MY OWN PERSONAL TIME ZONE

The clocks went back at the weekend and my body is still stuck in its usual ‘adjustment phase’.

For some reason, I’m programmed to wake up almost exactly at 7:20am. Give or take two minutes, that moment in the day is when my body-clock pings my eyes open. And by 7:20am I of course, mean 6:20am.

Sigh. It’s fine. I can lie there in the cosy duvet for a while. Or, I can get up and put a load of washing on, or go for a walk in the park, or even go to the gym (steady on).

It’s the other end of the day that gets me though. Yesterday, I looked out at the long shadows falling across the street. The sun had dipped below the dark tiles and chimney pots, and its trailing fingers were painting the treetops gold. A single star flickered into view and a murmuration of starlings flocked its way home across the gentle evening sky.

It was 3:50pm.

“Man alive!” I moaned at the clock. Then, with a bit of a huff, I leaned across the desk, unplugged the piano and plugged in my daylight-lamp. The room, now flooded with white light, was suddenly very familiar, as though the lamp I only really use in winter had switched the whole world into GMT. Still two hours to go.

I know what my solution should be. I should start work an hour earlier. I can after all - I work remotely and my laptop is less than twenty paces from my pillow. That way, I could still enjoy these fading evenings without the feeling that I’m working my way into the night. My body too, might even thank me. It’s just that I can’t abide the thought of it.

Plus, I kind of resent being pushed around by the system. Yeah, call me a rebel if you like but this biennial jet lag we have to go through is a purely artificial construct, and if we live in a world where you can apparently identify as whatever you like - what’s stopping me identifying as a Britishsummertimarian, living in my own personal time zone?

Well yeah. Society. Meetings. Food. Consideration for school children who don’t want to get run over, or farmers who like planting and harvesting crops. You can’t be too rebellious before you get a little isolated, and a lot antisocial.

Later, I got into my car and switched on the headlamps. The engine rumbled into life and the heater started pumping air at the windscreen. I rubbed my hands together and looked at the clock on the dashboard, with a mind to shunt it back by an hour. I smiled and checked my phone. The car clock, unchanged in a year, was already telling the correct time.