Have you ever woken a goodly time before the alarm? I sleep like a log the majority of the time and have always felt cheated when masked night steals away without being marked.
I like to wake at 12, and two, and five, as if summoned to consciousness by some subliminal night watchman. Twelve of the clock, he hollers silently, and all’s well.
And I pull the duvet tighter around me, and grunt companionably to my husband in his alternative world of sleep. I listen to his unintelligible banter with himself and watch the dog who has replaced REM with Rapid Paw movement.
And after a last glance at the black forest night outside the curtainless window, I drift back to my next sleep cycle.
This morning I had a special treat. I woke an hour before my alarm was due to go off. One whole hour to listen to the breathing of the beings who share my life. Because night is a place, and I love to tread its landscaped gardens with bare feet.
I must have drifted off again. A rude klaxon horn, my iPhone alarm, sounded the new day.
Oh Joy. Monday.
There is no peace once that alarm has sounded: Maddie must be roused and coaxed into the day with hot chocolate, given a solitary breakfast gazing our of dark windows, and thence out into the dim morning to catch an outrageously early school coach.
By which time my philosophical son is sitting up watching some inane sports channel or other with his warm drink, greeting the dawn which is turning the forest outside pink.
“Ohhhhhh, you just missed it,” he declared as I shambled, pyjama-ed, into the room to ready him for his day.
“What, love?” I asked absently, trying to remember where I had put his school jumper.
“The sky was such an amazing pink colour”, he said, “but it’s gone now…”
The pleasures of life can be fleeting. Joy, said CS Lewis, is a stab of longing.
We bumbled our way through breakfast and administered our way into the car. Unbelievably, I was i) on time and ii) calm.
I took advantage of this fair weather and bestowed a few motherly sentiments upon Felix. “Sorry it’s Monday,and Mrs Kawasaki day'” I commiserated. Each Monday Felix’s teacher, who looks and teaches like a golden-haired benign angel, is replaced by a supply teacher, an avenging angel. This ante-angel is not kind to her charges. It can be trying.
Felix seemed to assume about 70 years’ worth of wisdom right there in that second. “Mum,” he advised me sagely, “Every day has its advantages and disadvantages. Yes, Mrs Kawasaki is teaching us: but I do like to see all my friends, and we have art this afternoon.”
My day was packed with events, some advantageous, some disadvantageous.
It is the week before half term and one of my great pleasures is to walk into school and greet every tired child, every overworked member of staff with a singular greeting. This time next week, I cackle gleefully, we’ll all be in bed.
They generally grin, albeit wearily.
An eternity later I arrived home. My daughter is the household harbinger of doom: “Mum,” she said, “I’ve had a terrible day…”
She had a cold. It was blocking her up and it felt grim. But she went on delightedly to inform me that she had her face sucked off by an alien, her hands burned by a hot potato and sat on a red-hot chair.
She does adore her drama lessons.
Life, even on Mondays, has its advantages.
Felix’s collage went well. He’s creating his house out of tissue paper, with tin foil and black felt for the windows. It’s solemn stuff. He is satisfied with his progress.
We congregated as usual in my bedroom to sit in the double bed and watch Horrible Histories on telly. Phil arrived home. This always ratchets the action up a bit, even on Mondays.
We ended up appraising some wild-wigged singer on X-Factor. Phil grabbed hold of Felix’s beloved elephant, Bumpy, still a staple member of the household in my son’s eighth year. He sang “Move Like Jagger” and Bumpy did all the moves. Well wicked elephant.
Delight reigned.
And now the children are upstairs and we sit in bed watching people on some gadget show testing washing machines by sending them vibrating across lawns. I’m not sure quite why. I’m amenable to the idea.
Presently I look forward to chasing that masked avenger, The Night, through another eight hours, my night watchman at the ready.
Every day- even a Monday – has its advantages and disadvantages.
Kate Shrewsday 
lovelyMonday. Finding the good in everything tends to make us happier people, doesn’t it?
It did yesterday, Sidey 🙂 Have a great Tuesday.
An absolutely delightful write glimpsing the start of your week, Kate. (Love RPM!)
Thanks, Earlybird, we might have a new canine concept there….
Lovely post again, Kate. It’s so nice to ‘see’ a family so comfortable with each other’s routine! Enjoy!
Cheers Denise. it’s not always like this: but this Monday was a lesson from my sin in how to approach Mondays….
