Today sees the end of daylight saving in New Zealand. The term is a strange one to me – given my heritage, I can’t help but still think of it as BST (British Summer Time) and I’m not really sure what we’re saving the daylight for when we should be, surely, spending it in summer? While I’m on the subject, why does it have to happen in the early hours of the morning? No one I know has ever waited until 2am to change their clocks. They do it either before they go to bed or when they get up in the morning. Or, in the memorable case of a colleague once, not doing it at all and turning up for work an hour late.
Autumn is usually the good change – stay up a bit later, get an extra hour in bed. But this year… WTF? An extra hour of lockdown! Whilst the northern hemisphere gets an hour less? We’re being short changed down here.
In the NH spring is in the air. Birds are nesting, flowers are peeping from the earth, days are getting longer and night shorter. Down near the hole in the ozone, summer will wave goodbye to these islands whilst we’re watching through the window. I wouldn’t mind but it clearly travelled the slow way around the globe and only arrived in Wellington a few days before we all closed our doors. It chose this weekend to sit smugly over our harbour, kicking the wind into touch for two of the four days a year, on average, that it does so. It’s enough to make anyone break lockdown.
But, for the most part, no one did. Neil and I took our customary exercise close to home (and we’re ten minutes from the waterfront so that counts as local. I hope) and, where the beaches would normally be heaving on a good day in Wellington, hardly anyone was feeling the sand between their toes. It was easy to walk along the pavement and maintain our two metres from those we met. Where the path narrowed, walkers and joggers were either waiting until it was clear or venturing into the almost car-less street. So, northern hemisphere, yah boo sucks! We may have got the sh*tty end of the stick (as they say where I come from) but we’ve got some pretty good kickers down here and that damn virus will soon be trampled under the scrum. We’ll then just have to get out the wellies and the waterproofs to enjoy the great outdoors.
Tracy Annenberg 