The clocks went back this morning, so I suddenly feel the luxurience of extra time. Another hour in bed, another hour in front of the telly, another hour not getting up and dressed... Having a bit more time that you need - surplus time - feels like such a treat. Like once a year we get to rewind a bit and relax, not run to catch up withourselves.

I've always preferred the clocks going back, not forwards. I'm a winter person - born in November so perhaps that has something to do with it. I never really understood the clamour for summer. The ache in people; willing rain, snow and ice to dissipate and warmer weather to appear.

I remember asking my mum once, when I was little, why a holiday advert celebrated "uninterrupted blue skies?" I couldn't understand the benefit of a boring, plain old blue sky when one strewn with fluffy clouds seemed so much more pleasing.

Being teased for my pale complection became something I resented but I didnt make huge attempts to change at first. I was cautious with the sun after a couple of nasty buring incidents in my youngest years, involving liberal doses of calomine lotion afterwards.

Comments at school, uni, work... People liked to feel there was someone paler than them, and that someone was always me. I guess going on sunbeds one summer and a holiday in which I burnt myself pretty badly changed my attitude. I could go brown if I wanted to - if I subjected my alabaster flesh to liberal quantities of UV in high concentration.

Fake tan always looked just that on me; fake. Streaky, gravy-brown swathes shaming me into covering up even further during hot months. I could never get it to look 'natural'. Tanning seemed the only option. Yet still i tried to be cautious at all times, and never let myself O.D.

But now I'm looking at avoiding the sun altogether, and feeling a real sense of queasiness at the thought of sunbathing.

I'm waiting on the results of my biopsy to determine how 'deep' this melanoma goes. Will it be 'in situ'? Will it be an early stage? Will I have got lucky? Or will it be something more sinister? I won't know until 9th November so, till then, I can only hope and pray it's gone. And my life can go on.