Notes at 3.20am

I have no trouble sleeping as a rule.
We. like most couples have our own routine, and it is a routine which has become fixed and unchanging over the years.
Chris likes to retire early and will read before sleep. He and George will creep off to bed together, a treat which George absolutely loves, and the cottage is always filled with the scottie calls of "arrrrwwwwoooooo" when George rubs himself excitedly over the duvet and eiderdown when he has Chris' attention all to himself.

The Welsh terriers remain with me downstairs, and unfortunately both have now gotten into the habit of clambering onto the bed in the wee small hours after I retire , a thing which creates some logistical problems when you want to turn over,or even go to the toilet in the middle of the night.
Last night I was forced awake by some rather nasty breath wafting into my face. It was Meg looking earnestly right at me. As usual she had climbed onto the bed, commando style and had assumed her usual position effectively separating me from Chris. Now for those that don't know, Meg has a hero fixation on me, she cannot be out of my sight for the shortest of times ( and will even follow me to the toilet) , a habit which can be a little cloying at times.
Now I usually cope with this infatuation very well, but I must say that before last night's bed reunion she had been indulging herself in her one and only nasty habit! she had been eating her own poo!
It was all a little too much..this poo breath! , so I squeezed myself from under the duvet William, George AND Albert and sneaked downstairs to make myself a cup of tea. It was 3.20 am.
Now, I don't usually have the luxury of sitting in silence with nothing really to do in the middle of the night, and I found it a rather interesting experience.
All houses have a sound, and an atmosphere of their own at night. Unlike our old Victorian terrace in Sheffield, the cottage does not creak and groan when it settles down in the early morning. The only noises that you can make out here is the howl of the wind around the eaves, the faint buzz of the fridge in the kitchen and the very faint "pad,pad, pad" from Albert as he stalks back and forth from Kitchen to bedroom the rest of the time...there is silence.
Your mind can wander at these times and I got to thinking about all of the previous owners that preceded us since the cottage was first built in the late 1700s. Who were they? what did they do for a living? and were they happy?
The cottage , years ago had a tiny byre for a couple of cows and a pig sty located in front of the orchard; at another time it was thought to be some sort of tiny tavern and at another period had some connection to the Church way back in the far and dim distant past: I resolved myself, this morning, to find out all I can about the cottage's previous tenants and owners and to document all I can about the history of the place.
Anyhow, Meg with her toilet breath and her sad needy eyes finally joined me in the living room and we trouped back to bed to face the gauntlet of bodies on the duvet yet again. It was well past 4am when the whistling of the wind lulled me to sleep