The one change that worked: I woke up to my phone alarm – until my wife insisted on a new morning routine

She was adamant. No alarms, bells or sirens to rouse us. Instead, we ease into the day with classical music and green tea, and it has transformed my outlook on life

Until I met my wife, I thought the only way to get up was with an alarm, followed by a swift swing of legs into the cold air, launching myself with force into the morning – an abnegation of anything subtle or sweet, like jumping into icy water. Then Ele came into my life and changed my morning routine. Now I am drawn from deep slumber by a trill of notes, an arpeggio perhaps or some soft chords, as I roll between the last fragments of dream and the day ahead. My wife is adamant: no alarms, no bells, no sirens. Instead, the radio gently rises in volume until some note of whatever is playing rouses me from my dream state into reality.

After the trill, one of us creeps downstairs to put on tea and, while the old dog eats her breakfast, arranges the pleasing array of a small, not-too-sweet biscuit or two, a bowl of cut fruit and a huge pot of genmaicha green tea (the fun one with the popped rice in it). Then all three of us pile back into a bed that has had its pillows plumped and duvet smoothed out. And there we sit, sipping tea, eating biscuits, listening to BBC Radio 3.

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The one change that worked: I woke up to my phone alarm – until my wife insisted on a new morning routine

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