Maybe you’re a lark, maybe you’re an owl, a morning person or a night shifter. But do you have a morning ritual, a habit that gets you from the horizontal to the vertical to full motion?
I read the attached article and started practising the habits. It hasn’t stopped me from yawning mid-morning, but it has been an enjoyable, benign way to wake myself. I haven’t gone a full week on it yet, but the practices have started to become comfortably habitual.
What’s your way?
https://thevitalcore.substack.com/p/10-minute-morning-routine-that-rewires
What’s the story?
Up by 6:30am. Take my meds while the kettle boils. Mug of tea. Check the news. Mug of tea. Toilet. Shave. Shower. Breakfast (two boiled eggs, two rounds of toast, orange juice).
Then I’m ready to face the day ahead (which usually starts with another mug of tea).
Open eyes and get out of bed. I haven’t dawdled around about getting up since I was a teenager. I stretch then visit the bathroom. After that I’m pretty much fully awake. I have a tendency to retire for the day at sundown and arise at dawn. I am a diurnal creature.
Get up at 6:40, coffee in a Bialetti (and make a cup of tea for The Light), do the Wordle and so on and browse headlines, wave The Light off to work, then shit shower and shave before opening the work laptop at 7:30. Optimising exposure to natural light to regulate my cortisol levels doesn’t come into it.
The concept of having a shit shower is troubling me.
Like a ‘golden shower’ but browner? Too early?
Put my trousers on, have a cup of tea, and think about leaving the house.
Parklife!
Tea then coffee.
Four this morning doing my crosswords then back to sleep.
Wife is always up before me to walk the dog then brings me tea in bed. Afterwards she joins me and we talk about our day ahead then our wee girl jumps on the bed and bothers the dog so they head down to prep breakfast and I shower. We alternate days with breakfast of porridge/fruit/yoghurt and honey topping with Weetabix/ fruit/yoghurt topping and black filter coffee/juice. It’s pretty much been like this for the past four years!
Radio on. Shower and shave. Coffee and cereal (summer), porridge (winter), juice. One issue of 2000AD over breakfast – have spent the last 5 years working through the entire run and am in about 2007 currently. Then either on the bike or in the car to work, or to the front room if a Friday. Weds slight variation as went for a run straight after getting out of bed.
It varies as routine is something I now longer have to adhere to. Having said, I enjoy the near clockwork awake at 6 ish, knowing I can turn over and lose the next hour or so, sans guilt. Somewhere between 7 and 9 I wil toddle downstairs to let the dog out and the caffeine intake to start. An absolute philistine, instant is my brew of choice, if tending toward darker and richer recipes. The choice is then either back upstairs, for doomscrolling through, in no particular order, the Grain, BBC news, AW and FB. If I have (ha!) a deadline, I may elect to instead go into my study/cave and start looking at Applemusic, depending upon whether it is a review or a playlist I am driving. I am not, however, “up” in any sense of the word, as I am resplendent in my fabulous peacock themed dressing gown, an Xmas gift from Mrs Path, of which I am most fond.
Talking of, wherever I am, cave or back in bed, my ears are alert for signs of life from above. Courtesy my nocturnal restlessness (and her delusion that I snore), she being a sleeper of bespoke china fragility, we sleep apart. Once I hear a groan, I am in full matcha man mode, to run through the ritual of making this odd green delectation. This can be anything between 9 and midday, which sometimes mean the white rabbit of noon has arrived before my having to choose clothes for the day.
Yes, it’s a tough old life, right enough.
Up at 8.00 a.m. Espresso on my bench under the tree in the garden. Listen to the bees buzz and the birds sing and soak up some morning sunshine before an exhausting day of pottering.
It’s the birds outside in the Hinterhof (between all the houses in our block) and in the square out front that wow me about the 2 minutes of fresh air and sunshine – this morning there were green parakeets wheeling and bombing millimeters above the rooftops, swifts soaring high ahead, gulls circling and a full on fight between a crow and two magpies. Never dull in the summer months.
