Morning Story
My body clock performed the curious feat of waking me up two minutes before the alarm on my mobile phone this morning. I'm not sure how it does it, but my body seems to keep better time than the atomic clock at Greenwich. The radio alarm clock kicked in a few minutes later, and filled the bedroom with music. This is another curious thing – music means we have missed the news headlines – and seeing as the clock is supposed to keep itself in time via a radio signal, I'm not sure if our clock is wrong, or the local radio station is wrong.
Weather reports have been predicting lots and lots of minus numbers for days – and their predictions started to unfold overnight. Of course the heating boiler in our house decided that the first really cold night of the year would be a good night to trip out and stop working – the house was frigid this morning. The first clue is usually a lack of hot water – which I discovered while standing in the shower. At least the cold water woke me up.
After racing to make breakfasts and packed lunches, feed the cats and the fish, unlock the cat flap, and put the kettle on, the rest of the household slowly arrived downstairs – walking from room to room drinking tea, eating anything available, pulling clothes on, and brushing hair at the same time as one another. When the children were young the house ran on rails on a morning – it had to run on rails – now the first hour of the day is little more than vaguely organised chaos.
One by one the younger children, and my better half left the house – leaving me alone with Alexa filling the kitchen with the local radio station, and the cats stepping outside the cat-flap before retreating back into the house. It appears minus-whatever is far too cold for them too. By the time I left for work, wrapped in several layers, the cats were perched in windows at each end of the house, watching the world go by.
While it didn't rain last night, the cold brought a fair amount of mayhem to the local roads, and served as a reminder just how selfish, thoughtless, and ignorant so many people are – and how many snowflake children there are out there. The amount of traffic on the minor roads was at least triple usual levels – no doubt filled with children being ferried to school because – shock, horror – exposing them to the cold might CAUSE THEM TO GET COLD. Have people never heard of coats, scaves, gloves, and hats? These are the same people that take their precious children skiing, and plaster Facebook with their exploits.
While standing in the middle of the road for quite some time on a particularly slow stretch, cars behind me started beeping their horns. Just how stupid are people? What did they think beeping their horns would achieve? Nobody in front of them could go anywhere, and nobody behind them either. Idiots.
Once away from town, and into quiet tree lined lanes, the struggle continued – this time navigating the hoardes of trophy mums out walking or running in their label-victim sports clothing – so consumed with their own conversation that they didn't hear me coming, and didn't hear me ask them to let me past for the first three times I tried to get their attention. I thought I might be stuck behind the second group for some time – I followed them for a quarter of a mile last week – oblivious to my presence. This morning I snuck past at a point where the road widened, and they nearly jumped out of their skin as I drew level – suddenly looking behind them, reminded that an entire world might exist outside of their bubble. I smiled.
So. Here I am. Back in the office, and slowly warming up. I think a trip to the kitchen to make a hot drink may be in my immediate future, before opening the code editor, and diving into a world of programming for the next several hours. Wish me luck.