It's raining, it's pouring

Well, at least it was yesterday, it was a Noachian deluge - term I learned from Bill Bryson's book - it was so loud at times we could hear it over the TV. More on the way.
Meanwhile, daughter-in-law Sue's waters have broken, three weeks early, I should have been there for this. The hospital have sent her home, but she's in labour, if the new baby isn't here by Tuesday they'll induce. Ben has gone down to look after his niece-goddaughter Holly, Alex is also on her way. Derek, Sue's dad is around too, so although I feel pretty useless being so far away, they have a good team there.

It may have been raining and pouring, but it wasn't the old man that was snoring, it's me and keeping the old man awake. I didn't realise I snored, and more, I didn't realise how annoying it is. When Alex used to stay with me in Portsmouth I would sometimes wake up and she was snoring, but it was more like a loud cat's purr, so I found it more comforting than anything else, the sound of my daughter sleeping. I can even remember the days of having a cat who would come into the bedroom while I was asleep and I'd wake up to its purring. That was less comforting, since the cat would invariably be on my head, its hairs going up my nose.
I used to love to hear the foghorns from the ships out to sea when I lived there. Sometimes they would go all night long, but for me for some reason, that was also a comforting nightime noise.

Although sleep and thus hopefully snoring, ronflement in French, onomatopeaic, was short last night, waiting for news, when I did sleep I dreamt of Rudesheim am Rhein. I know why. There was a film on TV last night, a tune that reminded me of the bells at Siegfried's Musik Kabinett, had to go and get some Asbach, wonderful brandy made in the Rheinland from the grapes grown on the slopes there. I was sitting outside the Musikkabinett in the sunshine waiting for something or someone, hmmm...maybe news.

We abandoned that film however in order to watch 21 grams. Again in my case. In the dark hours in Portsmouth I would take refuge at the cinema. Great cinema we had at Gunwharf. What a film that was, not a very complex story, but fragmented, sliced into scenes and then pieced back together, gradual reveal heightening the emotional tension. Camera lingering on Melissa Leo's hands, Beniccio del Torro's tortured face, Sean Penn's death rattle. This intellectual crossword puzzle of a film was such a masterpiece.
When the pain moves from the chronic ache to the hard and furious, a couple of hours' escape through the intellect, the senses. As in labour, when it becomes unbearable, when you cry out 'come kindly death and take me now,' the midwife will have you channel that pain into pushing.
I may be 5,000 miles away, but in my head I'm with Sue and Austen now.