Since I started semi retirement in late 2024 it’s been up at 7.15 on weekdays. (I like to keep to that as I could foresee it getting later and later!) Bathroom. Breakfast, which usually means a bowl of branflakes or sometimes Tesco own brand Shreddies with orange juice, followed by tea. All while watching BBC Breakfast. Wife (5 years younger) still works 4 days a week in her NHS job and leaves the house at 6 every day for either a gym visit or a cold swim in the Thames. Neither of which I am ever likely to do!
Usually up about 6.45am. Make tea for me, oatmeal/flax/cacao and a milk for the wife. Bathroom whilst tea brewing (4-5 mins) and then check emails, do wordle, browse headlines before heading off to the pool about 7.30am for a swim (or gym if thunderstorms close the pool).
Drop wife at train station after swim about 9am before I head back home for breakfast (blueberries / granola / yoghurt) and more tea. Music on, mess about on internet whilst I figure out what I’m up to all day…..
If at home, get up anytime between 8 and 9. If I’m working it could be anytime from 5ish.
Home: Bialetti coffee, porridge, fruit.
Away: hotel breakfast and coffee or worse, venue food.
Take meds: now 6, up from 3 daily since my recent TIA
I gave up on morning tv a couple of years ago and if my wife is in the kitchen, it’s pointless trying to listen to the radio.
I’m semi retired so don’t have a routine as yet but I’m hoping that from the autumn, it’ll get a bit more organised.
I don’t have much of a routine either. For the first 18 months or so of semi retirement I was taking my poor old Dad to twice weekly hospital visits, which took up a large chunk of two days a week. Since he died in March a lot of my structure has gone, apart from selling at regular Sunday vintage and antique fairs and prepping stuff for those. Really need to rectify this.
Wake at 6 when sun shines through window. Have a pee, go back to bed. Get up again at 7.30, have a defecatory experience, drink an Actimel, go back to bed. Get up definitively around nine, have a second defecatory experience, have breakfast (fruit salad and orange juice), smoke a j, go for a swim (pool in winter, sea now).
Get up 6:30-7:00. Big mug of tea and porridge with a pottle of Greek yoghurt stirred in. Shower at around 7:20 and out to work by 8. It takes about an hour to get to work by car. I have a parking space at work – I love the journey because I can listen to podcasts or music. I used to phone work people on the way in but I don’t do that anymore.
Reader, I commuted on public transport in all weathers for about 30 years. It never got me down, but sometimes with cancellations and shitty weather, it was a right pain in the arse. These were the years before apps or electronic boards that tell you when the train/bus was expected. You just hoped the thing would come when it was supposed to.
I really like the fact that I have my own time to and from work. It’s warm and dry and I’m grateful.
Never mind Gatz’s shit shower, I’m interested in BC’s big mug of tea and porridge with the yoghurt stirred in – I suppose it all ends up in the same place, so why not pre-mix it?
Well I suppose you could say that about everything we eat. An exquisite duck a l’orange and a delicately balanced ganache with Peruvian gava seeds from the Savoy grill still gets chucked in one’s gob and ends up down the shitter. Might as well chuck it in all together, into a nosebag and then snuffle it down with urgency like pig with its swill.
Egon Ronay was always saying that…
We are both retired now, so up at 7:00 – 7:30. Make a pot of tea, back to bed to start working through the NYT puzzles, which we both do. Get up, make a pot of coffee. Back to bed to finish the puzzles. Get up again and do an online yoga/pilates class.
Up anywhere between 5:30 and 6:30 depending on the birds and whether I need a pee or not. Invariably Mrs thep is up before me and has already had coffee. She may already have gone to Pilates. So I make myself coffee and start scrolling, Wordling, sighing at the state of the world etc.
The breakfast, avo on toast usually, then S&S (no shave), pills, dress. At some point I may or may not have emptied the dishwasher.
So I do everything wrong according to that list, though in my defence the sun doesn’t arise until well after 6:30 at the moment.. May give it a go though.
Apparently that means 5 minutes outside in the dark pre-dawn. I’ll have to see how I manage that when the seasons flip.
