the wee small hours

[Mr. FOLLARD]

In the wee small hours of the morning
While the whole wide world is fast asleep...

For as long as I can remember I've always felt really calm and happy in the 'smallest hours'. As it's the quietest time of the day you're not going to get disturbed by noise, you feel less 'crowded out' as most other living beings are safely tucked away  - but there's also a mystery about the darkness and the kind of life that does exist at that time which is attractive (have you ever walked around a city at night?)

Clearly if you have to be up early for work then sitting about doodling at 4 am isn't the best use of your time. But I think other people here share my love for a bit of night-time thought, or whatever you want to call it. 

How are your hours?

[bungo the mungo]

the complete opposite.

i'm often up at 5am (which i guess still qualifies as the wee small hours) and out stomping the streets on my morning run at 6am. i feel invigorated in the mornings and dead to the world as evening approaches.

[Mr. FOLLARD]

Weird.

Well, either you're all keeping regular hours, or you're NOT and you're ashamed of it, or you just find this thread uninspiring.

OR....maybe half a dozen of you are composing really gripping replies that you'll post later once you've checked them for spelling (before Ray the Ranger gets hold of them).

[Deleted]

I have had plenty experience of the "Wee hours" since i was 13. My da got me a job picking up glasses in a discotheque , it was every friday and saturday night to start off with, but i wouldn't get home until 1am and not get to sleep until 2 or 3am. This was due to trying to wind down and wash out the smoke from my stinging eyes. You could still smoke in discos when i started. Then up early because, i can't stay in bed all day. I worked in this place one and off for over 20 years. When i wasn't, i was still working in bars or hotels which meant late nights. I still haven't been able to correct my sleeping and i'm 39. The wee hours always found me watching shit and overthinking shit. The thing is, when i got out of the bar business, what job did i get? fucking nightshift in my local tescos when they opened 24 hours. I started at 10pm and finished at 3am, sometimes i worked until 7 if there was too much work or if someone called in sick. Then, i started working in a call centre for an US company working US hours. Our time that's 1pm and 10pm, then the wind down made i didn't get to sleep until 2 or 3am. It's like i'm glutton for punishment when all i want to do is fucking sleep.

I fucking hate the wee hours, they're all cunts.

[Mr. FOLLARD]

Yeah, I wasn't really asking about nightshifts, but I know what you mean. I did occasional graveyard shifts at a hotel reception when I was in my 20s and even after a while, your body doesn't really adjust to sleeping during the day. It's just not a natural thing to do. So you end up walking around like the half-dead while everyone else is working.

Guess it works for some people, tho'.

[Deleted]

Who? Batman? well maybe he would be a bit more chilled if he got more sleep.

[tory]

The only time I visit the wee hours is if I'm off my tits or I can't sleep.

The former is extremely unlikely nowadays so its the latter, which means I'm fucked off at not being able to sleep.

[loveless]

I loved it as young person - the sense of solitude. It felt like peak creative time. The idea that (at any time before maybe age 40) I would deliberately go to bed at a sensible hour seemed counterintuitive.

Now? I like it from the other side. Waking up a couple of hours before the sun, the rest of the family still sleeping, you'd KILL for that kind of undisturbed peace.

Two different experiences, I suppose, but sharing a common thread of "having the run of the world".

[tory]

Robert Harris' novel talks about "The second sleep" - a period of time that emerged during the medieval/early modern period where people would go to bed as the sun went down and then emerge at around 12/1, wake up for a couple of hours and then go to bed again until dawn.

[loveless]

Dec 8, 2020 18:13:06 GMT tory said:

Robert Harris' novel talks about "The second sleep" - a period of time that emerged during the medieval/early modern period where people would go to bed as the sun went down and then emerge at around 12/1, wake up for a couple of hours and then go to bed again until dawn.

I used to be friends with a guy (older maybe by about 6-10 years?) who said that when his children were babies/extremely young (and required a certain vigilant engagement) he would routinely get up in the middle of the night and take a couple of "personal hours" before going back to bed.

[Deleted]

Dec 8, 2020 18:13:06 GMT tory said:

Robert Harris' novel talks about "The second sleep" - a period of time that emerged during the medieval/early modern period where people would go to bed as the sun went down and then emerge at around 12/1, wake up for a couple of hours and then go to bed again until dawn.

Read that bit too quickly, thought you said rolf....

[sloopjohnc]

I usually have to get up and wee in the small hours. A different interpretation.

[Mr. FOLLARD]

Yes! the wee-wee hours

[jeffk]

I'm usually up until three or four AM.

[hippopotamus]

I love staying up late. I never roamed about cities late late at night (probably midnight, 1am was probably my curfew for that sort of thing... And it's not really something you can do as a woman) but I just Like it because it's like bonus time.

Maybe I don't understand the point of the thread of nightshifts aren't to be discussed... But I'm going for it anyway.
My favourite shifts are 12pm to midnight. I like having the morning to get things done and Potter around the house and it feels like I'm getting into my stride in the evening. Most people I know hate the evening shifts.

The last little while I've had to be in bed by 7-8pm and it drives me nuts.

I've been considering what it would be like to be one of those people that wake up at 5am and do all kinds of things before work. My hours are normally entirely dictates by irregular shift work and now a baby... But maybe, if I ever get the choice about this sort of thing again, I might give it a shot.