Sunday 3 November 2013

How do you do mornings?

It's November, and some of you will be up before dawn to write you 1500 words or more for your NaNoWriMo. (If that's a mystery to you, check it out here.)

Others, of course, will be up early for work - you are on the early shift at the hospital or steel plant (do we still have any steel plants?), or have babies who wake at any hour of the day or night. You have no choice but to crawl from the covers before the lark.

So - do you growl, then creep from under the duvet, dress without speaking, drink tea or coffee without thinking and force your body into the street believing that your head will wake eventually and catch up? Or can you rub your eyes, turn the light on, and welcome the new day with a stretching exercise or two?

You NaNo writers - how awake are you at this early hour? Some are probably writing in their sleep while others fire on all cylinders. (I salute you all!)

Me - I'm not NaNo-ing. I'm a tea-in-bed-before-I'm-human sort of woman. I scribble a page of rubbish while the kettle boils - it's handwritten, and reminds me that I love to write, rather than a glimpse of insight or literary merit. Then I read until hunger drives me from my bed in search of breakfast. Even then I can linger, stare from the window - I have a view across the valley to the forest from my bed. The beech tree just beyond my garden tells me all I need to know about the seasons and the weather - today it is still, and somewhat forlorn.

But, last week, when grandchildren were here, all that changed. Daughter hemmed them in until seven o'clock; then they were told to tiptoe into my room to see if I was awake. My bedroom door was flung open; crash. GRANDMA!!!!!! Three small boys piled in. I made tea (of course), taking a cup in to daughter in the hope that she might have twenty minutes peace (she earns it!) and we watched Bob the Builder and Postman Pat, in bed, the boys eating bowl after bowl of dry cereal, cuddled beside me. (Two days later and I am still finding Cheerios in the folds of my duvet). There are worse ways to start the day.

How does yours begin?

9 comments:

  1. What a glorious picture of the visit. Children are just on explosion auto as soon as they open their eyes.
    (Pssst! Stop eating those roaming Cheerios!) Lovely post.

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    1. It was, indeed, an explosion - and it takes a while for everything to quieten down. But what fun we had!!

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  2. Wonderful to have three little grandsons pile into your bed! I wake early, but really take about an hour to get moving. I work my way through a big pot of weak black tea, read the newspaper I have retrieved from the front lawn, eat a bowl of oats and check the social media. Then its off into the busy world - a brisk walk, then onto the day's agenda.

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    1. If you get your newspaper from the front lawn, then you must be dressed - or, at least, decent. And you must be somewhere warm in the US - flung newspapers would be very soggy if they hung around in the front of our houses. Oh the bliss of being able to walk out into warmth, every morning!

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  3. what fun!!! I'm awake at intervals during the night, as a classic insomniac..getting worse as I get older, so by 5.30, have usually given up on sleep and just resting. Luckily, lovely BH brings me a bucket of strong coffee at 6.30, after which I totter downstairs to check emails, chat on Twitter.

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    1. Buckets of caffeine - where would we be without them!

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  4. I've always been an early riser, a trait which our cats highly support. Hubby? Not so much. So I get up, fetch the newspaper, and read it over a cup of tea. (WITH the cats, of course. They're so "helpful".) Although I enjoy my semi-solitude in the early morning, I also love to share those times with the grandchildren when we visit. Their enthusiasm is infectious. (Or heck... who knows? Maybe they catch it from ME!)

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  5. Oh kids can definitely turn life upside down, not just cheerios in the bedclothes, it's Beano books in all kinds of unexpected places here!

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  6. Laughing children is a lovely thing to wake up to,I bet you miss them. I don't sleep that great and at the moment I'm coughing a lot which is why at 7 am I'm reading blogs and on my second cup of tea.

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