Wake up 7 to 7:30, go and make tea for me and Mrs Jazzjet. Do Wordle and check the news, weather, sleep stats etc. Then a relaxing cuddle before getting up, showering followed by coffee (espresso plus an intense lungo), accompanied by reading email, news etc. Then, depending on the day, exercises prescribed by my physio to deal with my ITB (Illio Tibial Band) problem – although they don’t seem to be helping much.
Wake about 7.50am; piss around on my IPad and flip through “The Times”. till 8.10am; a slash, then a cup of tea plus 2 toast and marmite. Somewhere along there will be a shower, and getting dressed. The mem will be up already, and we’ve been married 35 years, saucebox.
How is The Times now? I have it up in disgust around then time of Rayner’s House and subscribed to the Graun but that’s annoying me now so I’m wondering where to go.
I pay a dollar a month for The Times online. But I think I am about to cancel, even at that price, if I see another puff piece about the orange American president. Extraordinary. For me The Guardian is far superior
That’s enough to put me off. I still might can the Graun though.
I have a very cheap subscription to The Times. The Sport and Culture sections are for me far superior to The Guardian (my new rule of thumb is if some smartass Gruniad critic hates it, I will love it) and it’s sometimes ok to seek other political opinions outside my liberal, wishy-washy bubble. Just be careful to avoid the likes of , shudder, Melanie Philips and other right-wing nutjobs.
After we started this sub thread I randomly looked at a page of today’s Graun. Reviews of night masks whatever the fuck they are, typical price 400 quid. There’s the problem. Sneering critics, useless expensive consumer crap and hand wringing. Ludicrous opinion pieces (example: “Should we ban the word cycling” – essentially because it means MEN in lycra apparently). The sport pages are good but get anywhere near the middle east and their objectivity goes out of the window.
I have a radical suggestion. Don’t buy any newspapers. It’s not obligatory and your blood pressure will benefit. The news filters through to me despite my best efforts and minus the opinion of some fleet street hack. I scan the Graun online for the football news and bits and pieces of the culture section and BBC online if something noteworthy has occurred. I haven’t bought a newspaper since the 80s. I don’t read magazines either. I prefer books.
But, but (says the subscriber to the i Paper), the thing about news and opinion in a newspaper is that at least there is an address and a known owner and a named editor. To some extent that makes them accountable. The problem with most news and opinion on the internet is that it’s effectively anonymous and unverifiable.
The news filters through to me. I didn’t say I deliberately set out to utilise the net for news gathering. I don’t pay any mind to opinions on the net or garnered from anywhere else about anything of any importance. I don’t want somebody elses opinion, I just want the facts, I’m more than capable of forming my own opinions. This is also why I couldn’t care less about music reviews. I can listen for myself I don’t need the opinion of a self-appointed arbiter of taste.
It’s pretty sound advice. I can get most of the papers free every day with the library app anyway.
I tried the i for a year and binned it off earlier this year.
How do you get it so cheap? I pay £30 a month and only read the weekend print editions. I’ve been reading the Sunday Times now for 50 odd years and I don’t think I could give it up now. If I had to save some money then I suppose I could go back to buying it once a week from a shop but i really like to read it with my breakfast on a Sunday morning and the online print edition let’s me do that…. I also prefer to read it on a screen than to hold a paper.
I also rather enjoy their new picle game!
Wake up anywhere between 5.30am and 7.30am usually more likely around 6am. Make tea, take back to bed, do wordle and connections. Spell bee not available until 8am.
Usually get out of bed around 7.45 but not always.
Breakfast is either Porridge with Raspberries and honey or toasted croissant with marmalade.
If it is a fine morning we will breakfast outside on the patio.
At the weekends we’re out of the house by 8.20am for our 9am Nordic pole walk.The weekday walks are in the evenings. An enjoyable pastime that has introduced us to lots of new friends and has also given huge health benefits – for me drastically reduced cholesterol level and the loss of around a stone and a half.
Early rises you lot. Usually anywhere between 8.30 and 10. Mrs Wells been up for a while may be out or walking the dog.
Check phone. Shower , bog, tidy kitchen Muesli and fruit then coffee and wordle.
This routine does look worthwhile. We’ll see.
Once I’m awake, I have to get up. Mrs F can sleep in, but I can’t (I just get a headache if I do).
