Messing about with the clocks

It's only an hour!

This is the first morning I’ve woken properly. I suffer jet lag whenever we travel east or west and the clock change has the same effect. It takes three days to feel right. Usually I just feel a bit fuzzy and muddled, but I have had a couple of occasions when returning from the USA when I’ve just not been on the same planet!

For those interested in the origin of daylight saving

www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html

It would appear it is quite an old idea, and according to the stats, saves electricity!
On a personal level, it doesnt bother me in the least

Ok, off to Poland.

The beach ball demo was done with a class of ten-year olds many years ago, KirbyGirl, I think they understood^ ! I remember it being explained in words not beach balls to thirty teachers-in-training and at least a quarter of them were no wiser about the mechanics afterwards. It is a very three-dimensional concept.

Enjoyed your explanation though Elegran!

Sorry, Rhinestone, I thought you were in the UK - now realise you are in the US. My previous post is still correct, but doesn't answer your question.

The length of the day doesn't depend on position East-West, but on North-South. The clock time of sunrise and sunset depends on how clock time has been set in your zone.

Other way round, Rhinestone, because the tilt of the earth on its axis means that sunlight doesn't fall straight down on the equator all year, but goes gradually from straight over the Tropic of Cancer at latitude 23.5 degrees North in our mid-summer to straight over the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.5 degrees south in our mid-winter.

This tilts the north of the earth slightly toward the sun in summer and away from it in winter - in fact it is what gives us summer and winter, without the tilt it would be the same all year, the same temperature, the same sunrise and sunset times. Furthe north or south than the Arctic or Antarctic circles at 23.5 degrees north and south, the top and bottom of the earth are tilted out of line with any sunshine at all for a while at mid-summer and mid-winter.

If that all sounds confusing, take a beach ball or a blown-up balloon and mark a north pole and a south pole on it and stand at one side of a room with just a table lamp switched on at the other side of the room. Hold the balloon with the north pole at the very top and see how the light falls evenly on it, then tilt the top a bit away and see the light miss one end and fall more on the other.

Bugger - I have several lights on timers and I have just realised I haven't changed them!

Does it stay lighter later in the summer in England? Where I live it doesn’t get dark until ten in the summer

Glad I read this, just realised I haven't changed the time on my wristwatch. I was in town today and when I looked at the time I was amazed that it was so late. Then tonight I thought the time was going so slow. Do you think I am going doolally?

It's not just being further north that makes a difference, being further west also affects the time of sunrise/sunset. The trouble is that the Greenwich meridian is near the eastern edge of the country, and most of England, and all of Scotland, Wales and Ireland are some way - often hundreds of miles - to the west of it. So most of us aren't experiencing day and night at the "real" time in the first place. When you factor in the effect of being further north than London (where the decisions are made) it's not surprising that there is no consensus around the country.

saggi there may be many Gransnetters who are doing the same as you or similar but still find five minutes to chat on GN and let off steam about something which annoys them.

Saggi,perhaps I should not ask,but is your husband disabled?

If you don't want to go and live in Turkey, watermeadow I believe that Poland is set to defy the EU rules and abandon clock changes.

This business of summer time is a pain in the neck!

It depends on where you live whether when what used to be called daylight saving is actually a saving now that it starts in March and ends on the last Sunday of October!

In the north of Scotland and here in Scandinavia, we have gained an hour's daylight when we are getting up, since we returned to normal time this past weekend. I greatly prefer getting up when it is light and am personally not bothered that dusk falls an hour sooner.

I clearly remember some years where British clocks never returned to winter time in the late 1960s getting up on school days in the West of Scotland was murder all through the winter, and how we cursed the politicians in Whitehall who had never been to our neck of the woods.

You see, I am a November child and since early childhood the days drawing in told me that first my birthday and then Christmas were coming!

As to the cats, the last fortnight I gave them their dinner slightly later each day to ease the transition to winter time. I am glad I don't have a herd of milk cows!

Why do people say we get an extra hour's sleep? I have such trouble sleeping, all I get is another hour of tossing and turning before I give in, and get up.

Since I retired the clock changes don't really affect me too much (get up when I want, go to bed when I want). What really gets me is having to physically change the clocks. I do have 3 clocks which are supposed to automatically reset themselves (this year only one did!) and I always seem to forget at least one - this year it was the one on the cooker and one in what I laughingly call the office!

sandelf you mean like all the other laws and rules made by Westminster? By all means go ahead...but let US in Scotland who it affects most do it to suit US !!

Turkey has now stopped changing clocks for daylight saving all together. When its BST in UK Turkey is 2 hours ahead but in UK winter, (GMT) Turkey is 3 hours ahead.

My post crossed with yours.

I was referring to saggi and henetha's posts, humpty

merlotgran ?? explain please!

Oh dear. Now we have CLOCK police

It really isn't the adaptation to the time change which bothers me - it's the loss of daylight in the evening. I know that will happen eventually anyway, but it would be good to put it off as long as possible! My brain doesn't really kick in until 9 in the morning, so that end of the day has far less impact on me - for which reason, I would opt to have BST all year round, or with double summertime in the summer, and not GMT all year round.

I can see there must be a lot of people around who don't get SAD in the winter - lucky them