This week I have left the house each morning in darkness, and returned to it in the evening, also in darkness. Since I don’t usually leave my workplace even for lunch it makes it feel as if daylight hasn’t happened.
Still, it is deepest, darkest winter and less than a week to the shortest day; after which it’s all uphill till June in terms of light.
Well, not quite. Sunrise and sunset times do not change in step with each other throughout the year so one – I forget which – changes faster than the other at this time of year. But the trend is in the right direction.
I was going to post about this anyway – as an upturn and signal of hope for a new year.
But yesterday morning there was some numpty from the South of England moaning in the Notes & Queries section of The Guardian about the change to British Summer Time (BST) not being done in February.
Now, I was at school in Dumbarton during that three year experiment when BST persisted through the winter. It was awful. Morning upon morning of unremitting gloom with no real benefit at the end of the day. Darkness is much, much worse to endure in the morning than in the evening. What those further north felt about it I can only imagine.
I quite like the clocks changing. It is one of the few ways now – since food of all kinds is available in supermarkets all year round – that we are still connected to the rhythm of the seasons.

Monty Python, thou should’€™st be living at this hour! Coldplay hath need of thee. (To send them up.)

Imagine the scene.

Prelude to the battle of Cannae. Massed Roman legions about to face up to Hannibal’s army.

Hurrah! The Roman cavalry rolls up, the day is surely ours!

And then they line up, tallest at the back, and start singing?

What, I wonder?

“€œGaudeamus Igitur?”€

“He’€™s got a gladius and he’€™s okay, he sleeps all night and he fights all day?”€

That’ll frighten the Carthaginian hordes,* eh?

No wonder the Romans lost.

Chris Martin? More like Ricky Martin.

(*The Carthaginian hordes were actually severely outnumbered.)