Somewhere, there’s irony in the fact that I am awake and reading this at 4am. 🙂
I love the way you paint everyone, capturing their varying embraces of Monday. May you make it through the week without Maddie’s sharing of her cold with the rest of you.
Alas, too late, Andra, I am nursing the beginnings of one right now: but who cares half term next week – a week off for us all! Taking you all down for a jaunt round my old stamping ground….
What a charming tale of your day 🙂
It does sound charming from a distance, doesn’t it? The dog smells sweeter than usual, he’s had a shower, but there are always the disadvantages I fail to mention 😀
🙂
Chust ein liddel qvestion – dis ist beink ein normal British household? Himmel! 🙂
Himmel indeed, Herr Col 😀 Dis vos a qvuiet day for ze Shrewsdays…
I love the little snippets of life that often come through on your blog, Kate. What can be better than the small things that make a day whole? A lovely, lovely post.
Glad you enjoyed it. I think Bumpy getting down on the dance floor was my favourite bit.
Oh, Kate, your Monday sounds like heaven! Felix is such a wise philosopher. I think I shall be his student.
I’m beginning to feel that way, Elizabeth: and then he goes and put his pants on backwards and I realise we have a very long way to go….
Wonderful romp through a marvelous Monday, Kate. 😀
There are always the good bits, aren’t there, Nancy: in every day.
Washing machines vibrating down the lawn – what next? 🙂 And Felix – how do kids get to be so wise at such a young age?
Not sure I agree with CS Lewis on joy being a stab of longing. It seems to me the longing comes after, when we realize we have been somewhere unworldly (for lack of a better word): we have been the music instead of just the owner of ears hearing it; we’ve been the dance as much as the dancer; we’ve been the sun, rising… Thinking about it afterward, we long to find that feeling again. (Or?…)
I think it might depend on whether one is a glass half full or glass half empty sort of person, Ruth….I’m not sure I have ever had a moment of joy without thinking, Oh, why can’t this last forever? That’s why I carry a camera and write all this stuff. It’s not aspic, but it preserves in a way.
This brought tears to my eyes, Kate. It seems to me that you are passing on this wonderful and wise perspective on life to your precious children. What a great gift, and commendation to you. My day is just getting started…and I will be thinking of this generous post. Debra
Glad you enjoyed it, Debra: Felix’s words certainly helped me through yesterday 🙂
Hi Kate, great name for the Night, the Masked Avenger… and I shall now compare a cold, ( which I hate as much as the next person.) to having my face sucked off by an Alien, sounds somehow more bearable… and superheroine-ish 😉 … I sometimes wake before the dreaded alarm, and the ‘snuggle back’ when I find it’s not yet time is ‘priced beyond rubies’ ahhh yes!!! xPenx…
Another arch-snuggler, excellent. It is one of the best feelings: topped only by a snuggle on a day off when you have the whole day ahead of you…
Never could sleep Sunday going into Monday. And it did not matter how prepared I was for work. Now retired and don’t need to know what day or even what time it is. Now that’s freedom.
That IS freedom, Carl: you earned it.
Wonderful writing. I like to wake up regularly so as to fully appreciate the many dream states of the night (nothing funnier than watching a dog that is dreaming – haha – but rapid paw movement is good too). My kids love Horrible Histories and I love the X-factor 🙂
I am a secret HH fan, Gabrielle. Charles II is my role model.
I am going to remember that now, every day. Advantages and disadvantages. What a lovely Monday, shining through Felix’s wise words.
These kids have their uses, don’t they, Banno? Hope you’re enjoying Dhanno’s fortnight 🙂
Enjoyed this tale of the simple joys and frustrations of everydayness, Kate
Cheers, BB 🙂
I love that 3:00am drift down a dark corridor to the small room, checking my son’s room for signs of ill-ease on the way past. Returning I’ll often find that my wife has decided to take over the other quarter of the bed that she doesn’t usually control in starfish mode! I may sometimes hear Mick outside talking to our car as he makes his way slowly home from wherever he’s been drinking til 2:00am. Or there may be a cab outside taking one of the Polish ladies opposite to the airport. On a Friday ther will often be a group of drunken maidens walking down the middle of the road with no awareness of oncoming traffic. The Blackbird and the Robin can be heard singing in the false dawn of the street lights. It’s a strange world of half light and half life at that time. I have yet to meet our house ghost (seen by my mother) in my night time wanderings – though I do sometimes feel her presence.