Overheard at... home

The sound of a bird singing out the window, early this morning.

So you will have to forgive me for this late Thursday post. When I say early, it was actually around 3:00 a.m.; which, at the time, made me wonder what type of bird was awake and signing at that time of the morning. It also reminded me of the lovely, but very loud, nightingale that used to sing outside our window when we lived in England many years ago.

I could tell this bird was no nightingale though, much quieter and not enough range. Have you ever heard a nightingale sing? It is an amazing, if eye opening, sound. (Check out this Soundboard site for their song). Although I think it is a lovely song, the nightingale typically heralded my morning wake-up, so it isn’t necessarily associated with happy feelings for me. My schedule at that point in my life was crazy… fun and interesting and challenging, but crazy.

5:00 a.m. – Get-up, trying not to disturb my husband (while sort of wanting to because I was so jealous he still had at least two more hours of sleep ahead of him).

6:20 a.m. – Catch the early train from Sunningdale station to Waterloo (It was worth running for this train because it was marginally less crowded and I had met a couple of travel friends would would entertain me on the 45 minute trip into London).

7:45 a.m. – Stumble from the tube, hyperventilating from holding my breath for the last 40 minutes. (There is nothing so horrible at 7:00 in the morning than breathing in someone’s hangover breath.)

8:00 a.m. – Arrive at my office in Barclays Bank near Tower Bridge. (The walk was actually more like 10 minutes, but I never did get over the idea that I got to walk by the Tower of London on my way to work. Once I even saw white deer on the grounds, as if Arthur himself might appear at any moment.)

6:30 p.m. – Head pounding, leave my office at a run, trying to catch the 7:10 train. (The head pounding thing was aggrevated by the decision to pain our wide open office space a bright arrange and yellow…. I can’t imagine who thought that would be a good idea <picture me hanging my head in shame here>).

8:00 p.m. – Text my husband to beg him to pick me up from the train so I wouldn’t have to walk home in the dark. (Dinner waiting, we would talk briefly of our day, mine developing a content strategy for the bank’s online presence and him… uh… riding his bike around Windsor great park and watching a polo match which he swore the Prince had
attended).

9:00 p.m. – Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Good morning lovely nightingale. Thank you for humoring my trip down memory lane.