Life has a way of pulling the rug - the mater has had a fall and is now in hospital with a hip fracture, about to have surgery, a half-hip replacement.  It happened the day before she was due to go off on a mini-cruise.  She went out to call on a neighbour, the path was wet and she slipped.  As she is very fit and in good health, things will probably turn out ok, but still, it is not nothing for someone of 89 and three quarters to go through this.  So one has an undercurrent of anxiety, and one is beetling around with hospital trips and trying to sort out a number of practical things.  And as one particularly needs a proper measure of sleep at a time like this, one has of course not slept - and one's wretched neuro-symptoms are sabre-rattling.