Hi,
This is Steven.
These days I like to tell my listeners that I'm a real human being.
This is my work,
My art and my passion.
And every word you hear tonight was recorded by me sitting in my studio with my little dog Timmy asleep at my feet.
And with that,
Hello my friend.
Welcome to your sleep story.
My name is Stephen Dalton.
I'm an Irish storyteller,
And it's my great privilege to be the voice that you listen to as you go to sleep tonight.
Tonight it's quite a charming little story,
About a tree,
A great old oak tree,
In a village called Drowswell.
And every one and every animal who interacts with the tree or lives in the tree.
Well,
Let's just say they spend a lot of time sleeping.
You'll find out more later.
But first,
Let's do the relaxation session,
Which will take a few minutes,
Before tonight's sleep story.
I'm going to count down from ten to one,
And as I do,
Allow yourself to let go,
More and more.
10.
Feel the support.
Of the bed beneath you.
Or the floor.
Or whatever you lie upon tonight.
And beneath what you lie upon.
Feel a deeper support.
The support of the earth.
Our home.
Our constant support.
As you become aware of that support.
See if you can.
Sink into this moment a little more now.
Chest.
Let go.
A little more now.
You are safe.
Allow my voice.
To be an anchor of safety tonight.
To be a friend.
To be a gentle guide.
A guide that only ever brings you.
To safe places.
To warm and cosy places.
To places that enable and support your sleep.
Trust.
That my voice is a friend tonight.
Feel into your body now.
Notice where you might still be holding tonight.
Notice where you may have pain.
Or tingling.
Or tension.
Notice anything.
Maybe you feel something in your feet.
Or in your lower legs.
Resize.
For your belly.
Your chest.
Shoulders.
Arms.
Ends.
Or maybe you're like me.
You hold tension in your face.
Just see if you can soften a little now.
This is a time bomb.
For kindness to yourself.
And to your body.
Seven.
The day is.
Whatever has been.
Has been.
Whatever will be.
Will be.
But right now.
All you have.
Is this moment.
Your thoughts can't change what has gone before.
Your thoughts can't change.
What will come tomorrow.
Your brain.
Needs rest now.
So,
As thoughts come and go now,
Don't fight them.
Don't chase them away.
See them for what they are.
Thoughts.
Then just.
.
.
Watch them go.
Like leaves.
Floating away.
On a moonlit river.
Or clouds passing through a starlit sky.
Six.
This is your moment.
This.
Is your time.
You have earned this moment of kindness to yourself.
You deserve to have peace in your life.
We all do.
So,
As you become aware of that fact,
As you come to the understanding.
That we all deserve peace.
See if you can settle into this moment.
A little more now.
Letting your body know.
That it's really time for rest.
Five.
Peace lives within you.
It is a constant friend.
Waiting to be found.
Waiting to be felt.
Where does it live within you?
Maybe it's in your heart.
Maybe it's in your head.
It's up to you to find it.
But I promise you it's there.
Perhaps,
Allow a little gratitude now.
Gratitude.
For the simple things.
For your body.
The shelter you have tonight.
Are the ones you love.
And who love you.
For the beauty and wonder of this world.
Of this planet.
That you can find.
When you look for it.
3.
Begin to engage with your imagination now.
Begin to see.
A beautiful little village at dusk.
It is raining.
And all of the little houses are cozy with their fires lit.
And in the centre of the village on the green.
Is a great four hundred year old oak tree.
Oak tree,
You are about to get to know.
Very well.
To.
Checking in with your body one more time now.
Finding the places you are holding still.
And allowing yourself to give in.
To allow the tension to ease away.
Your body has worked hard for you today.
It's time.
To give it rest.
And one.
Completely letting go now.
As I tell you.
Tonight's sleep story.
Once.
At the top of a small wet village.
Called Drowswell.
There stood an oak tree.
That was the sleepiest tree.
In the world.
It had not always been the sleepiest tree in the world.
400 years ago.
When it was a thin little thing.
No taller than a walking stick.
It had been an ordinary sort of dream.
