When the clocks go back

An ex-boyfriend once told me I have the CV of a cat.

Now, just to make it clear from the outset, I don’t have a penchant for answering nature’s call in gravel and I am not in the habit of sunbathing on my sooty terraced-garden walls. But I must concede, I am pretty good at relaxing and, if am being completely honest, I do fancy myself a superior sleeper.

In fact, I like to think that if all else fails, I could one day go semi-professional – my ZzzCV is indeed a testimony to some of my more impressive reposes and being able to rest contorted in even the smallest, bumpiest, noisiest third-world bus has its advantages – not least on over-crowded tubes. I have slept cocooned in newspaper on ferries, under my office printing desk (only once, after the Christmas party and before my boss thankfully declared me unfit for work that day), in the engine-room of a Canadian ski resort gondola and once for an hour in a helicopter above Jordan, rotor-blades chopping away, oblivious to all but the dusty landing amongst Amman’s biblical hills.

This is why the last Sunday of October is, in my book, one the best days of the whole year. Who can deny the utter luxury of an extra hour in bed? And the delicious reverse jet-lag the following Monday? Not to mention the brighter mornings, making it easier for all but the borderline-crazy (stockbrokers and news editors) to rise on the right side of bed and face the rush-hour commute with unaccustomed positivity.

I have always been told that the clocks go back so that children won’t have to walk to school in the dark. It is a happy accident, then, that the safety of children (on their ankle-whacking scooters), means that clubbers across the city get an extra hour of bang for their buck on Saturday night. In fact, some of the only people who must hate this weekend are bar-workers.

So, as winter resolutely marches towards us and the sun slips further out of reach, the end of British Summer Time is a sweet moment in my calendar. It is an autumnal blip of happiness that actually, when you really think about it, makes us all temporarily a smidgen younger – and a whole hour better-rested.