If I go back to bed and read, I wake her up, and nobody wants to miss out on their beauty sleep (it would be wasted on me, anyway).
I’ve usually got the washing machine on, and often pegged out, before she gets up.
Looks like I’m the only night owl here…
When I work:
Up at either 11:00 or 12:00, bathroom to wake up with a crossword puzzle and then freshen up. I only shower/wash my hair once or twice a week, otherwise just wash in strategic places over the sink. No wasting of water in my house! 😉
Put on clothes, put my lenses in, do my make-up and put my hair in a bun. Take my meds.
Rush to bus stop. I eat when I arrive at work, got thirty minutes before I start, have a sandwich and a bottle of yoghurt quark (passion fruit/peach, thank you!)
When I’m not working:
Well, I’ll get up roughly six hours after I went to bed, so usually around 13:00 to 14:00…
Bathroom with the crossword as usual (unless I have a light book on the go, right now I’m reading Liza’s memoirs on the loo). If I’m going out that day, the rest of the routine stays the same. If I’m staying at home (which I usually do on the weekends, not so much when I’m on vacation, like I am now) I don’t bother with the washing, lenses, hairdo or make-up, I just change from my pyjamas to my “stay-at-home” clothes (soft, comfortable clothes). Meds as usual, but no breakfast (or lunch, if you’d rather call it that). Won’t ear the first meal of the day until early evening most days when I stay at home.
I don’t know if any of this counts as a morning routine, as none of it takes place in the morning; if not, then my morning routine is to be asleep.
I think this gets the award.
“Stay at home” clothes gets a big resounding yes from me…joggers, trackie bottoms, sweatshirts, jumpers etc. I get changed if I venture out any further than local shops or if I’m working or meeting people. Can’t bear wearing jeans now, especially since I had my knee replacement, it just feels too sensitive next to denim, which can also feel a bit on the warm side, especially at home.
Get up at 6.30, pee, shorts and T shirt, grab a coffee and wander out to the beach.
Think about swimming. Decide not to go swimming.
Sit in the sun and think about work. Decide not to do work.
Home-made granola and a cup of tea for the Missus who always sleeps an hour longer than me.
Five minutes bathroom time.
Find some shoes.
Wave at dog walkers from the balcony. Think about getting a dog. Decide not to get a dog.
Contemplate lunch.
Get up.
Come downstairs and let the dog out.
Make coffee using the aeropress.
Sit down to read news and play Quartiles.
Walk the dog.
Id heard about the morning sunlight thingy before also to accompanied with being barefoot in the garden (always a dodgy move if you have dogs). Currently my routine is up anytime between
5:45 and 6.30. Have a wee, feed dogs , drink a glass of water, find a podcast and do a short stretching/exercise routine to get my aching body moving and address specific probs with back, neck, shoulder , carpal tunnel (I could go on). Then it’s healthy bfast (recently diagnosed as pre diabetic) of home made granola (no sugar or sweetener of any kind), nuts, limited fruit and yoghurt and chew that down with cuppa whilst watching Sky news. Then it’s out with dogs. Other than teeth brushing general ablutions occur randomly later in the day. Think i may add in this new 10 minute thing from now on.
My alarm goes off at 7.15 and I wake to the beautiful Answered Prayers by David Sylvian. I usually wander into the sitting room/kitchen to make sure that the dishwasher has done its job, turn on the hearing aid charger and probably roll up the blinds to gaze upon the latest variation in summer precipitation. I have a window of about 20 minutes before the three kids are up to do all the necessary bathroom business. I shave every second day. Then I make the bed, get dressed and take my morning meds. I stick a large bowl of porridge in the microwave and while the magic happens, I empty the dishwasher, take the internal bins to the outside wheelie bins and deal with any pressing cat litter or cat food issues. I eat my breakfast while helping with getting the kids ready for school – laces, food clothes etc. My wife does most of this.
I put the breakfast stuff in the dishwasher if I have time, pop in the hearing aids and hit the road for my hour long commute. ..
… can’t wait for retirement.
My son is in Year 10 so I have to be up at 7.30am to get him to school during term time.
