Before I became a parent, I considered 7am to be a painfully early start; I went out of my way to make sure alarms were set no earlier than eight. Then my son arrived and suddenly an early start became 5am. These days it’s normally 6am, when we’re very lucky, we might nudge seven. You’d think after six years I’d be used to it, but I’m not.
Four Weddings and a Festival
To make this everyday torture bearable, my husband, who knows the importance of a happy-wife, brings breakfast in bed, so at six-thirty most mornings my son and I are sitting up in bed, breakfast tray on lap, he with a morning cartoon and me with a cup of chai. If I’ve a good book on the go then I’ll read a chapter or two, occasionally interrupted by my son insisting I watch what Danger Mouse is up to, or if I’m between books I’ll read the headlines. It’s a gentle start which softens the abruptness of waking so early.
The next couple of hours are a blur of activity readying ourselves for the day. I usually head downstairs just after 8am where I’m greeted by the dogs stretching themselves awake (they, like me, know better than to rise too early) and we head out to the garden for a quiet potter. Then it’s a few more chores and preparing my husband and son for leaving the house just before nine.
I generally have a cup of tea ready for when the boys have left, which I take up to my study for the start of my working day. I spend the first half hour going through emails and then the next three hours writing about fifteen hundred words. I try to break a couple of times to switch the laundry over or to run the dogs but other than that it’s pretty much just me and my computer.
At lunchtime I stroll round to pick up my son from school so that we can have lunch together and then drop him back again. 1.30 – 3pm is usually spent editing but if I’m early on in a draft I might use the time to take the dogs out or go for a swim. After that it’s school pick-up, shopping, cooking, homework, housework, the usual stuff that has to be attended to on a daily basis.
Because we rise early we also eat early, 5-7pm is taken up with supper, bath, putting laundry away and reading stories. While I’m waiting for my son to go to sleep I tend to plan the chunk of work I’ll be working on the next morning. If I know what I’m going to be writing the next day, even if there’s a bit of plot that isn’t quite working, I find that with a little planning the night before, come the morning my brain has figured it all out and I can crack on easily.
If my husband is working late then he gets in sometime after 8pm when we try to spend a child-free hour together catching up on each other’s day, but 9pm is my cut off. I pretty much always have an hour of telly before getting ready for bed. It’s lights out at 10.30 so that I’m fully rested for that inevitable 6am start!
Annie Robertson is the author of Four Weddings and A Festival, publishing in paperback on 11th July (Orion, £8.99).
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