Why do I keep falling asleep?

 It is 5.20pm on Friday and we’re going across to the Rose & Crown in an hour for dinner with our friends Pauline and Chris Coakley. I’ve just woken up after a two-hour sleep. I only woke up because Mabel, our Springer Spaniel, realised it was dinner time and leapt from my bed where she’d also been sleeping.

I have been sleeping a lot just lately, I can fall asleep just about anywhere and any time from 10am through to 5pm. I also get about five or six hours at night. Last Saturday, we took Arthur and Saoirse to the Luxe Cinema in Wisbech to watch Bad Guys II and I fell asleep during the film for about 45 minutes.

I’m not sure if this is a natural progression in my life; like an old dog, I’ll sleep more and more until eventually I don’t wake up (not a bad way to go) or whether it’s a sign of a more serious health concern. Perhaps I should Google “falling asleep during the day” and find 20 things that could be the end of me?

Well, apart from sleeping, what’s been happening in my life? We are coming to the end of our Monday Alice duty, which has been a fixture of our lives for almost four years. Alice starts school in just over three weeks and we will get an extra day during the week to do things (or to fall asleep). I’ll miss looking after her. Of all our grandchildren, I’ve had the chance to watch her grow through two car seats (backward-facing to forward-with-seatbelt) and develop from a baby, through toddler to a proper little girl. She’s given us endless pleasure and we’ll both miss Mondays, although not the 7am start in winter. I think we’ll still see quite a lot of her during school holidays, so that will be something to look forward to. We’ve already booked one of the beach cabins at the Le Strange Arms in Old Hunstanton for the autumn half-term.

Alice is more than ready for school. She enjoys nursery/pre-school where she’s spent three days a week from the age of around nine months. She’s confident, mixes well and I think she’s popular with the other children. We meet one or two of them when we’re out and about with her on Mondays and they’re always delighted to see her. Like all our grandchildren, she’s super smart and also has a good vocabulary, although it has been delivered in a stronger and stronger Leicestershire accent. Tom asked me what a Leicestershire accent sounded like and I struggled to describe it; it’s not northern, but some of the vowel sounds are similar.