FORWARD AN HOUR

On go the clocks then, in the great annual cycle of daylight saving changes. Spring forwards, fall back, is how I choose to remember it, ever since one day at university when I went the wrong way and annoyed my housemates.

The Intrepids are always well prepared for the change. Dad went round and did the clocks one by one at 9pm last night, even pushing round the ancient hands of the grandmother clock behind the sofa. It clunked and whirred as though not impressed by being tampered with at its ripe old age.

This hastening of the hour of course, results in all of us now living in British Summer Time, one hour into the future, and with longer evenings in which to enjoy the rainclouds shifting across the murky skies, slowly fading from turbulent grey to purple and black.

Well that's what happened tonight anyway. I went on an evening walk after supper, just to take in the air. It was breezy. The sky was flecked with rain and I thrust my hands into my pockets as I strolled out to the field. The wind whipped my hair about and shouted in my ears.

I have been feeling incredibly sleepy today. My eyes can't seem to stay open and I've got a sort of lack of energy. It's not the weakness you get when you're still recovering from flu; it's a sort of lethargic sense that I ought to be slumbering - itchy eyes, twitching muscles and the sinking sensation of not really listening to what's going on around you. I hate to think what jet lag will do to me, if this is what a little one hour shift does.

It's Palm Sunday today as well. I tried to start a new tradition yesterday by having what I called Palm Saturday Pancakes. My Mum said it didn't really count as a tradition as Palm Saturday isn't really a thing and it was just me having a pancake. Watch out next year though, Mumsy.

I rather like a Palm Sunday, even if we didn't exactly remember it at our church this morning. It's all about the arrival of Jesus, entering the city gates to the sound of a party and the impromptu waving of palm-leaves. It marks the beginning of the bittersweet time known as Holy Week. The way I see it, it stands out as a sort of marker - it says: everything is about to change; maybe not in the way you think, perhaps not even in quite the way you expect, but this is the moment when history is made.

I like the idea that a new sense of hope is breezing into our world and blowing away the cobwebs of winter. The sky might be cold and dark, the air might still carry the chill of the old season, but listen, put your clocks forwards, get your palm-leaves ready - summer's coming.