Sunday 28 March 2010

British Stupid Time

I miss that hour. A wonderful, wonderful hour, taken from that special time of day that's either spent asleep on in quiet solitude. 2am till 3am - gone! They couldn't even take 02.30 to 03.30 so 3am didn't exist, no, oh no, it's straight - wham! - into 3am when you're nonchalantly at the relative serenity of 2am.

It's wrong, I tell you, as I tell everyone, every year.

The reason for my upset is twofold.

First, I do genuinely feel robbed. For a good while, I constantly adjust to "real" time and consider the halcyonic timing of GMT. That hour is just gone! This year it would have been spent sleeping - unusually - so *they* have taken an hour's sleep from me. Which given how much sleep I get, is Not On.

My second upset is the marking of the time of year. Summer is well and truly on its way. The days are getting longer, the temperature is rising and the insects are growing in number... it's coming. Spring, yes, nice fair weather, beautiful flowers, baby animals etc. But summer is coming and summer, mostly, sucks. Christmas is such a very very long time away!! The summer holidays are coming (erm, after the Easter holidays and summer term), I feel hot and bothered already. The days to wear a parka are gone for now. Jumpers, packed away again. Goodbye lovely boots, adieu scarves, so long faithful gloves. And my hats! Banished to the drawer of cosy things. For months and months and months on end.

Sob! Just for an extra hour of evening light. The days are "long enough" in a fortnight or so anyway, 'tis nonsense. We have lights.

Oh! A ray of sunshine amongst the gloom: longer days means less light by hateful, inadequate, colourchanging, horrible, VILE energy saving lightbulbs. It's not all bad. Just pretty miserable.



2 comments:

Keir Hardie said...

The days are certainly long enough up here. Come the peak of summer I yearn for a bit of proper night.

Did you know that despite what you might think about seasonal affective disorder, at very high latitudes where they have permanent daylight in the summer and very little in the winter the suicide rate is higher in the summer, because people don't sleep properly and lose the plot?

MD said...

Exactly. Last week it was daylight from about 7 till
7 - that's plenty. Now it will be daylight from 8 till 8, for a wee while till it gets a bit longer, to the point when it's not really properly dark and the sun is coming up just as it's got as dark as it's going to.

Pah!!!
Lovely long winter evenings.

Although: correlation between improper sleep and losing the plot? Surely there is enough evidence on blogger alone that lack of sleep makes for eminent sensibility? No?