Houses in the Kingdom of Sleep

I left her house at 4:00am. The sky was lightening, seagull song and the owners of the all-night shops putting yesterdays newspapers out to be collected. I got home and fell onto my sofa, where I prefer to sleep these days, and the next thing I knew it was evening. 5:30pm to be precise. I was only slightly hungover, but incredibly tired. After two glasses of water I fell back into sleep again. I must have needed it for the next thing I knew it was dark. I checked the time. 5:00am. I slumbered and listened to the driving rain outside.
Strange dreams. My grandfather's house in Stone. Holiday memories of, in the dream, visiting a sunlit spinney in the middle of empty fields. Memories of other houses that existed only in the dream world. A house my parents lived in, set in a valley. Wild grasses and a timeless ancient feeling. 'A forgotten house' I said to myself in the dream. Another dream of leaving Brighton, having to go back north again. The dreams left me with a sense of odd poignancy, a feeling of something experienced then lost, remembered and forgotten again.
Clear post-rain air today, a light mask hiding the summer that threatens to return. I hear a man speak loudly in a foreign language and the ever present language of seagulls soaring over the city.