It had been growing slowly ever since.
And getting slowly sleepier as it went.
And by the time this story begins.
It was so sleepy.
That nobody in Drowswell could remember it ever having been anything else.
You could see it in the branches.
The branches of an ordinary oak go up and F.
As if they are reaching for something the branches of this oak.
Went out.
And then gently down.
As if they had been reaching for something a long time ago and had decided on the whole.
That it could wait until tomorrow.
Its leaves unloomed.
Its grey trunk leaned a little to one side.
Like an old man in an armchair.
After a large Sunday dinner.
And on a still evening.
If you stood quietly underneath it.
The whole tree seemed to settle.
Very slightly.
All at once.
As if it had just that moment.
Got into bed.
And it was raining,
By the way.
It is raining all the way through this story.
So you may as well know that now.
It rained on the oak.
And on the green.
And on the slate roofs of the eleven cottages that stood round the green.
And on the painted sign of the inn.
At the bottom of the hill.
Which was called.
The feather bed.
Every cottage had a fire lit.
And every window glowed orange.
And the people of Drowswell.
Were very fond of their rope.
Though they were careful with it.
They knew what it did.
What it did.
Was this.
If you stood under it for one minute.
You.
Yawned.
If you stood under it for five minutes.
Your eyelids went heavy.
And if you were foolish enough to sit down on the wooden bench.
That went all the way round its trunk.
You were asleep.
Inside a quarter of an hour.
And you did not wake up.
Until it was nearly dark.
Mr.
Amos Tuttle The postman.
Found this out on his very first day.
He sat down on the bench at eleven o'clock in the morning.
To sort the second purse.
And he woke up at quarter to five.
With a robin standing on his cup and all the letters still in his lap.
Perfectly dry.
Because the oak had kept the rain off him.
The whole day long.
He delivered them by lantern.
And everybody in Drowswell got their letters late.
And nobody minded in the least.
And after that.
.
.
Mr.
Tuttle sat on the bench every Thursday.
The village called it.
Mr.
Tuttle's Afternoon Off And so did he.
Old Mrs.
Martha Weatherby.
Whose cottage stood nearest the tree.
At a kitchen window that looked straight out onto its trunk.
She had lived in that cottage for 61 years.
She kept her fire lit from October until May.
And in all that time.
She had never once had any trouble.
Getting to sleep.
She put this down to the oak.
She said it was better than cocoa.
And she should know.
Because she drank a great deal of cocoa as well.
If the oak could do that to a postman in a single afternoon.
You can imagine what it did to the creatures who actually lived in it.
They were.
Every one of them.
The sleepiest animals in England.
At the very top.
In a round hole where a branch had come off.
Lived a tawny owl called Otoline.
Owls are supposed to stay awake all night.
That is their whole job.
Utterlyn had come to the oak as a young owl.
Full of plans for long nights of gliding and watching.
And on her very first evening,
She had settled into her hole,
To wait for it to get properly dark.
She had woken up.
On a Tuesday.
Not the next day.
The Tuesday after that.
She had been trying to stay awake for a whole night ever since.
She had managed it only once.
Three winters ago.
And she had been so tired afterwards.
That she slept.
Until March.
Halfway up.
On the side that faced the village.
Live the green woodpecker called Percy.
A woodpecker is supposed to make holes in trees.
Percy had begun a hole on his first morning in the oak.
A good round one Just the right size for a nest.
And he had got about halfway through it.
Before he had to sit down.
That had been nine years ago.
He meant to finish it.
He mentioned this to everybody.
I'll finish that hole tomorrow,
" he said,
Most evenings.
And then he tucked his beak into his feathers.
And that was Percy,
Until lunchtime.
In a hollow.
Down in the middle of the trunk.
Lined with moss and dry leaves.
And a little scrap of blue wool from Mrs.
Weatherby's washing line.
Lived a doormouse called Dorcas.
Now,
Dormice are famous for sleeping.
An ordinary dormouse sleeps for six months of the year.
Dorcas,
Living in the oak.
