Observations from an early morning drive

[annwfyn]

• For various reasons I had to get up at 5 am yesterday to drive to Birmingham. It was an odd experience. The first thing I noticed was how very busy the village my dad lives in - Lambourn - is at that time of the morning. You'd have thought it would be dead, but it was teeming with people; walking to walk, cycling, driving. The corner shop was open already and there was a steady little number of people popping in and out.
  
  I mentioned this to my stepmother and she nodded understandingly. "It's the stables," she said. "You'll find people about everywhere at 5 am when they all go to work and noon when they get out from work."
  
  Outside of Lambourn, the world was dead quiet. But inside, it was filled with life.



• While driving, I went past a sign for the Webbs of Wychbold. I think, having googled them, they are a garden centre, but for a moment I could only think I'd stumbled into the Harry Potter world. Maybe I had. Maybe the gardening centre is just a cover, or perhaps it's a magical gardening centre, selling mandrake and rowan seeds. That would make a lot of sense.



• Another sign I went past was for a crematorium and garden centre. On the same sign. Not the same place. I hope not the same place, although that would also make a weird kind of practical sense. Garden centres were a theme for me.



• I went to bed at midnight last night and slept blissfully until 8 am. It was lovely. I did, however, think before I went to sleep about the world I was missing. But then, they are all missing the strange late nights when you sit up until 3 am or 4 am and see the world sleeping when you go outside. It's odd how the world changes around the clock.

Comments

[eniel]

The observation of early morning activity reminds me of summers at my grandparents... with everyone important (which at that age included me, my parents, and my grandfather) usually get up at the break of dawn, it felt like you'd miss out on half the day if you weren't up before 8am or so. My little sister and I had very different takes on what constituted "reasonable waking times". Before 8am, before the day really started (my grandmother didn't get up any earlier), time was suspended, and we'd have to tiptoe and whisper around the house, as if we were stealing precious minutes of sunlight and spinning them into hours of squirrel-watching, newspaper reading and card-playing.
Then again, there really is nothing quite like the feeling of watching the sun rise when you've pulled an all-nighter ;)

[steveclapton.livejournal.com]

It's why I like to take walks at different times of the day and night to see the differences.

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

If you do this new Lost concept, I issue you the challenge of incorporating the Webbs of Wychbold into the background.