4 Jan 2016
It’s January. No more feasting, boozing, carousing or snoozing. The festive season is over, we’ve welcomed in the New Year, and Monday morning of the first working week of 2016 has arrived. Hoo-bloody-ray.
My joylessness is not due to the fact that Christmas is over (it was fun, but getting back to normal is good too) it’s more that I get very quickly used to the lack of routine. Specifically, not having to set my alarm. I know some people can’t wait to get their offspring into school and their in-laws back from whence they came, but for me none of these tortures beats waking up in the morning under a huge snuggly duvet, and knowing you don’t have to get up if you don’t want to.
Thing is, I just HATE the morning commute. I’m not a morning person, and neither are the kids, meaning no one actually wants to be up when they are supposed to be. As the grown-up-in-charge-of-being-on-time I’m universally blamed and hated by the entire household for forcing them into clothes and out of the door at crow’s fart.
Part of the problem is that the mornings never start well, since I struggle to get up myself and leave it to the last minute, meaning we are forever running late, with me nagging (then yelling) in order for us to get anywhere on time. I’ve attempted to find ways to wake myself up more efficiently, but to no avail…
My first idea was the simple use of the “snooze” button, so that the alarm went off fifteen, ten and then five minutes before I had to get up. It would seem, though, that I have misinterpreted the “snooze” button, appearing as I do to think it means snoozing through any alarm it triggers. Mornings = 1, Liz = 0.
My next attempt was to purchase two alarm clocks, leaving one by my bed and the other across the room. The first had a standard electronic alarm, which roused me to some extent (although not enough to get out of bed). The second was a traditional wind up metal double bell contraption so offensively loud it could raise the dead. The idea was that the noise would be so awful I would be compelled to get out of my pit to switch it off, and would then be “up”. However, I quickly learned how long the noise would go on for, and managed to stick my head under my pillow for the exact period before returning to my usual sleeping position – all without waking up.
A friend then suggested a clock with a “dawn simulator”. The light on the clock comes on and then gradually gets brighter until it’s full “day light” at the time you need to get up. Unsurprisingly I can sleep through full day light. In fact, this particular solution was so ineffective I suspect I’d need a full New Year’s Eve light show to rouse me from my slumber.
And so here I am, at 7.30am on a wet and dark January Monday, desperately dragging the kids to the bathroom as I rub sleep from my eyes and drag a brush through my bird’s nest of a hairdo.
