The Grand Auld Stretch

I love the grand auld stretch, when evenings in spring become noticeably longer

I first learnt this Irish expression a few days when musing on the fact that I love this time of year, when the rooks are building their nests, and the blossoms push their way out of barren branches, and the muted blue sky stays light past six o’clock. It is the wake of the solstice and Persephone’s entrance banner. It is a hemisphere in a more hopeful tilt.

Describing the uplift in mood I feel, my Irish friend Daniel told me of this label: the Grand Auld Stretch. In typical Hibernian pattern, there is a mirth-tinged beauty to this. There is a Twitter account that publishes like tide times the “length of the Grand Auld Stretch” in Dublin: https://twitter.com/theauldsthretch?s=20. People may note their metamorphosis into their parents by the advent of their first Grand Stretch pronouncement:

Jamie @jamieparry85

Grand stretch in the evening... Ive officially turned into my mother

We are now well aware of the effect the seasons have on our dispositions. SAD is a real thing and, while I would not go so far as to say I feel depressed in winter, the lightness of the sky reflects the lightness of my mood. I want light evenings to go on, with pinks and oranges along the horizon, and birds in the garden.

I think of that bit in Larkin’s Whitsun Weddings:

What are days for?

Days are where we live.   

They come, they wake us   

Time and time over.

They are to be happy in:   

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor   

In their long coats

Running over the fields.

It could be the stuff of the jovial pub lingerer, or the stuff of the poet.

The Grand Auld Stretch. I love it.