Slept for eleven.
And spent the twelfth telling everybody how well she had slept.
Under the roots.
At the end of a long,
Dry,
Comfortable tunnel.
Lived a badger.
Called Mr.
Hub Day.
Mr.
Hopeday went out for a walk every evening.
At least,
That was his intention.
We would get up.
And put his head out of his front door.
And look at the rain and think about the warmth.
And then he would lie down on the doorstep.
To think about it a little more.
Mrs.
Hobday said he had been on the same walk since August.
In the long grass on the far side of the roots.
Lived a family of rabbits called the Thimbos.
Eleven of them.
Who has slept in a heap.
And in the dry leaves beside the bench.
Lift a headchoke.
Cold.
Mrs.
Pennyworth.
Who had rolled herself into a ball one evening in October.
To keep warm.
And had simply not unrolled since.
Every night too.
Though he did not live there exactly.
A fox called Jasper came and sat at the bottom of the ocean.
But I will tell you about Jasper later.
That was the oath.
And everyone in it.
Mrs.
Weatherby's fire glowed on the trunk from her kitchen window every evening.
And all in and around the tree.
We're very happy.
And very sleepy.
And very well rested.
One wet evening in November,
Fidget to arrive.
Now,
Fidget was a red squirrel.
And she was the busiest squirrel in the county.
And very possibly the busiest squirrel in the whole of England.
She came from Bustle Wood.
Which was six miles away.
Over two hills and a river.
And which was the busiest wood there has ever been.
In Bustlewood.
Nobody sat down.
The squirrels collected nuts from dawn until dark.
And then collected a few more in the dark.
Just to be on the safe side.
The birds were up before the sun.
And still flying about after it had gone.
Even the trees seemed to be in a hurry.
They would put their leaves out early,
And drop them early,
So as to get it over with.
There was a woodman's cottage at the edge of Bustlewood.
With a good fire in it every night.
But nobody in the wood had ever had time to go and sit near it and of all the busy creatures in Bustlewood.
Fidget was the busiest.
She had collected four thousand and twelve hazelnuts that autumn.
And she had counted every one of them twice.
She had buried some in the ground.
And summon the bank.
And some under the roots.
And some in the gutter of a cowshed.
And she had stuffed her own tree,
So full of nuts.
Except that one morning in November.
.
.
She came home from collecting.
And found.
There was no room left inside it for her.
A sensible squirrel would have sat down at this point and had a think.
The fidget did not sit down.
She had never sat down in her life.
She had never slept for more than a few minutes at a time either.
Because there was always something more to be done.
Meant she.
Was always the one doing it.
Right,
" she said.
New tree.
And off she went at a run through the rain.
Over the first still.
And over the second.
Across the river on a fallen love.
And down into Dro's well.
Just as the lamps were being lit.
She saw the oak straight away.
You could not miss it.
It stood at the top of the green.
With its great arms spread out over the bench.
And the light from Mrs Weatherby's kitchen window.
Was shining gold on its trunk.
Now that.
.
.
Said Fidget.
Is a tree.
She was up the trunk before she had finished the sentence.
That was how fidget did everything She ran up the trunk.
And along the first branch,
And back again.
She looked into every crack.
And every nut.
She measured the branches with her tail.
She was working out.
As fast as she possibly could.
Where the nuts would go.
And her many.
And which branches would be best for running along in a hurry?
She was so busy doing this,
That she very nearly ran straight into Percy.
Good evening.
Upset Percy.
He was sitting beside his half-finished tool.
With his feathers fluffed out against the rain.
He looked very comfortable indeed.
Evening,
" said Fidget.
I'm Fidget.
I'm moving in.
Is that your hole?
It isn't finished.
I'll finish it tomorrow said Percy Why not now?
Percy considered this.
He was a polite bird.
And he wanted to give her a proper answer.
He opened his beak.
And think about it.
And Zen.
Very slowly.
His eyes close.
And his head sank down into his feathers.
And that was the end of the conversation.
Fidget stared at him.
Well,
She said.
