What time is it?

Time is a funny old thing. One of the reasons we have station clocks is because in 1840 the Great Western Railway introduced so-called railway time to overcome the problems caused by each town in the expanding railway network having its own local mean time. The clocks showed passengers what this unified time was.

I don't know about you, but time has lost all meaning in our house. It is apparently Thursday and I gather that tomorrow it will be May. I've just had a cheese and pickle sandwich, but I couldn't tell you if it was lunch or just a little something to tide me over until the next meal, whatever that will be.

References to dates in books can lead to unintended results. In the entry for 22 March in A Sparge Bag on the Washing Line, I wrote: ‘We hear that Brexit is to be delayed. I can’t bring myself to go into details here – and anyway by the time you’re reading this it will all have been resolved and we shall be looking back on these crazy times, laughing and saying, “What were we thinking!”’

On 10 March, I was interviewed by Andy Gibney of 3P Publishing for The Writer's Hut podcasts. I mention the date because if/when you listen, you will hear Andy joking that by the time the recording goes out we will all have forgotten about coronavirus. Yeah, about that...

If you'd like to listen to the podcast in which I talk about my writing and editing life and various other bits and pieces - Andy is a great interviewer - you can find it here.