You know, I am becoming increasingly sceptical about this changing the clocks business.  Those of us who will insist on living in the northernmost habitable parts of Europe, to wit, West London, have it bad enough.  In the winter it is barely light by mid-morning to find one’s glass of sherry on the side table, and it starts getting dark at the closing sups of a proper lunch.  In the summer, the sitch is quite the reverse.  The birds are screeching in the trees about all the joys of the season at around four in the AM and the gloaming is still in full progress at the closing echoes of Newsnight.  I can see how bureaucrats of all stripes were keen to come up with some kind of practical solution in order to keep the war effort on an even keel, encourage cows to provide more milk and provide an extra hour of sunlight to encourage the growth of vital fruit and vegetables.

As you might be aware, I am a regular visitor to Scotland, in fact I was there on Easter Sunday with my Uncle Archie, a number of his disreputable friends and a case of finest scotch to welcome the extra hour.  It is something of a tradition north of the border, especially amongst those looking for an excuse to get some extra drinking time.  Of course, the lighting conditions up there are considerably worse at the two Solstices, but at an equinox, Scotland is almost habitable.

The whisky and the climate are the less vital reasons for undergoing another epic drive up the Scotland.  The primary reason is to be out of the house when the clocks change.  I have an inordinate number of clocks in my flat, the result of a bequeathment from my late lamented Uncle Chronitis who left them to me some years ago, along with a couple of astrolabes and with an old-fashioned Police Telephone box.  By the way, I asked the Golf Club to find somewhere for the latter item and they told me that they had left it in the gully next to the Fourth Green but it must have been nicked by some local scallywags as it’s not there now.  Perhaps it will turn up.

In any case, twice a year the flat becomes virtually uninhabitable as My Man pads around from room to room in his stockinged feet, spirit-level, winding keys and business cards in hand.  When changing the clocks he likes to make sure each mechanism is properly balanced, hence the business cards which he slips under an offending corner of the chronograph he is adjusting.  He never outright blames Mrs Flittersnoop for unbalancing the clocks, but there is a certain drained look in his eye which tells one that this clock would be perfectly precise if it were not for the actions of one colleague as she was dusting.  In any case, silence must prevail as his acute ear tunes into the beat of the pendulum and he carefully levels each one.

Spring forward is not so bad.  A clockwork mechanism does not mind too much being advanced by an hour, but as Uncle Chronitis was at pains to teach me, it can never be wound back.  Every October this leads to a Sunday morning of cacophonies of bells as one by one each clock is advanced a full twelve hours, with a couple of twenty-four-hour specials thrown in for good measure.  I know what Auden meant when he wrote stop all the clocks.

Some years ago, I decided that the toll this process took on the nerves was just too great and that from now on I should exile myself from the abode while it took place.  These days I make myself scarce for the entire weekend, not returning until Monday morning to be on the safe side.  This does mean having to manage the journey myself, as the two-seater is hardly a practical proposition for any long journey without My Man and the Thames Van in support, carrying spares, luggage, oil, elastic bands and so on.  I therefore booked myself a ticket on the sleeper and a room at the Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh.

Of course the train is a joy in comparison with driving, and I am astounded that not everybody does it.  I took WH Auden’s Selected Poems, WH Auden’s Collected Poems, WH Auden’s Collected Longer Poems and WH Auden’s Collected Even Longer Poems but am glad to report that the last two of those volumes were superfluous as we drew into Waverley as I was only half way through the second of those books.  I see Faber’s are working on WH Auden’s Collected These Probably Need a Bit Of Editing, and I look forward to reading that on a future trip, perhaps if I get a go on the Trans-Siberian Railway once that awful Putin person has accidentally fallen out of a window or met some similar fate.

Some poetry which welcomed much appreciation and perhaps a little light editing was evident in this week’s Workshop.  Sue Flemings opened with a poem inspired by the sight of a coffin in a motorcycle sidecar as part of a biker’s funeral procession.  Her piece, presented in two parts, pondered on her own mortality and the unassuming nature of the funeral she would prefer. It was a candid exploration of one’s final sign-off and the simplicity that can accompany it.

Anna Matyjiw shared a piece steeped in stillness, capturing a moment of isolation suspended in time. Her words invited us to consider whether she was expressing a reluctance to fully embrace life or, on the contrary, celebrating its ongoing journey through the act of remembrance and anticipation.

Roger Beckett presented a thought-provoking poem that contrasted the innocence of a young girl pouring her heart into playing her violin until her fingers bled, with the grim reality of politicians with blood on their hands. The poem deftly navigated the duality of human actions, juxtaposing purity with culpability.

Nick Barth mused on the seemingly trivial yet telling subject of kitchen drawer clutter. His poem was a cheeky observation on how the accumulation of everyday items can chart the passage of time and reflect the evolution of our lives.

Upon the return to the bosom of my home, I found peace and tranquillity reigned and a welcome additional stretch of natural light to enjoy my Earl Grey and HCB by.  It is that extra hour which is the pebble in the loafer here.  Should we give up daylight savings, the fear is that we denizens of these damp, often gloomy islands will have twelve months of Greenwich Mean Time imposed upon us.  Perhaps the real inspiration for the whole clock-shifting thing was Persephone and her ill-advised elopement with grim old Hades.  Collectively, we elected to wolf down the pomegranate seeds and agreed to daylight savings because like her, we know that Mean Time should be balanced with Summer Time.  But, if we are going to be persuaded to do away with clock shifting, we want that extra hour, perpetually. 

As ever, we need to be careful what we wish for.  All the zero-emissions, elastic-band-powered two-seaters in the world are going to struggle to stem the inevitability of the last one hundred and fifty years of wanton combustion.  Summer will arrive earlier, winter will turn up later.  Poor Hades and Persephone will not know when to pull the covers over the swimming pool and bolt the shutters in one house while making sure the heating is serviced in the other.  Meanwhile, we cannot trust our politicians to get it right.  We will be stuck in Greenwich Mean Time, permanently, and nobody wants that.

Even so, despite mutterings from some corners it looks like daylight savings may be with us for a little longer.  Mind you, it does do wonders for the tomatoes.

If you have been, thank you for reading.