She ran on up the trunk.
And as you ran.
A peculiar thing happened.
Her mouth opened all by itself.
Very wide.
And stayed open for a moment.
And then just again.
Fidget stopped on the branch and frowned.
She was not at all sure what that had been She had seen other creatures do it,
Of course.
She had seen them do it in Bustlewood.
Just before somebody told them to get on with things.
But she had never done it herself.
She was almost certain of that.
It was.
A yawn.
It was the first yawn Fidget could ever remember having.
She shook herself all over.
From the tips of her ears to the end of her tail.
And ran on.
At the very top of the oak.
Oteline the Owl was sitting in the doorway of her home.
Watching the rain come down over the village.
She had woken up about 20 minutes before.
And was very pleased with herself.
She was thinking that tonight might be the night she stayed awake.
All the way through.
Hello said fidget arriving beside her in a rush I'm Fidget.
I'm moving in.
I've got four thousand and twelve nuts to bring over from Bustle Wood,
And I thought I'd keep the first thousand up here,
If that's alright with you,
And the next thousand halfway down,
And the rest in the roots,
And Oh,
My dear,
" said Ottolene kindly.
You won't.
Won't what?
Won't bring them.
Nobody does anything in this tree.
Not really.
We all mean to.
She nodded down at the branches below.
Percy means to finish his whole.
Mr.
Hobday means to go for his walk.
I mean to stay up all night.
I have meant it every single evening.
For eleven years.
It's the tree,
You see.
It's the sleepiest tree in the world.
And it makes everybody who lives in it sleepy too You'll find out.
I won't,
" said Fidget.
I'm never sleepy.
I'm the busiest squirrel in the county.
Yes,
Dear Sir Dotterling.
That's what I said when I came.
I am going to be the first ever creature to stay wide awake in this tree,
Said Fidget.
And I am going to do it tonight.
Artelene smiled.
As much as an owl can smile.
Which is not very much.
She was about to say something wise.
She opened her round yellow eyes.
Very wide.
To show how awake she was.
And then,
Her eyes close.
Slowly.
The top lids coming down.
And the bottom ones coming up.
Like two curtains meeting in the middle.
And she leaned against the side of her doorway.
And worse.
Asleep.
Bidget looked at her for a long time.
Then she looked down at the village.
The rain was running in silver lines.
Off the edge of the inn roof.
Mrs.
Weatherby's kitchen window was glowing orange.
And inside it.
Mrs.
Weatherby was sitting by her fire.
With her feet on a stool.
A cup of cocoa in her hand,
And her eyes were closed,
Too.
Fidget yawned again.
It was a good deal bigger than the first one.
No.
She said firmly.
To nobody at all.
And she ran back down the tree.
Halfway down the track.
Fidget past the hollow.
And in the hollow curled up in a nest of moss with a scrap of blue wool over her nose.
Was the smallest,
Roundest,
Most golden creature she had ever seen.
Hello,
Said Fidget.
I'm Fidget.
Are you asleep?
Yes,
" said Dorcas.
And how are you talking?
Practice.
Said Dorcas.
She did not open her eyes.
I have been asleep since the 9th of October.
I shall wake up on the first of September.
I am the best sleeper in this tree.
And this is the sleepiest tree in the world.
So I am the best sleeper in the world.
What did they tell you?
They told me nobody stays awake here,
Said Fidget.
I'm going to be the first.
Dorcas turned over in her moss.
Would you like some advice?
She said.
From the champion.
Bidget did not want advice.
She had never wanted advice in her life.
But it was raining.
And the hollow looked very dry.
And the light from Mrs.
Weatherby's window was shining on the moss.
And turning it gold.
And she found that she had sat down on the edge of it without meaning to.
Alright.
She said.
Don't fight it.
Said Dorcas.
That's all.
Everybody who comes here fights it at first.
They run about.
They make plans.
Then they find out what the tree knows.
And they stop running about.
What does the tree know?
Said fidget.
But Dorcas had said everything she was going to say,
Until September.
