Morning
I woke several hours ago, and stared at the bedroom ceiling for a while – daydreaming about whatever it is you daydream about in the moments after you wake up – I never remember. After a few moments a knotted handkerchief deep in my memory tugged at the rest of my consciousness. There was a Formula One race happening in Australia. What was the time?
I rolled over and looked at the bedside clock. 6:10am. The race had started ten minutes ago. Why hadn’t the alarm gone off on my phone? Ah. I had set the alarm that only fires on week-days. Idiot.
Five minutes later I was downstairs in yesterday’s clothes, hunting out a streamed version of the motor race from the other side of the world. The commercial rights holders have been systematically trying to destroy the coverage by going pay-per-view, but they didn’t factor in an army of people live streaming the event via YouTube. A technological “finger in the air” to “the man”.
The race was uneventful. Ferrari won, Mercedes came second, and Lewis Hamilton complained over the radio during the race about his car. Nothing changes.
Twenty minutes after the start of the race I had forced myself to have a shower, a shave, quietly creep upstairs to retrieve clean clothes, and put some coffee on. After busying myself with tidying the house a little, and making sure the clocks were correct, I heard noises from upstairs. Miss 11.
I forgot to mention – the clocks went forward this morning. 6am became 7am, so in reality I got up at 5am. Suddenly my overwhelming tiredness makes sense.
Today is “Mother’s Day” in the UK. I’m not sure of the true origins of “Mother’s Day”, but I’m inclined to believe it was invented in America by the greetings card industry, much as “Father’s Day” was. Ok. Curiousity got the better of me – an American peace activist founded it in 1905, and it became a national holiday in the US in 1914. It is not connected to any other holiday, even though various other celebrations of motherhood have taken place in different cultures for thousands of years.
Although I have booked a table at a local restaurant for lunch, today is all about the children doing something for their Mum. Miss 11 went on a secret shopping trip with me yesterday – for a card, and something small. She seems to also be making her Mum a cup of tea as I write this – busily walking this way and that in the kitchen, and telling the cats to get off the work-tops. The work-tops I washed down half an hour ago.
I’m sitting at the dining table with a laptop, wondering what to fill my morning with. Perhaps it’s time to catch up with a few of the blogs I’ve been doing a terrible job of reading recently. Or put the news on. Or just enjoy the peace and quiet before the rest of the household arrive downstairs.
Breakfast. I haven’t had any breakfast yet. That might be an idea.