Editorial: March? Again? Already?

Today is officially the first day of Autumn.

It is March 1 - the first day of autumn.

Which I daresay has led to many people shaking their heads and asking the age-old question about the days of summer, namely, "where did the time go?"

It went where all past summers have gone.

Where all past autumns, springs and winters have gone also.

Into the past.

Like the three minutes which have also disappeared since I started penning this.

Apart from "where did the time go?" the other well-worn phrase surrounding time is "it seems like only yesterday ..."

Indeed it does.

Christmas is still a firm memory, as is the sound of distant explosions on New Year's Eve.

It seems like only yesterday.

The summer pursuits came and went.

The outdoor concerts and the beach days and the great Art Deco Weekend.

Now we are on the countdown to the plug being pulled on daylight saving - although that is still five weeks away so the evenings will remain light and fresh past tea-time for a while yet.

So on April 7 I'll be sitting outside in the unaccustomed 7pm gloom saying things like "where did the time go" and "it seems like only yesterday ... that I wrote about it being five weeks away".

I have often considered forming a group called The Winter Denial Club, where members must wear short sleeves and where a fine of $2 would be paid every time the words "frost", "nippy" and southerlies" were uttered.

And where a head cold must be considered a "sniffle" and nothing more.

However, we are in a most fortunate part of the land and this first day of autumn reflects that.

Sunshine and clement air.

And so it will likely, and traditionally, stay that way well into May.

Where on May 3 last year the weather across the Bay was mainly sunny and the temperature was 23C.

Not bad.

So welcome to what is shaping to be a fair sort of autumn, and after that there will be 90 unremarkable sort of days we don't need to talk about and then it will be spring ... and soon it will be Christmas.