Outside of term time 8.30am is my preferred time.
I don’t eat breakfast on most days but if I do it will be a bacon sandwich.
Alarm at 6:21, two snoozes til 6:31. Get up, get dressed (clothes pre-arranged on the floor by the bed), downstairs, shout at dogs, let dogs out, clean up any little messages left by said dogs, make coffee, crush weetabix in bowl and add gold top milk. Upstairs, wash and clean teeth, get dogs back in, drink coffee, dowse pre-soaked weetabix in honey and eat … so begins another weary day
(I admit it, weekends are the same routine, but the alarm doesn’t ring until 730 or 8 (depending on the booze consumption the night before)
Highly variable, dependent on season and whether I am on a driving shift or not.
I am definitely a lark. By choice, I only work early shifts, but I would guess that around half of my working days I am not driving, either because I am instructing outside the cab, or I am acting as a staff rep.
My alarm is set 45 minutes prior to the time I need to leave the house; that’s 50% longer than it was when I started on the railway, 26 years ago. Come downstairs, put on some music of my choice, efficiently make my butties while my morning tea is brewing, which then accompanies a hearty bowl of bought granola. My phone never comes upstairs with me, so no temptation to doomscroll on waking. My first contact with the world is doing Wordle, Octordle and Octordle Rescue while I breakfast then, if time allows, I have a look at this site – hurrah!
If at all possible, I cycle to work, or to a station that will get me to work. So often, I am getting in 12 miles of exercise to the Airport Station before I’ve even booked on, but sometimes it’s a shorter ride to stations along the Crewe line.
There is no time in this 45 minutes to throw cold water over myself or write down intention setting. What would I write? Errr, cycle to work, drive some trains safely and punctually, fall asleep on the train on the way home, cook me tea.
A significant change happens in March, when, at my final needs-must-bathroom-visit waking, I throw open the bedroom window. At some point, the birdies start serenading me, and all is well with the world.
At this time of year
I’ve been getting up earlier and earlier as the years go by. These days I set the alarm for 5:15 but it’s very unusual for it to go off.
If I’m WFH, I get up as soon as I wake up. If I’m in the office, I wait until about 5:15 because we can’t get on site until 6:30 so there’s no point in getting up earlier.
Once I’m up I have a glass of fruit juice and a bowl of granola while reading the paper.
I then make a coffee and drink it at my desk (when I’m in the office that means I need to make it in a travel cup).
I’m not sure how, for much of the year, it would be possible to find any sort of daylight as soon as I get up! I’m certainly not going to hang around any longer if I’m in the office because I’d get caught in traffic at both ends of the day and that really would put a kink in the enjoyment of the day!… and I think I’m at my most alert first thing so why wait for it to get light?!
I’ve never felt there’s any problem with my routine or the way my day goes. The only time it causes a slight problem is if I stay at a hotel and they don’t serve breakfast until 7am – we recently stayed at an otherwise very nice, posh hotel that didn’t serve breakfast until 8am!!! I was in the local Tesco Metro by 6:45 getting something to fill the gap.
I wake with the. Sun or 6:00 whichever is earlier. I dress, pee, then walk the dog for at least thirty minutes. I feed the dog, shave, which does involve splashing my neck and face with water. Then, I’m off to work where I first have a mug of tea.
No writing., No breathing. My no e is out of sequence and my splash isn’t cold water.
How much longer do I have to live?
No breakfast?
Up at 6.30, check the lad’s awake. Empty dishwasher, make Sarah’s breakfast (mine too). Usually have something light playing on Netflix or iPlayer (currently Brooklyn 9-9 again), often House of Games or similar. Wordle, news, Facebook, clear away breakfast things, get in Sarah’s way while she’s getting ready for work.
When the house is empty ish (stepson is in but rarely emerges before 11) I do the bathroom stuff, dress and go for a run or a walk – nice 5 mile route through nearby woods and fields. Plenty of birds, deer and rabbits, the poppies look lovely at the moment. I listen to podcasts (Goalhanger, Newsagents or David Lynch related) or audiobooks (recently enjoyed Ligotti and a recent Horowitz Hawthorne yarn).
