31 Days of Blogging - Day 24

Day 24 – Morcheeba – The Sea



There are times when music can soothe your soul. I love that.

The Sea by Morcheeba is one such song.

Mrs PM had the CD, Big Calm, and despite her otherwise dreadful taste in music (more of that to come), I really liked the entire album.

People sometimes need something to escape to and music has always been a suitable transitional medium to allow me to escape the real world and lose myself in my own imagination.

I have always had an active imagination and I managed to push aside my problems in favour of a trip to a calm place there – a sanctuary if you like.

When I hear this song, I imagine myself drifting off shore on a boat away from the stress and hardship of life, out to sea where all I could hear was the gentle lapping of waves against the boat and distant cry of a seagull riding on the breeze.

Of course, eventually you have to return to the things that you were trying to escape from but I find that it relaxes me enough to revisit and review them with a fresh perspective.

At night when I can’t sleep for whatever reason, I grab my trusty MP3 player, turn the volume down low and allow the music to take me on a journey away from the worries, that are keeping me awake, and into the weird world created by my own mind.

I’ve even found that it works when jet lag keeps me awake – well sometimes.

It’s easier to fight insomnia if you are tired but being kept awake by life’s problems. However, when you are stuck in a hotel room and your body thinks that it is noon, music does not always allow you to drift away.

Your body says:


NO SLEEP! GET UP! IT’S NOON! YOU SHOULD BE OUT THERE – DOING STUFF.

Your mind moans  “But it’s three o’clock in the morning!”


On the subject of insomnia, why do people think that counting sheep actually works? I’ve tried it in the past and it does not work at all. I can imagine a field full of sheep where each one of them wants to leap over a fence one at a time into the next field – but counting them is totally boring. And as the number of sheep increases, I find myself asking questions like:

How big is this damned field? I’ve counted 10,000 of the buggers and there are still loads of sheep left.


What’s wrong with the field they are in anyway?


I didn’t know that sheep queued up to leap a fence. Why would they do that?


And just how high is this fence?


Will they eventually evolve and sprout wings, if I count them for long enough?

See? That’s my weird imagination coming to the fore.

Let’s just say that soothing music is a much better option for me … unless I’ve just arrived in Hong Kong in which case I just have to bear it…

… and count thousands of flying sheep, soaring over a two hundred foot fence.

I’m a weirdo aren’t I?

Don't answer that.