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March 1

4.05 a.m., London

First day of meteorological spring. Sunrise calculated: 6.45 a.m. I read, I write, I make tea. By 5 a.m. the back-garden blackbird’s song is less shouty, more melodious. There are runs, there is sweetness. It feels tender, personal. I wonder if he can see me from my open window, face picked out in the screen light. It’s still too dark to see him. Maybe there is an appreciative female, maybe as yet there is only me. It is quiet, just my fingers quietly rat-tatting on the computer keyboard, him and his sweet song.

March 6

5 a.m.

Is it the streetlight out the front that makes the church bird sing? I lie in bed listening through the open doors but Henri’s sleeping breath is anxious. I cuddle her until it calms. My dawn writing feels like a series. The fascination of recording almost invisible change. Here I sit at my window. Noting the subtle shift.

I miss an early bus to the plot, watch it pass as I am putting on my boots. I am still on site before seven. Here to sow the first root crops of spring. One row each of red beetroot and Chioggia, marked by blue string. The rain starts as I am sowing. I love its gentle touch. The ponds are alive with bulbous spawn.

It’s a double bakery shop today. First, the French for pastry, another for cinnamon buns. I am home and armed with breads and papers before my daughter Kala, who lives close by, comes around for breakfast.

March 7

5.20 a.m.

Cooler at the window, as I write. Daybreak gathering, mauve clouds to the south, steel sky north-east, watercolour streaks at twelve o’clock. Crows are adding bass notes to the small-bird choir. It is almost light at 6.10 a.m., skies a dirty denim. Is it mad to say I miss the dark in the mornings? I sowed five rows of spring seed on Sunday, so they need light and warmth, and me too, but now winter is weaker I feel some slight regret. It might be a cocoon thing, anyway it will soon pass. The anemones by the screen no longer need monitor light, their chiffon petals picked out in subdued daylight.

March 8

3.28 a.m.

So now I know when the church blackbird first calls. Incessant rain had woken me, then the chorus began. There is a joy there, in rain and song that breaks through any mood. No neighbouring house lights anywhere. People asleep as far as I can see. Just me and my tuneful feathered friends. I love being wrapped in this quarter-light. There is comfort to be found in doing nothing much, breathing, aware of the early day, the almost silence in a city.

March 10

2.28 a.m.

Back home after being trapped on a broken train, a three-hour journey taking ten. Stepping out of the cab, ready for bed, to be greeted by the blackbird singing as though only for me. The mystery of the song and when it starts. I pause for a minute, soak it in, stand under its shower, and then haul myself up the stairs.

March 11

4.30 a.m.

The dark has gone as the near-full moon waxes. Birdsong in surround sound. I read a poem about kindness. The sun when it comes is a watercolour primrose. A Japanese start to its day.

March 13

4.08 a.m.

Woken by full moon and birdsong streaming through the doors. March is known as the sap moon or worm moon, signalling warming soil where worms re-emerge and bring migrating birds back to feed. The kitchen smells of scented narcissi. Spring is very close. The sky is shrugging off its winter coat, full-on streaming sunrise.

March 15

3.50 a.m.

Henri has to get up at 4 a.m., leave the house at five, so of course I wake early, the same with any flight day, birthday, Christmas Day. While she packs, I pootle about, making breakfast, running her bath. Two blackbirds are locked in a song contest, early geese and swans fly by, plaintive calls of long haul. The ranunculus in the jug look like a kid’s painting. The 5.30 a.m. sky is streaked with pink lipstick air trails. Henri is not the only one to fly.

March 17

4.45 a.m.

I am lying diagonally on the bed, my sleeping legs seeking my absent wife. Kentish Town is marked out in birdsong, trees hosting answering calls, like echoes in a canyon, beacons on a cliff. A dawn dialogue, the tribal chat. I wonder whether they’ve paired yet or is it like ducks on the canal: five males for every anxious female. The blackbird boundaries are hardening for the breeding season. From now until July their small town territories will be fiercely defended. As yet the call feels melodic rather than aggressive.

