I don’t really know why I do it, but I do. I’m quite regular. Not that kind of regular – I mean with the time I get up in a morning. I’m a member of the ‘6 o-clock club’ – which used to be a thing in the 90s for high-powered executive types who wanted to ‘win the day’ or something. If LinkedIn is anything to go by, then I’m hopelessly out of date, and all successful go-getters probably get up before they go to bed these days (just after making some kind of green concoction which they hate, but pretend to adore).
Anyway, I digress. I aim to get up at 0600 during the working week, but my ageing body has developed an extremely annoying habit. It wakes me up with a painfully full bladder somewhere between four and six minutes before my alarm. Regular as waterwork. For the first minute I try to convince myself that I can ignore it until the alarm. I can’t. After a painful sixty seconds, I get up and try to walk to the bathroom with my eyes shut (mainly unsuccessfully), and despite how alert I am by the end of my ablutions, I get back into bed. For about 3 minutes. I’m sorry, but I’m not prepared to join the five o’clock club just yet.
Did you do that for me?
I finally dragged myself to the barbers for a long-overdue beard trim this week. My timing was impeccable – straight into a chair. As I walked in, there was some kind of prayers being sang on their speakers, and as I sat down, the barber immediately turned it off. This made me feel a little uneasy, and not just because he put Radio 1 on instead. I like to think that he stopped the prayers he was listening to as a way of maximising my own pampering, but I wouldn’t have had any objection to listening to the prayers. Having the prayers still playing would have been a conversation starter much less banal than weekend and holiday plans. It’s also imminently more enjoyable than Radio 1. I really hope it wasn’t because my lack of grooming had given me the appearance of some kind of EDL moron…I’ll go back again much sooner next time. Just in case.
