By Katie Burrell

Wake Up 

“Beep beep beep beeeeeep, beep beep beep BEEEEEEP”. My alarm. It shocks me out of sleep. It’s 6.15am. I was dreaming, one of those funny dreams where you feel like you’re very close to being awake – you can almost hear the sounds of the day around you while you’re in your cosy cocoon of slumber. 

I force my eyes open. I need eyedrops to help me wake up at the moment, otherwise my eyes continue to feel tired and dry. Andy got up at 6am to take Molly (our dog) for a walk. It’s STILL dark. I love Autumn but it’s always a bit of an adjustment to start waking up to darkness and to have darkness set in in the evenings a lot earlier. 

Shower time. I think I need to start turning the tap cold for a few seconds to try and jolt myself out of this permanent sleepy state. I don’t do that today. It’s so warm and lovely, I don’t want to spoil it. A Daddy Long-legs jerkily flies past my face and pins itself to the frosted window. Urgh. They’re so weird. What are they? Why are they? It’s takes flight again. It makes quite an unnerving buzzing sound. 

I whip my towel around me and get out, tip-toeing downstairs as quietly as I can on the creaky floorboards so as not to wake Andy’s Mum and Dad. I make a coffee and get Molly’s food ready for when she’s back. I think about breakfast for me. It’s 6.30am. I can’t eat at this time. It just feels wrong. I hear a woodpecker outside and then a flurry of other birds start to sing. A fat wood pigeon begins to ‘coo.’ I get absorbed in listening to the morning chorus. There’s a stream of bright, fluorescent red beaming across the sky. 

It’s 6.40am. I race (still treading as lightly as I can) upstairs to get dressed and sort my face. My face really needs sorting this 

morning. A bit of make up to make me look more alive. I dry my hair so that it’s now only a little damp. Andy and Molly are back. I dash downstairs again (still quietly) to say “Hi” and give Molly her food. “Sit. Stay. Go on then.” She practically drinks it down, her collar clanging rhythmically against her metal bowl. 

Almost finishing my coffee (I always manage to leave a bit for some reason), I go to clean my teeth. We’ve got BBC Radio 5 Live on. It’s usually that or 6 Music. I like Nicky Campbell, he sounds like a nice guy. I pack my bag, make sure I’ve definitely got my lunch with me and head out of the door at 7.10am. 

I do a quick sprint up the street – it’s actually more like 7.12am and I’ll miss my train otherwise. Now walking, I pass a few street regulars. Woman with tiny fluffy dog, young boy who has abnormally long feet for his height, man in his car who always tears around the corner. There are regulars at the station as well. No one speaks to each other even though we see each other every morning. Funny that. 

Godstone to Redhill. Redhill to Victoria. Victoria to Brixton. If my Redhill train is late arriving I can’t make my connection. It seems to be on time today but I still have to leg it across Victoria Station to catch the 8.28am. That’s sometimes my only exercise during the week. Whoops. Maybe I’ll start going for a run on my lunch breaks? 

As I arrive in Brixton the coffee truck beckons me. Their flat whites and banana bread are so good – but I should only go there on the odd occasion, I can’t afford it every day. I walk to the church, ready for a new week in the extraordinary SCA bubble. It really is like training for a marathon. Brain tiredness has truly set in. If I can manage to strike a balance between this whirlwind of a course and life outside it I’ll be very happy. It’s all a work in progress.