Don’t bl**dy tell me “it’s the longest DAY you stooopid woman”. I feel as though the shortest night of the year has been turned into a strange long nightmare.

I have been working today so I dutifully went to bed early last night. At 11pm, a diesel van turned up and sat outside our house for ages, while the contents of a student flat was emptied. The engine was running and conversations carried on with pals while people came and went up the path.

Then a series of strange comings and goings started. People coming and going local houses. Cars pulling up then going away again without anyone apparently getting in or out. This went on for hours.

At 4am, we thought we were being burgled. There was smashing of crockery and strange noises coming from downstairs. Archie (bless his heart) despite having had a good, active day, decided he was going to ramble round the ground floor of our house and he managed to get himself stuck in the cupboard where I’ve been amassing the china for our wedding. Now last week, I managed to break a few bits and bobs myself when I slipped on a ladder while installing a light fitting and dropped its glass shade onto the floor. Flying glass went everywhere and I broke a couple of cups and a teapot. Tonight, Archie has done his best to break more. He was, quite literally, a dog in a china shop. He got in and floundered around trying to work out how to get back out again, knocking stuff over and breaking more of my precious haul.

4.30am hailed the bikers parade. A low rumbling sound starts this annual event and is followed by a procession of bikers, from somewhere else, wending their way up the hill to see the dawn of the longest day from the ancient monument at the top of the road. It’s a nice idea and to be honest, if I’d been asleep then who cares what they choose to do, but I was by now in a bit of a flap about sleeplessness and work.

Six am and I’m awake again…….giving up on any thoughts of sleep now.

This photo is taken in the fading light at the other end of the longest day, which is surrounded by the shortest nights, not that I knew anything about that, I was too busy lying there awake worrying about sleep and work.