By 6 a.m. I am sowing beans and nasturtiums at the allotment at the top of Hampstead. The hill is an avenue of birdcall. One sings from scaffolding profiled against the breaking day. The sunrise catches the willow branches. The pink magnolia is coloured bubblegum. By 7.30 a.m. I am home, elated, making breakfast. Soon the rest of the house will wake.

March 18

5.15 a.m.

I have been up extra early reading ‘Love after Love’ by Derek Walcott, who has just died. Then into Seamus Heaney, as it was St Patrick’s Day yesterday. Henri calls from upstairs. She is having trouble sleeping. I climb into bed and curl into her. The poetry of quiet breath as her rhythm slows.

March 21

5.21 a.m.

Blue sky, spring dawn; we are past the equinox (equal night) now; for the first time in six months the day will be (just) longer than the dark. The sun creeps up behind its temporary home. The tower block lit with hope. Crows shout their welcome, magpies mock. Early light catches the rosemary flowers in the window box. Still before 7 a.m. and the sun has real warmth. A day to sow salad seed.

March 22

5.03 a.m.

Turner-esque streaky sky. The neighbour’s cat comes in off the roof, scratching at the door. She doesn’t want to stay, she doesn’t want to talk. She trots through the flat, down three flights and sits impatient, calling to be let out into the street. I watch for a few moments, see she is safe and mourn the days she came to stay.

My mornings create space to let my mood materialise, listen to myself without distraction. Like a flower adjusting to the sun, knowing which way I want to face. The room adjusts, too, takes on a glow, the flowers take on a different tone: green stems stand out in red.

The sky’s reflected in the western window, mirroring the morning. Like a planet with two suns, bathing me in ambient light. It is not, I think about what you do in the early morning – though there are more opportunities with extra hours – it is about giving yourself me-moments, the simple gift of time. Liberated from urgency, revealing the joy of being you, unleashed like a lurcher in a meadow, all in your front room. It mostly comes with sunrise. And it’s still only 6.30 a.m.

March 25

4.33 a.m., Denmark

First, to light the fire (as always), then time for tea. By 5 a.m. the blackbirds sing. I wonder whether they have a Scandinavian accent. Within moments the hedges are alive, my tea mug steams, the flames lick at the logs. Within half an hour it’s seven degrees outside, a full twelve up on yesterday. It feels like this is the end of the frost. I am sowing spring flower seed. No sunrise through the trees today, a slow creeping in of dawn. By 5.45 a.m. there is a smear on the east horizon. Light is coming fast. I can see my writing on the page. Ink. No computer screen here. The last day of winter light. Tonight the clocks spring forward. The sun rises, silvered. A palest gold picks out the pennant on a neighbour’s flagpole. The birds chatter. The woodpecker drums.

March 26

4.06 a.m., Denmark

First day of summer, two hours on from GMT. The eastern sky has a platinum tint, newly shiny. It’s quiet, still, no sound from the sea. Within an hour, birdsong is everywhere, with many on the move. The Arctic terns are leaving, the lapwings have arrived. Resident crows, the finches, tits, all compete in the choir. I wish I knew more of their songs. Light softens as the temperature drops. Quickly down to two degrees. In an incoming sea mist the thrush song is suddenly isolated, the collared doves cacophonic.

March 27

5.05 a.m., London, back to being dark

The extra summer hour in the evening has robbed my morning light. Backwards, forwards, as though we think we have control of time. The day is on hold, you can still wake and see the sunrise. It is easier now it is later, at least for a week or two. More time to quietly contemplate, more time to write in screen light. Though we have just made later earlier, the opportunity to step outside time is still on offer if we want to slow down time. The 7 a.m. neighbour leaves his door at 6.30 a.m. today. The sun is quickly catching its stolen hour. Rising hidden now behind a new building. Sky trails bomb the tower block. A palette of blues and electric oranges, rich like Rubens.

March 31

5.05 a.m.

Crazy birdsong all around, everyone joins in. The magpies across the street pairing now, either renewing their courtship or making friends. Multiple mating calls the order of the day. In Denmark they are mostly comically in twos, seabirds too, and gulls. Flirting, flying, aware of the need to attach. I am almost anxious to get the early bus, the seed peas downstairs call for soil. It is the time of growth, of new life, of seed spilled and spread and germination. It seems I share spring urgency. In the garden a cat calls, deep and intent.