Early to bed, early to rise, buggers a man, and then he dies

Japanese people survive off little sleep.

The apartment block opposite me has an outdoor light, which shines directly through my wafer thin curtains and onto my face as I make futile attempts to drift off into the land of nod. If my eye mask slips during the night I awake immediately, convinced through delirium, that the mother ship has come to transport me home.

Even my internet modem speaks to me at six every morning, to deliver the day's news and throughout the year an array of creatures and insects take shifts to deliver their own version of dawn chorus, generally before dawn. Frogs have recently been replaced by Cicadas which cackle a jovial cackle, as though laughing at my misadventure.

In hostels over the summer, it is seemingly acceptable to hoover the dormitory as the sun rises and in Muroto, where Lucy lives, a five o'clock siren sounds every day, simply to let people know that it's five o'clock.

Despite all this, nothing could prepare me for the utter frustration following heavy rain on Saturday, which saw me rudely awakened by a fellow teacher's text, urging me, at 6am, to be careful. What harm can come to me in my bed, when I'm ASLEEP, I do not know.

At 6.30am, and just drifting back into a much-needed coma, sirens shrieked into action, wailing away for more than half an hour, causing me to wrap my pillow around my head in utter disdain. Despite the possibility that they may well have been evacuating the area; losing the will to live, I freely welcomed death.

Eventually the sirens ceased and I relaxed back onto the pillow, sinking into the blissful silence. But it was short lived as a man with a microphone proceeded to bellow in foreign tongues outside the apartment block.

Then chanting woman started up, like clockwork, followed by the shuffling and sliding as my next door neighbour began her daily furniture moving regime.

It was safe to say we were not being evacuated. But also highly unlikely I was getting back to sleep. So, reluctantly, and at 7.30am, I rose from my stack of futons.

On a Saturday.

Leaving me buggered.

It's times like these that I miss the tranquillity of London.