Before the house wakes up

There is a stretch of the morning, usually about five minutes long, between waking up and the first thing that wants your attention. Most of us hand it straight to the phone. The alarm goes, the thumb moves, and before we have stood up we have read a headline, three messages and someone else's holiday.

Winning the first hour is the whole of how we start a day, and this is the very first part of it. Do not fill those five minutes. Sit on the edge of the bed, or stand at the window, or put the kettle on and watch it. Nothing coming in.

It sounds like nothing and it feels like nothing for the first week. Then you notice that the day starts from you rather than from whoever emailed last night, and that turns out to be a bigger difference than it sounds.

For those of us with faith, this is where the morning prayer goes. For everyone, it is the only five minutes of the day that are entirely yours, and they are gone by quarter past seven.