I have had a strange fascination with time from a very early age. Learning to tell the time is a lesson etched in my mind, my P1 teacher, Miss Smith and her cardboard clock with its big red hands. And like most people, I initially aligned myself with the narrative that time was objective, measurable and quantifiable (because that’s the way we humans like things to be). A minute was a minute. An hour was an hour. Time simply was. Or so I thought. Then, without really being conscious of it, I started asking questions about my own experience of time.

It began one summer when I was about eight years old. I remember being tucked up in bed on what I had been told was the longest day of the year. The problem was that I had already been in bed for a couple of hours and it was still bright outside. Through my bedroom window I could hear other children playing in the park behind our house (I loved that park. Better still, I loved the quick access to it via our back fence) and as I lay there staring out at the evening light, questions formed in my mind: “If this was the longest day of the year, why had I been sent to bed at my normal bedtime? Surely if there was more time in this day, I should have been allowed to stay up longer?”

A few months later I found myself questioning time again. Around abut the 22^nd of December, I was told it was the shortest day. This was good news, as shorter days on the run up to Christmas must have meant Christmas Day would come quicker. But then there was the sting! As I was living it, the longest day of the year was in fact…Christmas Eve. At least it felt that way. My hyperactive little brother and I were awake from about six o’clock in the morning. The hours stretched endlessly as we meandered through the day, willing bedtime to arrive – it was the only day of the year when going to bed early seemed appealing. Then came the torture of lying awake. Waiting. Listening. Wondering if sleep would ever come. Wishing time would hurry up. Why was it moving so slowly for me?

Eventually Christmas morning arrived. At around four o’clock, accompanied by my aforementioned hyperactive little brother launching himself onto my bed. We would seek out the adults, who did not seem quite as enthusiastic about our early morning excitement as we were, a reaction I would come to understand many years later, before charging downstairs.

Then something strange happened. Time changed again.

It seemed to take only minutes to open every present from Santa and the family. From there, the pace became frantic. Breakfast. Toys. Family visits. More toys. Television (Star Wars was usually involved somewhere). Christmas dinner. Crackers. Paper hats. More television. Supper. Then suddenly someone would say it was time for bed.

What? Already? This was in fact THE shortest day of the year.