Or, Radnorshire Mean Time.

It’s 05.00 by the alarm clock, 04.00 your time, and the view outside is a white covering, almost like snow. Even the Donkey yard rails are white, the only clue is the shadow from an abandoned bucket. It’s the light from the Harvest Moon. Even the stars pale as this bright light dominates the landscape. Listen carefully, and there are ducks on the pond.

Why am I up? You may well ask. How do we tell the animals that they have to wait an extra hour to be fed, or in Bigboy’s case, to wait twelve hours for a wee wee? The answer according to Sandie is to carry on and ignore the time. We pushed them ten minutes last night, and we’ll push them another ten tonight, but then we’ll have to hold for Tuesday night as we’re due at Joan’s by (well before) 18.00 JIRMIT (Joan I Really Mean It Time) for a Penrhyn management meeting.

All of this is not helped by watching slow T.V. last night, four hours of The Ghan train journey from Adelaide to Darwin which finished at midnight (GMT). Incidentally, my cousin cycled it aged 75 or so, took three months as against 54 hours for the train.