Let’s embrace the dark nights as summer fades away

As we hurtle towards the clocks going back at the weekend, allow me to offer some reassurance to anyone dreading our days getting darker earlier. The main thing to remember is that it signals the end of all hope about being in the tail-end of summer rather than the onset of winter. Those of us muttering about Indian summers every time there’s a glimmer of sunlight will just have to move on. This is easier to do when it is officially the end of British Summer Time. It’s not us giving up on summer, it’s a real thing and means we are somehow, suddenly just weeks away from Christmas. How did that happen?

Take heart though. However gloomy we find the long evenings, at least the stress some of us used to endure over the physical processes involved in changing clocks is pretty much a thing of the past, thanks to digital devices.

My schooldays were disrupted twice a year by running up to the school gates only to find I was spectacularly late or early, depending on which direction the clocks had changed the day before.

Thankfully, with bedside alarms and various electronic devices automatically changing in the appropriate season, it’s much harder to be quite so oblivious to the clocks changing these days.

Unless you live with no such devices, in which case I envy you – except when it comes to the clocks changing.

I am planning to embrace the longer nights in my time-honoured fashion of serious snuggling down in the evenings.

Soft lamps, fairy lights and candles go a long way to inducing the hibernation vibe I like to enjoy at this time of year. I’ll also attempt to curb the TV bingewatching in favour of cracking through my “to read” book pile.

My relatively recent conversion to the benefits of the great outdoors also means that there will be much wrapping up for walks in the brief periods of daylight.

Putting on wellies and marching through crunchy leaves and puddles is one of the most therapeutic activities available and may even take your mind off the daydreams about sundrenched beaches.

Soft lamps, fairy lights and candles go a long way to inducing hibernation