Fidget thought that perhaps the sleepiness had something to do with the top half of the tree Perhaps it was the high.
Or the wind.
She would be busy at the bottom instead.
She would start digging the nut stores in the roots.
Right now.
Tonight.
In the rain.
At the bottom of the oak.
Between two great roots.
Was a round doorway.
And lying across the doorway.
With his chin on his paws.
Was a large grey badger.
Excuse me said fidget Are you Mr.
Hopeday?
I am.
Said Mr.
Upday.
Without opening his eyes.
Otoline says you've been going for a walk since August That's rice,
" said Mr.
Hoppeday.
I'm just about to set off.
He opened one eye.
And looked at the rain.
Lovely evening for us.
Where are you going?
Down the lane,
" said Mr.
Upday.
And roamed past the pond.
And back up by the inn.
Takes about an hour.
He closed the eye again.
I've got as far as the doorstep.
It's a very good doorstep.
There's a root just here that fits the back of my head exactly.
Have you ever lain on a root that fits the back of your head exactly?
No,
Said Fidget.
You should try it.
Said Mr.
Upday.
And then.
.
.
He was asleep.
The fidget went round the other side of the trunk.
To find a good place to dig.
There.
In the long wet grass.
She found what she took at first,
For a pile of brown cushions.
It was the symbols.
All eleven of them were asleep in one heap.
Ears and paws.
And white tails.
All mixed up together.
So that it was quite impossible.
To tell where one rabbit ended.
And the next began.
The smallest one was on the top.
And he opened one eye as fidget came past.
We're counting each other.
He said.
Mother says.
If you count us,
You go to sleep.
There's eleven.
I don't want to go to sleep said Fidget.
One.
Said the little rabbit,
Looking at his nearest brother.
Two,
He looked at the next.
It's alright.
And then.
.
.
There was nobody left counting.
Pidget backed away.
And very nearly trot on a round brown ball of prickles in the dry leaves by the bench.
That was Mrs Pennyworth.
Mrs.
Pennyworth did not wake up at all.
She had not woken up for three weeks.
And she was not going to start for a squirrel.
By now it was properly dark.
The rain was still falling.
The lumps in the cottages round the green had all been lit.
And at the bottom of the hill.
The windows of the featherbed glowed yellow.
Answer them.
You could see the landlord,
Mr Bartholomew Crumb.
Putting another log on the fire in the bar.
And that was when Fidget saw the Fox.
He came up the lane from the bottom of the village very quietly.
Keeping to the shadow of the hedge.
With the rain running off the end of his nose.
He was a handsome fuck.
Long and red.
With a white tip to his tail.
And a look on his face that said he had ideas He did have ideas.
His name was Jasper.
And every night for two years.
Jasper had come up this lane.
With an idea about the hens that lived in the yard behind the featherbed.
It was a clever idea.
He had worked it out very carefully.
It involved a loose board in the fence.
And a moment when Mr.
Crumb was busy in the cellar.
And some very quick running.
But first.
.
.
Every night.
Jasper liked to go over the plan one more time.
And the best place to go over a plan he had found.
Was sitting quietly at the bottom of the big oak tree.
Where it was dry and nobody bothered him.
Iggit watched him sit down between the roots.
She watched him close his eyes to think.
She watched him open them again,
Quite slowly.
And look down the hill at the inn.
And at the hen house.
And at the loose board.
She watched him close them again.
Excuse me she said coming down the trunk.
Are you going to do something?
I am.
Said Jasper.
In a minute.
I have a plan.
Is it a good plan?
It is a very good plan,
Said Jasper.
I've had it for two years.
Have you ever done it?
Jasper thought about this.
He had a feeling that the answer was no.
Every night he sat down here to go over the plan.
And every night he went over it so carefully.
Step by step.
And board by board.
That somewhere around the part with the cellar He went to sleep.
When he woke up it was morning.
And the hens were all out in the yard.
And Mr.
Crumb was standing at the back door with a cup of tea.
And Jasper would go home and think.
Tomorrow.
And the next night he would come by.
