Sleep becomes very important to you, actually it becomes the most important thing in your life for a while. You become obsessed about getting enough sleep, about getting the right quality of sleep, and about your neighbours deciding that today is the day they are going to drill 1000 holes in the wall separating their home from your bedroom.
You need thick curtains, especially when it is summer - you need to keep light out. Trying to sleep when it is light, or even worse, during a heatwave is incredibly difficult. Luckily for me we tend not to have heatwaves in London, actually we don't have much light either.
Good sleep is essential - and interrupted sleep can turn you into a homicidal maniac. The times my telephone has woken me up only to be met with a recorded telesales message is beyond a joke. One day I will hunt them all down and stab them in the eyes with a sharpened pencil - I think my defence of justifiable homicide would work so long as the jurors are fellow
shift workers. If some tinker wants to ring my doorbell to try and sell me a carpet and gives me a dirty look when, bleary-eyed, I open the door at 1pm in pyjamas - then I think my ever-so-slightly sharp tone might be excused.