You Know Winter is Approaching when You Can't See to Get Up

This morning, like the other weekday mornings in the last 2 weeks have been too dark for me to see what I was doing without having to turn the light on, but with my wife still asleep when I get out of bed at 6:30am, I try my best to not do anything to wake her.

Usually, I quietly go downstairs, and power on my laptop, but last night I left it running in the office (which is upstairs) as it was in the middle of a backup when I went to bed.

So, I went into the office, unplugged the laptop and charger, and headed downstairs.

Unfortunately the glare from the laptop screen was going directly into my eyes instead of lighting my way, and so I gingerly made my way downstairs, but missed the last step, and almost slipped and lost what is probably my most precious possession. But I didn't drop it thankfully, just jolted my ankle and nothing more.

The dog usually sleeps outside the bedroom, but since he kept barking at noises outside from 2am to 3am, I had got up and shut him in the kitchen so we could get to sleep. Unfortunately when the wind is coming from the wrong direction, the letter box in the front door flaps, and this sets Max off, and being a big German Shepherd, he has a big deep German Shepherd voice.

I opened the kitchen door, and tried to not get legged over by the 4-legged monster that was trying to glide in and out of my legs, and then let him outside.

Since it's raining he comes in with paws covered in mud too. Max much prefers trampling on the flower beds to walking on the grass, and when it's raining we have to have a towel handy to wipe his feet, otherwise he runs mud and dirt into the living room.

When it's dark, even though I have the kitchen light on, it's not really easy to see when I have wiped all the mud off his big old paws, especially as the towel is already covered in dirt from the night before. Add to that the fact that I have barely woken up, and my eyes are not working 100% yet.

Well I got him sorted out, then did as I usually do and spent 30 minutes checking my email and web sites etc.

In the last couple of weeks I have had to put the living room light on, since it's been too dark to see the keyboard on the laptop, and it's depressing to be up before dawn, unless it's to see the sunrise, which when it's windy and pouring down with rain isn't going to happen.

My laptop beeped a couple of times, a few minutes apart, and as it was running slowly and I couldn't see what might be causing the beeping, I lost some time while I rebooted it, then as usual I put it into hibernation and headed into the shower.

As I came out of the shower I heard the beep again, and thought "It can't be!"

I went into the living room, and my laptop was definitely off. My wife's laptop was also off, so it couldn't be that, and then I saw her cell phone sitting on the coffee table, so I plugged that in to charge and headed upstairs to get dressed for work.

The dog usually stays downstairs when I go to get dressed, but this morning he decided to follow me upstairs, and lay down on his bed in the hallway outside of our bedroom.

I didn't want to put the bedroom light on and wake my wife, and so I left it off, and with the skies dark with rain clouds, there was little light in the bedroom.

I managed to find a shirt to wear, by the faint pattern on it, and managed to find my blue trousers by the feel of the material and the belt, but try as hard as I might, I could not see the patterns on my ties, so I opened the bedroom door so I could put the hallway light on, and in charges Max, barging past me, along the far side of the bed, where he wakes up my wife, sniffing at the bed and trying to grab the box of tissues (he loves shredding tissues), and then I REALLY wake her up by shouting at him and ushering him out of the bedroom.

A short argument ensued, during which I had to turn on the bedroom light to make sure I chose a pair of socks of the right color, and then decided that I would have to now change my routine and put my clothes ready for the next day in the office, at least for the next few months.

One thing is for certain, it's going to get darker every morning for a while, and although the clocks go back this weekend in the UK, that will only give me a week or so of not having to put the lights on in the morning.

Don't you just hate this gloomy time of year, when it's dark when you get up and go to work, and it's dark again when you leave work to go home. Oh well, only another 5 months until the daylight begins to lighten my day again.