Monday 10th October

It is that time of year.  Summer is just about over and Autumn not yet in full swing, but you cannot escape the knowledge that Winter’s cold hand will soon descend.  The skies are clear as a bell, blue during the day and jet black with twinkling stars at night and before the sun has risen and warmed us up it is so cold in the mornings.  Especially this week in France where the temperature is dropping to 1 degree in the mornings.  And you really notice it; for so many weeks we have been in tee-shirt and shorts and sandals – now it is jumpers, jeans and shoes.

But I quite like cold snappy mornings, there is something really refreshing about that chill, especially after a few hot months.  I was always an early riser, often starting work before six in the morning.  In fact for a few months I used to buy fruit and veg for a Restaurant Group on Covent Garden Market.  I would wake at about 2 in the morning, read my ansaphone and work out how much of everything I needed to buy.  Then before three I would moped my way half-way across London.  This was Winter too, the roads were often icy and I even drove through snow showers a couple of times.  London is quite different at this time of the morning.  No pedestrians, hardly any traffic, just rows and rows of dark houses.

And for a while I used to work for a Patisserie in Perivale.  This was almost the other end of the Central Line from Leytonstone where I lived.  I would catch the first train at around 5.30, and it is really cold then, the journey would take an hour and the carriage was full of office cleaners heading for the West End, many of them black.

And as a child I seem to remember the Winters being much colder, lots of snow and ice.  So these few refreshing mornings are nothing compared to those days.  I always actually feel a bit sorry for those sleepy heads who don’t get out of bed until 9 or later; even in Winter they miss the best part of the day