With the rest of my family in London for the weekend and no room for me, I spent the weekend at Granny’s house near Worcester – and I was up at stupid o’ clock this morning in order to get in to Cheltenham for a 09:15 lecture.
I am – and have been for many years – a morning person. Generally speaking, I’ll go to bed quite early, and I’m usually up at 06:00.
This morning though I was up even earlier. Not too keen on getting trains first thing in the morning, I opted for the bus. The only bus which goes direct to Cheltenham at any time of the day is the National Express 444 to London Victoria. The only one which would get me in for my 09:15 lecture has a departure time of 06:00
So my journey to uni this morning started at 05:20 with a taxi journey in to Worcester itself, followed by the National Express 444 to Cheltenham. Getting up so early was, as my lecturer put it, good practice for when I’m working on Breakfast radio shows (and I like Breakfast radio shows)! 😛
I had in fact been awake for much longer. My alarm was set for 04:00 (I deliberately set it so early in case Granny’s fears about the weather were in fact correct and the coach was cancelled – I would have enough time to check and then phone up to cancel the taxi before it was too late) – but I had in fact been up since 03:00!
In a normal night I tend to wake up for a few minutes roughly once every 90 minutes to two hours – Sunday night in to Monday morning was not an exception, I woke up originally at about 02:40 – and by 03:00 it was clear that I was wide awake and had no chance of getting some more sleep before my alarm… So I switched the light on and started reading. (I’m nearly at the end of my Radio 4 book, by the way).
It is surprising how fun it is being up in the early hours of the morning! I do quite like the idea of travelling early in the morning, before the rest of the country wakes up.
In the 2 hours before I got my taxi this morning, I read a chapter of my book while listening to Up All Night on 5 Live, as they tracked the progress of the storm (it was working its way up the Bristol Channel at this point).
Then I got up, checked the weather and traffic reports locally to make sure my coach was still running (which it was), packed my things – and finally I had breakfast, then I reheated and ate the leftover Greek meatballs which I didn’t manage to finish at lunchtime on Sunday.
So as I write this: 19:45 on Monday evening, I have been awake for just over 17 hours, having been at uni from 09:15 until just after 18:00.
Some people may think I’m odd for enjoying being up in the early hours of the morning… But I don’t care.
I’m thinking I will cook dinner now, and then head off to bed a couple of hours early.
Good night!
