Daylight saving
We are now into the third day of daylight saving and I must say it is not something that I enjoy. For some reason, it takes me ages to adjust to the new times. I wish they would just leave it as it is, but for the lovers I guess, this will be a godsend. Really it shouldn’t make any difference to me these days as I’m retired and not trying to get that last bit of sunlight from my day. Perhaps it is an ingrained feeling from days past. But whatever, I do not look forward to adjusting my clocks twice a year. On Sunday, I spent the day confused, feeling that the time was the opposite than what it should have been, like I had put my clock backward rather than forward. That was weird. When I woke up, the time was 5.30. I knew it was really 4.30 but because of what the clock said I stayed awake. But then later in the day, when it said 5 o’clock which would have been 4pm the previous day, it felt more like 6pm. I was so confused. And ever since, I have been out of kilter.
Several times throughout the years stand out for me when I didn’t appreciate daylight saving. In one I was nursing on night duty in March when the clocks went back an hour. Not only was it confusing for all the drips that we were monitoring as we struck 2am twice, but I was sleep-deprived from a party the night before. That shift, with the extra hour, was one of the longest and hardest of my life. And we didn’t get paid for it either, with the powers that be deciding it would have balanced itself out when the clocks went the other way even though none of us would have been on night duty at that time.
The other memory was when I was working in the shearing gang before travelling overseas. My boyfriend and I had decided to do this in order to save some money quickly for our trip. In those days, work started at 5am and we would stay at the shearers’ quarters, usually located a hundred yards or so from the woolshed. Each morning we were greeted by a stunning sunrise that boosted our spirits before the arduous day ahead of us. Daylight saving came and we were plunged back into darkness on our walk to the woolshed. Dawn has always been a special time for me and I so missed that sunrise before work.
On a positive note, I do remember enjoying the extra sleep-in when the kids were little, when daylight saving put the clocks back and the old 7am was now 6am.
I guess the biggest bug bear these days is that I am now three hours ahead of my kids in the Gold Coast as opposed to two as it was last week. It doesn’t really matter, but means when I think I might like to talk to them, I have to wait that extra hour before doing so. And of course, there is the adjustment of the clocks. That part is the easy part, but changing the car clock poses more of a challenge for me. I think my car is still set on the last daylight saving so I won’t need to adjust that clock and I won’t have to add an hour either, when I look at the time. However, I see this computer is stuck on the old time; it hasn’t adjusted automatically as I assumed it would have. I guess, that will stay that way too as changing that falls into the too hard basket for me as well. I will just have to remember when writing, that the time really is an hour ahead of what the clock says.
And speaking of which, that reminds me, it is now lunchtime.