Back and showered by about 11.
Life could be worse.
Up sometime between 5 and 6, tablets then Berocca made with a pint of fizzy water, scroll through the news, do a couple of puzzles to wake the brain up, make coffee and loudly inform my wife that I’m off for a shite. Drink coffee, have a look through Facebook to see what people are getting annoyed about then teeth, shave, shower and get dressed making sure I don’t always do it in the same order so it doesn’t get too boring but ALWAYS left sock before right sock otherwise who knows what ill fate will befall me! Out for 20 minutes or so with the dogs, it used to be for a lot longer but none of us are as young or as fit as we used to be then breakfast (usually a bacon sandwich with my own take on HP sauce) then I’m ready to face whatever the day brings.
I’m an ALWAYS right sock before left sock kinda guy.
Is the only correct method …
And I’m sure you both wonder why you lead such sad, unfulfilled lives…
Depends on the day. I am currently working 3 or so days a week but sometimes it’s spread over all 5. This week I have had a couple of days in London so I catch an earlyish train and get to Waterloo around 8:00. I then sit in the Spoons at Waterloo, order a breakfast muffin and a large cranberry juice and do a little work/join a Teams call. I then head off on the tube to my work that normally starts around 10:00. I will just get up and leave having made a black coffee (two sugars) in a travel mug.
If I am working from home, I will get up an hour or so later, have tea, then coffee when I start work at 09:30. I will normally breakfast a little later as it means I lunch a little later which means I can avoid snacking.
Fridays are my quietest day. This morning I was up early dropping my daughter off to work and then walking the dog before it gets too hot (she is 12, black and pretty hairy – not an ideal combination in a hot spell.
I must admit to liking the more relaxed pace of my work. I worry a little bit about will I lose the will to work but when I had a full time job, work was full on. After 30 odd years of that, slowing down seems appropriate rather than lazy.
I follow the Ashton Hall morning routine.
3:50 – 3:52 a.m. Wakes up and removes mouth tape to promote nasal breathing
4:00 – 4:20 a.m. Engages in a 20-minute workout
4:20 – 4:30 a.m. Journals and watches motivational videos
4:30 – 4:35 a.m. Dunks face in a bowl of ice water
6:00 – 7:30 a.m. Heads to the gym for a treadmill workout and swimming
8:20 a.m. Showers and prepares for the day
9:00 a.m. Uses banana peels on his face for skincare
9:15 a.m. Sits down for breakfast and starts work
Mouth Taping: Hall uses mouth tape overnight to improve sleep quality and promote nasal breathing.
Cold Plunge: Dipping his face in ice water is believed to boost alertness and circulation.
Skincare: He applies banana peels to his skin, which some believe can help with acne and hyperpigmentation.
He’s going to love it when he’s out of prison.
I used to get up at stupid early times and drive long distances so I’m not remotely interested in forcing myself out unless I feel like it. Mrs. T goes out at 8.10 during term time and brings me a cuppa. Up by 8.30.
First stop – apple juice, vitamins/meds.
Play the guitar while the shower warms up. Listen to Times Radio whilst doing ablutions – Radio 4 sadly unlistenable these days.
Breakfast of porridge (winter) or Greek yoghurt and fruit/berries, granola and honey. Cafetiere of coffee (our blend of caf and decaf so “half caf”) watching crap on YouTube – usually history, music stuff or motorbikes. Just discovered a BBC doc on there based on the book “Easy Riders and Raging Bulls” which is excellent.
After eating it’s more guitar practice and a vitamin C tab dissolved in water.
Whatever little jobs I have to do I try to do the most tedious one first to get them out of the way but am easily distracted. That’s why I’m writing this rather than get on with my tax return.
We wake around 630. Switch on Radio 4 which gives me my Wordle starter. Make tea, return to bed. Quick gander at Guardian, do Wordle followed by brief meander through the AfterWord jungle. Around eight o’clock shower then brekkie, usually yoghurt and toast. If it’s not too hot (which it bloody well is right now) we walk around the vineyards for an hour or so, Mrs constantly taking pictures, me stopping to admire the distant Pyrenees (whilst regaining my breath) then back home to endure the ardour of another exhausting day in The Languedoc….
