OH! WHAT A NIGHT IT WAS!

Sandy the builder wanted to work today Saturday) to finish off a few bits and pieces, so we didn't get a Saturday lie in, but I advance too swiftly!

We always go to bed at 11 o/c latest, so that we can leap out of bed when the alarm goes off at 7 am. Last night Arthur went up at about five to and left me to close down my computer programmes and put the cats to bed etc. That's when it started. My computer gave me a flashing red URGENT message to say that my antivirus needed updating and I was in an unprotected and dangerous situation. I tried to update it but it kept telling me it was already fully updated. Then I'd get this red message again and so on. I called to Arthur that I was going to do a quick scan and would them be up. It took ages to do, and still said that I was unprotected and in a vulnerable situation. I had no choice but to close down and go to bed, hoping it would have sorted itself by the morning.

By the time I'd said my prayers it was gone midnight. Then I couldn't sleep. I was just on the brink, when Arthur sat up and started going on about handkerchiefs. When I told him to shut up and go back to sleep he insisted that he had to get a hankie but they were kept on the floor and he couldn't find them! I told him to light the torch we keep by the bed, and he would see the hankie box on his bedside table. First he couldn't find the torch, then he didn't know how to turn it on. I was getting more awake by the second! I took the torch from him, turned it on, and shone it on the hankies, he then returned the torch to his bedside cabinet and went back to sleep. I didn't!

About 1.30 I was just drifting into that lovely cosy spot that you get to just before you switch out like light, and Arthur sat up again waking me once more! 'Now what' I said (not best pleased) ' I can't switch on the torch' mumbled his Lordship. He kept saying 'It's all wet there' and waving the torch about in the darkness. I grabbed the torch out of his hand, switched it on and illuminated the bedroom. 'There, there's no wet anywhere,. For goodness sake go to sleep' I snatched the torch from him, switched it off and put on my side of the bed. In doing so my arm brushed against the clock/radio alarm and must have compressed the snooze button. Immediately the radio came on! I had no idea how to cancel my snooze button as I'd never used it before. Nothing would make the radio go off, and I didn't know how long a snooze it was set for. I lay there listening to World news at about 2am praying that it would switch off in about ten minutes. I couldn't turn the radio low because then, if I went to sleep and the alarm went off as planned at seven, I would never (after such a night) hear the radio and wake up. I couldn't leave it at the required volume to awaken us in the morning, because I would never get to sleep at all!. Arthur was, (the swine),out for the count!

After it had been going for 55 minutes I drifted off. Thank goodness I awoke later and the thing had gone to sleep. I sat up and reset the alarm for seven and then went to sleep. At six o/c, I was awakened again by Emma jumping off the bed, Usually a signal that she's about to poo on the floor unless I put her out pronto. I leaped out of bed and she followed me to the loo where I had to stop off first. I then got halfway down the stairs and realised that Emma wasn't following me. I called her... no response. I dragged myself weary and aching back up to the bathroom door where she was waiting. As soon as she saw me she trotted to the bedroom door and waited for us both to go back to bed! I think she only got down to stretch her legs! It was now six o'clock and I seriously wondered if it was worth going back to bed, just to experience the joy of drifting off beneath the warm duvet, only to be rudely woken up 1 hour later to radio 4 baring a wake-up call. But I did.

When I switched on my computer about half past eight, not only did I still get the red message, but I couldn't open ebay or several other sites. The monster kept saying it could be unsafe as their certificates had run out and they were no longer registered. I tried ringing John but he was caught up in a family crisis, and Philip was still in Madeira. In the end I rang Keith my friendly neighbourhood Computer whizz. He said check your clock and calender. I did and it read 22nd Sept. 2009! I had transported myself into the future where nothing had been updated for two years!. I was so relieved. I was sure that I'd been zapped by some awful virus, just to round off my surreal night!

Needless to say, I feel soooo tired and Arthur couldn't remember much about it!