Rising early: the pain and the joy

How sad, I used to feel, that old people woke up so early. What a shame, I used to tell myself, that they couldn’t sleep in as I did, till 9:00. Or 10:00. Or even 11:00.

These days, as I move further into my eighth decade, I’m having to come to terms with the idea that being that old isn’t something happening only to other people, but that I’m one of them myself. Just like those old people I once felt so sorry for, I also find it increasingly difficult to sleep late. If I wake up and it isn’t yet 5:00, I try to fall asleep again. If it’s approaching 6:00, it could go either way, but I generally get up. At 7:00, well, these days that’s beginning to get into lie-in country.

There is, in any case, now a new motivation to get up when I wake. Two motivations, one might say. Each has a name: Luci and Toffee. They used to sleep on our bed, but it’s extraordinary how much space a pair of toy poodles can take up. And how little opportunity they can leave to us to get any rest. We finally decided, a few weeks ago, that this had become much too much of a good thing. These days, they get banished downstairs, a harsh decree we reinforce by closing the stair gate installed primarily as a safety measure for the grandkids, now adapted to serve as an escape-proof fence for the dogs. Against the dogs, they’d no doubt correct me if they could.

So when I come down in the early hours, these days I’m greeted by two whimpering poodles bursting with enthusiasm to overwhelm me with welcoming affection.

Despite being retired, I still find that my time just fills up with things to do. Some of them are, of course, simply leisure activities. For instance, we recently went for a walk in the hills with a group of friends. The plan was to hike 14km and end up with a paella. In the end, having spent too long enjoying coffee and cakes before we even set out, the hike became a bit of a stroll and, though the paella plan was unaffected (an amazingly good one by the way, in the Valencian hill village of Serra), we only walked six kilometres, indulging more in conversation than in serious exercise. Even so, that took most of the day. The changes in altitude, the conversation in a language I still haven’t fully mastered, the consumption of a large meal, all left me worn out by the time we got home.

When I woke early the next morning, therefore, I didn’t plunge straight into work. And I really mean work: keeping up my English history podcast (wittily entitled A History of England), now at over 180 episodes, has proven quite a task. I find myself having to read book after book, because for every authority I consult, I always feel the need to consult another, to try to cancel out bias in either and get to something like knowledge underneath. Writing the episodes is no small task either, above all the (self-imposed) obligation to keep them short. Remember Blaise Pascal who once apologised for writing a long letter, because he didn’t have time to write a short one.

Recording the episodes isn’t a brief job either. What with editing, correcting, correcting the corrections, the production of fifteen minutes’ worth of material can take several hours.

On top of that, there is of course this blog, though I write fewer posts these days. Then there are the other projects, including a third novel and booklets to accompany the podcast. To say nothing of the various jobs that keep cropping up, around the house, around the car, around administrative authorities.

So the other day, I decided I was going to have a quiet moment with the dogs. With a coffee in front of me, Toffee on my lap and Luci by my side, I put aside for the moment further study of suffragists, Home Rule campaigners and their Ulster volunteer enemies, or the steady, accelerating descent to the First World War. Instead, I chose to relax into the day by chuckling my way through the last few chapters of Lessons in Chemistry.

Between my slippered feet and the collar of my dressing gown:
Luci (left) and Toffee making my (early) morning speial

Do you know the book? As you’ve no doubt spotted, I like to think of myself as a bit of a writer. Not a successful one, I’ll admit at once. But one who enjoys churning out the stuff. And one who knows enough about writing to bow his head in humble admiration when he comes across someone with real mastery of the art. And in writing this, amazingly her first novel, Bonnie Garmus has provided an object lesson in how to do it well. It’s full of life, dynamism, humour, but also occasionally grim tragedy, with an extraordinary set of messages on how one should live and how one should treat others, between women and men, between adults and children, even between humans and dogs. 

The TV series differs from the book in many respects, but not at all in its ability to entertain and intrigue. It’s as well worth watching as the novel is worth reading, and the novel is well worth reading. 

It may be a tad early, 6:30 in the morning. But earliness is the curse of age. Though, with a coffee in your hand, two dogs pressed up against you, and a good book to enjoy, it can turn it into something more like a blessing.