Grinding

I did some more scratching around the cell this afternoon, after I gave up on catching rats until tonight.  It was quite a fruitful activity, despite the dirt that ended up on me hands and arms.  I found the remains, I think, of some kind of cover for the latrine.  It was mostly pebble sized chunks of stone, but one piece was a fist sized chunk.  All these were buried in the detritus and mould at the back of the cell.  The stone is an inch or so thick, but the important part is the flat base.  I cannot use it to increase the sharpness of my spoon-tool because it's not big enough, but I have been using it all afternoon to grind away at one of the floor slabs to make a smoother surface for sharpening on.  It's smoothing that tile out nicely.

I curled up to try and sleep after spending a few hours trying to catch a few rats and grinding down the floor.  I didn't feel tired, but I didn't want to be moving about when the guards came in, and I need to be up during the night when the rats are more active, so this is a good time to rest.

I must have been more sleepy than I thought, as I was awoken by the beating.  I think the guard kicked me before hitting me with the club.  Perhaps he thought I'd finally died.  I didn't even get the chance to look out of the door, by the time I'd properly woken up they'd finished.  They were gone as quickly once more, so now I have lots of time until morning – hopefully I can use this time to get my spoon-blade really sharp.