Starting the Day

I don’t think my teenage or twenty something self would believe this, but I really love the early mornings! I’m almost always the first person up and about, usually around 5.30 to 6, and I have grown to love the unhurried quietness of the hour or two before my wife and daughter have to get up.

The first thing I will do, particularly in the summer is to look for Albus in the conservatory or the garden. If he isn’t there, he is usually somewhere nearby and it won’t be long before he comes in purring. There is no better sound than the full throated purr of a contented cat. Sometimes he will want food, sometimes he will want to sit on my lap and snooze for a while and sometimes, like this morning, he will go straight in to my daughter’s room to sleep next to her.

Once I have sorted him out, I will get myself a cup of tea and open up Jetpack to see what today’s prompt is. If it flows like today then I will probably spend 30 to 40 minutes crafting my daily entry (although to be entirely honest that has only been part of my routine for the past 41 days and counting!) for my blog. Once I have done that, or once I have decided that I need to have more time to think of something, I will go to Twitter (it’s always that name, never the new one, like Marathon chocolate bars as any 70s or 80s kid will know) and complete any music challenge that I may have.

By this point I will be thinking about my wife’s packed lunch if she is going to work. Pretty much since we moved in together we have made packed lunches if our partner is going to work in the office. I always enjoy making her lunch and eating the lunch she made for me if I was off to work. These lunches just taste better. When I was in Japan, I took my packed lunch out of my bag and a trio of girls saw it and asked if I prepared it. I said that it was my wife who had prepared it and, in unison, they said ‘Love Lunch’! It has been a love lunch from that day forward. I just adore that phrase as it is so true and so simple.

So, there you have it. My early morning is one of quiet preparations and it is a time I really value. As I head to a new way of life that is one thing from my old way of life that definitely won’t change.