Take me to Brrr-itain!

"Trust me, I’ve been there"

British summer time is more than just an extra hour of daylight. Well, no, it’s exactly an hour, if you want to get technical. But it changes the shape of the UK. It changes the way you feel about the evening, about going out, about socialising. Once that’s happened, pretty soon it’s changed the way you feel about mini-breaking – and before you know it, you’re thinking “yes, it’s the UK. Yes I have customarily worked all the livelong year just to get out of the place. But you know what? I think this might be just the country for a holiday.”

And why not now? It is summer time I promise. It starts this month. I’m not just being wishful. The country takes on the look of France. The light gives you the urge to eat al fresco, even in the Lake District where, if I’m honest, it’s still so cold you can see your nipples through your fleece, and they don’t say “al fresco”, they say “don’t bother mountain rescue, I’ve brought this flask!”.

Sports that are still basically impossible or, failing that, highly perilous, suddenly seem possible: surfing, jet-skiing, gliding is particularly improved by being able to see where you’re going. I hear. You can start a country walk at noon, instead of having to get out of the house by 9am. This puts a whole new spin on who you can go away with – normal people are back in the running, where the whole of winter was given over to minibreaking with parents and insomniacs.

In fact, the whole semantic chasm between “villa” and “cottage” appears to close. One is not Tony Blair to the other’s Nora Batty. One does not spell glamour and orgies, to the other’s pie and bedspreads. Looked at through the sunny lenses of British Summer Time, they are both just houses, people, with beautiful scenery and visitors’ books and an oven you don’t know how to use. Do Italy and Britain have to be so very different? Do we have to be so much less fun? I mean, can’t we just be the same, with worse olive oil but better TV?

Take a chance, in other words. It’s March – strap on a pair, go to Cornwall. I personally am going to La Rochelle, but I’m afraid I booked before I had this stunning seasonal realisation.

British Summer Time begins on Sunday 29 March at 1am. Clocks go forward one hour.

Text by Zoe Williams