Texting

You know when a bairn gets in the bed that it's not going to be a good night. Lying there innocently wriggling and coughing, it's probably the combination of warm jammies and being flanked by warm adults under a winter duvet that makes them restless as much as whatever ails them. A sore ear last night.

You know when you finally waken properly, with the alarm this time, with a headache and balanced on the edge of the mattress that the night has not been good. The day won't be much better.

In fact, it started out as a dull foggy day. Dull in the head, foggy in the senses, bobbing like a cork, getting carried along by the day rather than being in it. But then the fun started - some news that sparked life into a competition that wasn't yet decided. There was something to write for and a target to aim it at. Great fun. But then the fun was taken out of it - an email announcing an anomaly and cancelled interviews. No trip to Glasgow tomorrow and I'd bought new breeks for the occasion. Never mind everything will crank up again soon.

When Mandy got to the station, Ellen was already sleeping in the car. I carried her up the path asleep on my shoulder, her stuffed up nose making her grunt like a wee piggy, put her in her PJs and straight to bed. Wee lamb.