Springing forward and losing time

Time shifting around

I seem to be better adjusted to the concept and the reality of daylight saving, and while I cannot fully explain the benefits of it, nor do I intend to research it for this blog, the phenomenon has a way of catching up with me.

I have adopted an American aide memoire in understanding how we change our clocks in October and March, usually on the last Sunday of the month. We Spring Forward and Fall Backward. Fall is the American version of our English Autumn.

As most clocks in the home are electronic, especially on computers and watches, whether you gain or lose an hour whilst asleep at 2:00 AM can go without notice, the alarm clock will still go off at the set time.

A wind-up situation

When it comes to clocks on devices and appliances like microwaves or standard ovens, especially if you are a time obsessive, you notice you have lost an hour in the spring or gained one in the autumn.

When I used to have mechanical clocks around the home, I changed the time before I went to bed; it made the change in time more manageable.

For Brian, in the spring we enter a time of just having an hour’s difference between us, rather than two hours. It represents some closeness, but not close enough in distance.

A circadian disruption

In my case, the apparent coping mechanism for British Summer Time has not kicked in; my body clock is yearning for something that suggests an unnatural event has occurred; adjustments governed by the reading of the time are not compensated for in my biorhythms.

My circadian rhythm is out of whack, and that is not helped by my early mornings feeling like a winter that has refused to depart. The sun offers a glowing spectacle during the day, but we cannot expect more than 18° Celsius for the rest of the week.

It is a struggle to keep alert without stimulation of vigorous activity or the exhilaration of caffeine intake. I have, in times past, pinched myself or given my ankle tendon a kick, inflicting just enough pain to jolt myself back to life. Then, maybe it is still the residual side effects of radiotherapy, who really knows?

We break the codes of time for pecuniary advantage, more light in the evening for spring and summer, and the greater benefit for farmers in the autumn and winter. What you cannot fail to notice is that when the sun shines, we make the best of it, getting the warmth and a bit of a tan too, in Manchester, of all places.

That extra hour

Night of the morning

Getting up at the break of dawn, I prepared to go for my walk, first checking the weather seeing that it was cold but no expectation of rain. How wrong I was, because, the rain eventually came pouring down and without my run visor, I had to walk with my hood up and my head down, to shield my glasses from the splatter of rain.

On Sunday morning at 2:00AM, the clocks went back an hour, which meant an extra hour in bed. However, in 30 years of adjusting between Greenwich Mean Time; for the sake of knowing the Shibboleth, it is pronounced Grennich, and British Summer Time, the benefit of that hour shift only really became that apparent this morning.

Light of the morning

Usually, in the last couple of weeks, getting out at around 6:00 AM was quite dark and things did not begin to light up properly until after 7:00 AM. It informed my need to get high visibility accoutrements as a vest, armbands and lights.

The reversion to Standard Time meant that there was some light when I left home and halfway into my walk, it was already light enough to vary my walk route a bit without having a sense of danger. I guess the concept of Daylight Savings that allows darkness to fall later in the day according to the clock is going out of fashion.

The issue with Standard Time in the winter is that I have to remember that my babe is now two instead of one hour ahead. What fun it would be to work out of Cape Town in the winter.