No Sleep Tonight.

Now 4.30am, I have been awake for the last couple of hours just writing and listening to the sounds of the night. The Met office website quotes windspeeds of around 25mph, so its a breezy night outside my bedroom window and there has been plenty to hear and to write about. So if, unlike me, you managed the recommended 8 hours sleep, this is what you have missed.

NO SLEEP TONIGHT   

No sleep tonight. The weather has claimed the hours of darkness as its own.

An angry wind roars outside my bedroom window. An invisible energy twisting and turning through the dark. Tiles dance on the  rooftop, lifting and falling like piano keys being played by an invisible hand. Rafters sway - a solitary slow dance above my head, as fat drops of rain beat steady rhythms on the window. It is a symphony, born from a storm, playing only for those for whom the night refuses rest.

Curled up snug and small on the bottom of my bed, the dog lies half asleep, half awake, listening to a world that cannot settle. His ears twitch at every new sound. Somewhere on the road outside, he hears wheelie bins being propelled down pavements like drunken patrons at closing time - bumping into lamp posts and knocking against wing mirrors as they stagger past.

In the distance, emergency sirens rise and fall, threading their thin cry through the wind’s dark song.

And all the while the storm works its will its upon the night. Wind flinging itself at chimneys and into corners, whistling through keyholes and rustling through bushes. The rain slashing sideways, the air alive with a restless energy that rocks parked cars, rattles fences and bends trees into bowing silhouettes.

Everything becomes an instrument. Gutters clang. Damp autumn leaves are swept into frantic skitters, yellows oranges, browns cavorting in air as the wind drums loudly on every surface that it finds. 

This is weather with a voice, a mood, a will. Tonight it sings loudly, passionately, refusing to be ignored, but soon it's song will be sung, it's dance will be danced and, as dawn breaks, the world will fall silent once more.

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