The Merthyr Raven

Once upon 4AM dreary,
While I pondered, weak and weary,
Whether to go pee again or try to fall asleep and snore.
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some pisshead come rapping, rapping on my blue front door.
Suddenly there came a clanging,
Front door open, sliding, banging.
Covers thrown abruptly back and landing on the bedroom floor.
Quoth my darling - "What the fuck?!"

Ahem - with apologies to Edgar Allan Poe, I should probably stop with the imitation poetry riiiiight about now.

It was actually 4.40. I was laying in bed, knowing I had to get up at 6 to do my six-mile walk, wondering whether to go and pee, or try and go back to sleep, when there was a sound. A front-door opening sound.

d woke up sharpish, and we looked at each other.

"You heard that, right?" we said, almost in unison. Agreeing that we did, we crept down the stairs, in the most British way imaginable - turning on lights, taking nothing with which to defend ourselves, each in our respective nightware, and calling out "Hellooo?" Y'know, because burglars respond to that approach.

I flung open the kitchen door - nothing but the stench of chain-smoking from the occasionally suicidal woman next door. The front door was closed. Hmm - nothing, then, I thought. Went through into the living room...

Ah.

We'd acquired a completely pissed, unconscious, shoeless bloke. Laying on the couch, asleep. 

We woke him up and told him he'd got the wrong house.

"You're sure?"

We assured him we really were, and escorted him into the wonderful, drizzling world of Buggeroff. 

He disappeared. We went back to bed. 

Five minutes later, he was banging on our door again. Apparently, he couldn't remember where "Melissa" lived. Neither, we assured him, could we. He buggered off again. We did ask about his shoes, but he didn't seem particularly bothered about them.

He was knocking on next door's front door for about fifteen minutes. Then there were raised voices....annnnnnd then I slept, for the remaining half hour before walk-time. 

Some days, my home town is a very special place... This was pretty much the third instalment of weirdness on our balcony - there was The Case of the Naked-Ass Blonde, and the Suicidal Girl Next Door. Now The Case of the Merthyr Raven can be added to our case files. And our front door will be double-locked every night.

After the visit of the Merthyr Raven, I turned the alarm off, and took an extra ten minutes. The idea of not walking this morning was verrrry tempting, but the need to confront the wrong-wayness of the figures this week dragged my ass out on my walk. Over the last three days, I've now walked 27 miles, 18 of them on my daily early morning stints. And still, the numbers feel like they're going in the wrong direction. Humph.

Still, on we go, doing what should work, and seeing what the hell happens next.