Notes from the sofa

I am still sleeping on the sofa, propped up with various cushions and pillows; thank you to the kind people who've enquired about my silly arm - the fracture is healing nicely, but the muscles and wot-nots around it still hurt like billy-o and each day is a new battle to unstiffen everything and try to raise my arm a little more. Bed is still a no-go area, after one very bad night.

So here we are last night at precisely 11.30, tucked up cosy in a goose down sleeping bag, my little Roberts radio tuned in for the start of the first Ashes match - for my American friends, this is as important to cricket loving Brits and Aussies as the World Series is to you lot, only more so. I speak jokingly of course. I have my 'miners torch' strapped to my head as I finish a glass of wine and read my bedtime book (the latest Alan Banks crime thriller, 'Bad Boy' - nothing too highbrow).

Mousie sleeps on her raggedy cushion, on the sofa top and when I change ends in a few hours she will start purring loudly in my ear. The cricket commentators say hello to all the Brits staying up late to listen in, in time honoured tradition and it's all rather lovely.

On the big, low coffee table to my right, Pumpkin is slobbed out. We have a bedtime routine in which I put his cushion out for him and he leaps up to settle down for a good sleep. Further up, glowering down like a skinny, malevolent demon, is Samson. His sleeping place is a particular stair, though given half the chance he will take over the sofa. We are one cat short, fat Clover. Despite the freezing temperature outside, she has hied off for the evening. She's done this all her life and is quite self sufficient. For now, it is just me, three sleepy cats, the faint crackle of a cricket match tuning in from the other side of the world and the fuzzy snoring of my beloved Andy, almost directly above my head in the real bedroom.