Spring forwards, fall backwards

Introducing our new duck friends, Johann (right) and Sophie, who are not to be re-christened any more as the children feel it irreverent to the previous owner.  She was quite moved as she said goodbye this morning.  Johann and Sophie were very quiet during the journey home.  Apart from a couple of muffled quacks and the smell of duck poo, you would never have known they were there.  Their first day has gone pretty well, I'm thinking - they've been for a swim in their pond, they've been inspected by Herr NN, and they've fought Max and won.

Tonight the clocks go back.  The only positive thing about this is the extra hour in bed tomorrow morning, I feel.  I read yesterday with great interest that Britain is considering joining CET - about time, Blighty - but that 'Scottish farmers are not happy'.  CG remarked that they never are anyway, so why should they throw a spanner in the works?  I think it would be wonderful if Germany and Britain were in the same timezone.  Who cares what the Scottish farmers think?  If you are one, by the way, reading this in between oat harvests or whatever else you do up there, please drop me a line and enlighten us all.  I mean, we all know it is something to do with more daylight, but all the tractors round here have headlights powerful enough to floodlight a football pitch.  Surely the Scottish could stretch to this - after all, it is 2011?

I will not be languishing in bed too long tomorrow, as I must be up betimes to get to my driving course somewhere else in Bavaria (which is huge, by the way).  I know it is eighty miles from here and I have to be there by 9 a.m.  I am taking Gaia for moral support.  She is under strict instructions not to laugh or distract me when I'm negotiating the obstacle course or in the skid-pan.  Nor is she to try and do her make-up in the passenger mirror.  I am quite excited.  Everyone I know who has done one of these courses says it is exhilarating.   I chose a women-only variety, as apparently the mixed sex groups tend to be dominated by guys wanting to try out their new motor and see what it can do.  I, too, wish to do this, but my objective is safety, rather than speed.  Yes, those days are long gone.  Now I am off to adjust the first clock.