Women use more exclamation marks in emails. I know, right?!!!!

The clocks have gone back.

- Lucy Mangan

Which is to say, something happened overnight for reasons I am no closer to understanding now than I was half a century ago as a newborn babe.

Every year we get the warnings and I dutifully follow the instructions on the two analogue clocks in the house. (Like everyone else, the car and oven have to fend for themselves until their time - literally - comes again in the summer.) And then I stare at those two clocks trying to figure out what it means. Is this the one where I get an extra hour in bed or the one where I have one stolen from me?

I know it will get dark earlier rather than later but that’s because I know it’s winter and that’s how these things go. But I don’t understand. I cannot truly make the connection between what is happening with clocks and what is happening outside.