insomniac with jetlag #3 and a dog in a footy jumper

The elusive eight hours sleep. I got 'em. Bed at 8, up at midnight, bed again at 2, up again at 6 - for some reason I'm still on London time, but at least I'm sleeping!

Okay, that's the boring stuff out of the way. So when I woke up I went for a run with Angie-the-exceptionally-wimpy-but-cute-mut to the park full of ex-cons, mad old bastards and displaced little hello-kitty girls with their little white yappers. It's a curious place when the sun's coming up. The creek makes bubbling gurgles as it skips on its way past gangs of water birds of every kind. These fat, waddling, big-footed birds at that time of morning are surprisingly busy. Starting the day, they chatter, quack and squeak, and trip over their big water-bird feet as they head to the creek to bathe and duck below its surface leaving their tails and feet waggling in the air. I wouldn't bathe in that creek. It's grey and smells like a washing machine. So the scene at daybreak here is kind of rocky wildness and avian bliss meets storm water drain and urban decay.

On our run, Angie and I ran past a lady in a black balaclava with two big black dogs on leashes; a man with a tatooed face, a beanie with a pom-pom and a snarling, leaping, half-crazed german shepherd that he hung on to for dear life; and an old man out for a jog running so slowly he was basically going heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe. The best of the bunch tho' was a little man, shuffling through the trees in his old clapped-out bomber jacket, fusty full-of-farts tracksuit pants and old black beanie. He was running, head down and brow furrowed, his hands clutched up near his chin like the old boxer, or maybe just old fighter, that judging by his 's' shaped nose, he clearly was. You wouldn't mess with him is what I'm saying, even tho' he was in his 60s or 70s. His dog? It was a little white, curly-haired, pug-faced, toe-tapping yapper, that was skipping in circles around him in the wet grass grinning from little flapping ear to little flapping year, showing his tiny little pearly whites with the smile that dog's aren't supposed to have. The dog I should say also had a jumper on - a sleeveless, knitted western-bulldogs jumper. So, this is what the world looks like after eight hours sleep? Lovin' it!