Being awake early feels like a special sort of in-between time. Like there’s a small secret one shares with the world.

Of course, my early is very different to someone else’s early. For instance, my husband gets up at 4.30 or 5am almost each day. Today he left the house at 5.30 to go mountain bike riding.

I’m up early - 6am - to take my son to work. He, like me, does not like getting up early. At all. Which is hard for someone who left school and now works in a coffee shop. 7am starts are a thing when others need their morning coffee……

So - when I get up early, I have the divine privilege of hearing the morning bird song. It is quite spectacular here, and changes with the seasons. The first call, which is much earlier than the others, starts quite a bit earlier than the light really has sprinkled in; in those moments when you know it’s dawn but it hasn’t really started officially yet.

By now - 6.20am - the spangled drongos are calling to each other. The kookaburras have called and laughed. All those teeny little birds have announced themselves as awake and ready for breakfast.

Me - I sit bleary eyed. The small one here too (he must be pulled from bed for the drive into town with me) showing me his Lego builds. For which I have less interest than any ‘good’ mother should, and show more interest than I actually have. Sometimes I say yes and no at the wrong times. Sometimes I answer what I thought was a question, when it was only a statement.

I’ve been told - quite adamantly - that if he says ‘what’ or ‘how’ or ‘why’ then he’s asking me a question, otherwise he’s telling me something. An almost 7-year old who is quite good at language, and setting people straight in the world.

The roses are slowly falling apart on the kitchen bench, where I sit and write. One day I might might might have a studio space of some kind, of my own. Or at least I can hope for a little nook for writing. One can always ponder the idea of a space of one’s own (even though one tried to read the Virginia Woolf book and couldn’t get past the first few pages).

When I come back home from the work drop off (he’ll have his license soon) I will make pancakes, at the insistence of a small grumbling tummy. I will sit on the couch and do my stitching. As best as possible with the chatter of this child of mine who is like an ever-tumbling waterfall.

I’ll do the washing up. And sigh grumpy-ly that I’m doing it again. I might drag it out and wait a bit. Keep doing my stitching for a few moments longer, languishing on the couch. Or I might just get it done, and then not think about it again. The basket of clean washing beside my bed - the same process. Though it’s already been dragged out for a few days.

I would like to put those final dahlia tubers into the ground. It might suddenly be too hot, even though now I have jumper stocking heavy socks. I will almost certainly look for the tender tips poking up - the ones which haven’t yet shown themselves. The ones I am not sure will at all; or did I perhaps kill them with not knowing how to properly divide their tubers, necks and eyes. It truly feels very horrible and mean to know that you’ve broken the necks of a poor little strange looking plant seed / tuber, before it had a chance in the world.