And sit down here and do it all again.
The hens behind the feathered bed.
Knew nothing about any of this.
They thought Drowswell was a very quiet village.
They were,
As it happened.
The most relaxed ends in England.
And their eggs were famous for miles.
I'm going to do it tonight said Jasper He settled his chin on his front paws.
Right after I've gone over it once more.
I'll wait,
" said Fidget.
But she did not have to wait very long.
Now Fidget was cross.
She was not cross with the others.
She liked them all very much already,
Which surprised her.
Because in Bustle Wood,
She'd never had time to like anybody.
She was cross with herself.
She had yawned four times in one evening.
Which was four more times than she had yawned in the whole of the year before.
And her paws were beginning to feel heavy.
And her tail,
Which usually stood straight up in the air like a flag.
Had begun to droop at the end.
She decided.
You would simply have to try harder.
First,
She tried running.
She ran up the trunk to the top and down again.
And up again.
And down again.
As fast as she could go.
On the fourth time up,
She was slower.
On the sixth time up,
She stopped halfway.
On a wide branch next to Percy.
And sat down to get her breath back.
To rise close.
And she woke up a little while later.
With her head on Percy's shoulder.
And Percy's head on hers.
She leapt up.
No.
She said.
Next,
She tried digging.
She went down to the roots and began to dig a nut store between Mr.
Hubday's door and the thimbles.
She talked very fast at first.
Then she dug a little more slowly.
Then she was lying in the hole she had dug.
Which was soft and dry.
And exactly her own size.
And somebody nearby was saying twelve.
And it was the little thimble rabbit who had woken up.
And was counting her along with his brothers.
She leapt up again.
Then she tried counting her nuts.
She did it in her head.
She had four thousand and twelve.
And she began at the beginning And she counted the first hundred very quickly.
And the second hundred quite quickly.
And the third hundred rather slowly.
Somewhere in the 600s.
She found that every nut she counted,
Was a little rounder and browner and softer than the one before.
And that they were all rolling gently away from her.
Down a long green slope.
And she.
Was rolling after them.
And she will.
All at once.
Sitting on Mrs.
Weatherby's windowsill.
She had no idea how she had got there.
The glass was warm against her back.
Through it she could see the kitchen And the fire low and red in the grate.
And Mrs.
Weatherby.
Asleep in her chair.
With the cup of cocoa still in her hand.
And on the sill beside fidget.
In a little china saucer with a blue rim.
Somebody had put out six hazelnuts.
Mrs.
Weatherby put out hazelnuts for the oak every night.
She had done it for years.
She never saw who took them.
Because by the time anybody came for them,
She was always asleep.
Fidget ate one of the hazelnuts.
Then she ate another one.
They were the best hazelnuts.
She had ever tasted.
She thought this might be because.
.
.
For the first time in her life.
She was eating them sitting down.
I am going to stop for a moment here and tell you something.
While Fidget sits on the windowsill.
When I was a boy in Ireland.
There was a big old tree at the end of our lane.
A beach,
I think.
Though I didn't know much about trees then.
On a wet afternoon.
I would sometimes go and sit under the tree.
And just sing.
But I never heard it sing.
I always went to sleep.
And I would come home at tea time with bits of leaf in my hair.
Feeling better than I had felt all week.
Trees know a great deal more than people give them credit for.
And the oak at the top of Drowswell.
Which had been growing for 400 years.
Knew one thing better.
Than anything else in the world.
It knew.
That everything that grows.
Does its growing while it rests.
It knew it about acorns.
Which lie in the ground all winter.
Doing nothing that anybody can see.
And then in the spring There they are.
It knew it about its own great branches.
Which got a little longer every year.
And always.
In the slow,
Dark months when nothing seemed to be happening at all.
It knew it about the owls.
And the woodpeckers.
And the badgers.
And the dormice.
And about post-men.
And about old Mrs.
Weatherby.
Who had slept beside it for 61 years.
And was the kindest woman in the village.
And it knew it about squirrels.
Even the busiest squirrel in the county.
