Night owls and other birds

For a long time I used to go to bed late. As a student, I would often (regularly, habitually) work through the night, going to bed at daybreak and rising at around noon. In summer term, I would sometimes end the night's work by walking to Primrose Hill or the hill on Hampstead Heath to watch the sun rise, then walking home to bed.

(Looking back on it, I wonder how I managed to get through those years on so little sleep. Young, strong and foolish, I guess. I think the same about my alcohol consumption in those days; as moderate as it was compared to other students, it would kill me now.)

Even then, however, it wasn't a simple single-preference matter. On holiday, I would usually be one of the first awake (seldom beating my mother, who sleeps about four hours per night); on college trips abroad, I would be up walking the streets of Paris or Rome literally hours before the rest would have breakfast. "What a pity to waste this time abed!" I would think to myself, wandering in clean, fresh air along nearly-empty streets, drinking the day's first cappuccino among yawning office workers nodding at each other and greeting the waiter by name. I developed a preference for hotels that didn't offer breakfast (or charged for it separately), because I would have had my breakfast in a café on the avenue hours before the hotel started serving. (Furthermore, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that hotel coffee is at best only middling good.)

The switch was not deliberate, and certainly not conscious, more a matter of noting time and again the feeling of relief that follows not hitting one's head against the wall, and wondering whether said relief and said not-hitting might not possibly be somehow connected?

Having to rise at 6am to catch a train at 7:30, as I did five days a week for five years, didn't make the change in my attitude. Even during those days, I was still happy to party all night. I saw the job-enforced early rising as an external condition, just another of the disadvantages of being a wage slave.

The change occurred as I moved to Germany, with the airless and baking hot summers down here in the valley. I found myself rising earlier to enjoy the (relatively) cool and fresh morning air, before the traffic and the sun started working on it. Stuttgart is surrounded by forest, the morning air smells of trees and moist earth most days, and of grass in summer.

Working with habitual late risers was also involved in the change. Ageing Yuppie was my boss in those days, and he was notorious for his sleeping habits. He would arrive in the office between 11 and 12:30, just in time for lunch, and expect us to be present for his working day, i.e. until well after 9pm. I found that outrageous, and started rising earlier and earlier - and leaving the office punctually - to spite it.

Or perhaps it's just a cultural meme. The Protestant work ethic ("Get up, there's work to be done") is in my blood, even if the day's work is nothing more than blogging. Right now, for instance, I am impatiently waiting for the shops to open at 8am. It's 7:51 and I'm nearly finished, so I have timed this very well.

It's surprising what a difference a few degrees (and a percentage point or two of humidity) can make. This morning at 5:30 it was only 26° and much less humid than yesterday, it was very pleasant. The sun hadn't yet risen though the sky was quite bright with a rosy glow on the horizon. I opened all the windows as wide as possible, and sat down to breakfast: a "New Yorker," a bowl of fibresticks and the last of the milk. A fitful breeze played about my ankles on its way through the kitchen.

Then at one point the breeze changed: it became faster and more constant. "Ah, the sun's up," I thought to myself, and walked onto the balcony to check (it was, at 6:08 if you're wondering). I know that it's generally true that the sun drives the weather, but I wonder whether it's specifically true that the wind picks up after sunrise? Remind me to pay attention at breakfast during the next few days. (Not that a small sample of empirical evidence counts as proof.)

[updated at 11:03] I've just thought of something. I have many times experienced a moment of stillness just after sunset. Perhaps that is the obverse side of the same coin: the wind shifts down a gear as the sun sets?

Note to myself: the swallows are still here, a year after they left for Africa in 2005. Must pay attention, to see when they leave! [Updated] they left on 27. July.

The daily dilemma is brought to you today by Dilbert.