Sleeping on the porch

My friend John (Gav’s dad) and I spend hours talking about this and that whilst we’re out walking. Anything, in fact – not just this and that. We talk about politics, religion, sex, marriage, shopping, gardening, DIY – and more surreal things that wouldn’t stand the reaction of others, not attuned to our range of discussion.

However, one disturbing discussion that we often drift into, perhaps more surreal than the others; is that we might in fact be just two old men, already gaga, lost our memories, pumped with drugs and sat outside a care facility – dreaming that ALL THIS, is JUST A DREAM. ‘This’ being the world around us.

Imagine if you took a powerful sleeping draught at some point early in 2016 and you have just woken to the news that your favourite celebrity was dead: http://www.legacy.com/news/galleries/celebrity-deaths/gallery/2016-celebrity-deaths/292092, that Britain had narrowly voted to leave Europe, that Boris Johnson was now foreign secretary, that David Cameron had stepped aside for Theresa May and that Donald Trump, would in January 2017 become leader of the free world, having just won the U.S. presidential election. WHAT!!!

First of all – leave Europe?  How did that happen?  http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/long-list-leave-lies/ how will that turn out!

Then Donald Trump – really? The wall building, Mexican hating, misogynistic racist Donald Trump? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-deport-immigrants-immediately-when-mexico-wall-a7415116.html how will that turn out!

I think I need to go back to my rocking chair, plug in to some David Bowie and go back to sleep.

 

 

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Misery

I hate this time of year.

The clocks have now gone back one hour and the days seem much shorter, darker and so very much colder. It has been the same every year, for all of my life; but now I don’t have to be up early and off to work. Now, I can do the work I get, online, so I don’t have to leave the house.

Perhaps in those ‘leave the house’ days I appreciated the slightly lighter mornings in November, but never the very much darker drive home – THAT was ALWAYS horrendous, no matter where I was working.

I understand the reasons behind the original implementation; we had considerably more rural areas back then and there was a war to fight (the Germans implemented daylight saving time in 1916 – so we did too!). I guess the long hours worked by factory/mill workers during the Industrial Revolution meant that it didn’t affect them much (no matter what time the sun came up in November-January, they wouldn’t see it), so only over time, as working hours were reduced, did it ‘matter’.

I can see why those living in more northerly climes would want an extra hour of daylight in the morning as it could stay dark for an awful long time – but there really is just an exact amount of daylight available, there’s nothing we can do about that. So if it’s lighter in the morning, it’s depressingly darker in the early evening.

For those of us who hate winter, and who have the chance to ‘see’ some the day, it is very depressing to be pulling on the curtains at 4:30pm and closing down for the day. Especially when, as usual, the day has been overcast and (often) damp.

As I say …. I hate this time of year.

 

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