' were irrelevant. Like the snoring issue and the curing jet-lag idea. Andy rarely snores and if he does I find a good whallop or light smothering with a pillow usually sorts out the snorts (and gets him breathing again). And because I won't fly, then Andy doesn't fly. I have said that he shouldn't not go abroad just because I am plane-phobic, but he insists he doesn't want to be gallivanting in far-flung foreign climes unless he can gallivant with me. The last time he flew, it was to Barcelona on his stag-do, and I don't think jet lag is an issue between here and Spain.

The sleep deprivation idea seemed worthy of a try. Basically, you don't go to bed until 2 a.m, then you stay in bed REGARDLESS of whether the sandman appears, for 6 hours, rising at 8 a.m. This to be repeated for 4 weeks by which time your body has been retrained and should be sleeping for 6 hours solid. They tried it on a very grumpy-looking chap who declared it a miracle-cure for his insomnia and was back to annoying his children with a cheerful nature at breakfast time within the month.

'Trouble is,' said Andy, 'I can't get up at 8 because I'll never get to work on time.'

I refute this statement. Andy is NEVER late for work. In fact, he is always 20-30 minutes early because he is a conscientious employee and pulls more than his weight as far as putting in the hours is concerned. I reckon he could get up at 8, shower, dress and have brekkie and still be at work with time to spare.

Another interesting idea, which Andy tried last night, was muscle clenching. Basically, you lie on your back, and starting with your feet and working your way up, clench and relax your different muscle groups in turn, holding each clench for several seconds before releasing and relaxing.

Trouble was, Andy had reached his buttocks within 15 seconds of starting.
'How long is it supposed to take for me to reach my face?' he asked.
'Twenty minutes,' I said. 'How long have you been holding your clenches for?'
'About 2 seconds each,' said Andy. 'I think I might be going too quick for this to work effectively. And I missed out a couple of muscle groups because I was getting bored.'
'I think you might be right,' I said.

Andy didn't see numbers 9 and 10 on the list on the programme because by this point he'd fallen asleep on the living room floor.
'Are you awake?' I said, poking him with my foot.
'I'M AWAKE!!!' said Andy, jolting up his head to reveal carpet imprint on the side of his sleepy pink face.
'No, you aren't,' I said. 'They've just said about inhaling lavender.'
'We're already doing that,' said Andy, which is true because for the last week I've been using the oilburner upstairs and burning lavender oil before bed (and sometimes the ceramic holder if I drop off/ forget to keep an eye on the water level.)

So the plan of action for tackling Andy's T.A.T.T syndrome seems to be keep on with the lavender (only try not to set fire to house by inadvertently falling asleep whilst the candle is burning), persist in the clench and relax method and make it last longer than half a minute and possibly consider the sleep deprivation experiment and black-out curtains.

I'll keep you posted on progress.