6:00AM: the best hour of the day, or too close to your 3:00AM bedtime?

Someone must have said “look at that wonderful sunrise”. Living with two felines, a son that rises only towards midday when he is at home, and Mr. Swiss who always was an early bird, I assume it was Mr. Swiss thinking of my opportunity to at last take a prize worthy photo.

Sunrises are not my thing. I have a wonderful collection of sunsets from all over the world: England, Switzerland and perhaps Portugal and New York. Sunsets are sensible. They arrive at a sensible time and stay until you have found the camera and tuned to the various settings. Sun rises are for vampires to warn them to disappear to their sleeping places down in the cellar or the vaults and snuggle up in their coffins, closing the lid to keep the offending daylight away. You see, even vampires sleep better when it is dark.

6.00 a.m.? Oh, I know that is when the birds are singing outside my window telling me what a wonderful day it will be. There must be at least 10-20 different birds as they are all singing a different song, a real carcophony. There is the bird with the high pitched whistle that is convinced he has a talent for the birdsong talent competition. He practices every morning. That is the one where I would most of all like to throw something at to remind him that there is another species that prefers to spend the early morning hours in silence. Then there is the bird with the monotonous chirp, chirp, chirp where I dig deeper into the sheets and covers and bury my head in the pillow, no not song some sort of monotonous lyric, probably the rapper of the bird world. Crows are different, they croak and have lively conversations with each other.

“Hey Fred, what do you thing, that tree over there looks quite comfortable and look at those two females with the sexy beaks.”

“You mean lets take a flight over and croak good morning. They do have sexy curves on their beaks, I must say and dawn is breaking, so they won’t know what has hit them when we arrive.”

Probably the product of this morning rendezvous is a few eggs and married crow life, and Fred and Charlie would probably have been pleased to have forgotten the whole thing. Peaceful crow life met its end at 6.00 a.m. one morning in Spring.

I remember the time when I was a working woman, when there was a purpose in my life to arise with the sun, eat a welcome breakfast, freshen up under the shower, get dressed and go, go, go dragging my son with me on the way. You know when you had that sinking feeling in you stomach, “do I have to do this?” Then 6.00 a.m. had a different meaning, you had a target in front of you. Your fellow workers would waive with welcoming gestures and sour faces when you arrived in the office. I would switch on my computer and see the vibes being generated in the bytes and circuits.

“Good morning computer” I would say in an energetic expectant voice, full of energy to fulfil my day with worthwhile tasks.

“Good morning idiot” my computer did not actually say, after all computers do not speak, but they think and I am sure that was what he was thinking. I remember a work colleague from the computer department whose office was just along the corridor where the windows faced South. She would often pay a visit on a wonderful early morning (it was then around 7.30 a.m.) to inform me that the sun had risen and there would be a fantastic photo to shoot. I dragged myself along the corridor only to find that the clouds were gathering, so there was no photo of the rising sun.

Reflecting on these work days, I am happy and contented now to be a golden oldie, if only the birds would sleep just an hour or so longer. I am a nature lover, but only from about 7.30 a.m. and even then in small doses when I let the cat out. My cat is also a nature lover, but his thoughts about birds are something completely different.

Daily Prompt: The Golden Hour – someone shoot the birds