Early Bird Catches The Worm..

...But the night owl writes blogs at 1am, and gets the last bit of brownie.

I have never been a morning person, there is absolutely no fight in me in the morning to get up and go, I just love sleep too much. Every night I calculate exactly how much sleep I am going to get,  anything less than 7 and I'm furious with the morning already. I am lucky that it takes me a matter of seconds to fall asleep, and that I have to ability to sleep anywhere (only topped by Kate who can even fall asleep at dinner).  Car, train, tube, the fashion cupboard, the stock shelves at my old job...it's a blessing and a curse.

Annie and I  used to have to catch the bus at 7:15am to get to school, because we conveniently went to a school 15 miles away.  Every morning Annie (the good child) would be downstairs, dressed, looking smart and polished at 6:50am. Breakfast, Hang Time and 10 minutes of pacing up and down the kitchen in a panic that I would make her miss the bus would ensue. I thought that was a complete waste of time so I would stumble down the stairs half dressed looking pretty bleary eyed desperately seeking my shoes I had so carlessly kicked off the night before. I would be greeted with a: 'For god's sake Billie we are going to miss the bus!' a pieces of toast thrust into my hand and pushed into the car. We would always make the bus (because Geeta was a bad ass) and I would wearily make my way to the back and fall straight back to sleep. 10 minutes before we arrived at school I would get a thump to the arm - signalling I needed to tame my fro before I was to be seen coming off the bus with my clearly WAY cooler sister. Come 4pm I was in my element, full of beans and bouncing but not a minute before.

Sometimes I envy those morning people. The ones taking fresh-faced selfies at the gym at 6am and instagramming pics of their poached eggs and avacado for breakfast whilst I struggle to get my legs to work at 9am.  Hitting them slightly manically as I walk up the hill to the tubepleading with the buggers to please wake up and work.  (It's really just a 200m very gentle incline but 'hill' sounded more effective).

How I feel about mornings...




Geeta - a morning person. Baz, Annie (post 16), Billie and Ashwin - night olws. I get super excited to go back to Leicester mainly I can wind Annie up all weekend by making Chester follow me around the house instead of her, and declaring that I am his favourite. But forget having a lie in.

8:30am you awakened by the sound of the dishwasher being (deliberately) unloaded extra loud, plates clattering across the kitchen and the cries of Chester sat at the bottom of the stairs waiting for someone to come and play with him, because he really is the most spoilt animal in the world.

9:00am and it's the bellow of 'Annie, Billie, Ashwin....time to get up!' At which point Geeta is completely ignored. We all rollover (Baz included, he's the worst) and try to dismiss the cupboard banging coming from the kitchen.

9:30am and Geeta goes to the one thing guaranteed to stir some movement from us all 'BREEEAAAKKKKFFFAAASSSSTTTT!' Done, we're down. Essentially food...the only way to get the Bhatias into action.

To me morning people are the matcha tea drinking, organic-raw-vegan-superfood eating, do-trialathons-for-shits-and-gigs kind of people. I have basically just described half of the ELLE team. The people whose instagram is a beautifully curated page of vegetables and juices and pictures of their #SundayFunday 284739k run. I hugely admire and despise these people in equal measure.

The world has gone superfood mad and it's you early birds I blame for it all. What happened to just eating fruit? Why does it have to be pulverised to be good for you now? What if I want to drink water that is not at room temperature infused with cucumber and lemon? What if I just want ice cold water? Or what if I eat a salad that is not sprinkled in bee pollen? Or snack on a plain old carrot for Sainsbury's - not a £4 raw, organic, superfood, common cold curing Whole Foods carrot. A carrot is still a carrot you perky morning people. Now pass the hummus.

The kind of shiz morning people make time to do:




I am a night owl through and through. My hours of genius fall between 4pm - midnight. I am much more suited to a European lifestyle - someone tell BBB I need to be relocated to Lake Como asap. I bet they don't put fucking bee pollen on their pasta. Night owls are more fun than their early birdy counterparts: we can watch more Netflix episodes, stay awake late enough to warrant midnight snacks and are always ready for a night out. Plus who wants to catch a worm when they can have the last piece of brownie because everyone else is asleep?

So whilst all you morning pigeons have called it quits for the day, us owlies are doing this:



Realistically though this is what we are doing...



I thought living with early birds might help me in the transition to having more productive mornings, but not so surprisingly it hasn't. Kate and Juliet used to leave the house before I even woke up, and whilst I totally love belting out Whitney in the shower with no one to disturb me I wondered what life would be like as an early bird. So when Cat my new housemate and fellow ELLE cadet joined the Richmond Retreat I decided to give early birding a go. For 2 whole weeks we got into work an hour early, made lunches and had it not been fashion month there would have been more than a 1% chance of us leaving on time. I enjoyed it but the novelty of being the first in to pick my desk is wearing off. I pick sleep, late nights, and midnight writing snacks (I'm lying to you, I'm not writing I'm watching Netflix).

Either way I have decided I don't want the worm, I'm happy with the brownie or more likely in our house: mini cheddar.  The only person I will change my nighttime stripes for is Gosling and since he's lost my number. I will not be insta-bullied into a life of early bird organic raw veg, and when I live in Como with George you will all be wishing you were more owl.

Until then...another episode of House awaits.

Fatty BB xxx