I have always maintained that the time difference going from Canada to England was the worst. You board your flight in the evening (Canadian time) and when you get to Heathrow aiport it's first thing in the morning (UK time). Whatever sleep you got in the plane in between IS your night's sleep. So let's say you are traveling with a 3 year old and a 1 year old. That's... let's see... do the calculations... NO SLEEP on the way there. Essentially you've completely missed a night and at best your 3 and 1 year old got a couple of hours, SO THEY ARE CRANKY TOO. But of course everyone in the whole United Kingdom is perky and happy because they slept that night, even your Uncle Paul who has a right to be grumpy because he had to get up at 5 a.m. to come and pick you up like the saint he is, is happy too.
The rest of the day I am pretty much delirious. I don't do well without sleep. My mother used to not let me go to sleepovers as a child because I would be completely insufferable for days afterwards before I caught up on my sleep. Cranky is me. So the immediate tiredness factor is high going to the UK, and it's not pleasant in the least, but after you survive the first day smiling pathetically at your relatives even though their voices sound soooooo faaaaaaar awaaaaaay, you crash and are pretty much normal the next day.
In the past, the trip back from the UK hasn't been that difficult for me. These were the days before my children sleep-trained me. I used to be able to sleep in late in the mornings and my internal clock would not register the difference between 6 a.m., 9 a.m. or even noon. However, the last, say, 3 and a half years or so, I have been waking up between 6:30 and 7:30 just about every day (yes, I know this will act as contraception for many couples out there. For some of you it's too late, I'm sorry). I don't think I could sleep past 8 o'clock if I tried, and this is what's contributing to the continued sleep deprivation around here.
The flight back to Ottawa was an afternoon one, so even though we were tired, we weren't DESTROYED. And we got back to my parents' house in time to put the kids to bed around the usual Canadian bedtime, 8:30 p.m. which of course felt like 1:30 a.m. to us. As exhausted as I was, PING! I was awake at 2:30 a.m. the next morning. Because my body thinks it's 7:30. Time to get up, toast to be made, tea to drink, children to clothe and care for!! Get up! it screams. I resist, lying in bed, insisting that it obey me and go back to sleep. At 4:30 a.m. I give up and get up for the cup of tea that I am craving.
4:30 seems to be my magic number because it's the time I've been waking at ever since. It's not pretty because I don't want to nap and it doesn't seem to matter what time I go to bed... I wake up far too early.
So maybe you were supposed to meet me and I didn't show, or I was supposed to call but didn't, or you saw me somewhere I shouldn't be at all (like driving the wrong way down the highway), or you saw me and I was just too dazed to respond... Forgive me... my mind thinks that it's 3 in the morning and that this is all a dream...
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