I'm behind the times (From Warrington Guardian)

I'm behind the times

A couple of years ago one of our sister papers mistakenly ran a piece at this time of year advising readers to put their clocks forward an hour instead of back.

A light-hearted correction was published the following week, and everyone had a good old chortle.

Well, let me tell you what happened to me on Sunday.

Last week I was sub-editing page two of this paper and wrote the footnote reminding readers that British Summer Time was coming to an end.

Then I thought no more about it.

That was my mistake.

Saturday night passed rather pleasantly: wine, good food and The X-Factor (yes, yes, I know, but it's so addictive).

Sunday morning came, and my young daughter roused my wife and me at her usual up-with-the-lark hour. We got up and had breakfast, blithely carrying on as if we were still on British Summer Time.

At what I thought was 10 o'clock, I began applying the top coat of wood preserver to our front door, finishing a job I've been doing for a couple of weeks.

It did seem unusually quiet on our street. Neighbours' curtains were pulled to, while even the birds seemed to be grabbing an extra hour's kip in their nests.

Still, I pressed on with my painting.

It wasn't until four o'clock (according to my watch) that my error was brought to my attention.

I took our daughter to Walton Hall Gardens, but discovered the car park would close at 4.30pm. After deliberating whether it was worth paying £1.60 for half an hour on the car park, I put my money in the machine. It was then, when I inspected my ticket, that I realised it was actually 3pm.

It was like discovering an extra Malteser at the bottom of the bag when you think you've eaten them all, and it gave me an hour and a half with my daughter at Walton Hall's children's zoo.

You could say we had time on our hands.