Good morning
I wake up with the sense of slight surprise that comes with noticing it's only 8 o'clock and I've slept like a puppy.
The real joy of Sunday mornings is devouring the morning paper over breakfast. It's almost a sacred ritual. A bowl of cereal, a stack of sandwiches, a nice big mug of tea with a dash of milk and some honey, and I'm set.
Turning page after page - all 172 of them (although I guess technically you only turn half of them); leafing through section after section - there are six today - each a proper paper in itself.
It's not as much about news as it is about entertainment, about education. About lazily skipping the politics, diving instead into the portrait of a billionaire, an artist, a hunter, spending a fraction of a minute on a full page of infographics that must have taken half a week to make. It's about getting it all: science, travel, culture, interviews, prose. Or none of it, if you will, because the choice is entirely yours.
It's the pleasure of reading what great writers have written, not because they're paid to, but because it's what they do. Every word carefully crafted, dancing across the page just for you, and for everyone who cares to watch.
It's about gently easing your brain out of standby, your mind being free to wander as you're slowly growing into the day that's set on being this week's crown.
The best part of it all: the crossword. I'm saving that for later.
Then I go digital. I tend to my feeds and my inbox, do a bit of idle blog reading, and download a few podcasts to set the tune for the next Sunday joy: the power walk.
It's a full five hours of waking up today, but I know there is no better way I could have spent them.