Raccoon eyes no more!

New neighbours moved in next door and I fear they are a share house. Yes, yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy. But I'm also aware of what having a share house next door to you means.

For one thing, it means I had to get a sleep mask. The last owners installed a security lighting system as part of their very dodgy effort to add a bit of value to the property, and this thing goes off all night long. Possums, cats, birds, the wind in the willows, any kind of movement at all and we get prisoner-of-war camp searchlights beaming directly in through the bedroom window.

I could try asking the guy who seems to either own the property or be the head tenant, to turn them off at night. But it seems he's Albanian or something and doesn't speak a word of English.

So.

I am now a guy who wears a sleep mask to bed.

And honestly, I don't know where this thing has been all my life. We used to get a lot of light pollution in the bedroom anyway, because we don't have curtains or blinds. So passing cars, streetlights, even the moon on a bright night, they all poured in through the windows. It was only when the Albanian added his searchlight to the mix that I decided it’d all become a bit much.

I bought myself a cheap soft cloth eye mask from Amazon and after a brief period of adjustment, about two nights, as I recall, I've become addicted to it. My compliments to Albania. This thing blocks out pretty much everything and even has the unexpected advantage of gently massaging my eyes through the night so that I look a lot less like a raccoon in the morning. Or maybe it's just that I'm getting an extra 40 or 50 minutes of sleep according to the sleep tracker on my Apple Watch.

I'm now weirdly looking forward to the sun getting up at 4:30 in the morning, so I can ignore it through summer. I'm going to have to buy a couple more of these things, however, because it's got to the point now where I'm not sure I could sleep without one.