Sleepless in September.

At bedtime, when she was a young girl, Krissie would ask her mum to check the bed for bees.

Last night there was a Hornet on the ceiling above mine, and no Beryl to help sort it out.

A BIG Hornet.

The one that also most finished me off in the summer was an ant in comparison to this elephant.

I tried turning off all the lights in that part of the house, and illuminating as many as environmental concerns would allow, elsewhere – hoping to entice it to a nonlethal area.

It resisted my attempts and preferred to rattle aggressively above my pillow.

No way was I going to sleep underneath that, so I headed out of the house to find alternative accommodation.

The night was magnificent, a thousand-star Mid-September clarity and from deep in the forest, unseen, came the guttural roar of the Stags rutting.

At this time of the year it can sound as if the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park are loose, so I still wasn’t sure that I would be able to sleep soundly.

On the other side of the village there is an ancient forest, and a perimeter road runs around the rim, the forest dipping like a giant bowl.

People from Toulouse will drive up in the late evening, park, lean against their car and listen to the earthly sounds that rise up from the depths of the forest floor.

The braver ones will wander down and walk enchanted-ly through the tress under moonlight.

I didn’t have to go that far to find a bed, just to the separate room at the far end of the house..

I slept with the window open and fell asleep to the sounds of distant dinosaurs and sheep bells, risking only that a cat would suddenly land on my head.

But I’m used to that.