Julie Helen: Things that go bump in the night 

I was lying in bed, willing myself to sleep. I had already listened to a podcast and all the things I hadn’t managed to do over the weekend hours were whirring around in my brain.

I have never been able to fall asleep easily. My busy mind comes to life when my body should be at rest. I was comfortable and the temperature was right. I could feel some of the nerves in my legs firing, but that was nothing new or concerning; it is part of having cerebral palsy.

I must have drifted off eventually; I had been in bed before 10pm and woke up with a start in the early hours of the morning. Again, this is nothing unusual; I am grateful to my brainstem for intermittently making sure I am breathing. Due to having a damaged cerebellum, my motor functions are impaired, so I have a lot of involuntary or jumpy movements and then my body thinks it might be falling, so I wake up, with a start.

The brainstem and the cerebellum are distinct parts of the brain but very close together. The cerebellum, the bit that causes my cerebral palsy, does not control my breathing, but it does have a big role to play in the nervous system, like a control centre, and my control centre can become chaotic very quickly.

In the early hours, I heard a clicking which sounded like it was on the bedroom floor. Then it sounded like scratching. It was quite rhythmic, or was I just imagining that? And then it would stop, and then a few minutes later, it would start again. I began to wonder if there was a stray, half-eaten easter egg somewhere that was being enjoyed by our friend, Mrs Mouse? Stay away from my chocolate, Mrs Mouse! I’m not afraid of Mrs Mouse; I would just prefer if she wasn’t sharing my cosy bedroom.

A few weeks previously, our electrician had changed a few lights for us and put a bulb in our attic. He said while in the attic he had seen a small amount of mouse droppings. He said he really thought they were old, that there were probably rodents in and out before the house was sealed. Now the sealing in our home is good, so it is likely it was an old problem. He could see no activity to suggest we had a current infestation.

He had planted the idea in my head though. The idea coupled with the noise and my disturbed sleep, had me absolutely convinced we were about to be overrun.

I’ve lived on farms all my life, so it comes with the territory that mice try to take shelter in a warm place over the winter, especially if there are some nice wayward seeds after falling out of lorries or vans in the yard. A food source almost gives them a personal invitation to come inside. In the darkness, I vowed to get one of the plug-in signal things that emit a noise that rodents don’t like, and it drives them outdoors. You’ll be grand in the fields, Mrs Mouse, at one with nature!

The next morning, as light seeped in around the edge of our bedroom blinds, I could feel a little breeze which was accompanied by the same scratchy noise I had assumed was Mrs Mouse.

It turns out, it was the edge of the floor-length blind scraping on the ground because the window was open just a crack that I hadn’t noticed. I felt a bit ridiculous and a bit relieved.

I must remember my brain is not reliable in the dark.