No alarms, and no surprises

I'm sleeping so badly at the moment. Next door's baby screams non-stop all through the night, and I stay awake too late, and have to get up too early. I hate waking in the dark, going to work in the half-light. Often everything around me looks blurry and snow-blind, as if I'm seeing it through a frosted windscreen.

But on Wednesday night I was startled by the clarity of the reflections in the river. Two streets, two rows of houses: one pressed against the moon, the other with a white-knuckled waterfall crashing into the dark sky high beneath it.

Sometimes everything catches you by surprise. Sometimes you come new-born to all this nameless wonder, eyes wide, a cry in the night.