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After writing that brave post last night, I spent an hour crying my eyes out, imagining myself a lonely old woman lying forever alone in her lonely cold bed, sniffing the cold lonely air for a melancholy whiff of long-gone curly heads. Then, exhausted and somewhat lighter I went to bed and picked up Mrs. Dalloway (who incidentally also muses on her cold lonely bed).

I had been reading for about ten minutes when I saw the mosquito net across the room move; a very sleepy ghost emerged, made its shuffling (because sleeping-bagged you understand) and tottering (because of being asleep you understand) way over to my bed, looked at me through half shut eyes, mumbled 'het is donker in mijn bed' ('it's dark in my bed') and fell into a deep coma right next to me. It was 9 pm. The sun had not yet set. It wasn't dark anywhere in the house. But who's complaining? Not me. I briefly inhaled the well-known smell of her hair, put my book away, cuddled up and went straight to sleep.

Now that is called a respite.