Sometimes you really seem to notice the passage of time. It can seem to trickle slowly past, seconds lasting for hours. Sometimes, hours seem to fly by. Sometimes, sadly, months will sail past and you’ll not notice the turning of the seasons until it’s suddenly too cold to go hang out at the pool with your friends.

Sometimes it’s little things that snap the passing of time into your personal reference frame.

My office has lovely big windows. The charming beige divider that divides my office in two allows me to clearly see through of two of them, and because I have a south facing view my room is lit all day round. The drawback, until today, was our decript air-conditioning system (and I use that term very loosely). If the sun was streaming in, it would, at certain times of the day, lie across me, and it would rapidly become uncomfortably hot. Thankfully the windows have heavy oak venetian blinds poke him in the eye, boom boom, so I can turn the slats to cast a little shade.

I’ve been wondering all day why something felt amiss, and wondered also why I hadn’t needed the crack the window open to help cool the room. And then it struck me. As we rotate away from the sun on our way to the summer equinox the angle the sunlight enters my office seems to have changed. Now the sunlight streams into the second and third windows, leaving the one closest to me beautifully illuminated without me being slow roasted.

This slow sliding of the sun’s rays across the room has obviously been occuring for a couple of weeks since the winter equinox, and yet I only noticed today because my personal comfort was affected.

What subtle signs remind you of the passing of time?