Yesterday was the day when we move onto British Summer Time and we face the prospect both of having an hour less in our beds and also the ritual of changing the various timepieces in the house. Some of these adjust themselves automatically but for the rest there is a bit of a scramble around first thing in what is always a Sunday morning. However this year when I happened to be up in the middle of the night, I adjusted all pf the important clocks in the kitchen and also, whilst I was at it, in our Music Lounge so the job was half done by the time I eventually got up. In the morning, I did what many people must have done by waking up to the alarm, switching it off and the immediately fell back to sleep again for three quarters of an hour. I had gone to bed prompt quite promptly the night before knowing that I was to have an hour less in bed but also because of having a round trip of 2½.miles whilst I push Meg to visit friends for a coffee in the centre of town but also because I had dashed around with lawn cutting in the afternoon. But I do not feel too bad this morning so the time spent in a warm bed (I do enjoy the luxury of an electric blanket) had evidently been beneficial. There is still some debate whether we should be actually be bothering with changing the clocks at all if we were to adopt British Standard Time rather than British Summer Time. As it stands, if now is darker in the mornings but we have more light in the evenings. But restoring permanent Standard Time would align our body clocks more closely to natural daylight patterns. Sunrises would occur earlier, particularly in the winter months, providing us with the critical morning light that we need to regulate our circadian rhythms. The EU did try in 2019 to adopt a new uniform standard time but, of course, the legislation failed in the UK and the proposal came to nothing. But I have a feeling that the country would now accept a permanent time zone for the UK. Studies suggest that road accidents, especially those involving pedestrians, tend to decrease in the fortnight following the start of British Summer Time (BST) due to increased hours of daylight. What research shows is what a massive effect on the body and mind, just one extra hour [of sleep] can have. One study cited by the American Heart Foundation found there was a 24% increase in heart attacks on the day following the switch to daylight saving time - however the opposite effect has been identified in autumn, when the clocks go back. In the meantime, I am getting into my Sunday morning routine - when Meg was in a better state of health, I used to leave her in bed whilst I walked down to the newsagent to pick up my copy of the 'Sunday Times' but those times have gone nowadays, not least because the Asian shopkeeper who ran the newspaper shop died and the shop passed into new ownership which did not continue the newspaper side of the business. But I used to value these very early morning walks, the only other souls inhabiting the streets at that time being dog walkers and joggers in variety. I now get my newspapers exclusively from Waitrose and they have a Sunday opening hour of 10.00am.
I hear from the religious programmes broadcast on Radio 4 to which I was passively listening whilst getting washed and dressed this morning, I learn that we are now in the period of the festival of Eid which marks the end of the Muslim period of fasting or Ramadan. Two of the Asian care workers, one male and one female, although not being religious nonetheless are about to celebrate the festival of Eid with their families and friends. Eid is a time for the giving and receiving of presents, for special foods to mark the end of a period of fasting and general periods of socialisation with family and friends. So, the young female care worker who called around today in the middle of the day to attend to Meg was looking forward to the rest of the day when she was going to socialise with family and close friends. From what I can tell, Eid does not have a parallel theological significance compared with the birth of Christ (Christmas) or the death and resurrection of Christ (Easter) but in the Northern hemisphere certainly takes on the air of a spring festival. I should have asked either of the care workers to bring me some of their special foodstuffs (the Muslim equivalent of Christmas cake/Stollen) but I did not think about this in time to ask me but it is always possible that they have some left over. Yesterday being a Sunday, I was particularly pleased to have a visit paid to us by our University of Birmingham friend and, of course, I discuss with him the likely course of Meg's illness over the foreseeable future as well as the non-appearance of Miggles. Being a beautiful afternoon, the cutting of the rear lawns beckons and this only takes one half of the time of cutting the grass in the front. But the mower started to malfunction when I was nearly finished by suddenly running at half speed - I hope this does not indicate it is on its way out which would be a major disaster if this proved to be the case.
An example of the cack-handedness of the Metropolitan police was revealed today. A police raid on a Quaker meeting house to arrest six women attending a protest meeting has been criticised as 'ridiculously heavy-handed'. The women were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, according to the Metropolitan Police, after attending an introductory meeting to Youth Demand. Quakers in Britain has condemned the arrests and although it is not associated with Youth Demand, the religious group has a long history of non-violent protest. One Quaker was so incensed by the police tactics that he pointedly did not offer any officers a cup of tea, in a very British protest. 'They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first. This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest. No one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory,' said Paul Parker, recording clerk for the religious organisation.
© Mike Hart [2025]