The biggest shock about coming back to Spain after a whole summer away at higher latitudes is the very late sunrise.

After giving myself a lie-in on our first morning back, I set my alarm for 7:00 the next day. I wasn’t going to push it. 7:00 would be perfectly manageable.

The alarm duly went off at 7:00 the next morning. But wait, there must have been some mistake. It was still the middle of the night.

I dozed a bit longer. 7:20, 7:30, 7:40. Still felt like the middle of the night. When I finally got up at 7:50, there was a little light outside, but not enough to light the rooms. Back in Ireland, I’d been throwing open the blinds in Mammy’s kitchen at that hour, the sun pouring in on me as I made my first cup of tea.

Not so here. I love getting up early in the morning. But I don’t like getting up in what feels like the middle of the night. (There’s also the different time zones to consider, even though Ireland and Spain are longitudinally close).

We’re only a week away from the autumn equinox and the time of sunrise in Ireland and Spain are rapidly inching closer. Soon, those higher latitudes will have later sunrise and shorter days than down here in Spain.

The big challenge for us begins tomorrow, when school begins in earnest. (Today was only a trial run with a late start). Lily will have to be up a little after 6am and out the door a little after 7, and Katie following on her heels 50 minutes later. Hard as it is for me to get up in the dark, dragging those two teenagers up will be no fun at all.

Time for lights out now.