By

Craig Ennew

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Twenty-Seven: Spring Forwards, Fall Back

This week: Craig embraces the longer days

Last week, the sun set after 6pm for the first time since the clocks went back. It will not set again before 6pm until October 21st. During my time down the interweb rabbithole finding this out, I also discovered that one of the earliest proponents of British Sumer Time, via a 1907 pamphlet entitled The Waste of Daylight, was one William Willett. It turns out that Mr Willett was the great-great grandfather of Coldplay lead-singer and erstwhile saviour of Planet Earth, one Chris Martin. What the Good Lord giveth away with one hand, he taketh away with t’other.

I enjoy the seasons and welcome the dark cosy evenings that herald the leaner months. During my drives between Wiltshire and Dorset, I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Katherine May’s Wintering – an interesting exploration of liminality and how to navigate the dark or fallow periods of life. This year, though, the lighter evenings and brighter mornings cannot come quickly enough.

Short-lived: Sunset over Chapman’s Pool

My morning routine in the dark has been wearing a little thin: you can only stumble out of a little cottage into the pitch-black lanes of Worth Matravers so many times and still think it quaint. I’ve been leaving at 6:45am, often loaded up with overnight luggage, three carrier bags of recycling, a coffee, and some breakfast clumsily wrapped in foil. I’m attempting to exit the cottage without letting Percy the Cat escape, simultaneously dealing with a front door that must be locked from the inside. At this juncture, I must add that I have also inherited what my sister-in-law calls ‘unco’ traits from my mother’s side of the family. Hence, since the Ennews have invaded this little South Dorset picture-postcard village, the new dawn chorus is the cacophony of clattering recycling, followed by the sight of my good self, chasing half a dozen empty bottles of Malbec rolling down the hill.

the Spring equinox has occured

And so finally, the start and the end of my working day is in daylight. The Spring equinox has occurred: hedgerows are dotted with nodding daffodils; delicate little snowdrops grace secret pockets of rolling fields; and Britain’s Got Talent is back on the telly. This year, though, the heralding of Spring seems a significant turning point for all of us – a reflective journey through and, hopefully, beyond our own ‘wintering’. I’ll update you.

The Boy continues to ride the highs and lows of his new school. Sometimes there are baby steps forward, then another two strides back; other times, he’ll fly through stretches of uninterrupted success with plenty of ‘greens’ on Class Charts. Whichever way, despite being hauled from his pit at around 6:30 every morning, he rarely complains about going in, bless his size five clodhoppers.

I am currently stumbling through a succession of job interviews. It would be good to be closer to the other two. As someone who has worked at the same place in the same job for decades, this is not unchartered territory, although I’m having to use very dog-eared maps to find my way around. Added to this, I am an expensive prospect to take on. But no matter – I’m really in no great rush to leave my lovely colleagues and students in the present workplace in Salisbury if that is where I’m destined to remain.

Meanwhile, every Saturday, after The Boy’s riding lessons, we pay our weekly visit to The Shack in West Lulworth to see how things are getting on. Despite the asbestos issues, Will the Builder is cracking on apace. Emails – often daily – fly between us leaving plans in a perpetual state of flux. Roger the Architect seems to have decided that all of the e-comms are a little bit too much: he’s handed over his pencil to Evan, the surfer-dude sidekick. Evan has proven adroit at pointing out our many oversights and transgressions in the planning phase, updating the floorplans on a regular basis. He points this out to Will, who promptly sticks another nought on the end of the next invoice. Thanks Evan(s). Meanwhile, walls come down, more asbestos rears it’s ugly head, and skips, seemingly bigger than The Shack itself, get filled with rubble.

Sometimes Will sends us little videos of progress, with accompanying commentary.  ‘This is about as bad as the place is going to look before it starts to look better,’ he says, panning across a large hole in an external wall.  No shit Sherlock.

A couple of times, during our Saturday visits, we’ve bumped into the people who will be our new neighbours – the unfortunate souls whose lovely view over Bindon Hill is currently being partially eclipsed by a skip the size of the Isle of Wight. To apologise, and hopefully set things off on the right foot, we invite them to take a tour of the building. It seems the decent thing to do but as they step gingerly over the planks, I’m not entirely sure what we expect them to say. ‘I like what you’re doing with the floor of the lean-to: I saw in a feature in The Word of Interiors that earth and rubble are the new parquet…’

partially eclipsed by a skip

Stripped bare: The Shack!

Still. The first steel beam has gone in. We are finally at the point where things are being added rather than taken away: the first green shoots, so to speak, following a decidedly unpredictable Winter. There is daylight.

©Craig Ennew 2025

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