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First, could you tell me a little about yourself?
My name is Jamie Oliver, I’m a chef, writer and child health campaigner. I was born in 1975 in Southend, Essex. I have five fantastic kids and live mainly in north London.
What time do you wake up (and why)?
Work days I tend to wake up at 4.45 a.m. by my phone and the gentle music of a band called Aqualung. Saying that, I’ve normally switched it off within three seconds. I get up that early because I start official work at 7.30 a.m., where time is planned within an inch of its life, so if I want to go to the gym or squeeze a meeting in that can’t wait I use early mornings as my trump card to do what I want. I find it really useful. If I was off work and didn’t have kids jumping on me I probably could easily lie in. I don’t remember when that last happened.
Do you have a morning ritual?
I tiptoe to my bathroom where I fill a big bath with hot water full to the brim with a squeeze of Johnson’s purple baby bubble bath which I’ve taken a shine to. I have a thing about the ritual of the bath. I found my dream tub in a scrapyard eighteen years ago: a lucky find, Clarice Cliff made it, solid porcelain. The bath is my only quiet time, true relaxation, to relieve my aching muscles. I take thirty minutes to try to think and visualise my day ahead. I then pack my clothes, get in my gym gear and run, cycle or scooter to the gym.
How does being awake early affect your life?
I think it arms me to be more productive, more creative, gives me a head start that I feel I need as many people look to me for answers and clarity from 7.30 a.m. onwards so I need to start before others tend to. The effect is, I think, you have a different rhythm, maybe it feels like a cheat. I crave early morning peace and quiet and space for thought and to appreciate nature, particularly birds singing. Dad used to wake me up early as a kid, he said people died in bed – so I guess it’s stuck.
What time do you sleep?
I go to bed about 10 p.m. if I can and I sleep very well, but actually physically going to bed is one of my hardest challenges in the day. I think there’s always so many reasons not to just go to bed, so like a baby I set my watch to remind me to get in bed. Pathetic, but it works really well.
Does your sleep vary through the year?
No, it’s always the same unless I’m on holiday when I tend to chill out more and have a lie in.
Has your sleep pattern changed?
Yes. I used to get sleep very wrong. I didn’t understand it or respect it, I took it for granted like a luxury not a necessity. I only used to get three or so hours’ sleep for about six years, which got me in the end. For the first time I felt really sad, which has never been my default as I’m a very positive person most of the time so I had to change my thinking and doing this has changed my life. Sleep is as important as nutrition.
Is the light important?
Oh yeah, I crave a little kiss of sun, it feels like a charge, comfort, joy. I’ll follow light like I follow the smell of good food, never direct light unless it’s sunrise or sunset. To have a power nap facing autumn orange light on your face is true luxury joy.
What do you like least about being awake early?
The fear of waking up the kids and especially the baby.
What do you like best about being awake early?
The chance to be one step ahead of most.
How would you sum up your thoughts on your mornings in 100 words or less?
My early mornings are a lonely, self-indulgent, special space that I choose to create for myself because we can. Where time goes at normal speed instead of fast forward.
The little violets’ heads bowed on their stems,
The pre-dawn gossamers, all dew and scrim
And star-lace
Seamus Heaney, Mycenae Lookout, ‘His Dawn Vision’
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