In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

‘I can’t do Tuesday, we have to go and see Tyler’s teacher that night. How about Thursday?'

‘Ooh no, that’s my Zumba class. It’ll have to be a week on Monday then.'

Riveting stuff, isn’t it? Not exactly the kind of conversation that you want to eavesdrop on at any time, but especially not when yelled down the street at two in the morning. My neighbour Kayleigh and her friend Laura have never been known for their respect to others though. I really wanted to lean out of the window and scream, ‘If you don’t shut the hell up you’ll not see daylight, let alone next Monday!’ (or perhaps even something witty) but my duvet and my Beloved were very comfortable so I snuggled up with both and tried to get back to sleep.

I’ve lived near a pub for almost twenty-five years now and it’s mostly been fine. When I say close I mean really close; just thirty-four steps from my back door to the bar, though it’s occasionally taken many more steps to get back home. In all that time we’ve never really had much to complain about, not even on traditional nights of revelry like New Years, people have generally been pretty quiet when leaving in the early hours. But not last night when these two young ladies decided that a hundred metres was the optimum distance to have a conversation.

By the time they’d eventually said their ‘goodnight’s the damage had been done. My body wasn’t quite awake but my mind was, and it was racing with ideas that screamed to be preserved. Much as I wanted to just burrow my way further into the duvet and fall back to sleep I knew that I couldn’t. I’d been here before and was well aware that if I didn’t immediately write down these gifts from my nocturnal muse then they’d fade aware to nothing like dreams in the morning light. I couldn’t afford for that to happen. One of these ideas could be The One, the spark of inspiration that could propel me to literary stardom, or at least brings in a three-figure cheque.

So that’s how I found myself in the wee small hours of the morning sitting on the loo with a notebook and pen in my hand. Initially it wasn’t just ideas that were flowing (I’ve learned at my age never to pass up a bathroom opportunity) but eventually I found I’d filled twelve sheets. A big chunk of notebook.  It was quite possibly the best use of paper that my bathroom has ever seen.

Now I just have to begin the mammoth task of typing it up and making sense of it all. Writing, like all acts of creativity, is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration. I’m not sure that Thomas Edison was thinking of my and my bathroom when he came up with that idea but it still holds true. I have the ideas, now it’s time to put the hard work into making them into something that others would find interesting.

But first I think I deserve a little nap.