I am not a morning person. Never have been. As a child I’d crawl out of bed at the last possible moment and was always cutting it fine to sprint down the driveway in time to catch the school bus. (Thus I can’t help but admire my niece Jaime’s cunning: she – in a stroke of pure genius – tried to wear her school uniform to bed under her PJs. It would have worked too, had my sister not gone in to wish her goodnight only to spot her school shirt collar poking out from under the blankets.)

I am not a morning person, but since Lucas was born, I’ve seen in the dawn on at least a dozen occasions. And every time it’s a thrill. (No, that’s not just the sleep deprivation making me say silly things.) One of the simple pleasures of living on the peak of a hill is the way that, on clear winter mornings, the fog rolls in, slowly swallowing the valley, leaving only the trees around our lawn and the tips of the Hunua Ranges in the distance peeking out of the mist.

By the time it’s light enough to take a photo, the fog has usually lifted. So, as ridiculous as this might sound, it always makes me feel like this ephemeral effect is for my eyes only. (And Lucas’ too, though to be quite honest at that time of the day he’s rather more interested in looking up my shirt than out the window!)