Things that go bump in the night!

I consider myself to be quite a brave person normally but... I barely slept a wink last night!  Brett is away till Friday for work in Tasmania and I am home alone with the kids.  Last night was our first night alone and it progressed pretty much as a normal evening would, except of course that the children are sleeping with me in my room so I am relegated to a mattress on the floor.  They had been asleep for a few hours and I decided at about 12:30 to start getting ready for bed.  After getting into bed I lay awake listening to the usual settling  noises of the house and the sound of the bottlebrush bush tapping against my window every so often in the breeze.  Now, I have lived alone before and am not really scared of the dark so am quite used to ignoring those sounds and not jumping at every creak.

Cue the dogs.  The same dogs who had been quiet the entire evening now decided to start barking.  I, of course, shouted at them to go to bed and was met with silence so got back into bed and tried to get to sleep.  *BANG!!* And the dogs went into a barking frenzy.  I jumped out of bed and tiptoed over to the sliding door to peek through the blinds and saw nothing besides the dogs rushing off to the back part of the garden.  I went to the back of the house peeking through blinds, switching lights on all the way, and made sure the doors were closed (so I would hear if someone came in) and put a doorstop under the laundry room door.  I made my way back to my room switching lights off as I went.  I got back into bed when...  *BANG!!* followed by some more frenzied barking.  So being the brave South African woman that I am I grabbed the biggest knife in the kitchen and rushed back to my room only to rediscover that my bedroom door doesn't lock.  So there I am in my room sat with a huge knife and dining room chair lodged under my door handle.  I contemplate phoning a friend at one stage but decided that I wouldn't call someone that time of morning unless it was an absolute emergency.  I sat like that (with my imagination running rife, which you can imagine is scary considering I love scary movies) for quite some time listening to the dogs run up and down the side of the house by my bathroom window.  Eventually, I could barely keep my eyes open anymore so decided to risk trying to sleep.  I spent the night waking at every little sound.

Tonight I am determined not to be a scaredy kitten so my plan of action is:

• torch and mobile next to my bed;
• knife under my mattress; and 
• the door will be closed with a chair the second I go to bed. 

I think a glass of wine might be on the cards too, just to relax me of course. :P

Wish me luck!

Kitten