I am not a morning person. In fact, if you have a moment, my loathing for mornings is only matched by my hatreds, respectively, of plainchant, direct sunlight, and people who eat crisps in the theatre. This probably points to me being a vampire of some such species, but hey, we all have our crosses to bear. I certain bear a more than passing similarity to Snow White, in that I go to bed feeling Happy, and wake up feeling Grumpy.

This may surprise some of you, who might be used to my cheerful and chipper demeanour some mornings. It will come as less of a surprise to those who have seen my morning rituals, which are carried out with a lack of alertness only one step away from zombiism. The way I manage this positive attitude in the mornings is, put quite simply, by trickery and guile.

I don’t get up so early as this for the good of my health. Actually, that statement isn’t true. I write for the good of my health, and I get up this early to write, first and foremost. I do get up to carefully go through a waking up ritual that manages to kid my body clock that I am not in fact operating on GMT, but on some elaborate and exotic timescale which runs four hours behind GMT. Or, in actual fact, four hours behind BST, which is three hours behind GMT.

I learned long ago that I’m not truly awake until about twelve, on a typical nine-to-five day. I quickly learned that the only way to operate as though it were twelve noon at nine in the morning was to wake up three hours earlier, and carefully apply tea and toast until wakefulness set in. Currently, I am working on an eight-to-four day, and you have no idea what it is doing to my internal chronometer. To be fair, I am going to bed earlier.

There is something deeply unnatural about being awake when it’s dark outside. To be honest, my body clock works best alongside the sun. Thus it is that I’m up earlier with the sun in the summer, and in the winter, where we get less sunlight than the arctic on occasion, I would happily sleep from November through to February.

Bear with me… I’m going to apply more tea…

There is a fantastic line from the Belgariad that always leaps into my head at moments like this. “I hate mornings. The only thing mornings exist for is to keep nighttime and lunchtime from bumping into each other.” That there, dear readers, is my philosophy on mornings in a nutshell.

Last week, while on lates, I was in my element. Now, on the earlies, I’m in somewhat of a personal hell. I’ll manage, of course. I’ll write, and I’ll ingest tea, and I’ll potter along like always. Next week, on the other hand, I’ll be more alert, and operating on a day running an hour later. But I’m yearning for the lateshifts already.

I find myself looking longingly at the bed at about half seven at night, wondering if it’s really too early to go to bed. Or I find myself rising and blinking blearily out of the window at a dark world, contemplating what hideous crimes I must have committed in a past life to end up in this nightmare dystopian future.

I’ll wish you many things at this time, but I’m yet to be convinced that there is such a thing as a good morning. Good night…