Unless you live in NSW, Tasmania, Victoria, the ACT, or South Australia or need to talk to/deal with people who do, this whinge won’t make a great deal of difference to you. For anyone who does live in the aforementioned states clocks go forward by one hour on the first Sunday in October, this year Sunday October 7.
I was looking forward to the start of daylight saving on the long weekend. Shame that it doesn’t start until the weekend after 😦
Starting on the weekend of the long weekend would have given the kids 1 week of school holidays on daylight saving time, enough to adjust to the time shift and get crankyness out of their systems. Teachers must dread this time of year. I am waking early with the pre-dawn light (apologies for whinging about sleep to any readers with sleeping difficulties/illnesses and/or small children/people needing overnight care) and was looking forward to it being time to get up when I woke. Also, it starts to feel like summer is really coming (cue grey clouds and cold wind outside) when daylight saving starts. Although I’m not entirely sure why I’m looking forward to it so much this year. Maybe it’s a sign of age? Also, you kids get off my lawn.
Categories: Life
Soggy here, innit? 
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
Getting out the ‘yes’ 
100 books by women in 2016 
Hoyden About Town 
I’ve never understood why they stopped having the summer-time clocks-change on the long weekend. It made so much sense for everybody, not just schoolkids!
Ahh, so it did used to be on the long weekend. I don’t feel so silly now.
It’s because the long weekend is determined by the first Monday in Oct while the daylight savings change is the first Sunday. And this year Oct 1st is the Monday. It’ll be back to the long weekend next year.
There have been quite a few years though where they have left the change until later in October, unless I’m misremembering. I distinctly remember being annoyed whenever it happened.
Maybe you could change the clocks a week early anyway? That’s what I’m planning on next week (though admittedly I have very few time-dependent plans for that week, and also I tend to buy poor quality clocks and just remember how far away they are from the actual time usually, so I’m used to clocks saying not quite the right thing).
I’m so excited for daylight savings this year!
The political BS surrounding daylight saving has always amused me. A long time ago when the grass was green, NSW always started DS at the same time as Tasmania – the first weekend in October which was also the long weekend. Victoria used to go at the end of October. The business community all whinged about the couple of weeks of 1hr time shift between Sydney & Melbourne, so NSW decided to fall in line with VIC, leaving Tassie ahead of us all. I like to refer to those as the Dark Years. Then Victoria decided to bring it forward and demanded NSW follow them, because apparently it was their bright idea in the first place. I presume the ACT just got dragged along for the ride with NSW. (I have no idea what used to happen in years like this one back in the Early Enlightened Times – I was too young to remember.)
And what of SA you ask? No idea, I’ve never had cause to notice. 😛
I hate daylight savings. (I’m from SA, btw.)
I wish they had daylight savings all year round! But then I’m not a morning person and prefer light later in the day however I can get it.
In the depths of winter ‘daylight saving’ would be pretty tough as it would still be darkish at 8am. I think that might be a bit of a recipe for seasonal affective disorder perhaps. But I do get your point, going to work in the dark and getting home after dark in winter does suck. Maybe we should all fly north for winter?
Thank goodness there is someone else out there David Irving – I too hate daylight saving! It’s just got light when the dog and I walk in the morning before work, I don’t want to go back to getting up in the dark again. Here in Canberra the hottest part of the day in summer is the late afternoon – between 3.00pm and 6.00pm when everyone is trying to get home, hot and bad-tempered. Western Australia has it right.
I hate daylight savings with the solid, icy commitment of a planet really far away from the sun. I hate it with only slightly less fervour than I hate the entirety of summer.
Australia is a crappy place to have reverse SAD. *mopes*
I am in SA and we moved daylight savings earlier in the year a couple of years ago to come in line with the eastern states. I can’t say I liked that as it always seems to come too soon now. However I definitely like the general principle. I am not a particularly early riser and the sun comes up much, much too early in summer without it. My kids tend to keep more or less daylight hours, so if the sun comes up at 5am you can bet they will be up at 5:30am. And that means I am awake.
I’m a winter person but I like Daylight Saving because: a) i get up lateish and it gives me a better chance of getting the washing dry, and b) I don’t have a car so I can be out later walking in areas I’m not keen on after dark. Oh, and the cats won’t wake me up as early. The birds start singing around 3am currently and my kitties get excited.
So glad I’m not the only one who hates daylight saving. I loathe it with all my being. I live in WA and they keep trying to inflict it on us. We’ve rejected it in four referenda and we’ve just endured yet another trial of it because apparently saying no four times is because we just don’t get it. I lived with it happily in London but there it didn’t mean I was getting up in the dark all year round – a different latitude makes an enormous difference.
@David Irving, variegated, tree and Nell
I’m with you lot. I finally moved back to Queensland from NSW to get away from DLS.
Re all the too-ing and fro-ing between the states, this is nothing compared to the annual schemozzle that is international daylight saving. There are about 25 different DLS systems worldwide, spread over about 70 countries.
Latitude and longitude create an infinite variety of seasonal daylight patterns, which make it impossible for all nations to agree on a single start and end date. And DLS governments the world over insist on making a confused situation even worse by tinkering with it every 7-10 years or so.
Oh, I love daylight savings, but its not so hot in Melbourne most of the time.
Ariane, I’m glad the politics has prevailed and the dates are lined up – I’m from one of the nsw/vic border towns. It is super crap trying to organise kid runs when one kid is on a schedule an hour earlier than the other. Or when your work starts an hour earlier than school drop-off is allowed.
NZ Daylight savings are this weekend. We don’t have a long weekend, but it is the start of the school holidays so kids here have 2 weeks to get used to it. I don’t remember struggling to get used to it as a kid but I struggle these days haha.
I love daylight savings when the days are long enough that one doesn’t have to get up in darkness. So I’d hate to have it in winter. At this time of year though, I’m all about bringing it on. 🙂
@ angharad, I’m an SA-ian too and live with a small person who gets up with the first peep of the sun. As a definate not-morning-person I’m really looking forward to DS this year.
I’m late to the party but! SO wonderful to see some other people who HATE daylight savings with similar intensity to me. I am another morning person who doesn’t mind waking early to get stuff done. Daylight savings throws out my sleep and I find myself constantly trying to manage my energy levels the entire 6 months it is on, working out the normal time. I used to live in Canberra and I know exactly what the other Canberran in this thread means – daylight savings is extra stupid in Canberra, the mornings go back to being dark and the light doesn’t go til nearly 9pm, it’s so hot. Now I’m back living in northern NSW, the big difficulty here is that it’s terrible for anyone living close to the border – I work in an organisation that has offices 1 hour apart in distance and we are on different times for half the year.
It also sux that it lasts for so long – the beginning of October to April is too long. possibly my hatred (and others’) wouldn’t be so intense if we were still going from the end of October to some time in March.
I always think, if other people want to spend the summer getting up an hour early… go ahead and leave me out of it…