The little luxuries of life

If my great-grandparents - or, come to that, even my grandparents - could see some of the things we now take for granted they would be absolutely amazed at the level of luxury in our lives.  Come to that, so would many people alive today and living in what we once called "the third world".  And I'm not talking about the big things like jet aircraft or refridgerators (yes, I can recall when fridges were luxury goods).  I'm thinking of the little things like central locking in cars and remote controls for televisions.

I think my favourite luxury-producing device (for that's what they really are) is the snooze button.  Oh, how wonderful it is to be able to reach out and press that little button knowing that I will be allowed a few more minutes of blissful nothingness.

(A parenthetical aside:  my radio alarm in England allows me an extra nine minutes.  Why nine?  What's wrong with a nice, round ten minutes?  And the one in France - a different make - allows just seven minutes, which is just as odd as nine.)

My enjoyment of those few extra minutes under the duvet stems from the last few years of my working life.  In those days I had to be ready to leave the house at 6.00am so that I had time to scrape the ice off the windscreen if necessary before driving about ten miles to catch a train.  Not being one of those people who can be up, washed, dressed and out of the house in 20 minutes, I set the alarm for 5.00am.  That was the alarm on the bedside cabinet.  But I was always wary of my proclivity to switch off the alarm in my sleep, so a second alarm - a wind-up clock with those two bells on the top - stood on the chest of drawers on the other side of the room.  That alarm was set for 5.15 so that if by chance I should switch off the first one in my sleep...  But I quickly discovered that the 5.15 alarm allowed me ample time to go through my first-thing-in-the-morning routine before I needed to leave so it became a matter of habit to switch off the first alarm and turn over.  Now I'm retired I just press the snooze button - maybe once, maybe twice, but probably three times.

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The last two days, especially yesterday, have been sunny and positively spring-like.  Today is more overcast and we are promised (?) rain.  The sun has brought out the thousands of crocuses we have in the garden.