4 o'clock in the morning and it looks like it's gonna be another sleepless night

Yes, I know how Crystal Gayle felt now! No man lying next to me "talking in his sleep, sleeping in his dreams with some sweet lover" but all the same, I CAN'T SLEEP! I finally got home at 6.30pm last night, lay on my bed "for ten minutes" at about 7pm and aside from the two minutes I woke up for around 1am, long enough to get UNDER the covers before I froze to death, that was me - slept right through. It's been a long but very exciting three and a half weeks and an interesting experiment in coping whilst suffering sleep deprivation. All of the byelection campaign team have worked the entire 24 days without stopping AND without complaint it has to be said - "there are none so motivated as them that are doing what they believe to be right" as some great philosopher said (me)!

It's been long hours but thankfully not quite as long as the last couple of days. I think I've averaged about 6 hours sleep a night until now (more than some of my colleagues I should point out) but on eve of poll (Wednesday) I took work home with me and got to bed around 1.30am before getting up at 5.15 again! By 6.30am the campaign rooms were packed with activists waiting to find out what polling place they were going to!

The work was then non stop throughout the day until polls closed at 10pm when those of us who were counting agents had to race along to the counting of the votes. That went on till 3am whereupon we had to do another mad dash along to the pub where our party was taking place - hundreds of activists were waiting to greet John Mason as the new MP and we couldn't let them down even thought the pub had long since stopped serving even soft drinks!!As we were all leaving at 3.30am we got a call to say Alex and Moira Salmond were on their way through. Well, we obviously wanted to see them so we stayed. Finally we got home at 5am.

I was staying chez Bellgrove Belle but I still had to get online and email photos of the count to the editor of the Scots Independent who was going to print the following day. I think it was about 6am that I finally put my head on the pillow. Not for long though. We had to be at the press conference for 12 noon and then it was off to the campaign rooms to clear them out. Which brings me to getting home last night at 6.30pm.

So what I'm trying to say is that it may be for different reasons to yer Crystal woman, but the fact that I'm awake at four o'clock in the morning, is hardly surprising! Right, will attempt more sleep so that I'm bright and breezy for Bellgrove Belle's hen night later today ...