otherwise erroneously known as "daylight saving". Now, let us be quite clear about this, the curtains will not fade. There is no such thing as "daylight saving" either.
The government tells us that this adjustment of clocks is a good thing. Business likes it. It is good for people. It means that they can get up and go to work at the usual time and then come home and enjoy an extra hour of daylight in the evenings.
There are still only twenty-four hours in the day but now, magically, you have an extra hour. Despite cumulative sleep deprivation you are going to use this hour to garden, to play sport, walk the dog (or just walk) and paint the outside of the house. You will be outside. You will be active. It will be great exercise. You will get fit.
I will do none of these things. I miss the quiet, early morning stillness. I like that part of the day when I can wander outside and pick up the papers undisturbed by humans. I like standing on the air conditioning provided by our small patch of lawn and watching the sparrows, pigeons, blackbirds, lorikeets, cockatoos and even the occasional kookaburra. One morning I met a koala. He was a bit out of home territory but gave me a civil enough greeting before ambling off to the nearest gum tree. The neighbourhood cats would be out and about minding their mouse business while smirking at the occasional dog on a leash.
We have lost that. Now there is a rush to get to work. Still tired children are hauled from bed and hurled into the car to be dropped off at out-of-school-hours care. Their parents head on for the nearest Caffeine-Fix-Point and then to work.
At the end of the day they will retrieve their children from after school care or their grandparents or whatever organised activity has been considered "safe", and head home to the (fading) curtains which are closed against the late heat of the day. They will dump the children in front of the telly and demand to know why they have not already done their homework. "No you can't go outside to play cricket because last time you broke a window. It's dangerous to play in the street and anyway, it's time to eat your tea." That done and the dishes in the dishwasher they collect another tinnie and slump into their usual couch potato position until it is time to head for bed.
The extra hour? The exercise? The gardening? Walk the dog? Let him out to bark at the cats. The cats sit smirking on the fence just out of reach. They have no need to adjust their clocks.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
9 comments:
Sorry kid, as someone else who prefers light in the morning, daylight saving time only makes a difference on power usage, parents putting children to bed and bothers dairy cows during the change over.
There is no extra hour, rather, everyone continues to do exactly what they did before the change with only the exceptions noted above.
Nice excuse, but unless school and business hours change, it is only a matter of how light it is outside. And that, my dear cat changes throughout the year anyway unless you are sitting right, flat on top of the equator.
Could you please explain this to the government? We not only have daylight saving but 'extended daylight saving' - despite a majority of ordinary citizens saying they did not want it. Sigh - sorry about the cat hair across your screen. I am too tired to groom myself properly this morning. (Nine hours sleep in the last three days.)
As someone perpetually in a state of flux with numbers, daylight saving has absolutely no bearing on my confusion! I will still be late taking my daughter to school, I will still be too early picking her up, the baby will still wake three times each night and the homework will not get done because life, not daylight, is too short!
Allow me to go against the flow; I love daylight saving. While I understand morning people may have a different view, I much prefer to have my daylight when I can use it best (i.e. after work). If you work full time in an office and start work early, morning daylight is, quite frankly, wasted on you. I say hurrah to daylight saving and look forward to spending many sunny evenings over the summer playing with my daughter in the garden ;)
You mean you actually USE it Tony? Where do you get the extra hour from? :-)
My problem is that I often need to get up so early that I now get up in darkness all year round...not good for the soul.
Rachel - I sympathise!
Poor cat!
The whole daylight savings doesn't bother me; I just go with the flow, but it does mean my kids can play outside in the evening without me having to turn all the security lights on!
You let your children play OUTSIDE?
I think I am jealous.
We don't have our clocks change for a whole three weeks in the UK. I wonder why there's no standard thingy to it.
Can't have that Dan! It would be logical. Even worse, horror of horrors, it would require international cooperation! :-)
Post a Comment