Wee Willie Winkie

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath

Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,

Chief nourisher in life's feast.


~William Shakespeare, Macbeth

From my very vague memories of High School English old Willie Shakespeare once talked about the wonders of sleep, namely that a good kip knitted up the (un)raveled sleeve of the day’s worries. Unlike the Bard, dear old Humphrey is not a fan of sleep, he prefers to spend his nocturnal hours on the move; rattling locked doors, peering in cupboards and rooms for his late mother/dead dog/absent wife. Last night his constant low-level rumblings slowly unpicked the seams of my sleep to the point where this morning I both look and feel like a dog-eared, (somewhat wrinkled) frayed sleeve.

Humphrey is no stranger to nocturnal wanderings the Old Bill has brought him back on no fewer than 6 occasions after he was seen wandering down country lanes in his tartan pyjamas, rather like another nocturnal character “Wee Willie Winkie rins through the toon,Up stairs an' doon stairs in his nicht-gown,Tirlin' at the window, crying at the lock.”

After spending a (mild summer) night entangled in a barbwire fence Humphrey’s family finally installed security locks on all the doors. Now like troubled poltergeist Humphrey spends night after night trying to escape, attempting to use blunt kitchen knives to pries open doors. I generally sleep through his wanderings, the tink-tink of a clattering kitchen knife just another familiar nocturnal symphony round here. These late night noises usually only last about half an hour after which point Humphrey gets bored (or forgets what he’s doing) and goes back to bed, but last night Wee Willie Winkie was on the move for his half hourly spurts but at hourly intervals. Eventually at 6.30am I heard repeated rattling at my locked door and opened it to find a fully dressed Humphrey complete with raincoat and sun hat demanding that I find the keys to his car because he must go home.

Me: Humphrey, you are home this is Locklear Farm.

Humphrey: I know this is Locklear Farm, but I don’t live here.

Me: Well, where do you live?

Humphrey: Over the hill, that way [gestures vaguely to his right].

Me: Ah, well it’s very early it’s 6.30 in the morning. Can we go a bit later?

Humphrey: What? It’s not morning it’s 6.30 at night.

[Insert the above conversation repeated 3 times here.]

After a further 30 minutes of wrangling I persuaded Humphrey to go back to bed. At which point I searched in vain for his pyjamas and eventually gave up, issuing him a clean pair and banishing him to bed for another hour or four (he usually only rises at 10am after a night of tinkering).

A cup of tea later when my eyes had adjusted to the dull morning light I located Humphrey’s pyjamas – neatly folded up on the cooker. His left slipper was wedged next to the milk in the fridge.

Eish.

*Click here to view Wee Willie Winkie Image in its original domain.