I like to get up early in the morning and potter about the house before everyone else comes and starts the day. It’s lovely. I make myself a coffee, get out my writing – a diary, a printout of a work in progress, a letter to a friend – and I start to think.
I treasure the time to the point that if the mister gets up early too I am nothing short of rude. What are you doing here? It’s his house too, but his presence seems such an invasion. I tell him it isn’t personal but he says, It feels like it. There must be a way to make it work that doesn’t involve two houses, one of which is only used for a couple of hours in the morning.
Oh how I hear you. I am often up several hours before my partner – and cherish that time. And totally selfishly resent it on the (very) rare mornings when he is up early.
I think it was Don Dunstan and his wife who had two homes – separated by a pleasant walk through parkland. And my worser self can see the charm.
Mandy Sayer and Louis Nowra do it too…it just seems a bit of an indulgence in our case.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/23/1090464842371.html?from=storyrhs