Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, before children, the end of daylight saving meant something entirely different.
There was, of course, the mourning of summer's passing - an end to lazy, languid, sun-drenched evenings and sizzling barbecues. However, the silver lining was, for one day of the year, you
got an extra hour in bed.
But post-kids, there are no lazy evenings to miss and no lie-ins to look forward to.
Because anyone with young children knows that changing the clock on the wall or the watch on your wrist will not change a tot's body clock.
So when hubby, who was working an early shift the next morning, chirped about getting an extra hour in bed I bah-humbugged.
"Speak for yourself," I snorted, knowing that come sunrise (which was going to be an hour earlier on the clock) it would be all over.
No matter where the little hand was pointing, there would be little hands all over me, dragging me out of bed.
What I didn't expect was for morning to come not one, but two hours earlier.
"Mummy, I want to get up," I heard coming from the pitch black of Miss Two's bedroom.
I groaned, rolled over and looked at the clock ... 4.30am, the green digits glowed in the dark.
Which on daylight saving time would have been 5.30am. Still "unacceptable", as Supernanny would say.
Hoping against hope, I crawled into bed with her, explaining that it was still dark and therefore night-time.
We wrestled. We wrangled. We had words. Until an hour-and-a-half later the sun came up and my argument wouldn't wash anymore.
"Mummy, I want to get up," Miss Two demanded.
"It's still da ... ," I began, but then realised the sun was peeping through the curtains and I would have to admit defeat.
And, sure enough, after her early start, at 2pm that afternoon she fell asleep in the car, negating the one perk of turning the clocks back.
Night fell an hour earlier but, at 8pm, Miss Two was still going strong. "It's dark," she said, running out of her bedroom for the umpteenth time and pointing at the blackened windows.
Clearly the message that "dark=night=sleep" is not getting through. It's time we taught her to tell the time.
