The evenings are lighter, the daffodils are out, spring is in the air - so why do I feel miserable?

It must be because I looked at myself in the mirror this morning.

In the past six months I seem to have aged ten years.

My complexion matches the seagrass matting in our hallway, my waist has merged with my hips, and I have developed a stoop, probably from sitting hunched on the sofa most nights scoffing Ben and Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

No one would ever believe I was only 22.

Once again, I have let myself go during winter.

I cannot deny it. I've been relying on dark evenings, grey days and layers of dull clothes to hide behind, all the while kidding myself that a slim, beautiful me would just emerge like a butterfly at the first whiff of pollen.

I peeked out of my cocoon last weekend when the clocks went forward, and realised that I wasn't ready. My midriff is still caterpillar-shaped.

This clock-changing business catches me out every year and is probably the major cause of my grumpiness at the moment.

One week it's dark and wintry and all I can think about is toast and hot chocolate.

The next, it's long, light evenings and people playing tennis after work.

For those who have stayed in shape during winter, this is fine. But what about the rest of us?

I think it's too much, too fast. We should be given counselling to prepare us for the event or to help us through it afterwards.

Or maybe they could move the clocks forward by 15 minutes a week throughout April, just so we have chance to adapt at a more reasonable pace?

When you've been deprived of decent amounts of natural light for several months, I'm sure it can't be good for you to be suddenly flooded with it.

It's not just me that looks awful, though. It's our house and garden, too.

Again, I think I've been deluding myself. It turns out that we don't have self-cleaning windows, or flower beds that spontaneously burst with spring blooms (Ah! Bulbs. I knew I'd forgotten something).

The paint on our windowsills must have migrated for the winter - with no sign of it returning.

And what I thought in the gloom of January were just marks on our bedroom ceiling were actually dead spiders.

They could have dropped down on us while we slept at any time.

Perhaps some of them have. It is possible that one fell into my mouth as I was having a nocturnal rant and I swallowed it.

There is an additional problem this year with the sudden time change. We can no longer say to our three-year-old daughter: "It's dark, therefore it's bedtime."

She asked me to explain the whys and wherefores of British Summer Time this week, but I found it impossible to put it into language she might understand.

I've only just grasped the concept myself. Instead, I asked her why she thought it got dark outside.

"Because mummy switches it off," she said crossly.

If only this were true.