Fall back
The extra hour... I wandered round the house this morning turning the hands of clocks back an hour, or pressing the bleepy buttons until the displays read 8.20am instead of 9.20am. I never remember to do them before I go to bed and then, in the morning, I feel cheated because I haven't had that extra hour and I'm awake in that liminal time, the mythical sleep space from which we're supposed to wake, stretch and then realise, with a self-satisfied sigh, that we've beaten the system and snatched some time back from the relentless onward march. It has a strange quality, that hour. I'm here, awake, in the kitchen, making tea, letting the cat out, then in, then out while the dog watches and waits for the distant walk time. It feels as though I'm the only person awake, anywhere. A bit like getting up early on New Year's Day, or back in the day when the boys were babies and I'd be blearily feeding them in the early hours and feeling out of synch with t