I’m aghast that you have become my role model. That sounds an excellent approach (apart from the odd R4/Wordle starter word affliction – although it is rather charming). In the Languedoc, what time is it permissible to indulge in a little of the local wine?
Villagers might have a small glass of red at lunchtime then two more small glasses in the evening. Scandinavians, who are now by far the largest expat community, drink as though they’ve never seen affordable wine before (which I guess they haven’t) starting at lunch and then continuing into the wee small hours .
More restrained genteel persons, like myself, forgo lunchtime drinking and wait until at least 5pm before opening that “adorable white from St Preignan, don’t know how he does it for the price”. Off to a local wine bar this evening where I will be forced to sample some of the finest bottles of wine known to humanity.
Yep – you win.
We are doing a Great Rail Journeys trip to The Languedoc in July – sounds like we will enjoy it!
If you need any local tips let me know where you will be based. Are you doing the Yellow Train?
Le train jaune | Tourisme Pyrénées-Orientales https://share.google/M2ZrXBcMXO8ncX51d
I’m a numpty Lodey..! We are actually going to the Dordogne (Les Eyzies) – we went to Langedoc a few years ago! I shouldn’t be allowed out alone really…
Ah, Dordogneshire – say hello to Roger, Pat, Trevor, Dorothy, Mary, Mavis and Heather. Seriously , a lovely part of the country where I believe today in Brantome it’s 44C.
I retired almost exactly 10 years ago so having to get up for anything in particular has receded a long way in the rear view mirror. I generally wake up around 7.30, go for a pee, and then back to bed for an hour or so snoozing. Actual getting out of bed depends on the timetable for the day, but 9 times out of 10 I have nothing early so we make a hot drink in the bedroom whilst I look at the Guardian (I’m still a fan after 55 years of readership). If Mrs. T has to get up for one of her exercise classes, I may dip into a YouTube video. Once up, feed the cat, cereal with fresh fruit for breakfast, except on Saturdays when it is always pink grapefruit and toast made with homemade bread and marmite and then homemade preserves, in that order, with a jug of filter coffee – it’s the law. On Sundays Mrs. T goes to church, so I prepare brunch for her return – generally a full English – then we can get on with the day and don’t eat again until the evening.
I have often said to people that, despite retirement when you would expect all days to be the same, we still do things differently at weekends….odd, isn’t it?
I think when i finally retire, I’ll be treating weekends in a hermit like way. No need to dive into the crowds when you can go to the shops on Monday!
One of the things I’ve found since going three days a week is many of the shops I want to visit are closed on Mondays. I suppose because they are open on Sundays.
Been retired 13 years, try to avoid Supermarkets Sat/Sun but, yes, still we ask friends “Doing anything at weekend?”
I too am a retiree but I’ve booked for something next weekend and the weekend after that, the weekends are still important to non-retirees.
Odd isn’t it. I don’t drink all week but Friday night I feel like I want to because it’s Friday night. I mean it is isn’t it.
A similar impulse struck me yesterday. I very rarely drink nowadays but I was suddenly overcome with a desire for a bottle of wine so I walked to my local supermarket with the intention of purchasing one. When I got there all that desire left me and I bought a litre of ice cream and some strawberries instead.
The answer is to buy both then all bases are covered.
That amount of ice cream and strawberries on a Friday could see you through to sundae…
Oh well played sir
Weekends must be special, as the barber still always asks me if I want something for it.
I get up when I wake up, which is generally before 7:30 unless I’ve inadvertently doom-scrolled or watched catchup TV until 4am, in which case I may not wake up until 9 or 10am.
No work to go to these days, so no deadlines. My body clock gets me up relatively early, due to years of early starts during my working life.
Off to the bathroom I stumble for a wazz and then to the kitchen to get my stovetop coffee pot on the go. I wash down my morning meds and vits with a large mug of unsweetened coffee, with milk. About half an hour later I’ll have 2 slices of buttered seeded wholemeal toast and then I’m pretty much set up for the day.