Especially the busiest squirrel in the county.
The oak did not say any of this of course Trees do not often say things.
But that night.
.
.
While the rain came down.
And Fidget sat on the windowsill eating Mrs.
Weatherby's hazelnuts.
The oak did something very slowly.
That it had not done for a long time.
It leaned.
Just a very little.
Just far enough.
That one of its long,
Low branches came down through the rain.
And rested its tip.
On the sill of the kitchen window.
Right beside the blue saucer.
Fidget looked at the branch.
The branch did not move.
It was,
She noticed.
A very easy branch to climb.
She went up it slowly.
It was the first time she had ever done anything slowly.
Did not run.
You were.
One,
Four and then the next.
Along the branch and onto the trunk.
Through the rain.
Below her.
As we climb.
She could see Mrs.
Pennyworth in her leaves.
And the heap of symbols in the grass And Mr.
Hubday asleep on his doorstep.
And Jasper asleep between the roots.
With his chin on his paws.
And his plan quite forgotten.
She went past Dorcas's hollow.
Where Dorcas lay in her moss.
With the little scrap of blue wool pulled over her nose.
She came to Percy's home.
Mercy soul.
Which he had begun nine years ago and never finished.
And was going to finish tomorrow was round and smooth.
And dry.
It was a good deal bigger than a woodpecker needed.
It was,
As Fidget found when she put her head inside her.
Exactly the right size for a red squirrel.
Over nine years.
The wind had blown into it a great many dry oak leaves.
And a little mass.
And one or two of Mrs.
Weatherby's hazelnut shells,
And its smelt of rain and old oak.
Mercy.
Whispered fidget.
Would you mind very much?
Percy did not wake up.
But he moved his head a little in his sleep.
In a way that might very well have been a nod.
So Fidget climbed into the hole.
She turned around three times.
She lay down in the leaves.
She put her nose on her paws.
And her paws on the moss.
And then she brought her great red tail.
And over the top of herself.
All the way.
Like a blanket.
So that nothing of her could be seen at all.
Except the tip of one ear.
She thought about the four thousand and twelve nuts back in Bustle Wood.
She found she did not mind about them nearly as much as she had.
They would still be there in the morning.
Or the morning after that.
Or in the spring.
She thought that perhaps she would go and fetch them tomorrow.
And then the busiest squirrel in the county.
Did something she had never done in her whole life.
She went to sleep.
And stay to sleep.
Not for a minute.
Not for five minutes.
She slept right through the night.
And the whole of the next day.
And most of the night after that.
And it was the best sleep.
That any squirrel has ever had.
Because even the busiest creature in the world Needs somewhere to rest.
And the lucky ones find it.
It is raining now in drowswell It is late.
And lumps in the cottages round the green.
Have gone out one by one.
The last window is still lit.
Is Mrs.
Weatherby's Kitchen.
Where the fire is low and red in the grave.
And Mrs.
Weatherby is asleep in her chair.
With her feet on the stool.
Down at the featherbed.
Mr Crumb has gone up to bed.
The yard behind the inn.
The hens are asleep on their perch.
All in a row.
With their heads tucked under their wings.
And at the top of the green stands the oak.
The sleepiest tree in the world.
With the rain running down its trunk.
At the very top.
Ottoline is asleep in her doorway.
Halfway done.
Percy is asleep beside the hole he is going to finish tomorrow.
In the hole is fidget.
With her tail over her nose.
In the middle of the trunk.
Dorcas is asleep in her must.
Under the roots.
On the best doorstep in England.
Mr.
Hub Day is asleep.
With the back of his head on the root that fits it exactly.
The thimbles are asleep in their heap.
Mrs.
Pennyworth is asleep in her leaves.
And down between the roots.
With his chin on his paws.
Jasper the fox is asleep.
And he is dreaming about something.
And it is not ends.
And the oak itself is asleep.
All of it.
From the deepest roots.
To the highest twig.
Leaning very slightly.
Towards the warm kitchen window.
And growing.
Very slowly.
In the rain.
