Johnny Depp and a cure for insommnia.

I'm not a great sleeper.  Now, that's not to say that I don't love my bed more than almost anything else in the entire world - I could happily live in my bed if someone could only invent something that meant I didn't have to get out to attend to...well, you know, needs.  Some kind of Wallace and Grommet contraption, maybe a funnel and a bucket and some kind of remote-controlled flap effort. Oh, and a long handled grabby thing that would mean I could reach books from the shelves, and something that would let the hens out and shut them in and walk the dogs.  All right, so perhaps life in bed is unrealistic for someone in my circumstances, ie, in full command of all my limbs, and I certainly wouldn't like to be forcibly confined to bed, so...

Where was I?

Ah yes, sleeping problems.  I have become prone to the Sudden Jerk.  No, that's not a man who arrives unexpectedly in the middle of the night, behaving badly and waking me up.

Behave as badly as you want, Johnny.  You are welcome any time...

It is that horrible thing, when you wake up from what was previously a lovely deep sleep, with your brain racing and trying to multiple-solve every problem you've had in the last six weeks.  That thing.

And I have, inadvertently, hit upon a cure.  Well, no, not a cure, the only thing that will absolutely cure the Brain-Race problem would be enough money to, you know, actually pay for things and no worries about kids, dogs, health, strange noises downstairs, family, that odd smell of burning.. So it's less of a cure and more of a preventative.  Do you want to know what it is, people?

Books.  Audio books, to be exact.  My own, to be even more exact.

Yes.  I am in the fortunate position of having just about all my books (even the early ones) available as audio books.  In fact (prepare yourselves for a gratuitous plug here, people) my most recent release from Choc Lit, the incomparably-titled Vampire State of Mind has just become available too!  Look here

See?  Anyway, just in case you've made it this far and aren't still dribbling over the picture of Johnny (join the queue, just bear in mind that I am at least three in front of you), here is what I do.  I take my own audio book, transfer it to ITunes, and leave it playing on my computer during the night!  It's like being read to by myself!  I have to say that I use my own books not for reasons of gratuitous self-aggrandisement, but for the simple reason that I already know how it ends, and therefore do not have to stay awake to, for example, find out whodunnit.

Trust me, it works.  Mind you, the last person I said that to still can't stand upright during electrical storms so, you know, your mileage may vary.  But I recommend it thoroughly, because now, when I wake during the night, I find myself listening to the story and therefore being distracted by whatever woes may currently be uppermost in my highly-trained mind.  Of course, I sleep alone.

Now I come to think of it, this may be why.