Editorial: Daylight saving ushers in summer

Clocks go an hour foward this weekend for daylight saving. Photo / Thinkstock

The one odd thing I have experienced on the couple of occasions I have been in tropical parts is that there is no twilight there.

When the sun starts to slip down below the horizon that is effectively that - it is dark within minutes.

But not here in these latitudes where, at the height of summer, one can tarry in the backyard until 8.30 in the evening and still read a book.

That is something I relish and miss terribly in the winter months.

I'm one of those who will wait until the clock reads six, as the winter evenings roll along, and then wander outside to gaze towards the northwestern hills of the horizon to look for a faint glimmer of light.

I do a little jig when it gets to the point, as August nears, I can read the registration plate of the car well up the drive.

So I am all for daylight saving as it is the true portent of summer.

As are most people I daresay, and the timing is good because all the school children are on holiday so they have a fortnight to adjust their sleep patterns.

Although getting to this stage was not plain sailing.

The first tilts at introducing an extra hour at the end of the day during the warmer months began in 1895 but it was not until 1927 that it made it past the parliamentary post.

But not everyone was impressed.

On the plus side, it was noted "it gives one additional hour for recreation of all kinds whether playing games or working in garden plots".

On the negative one of the bill's opponents declared "it will bring no happiness to the women of New Zealand who live in the backblocks - it does not make the case for now requiring the wife of the working-man to get up an hour earlier in order to get her husband away to his work".

Goodness me.

And so, at 2am tomorrow, the clocks go forward one hour.

I hope the TV schedulers have taken that into account.

The kick-off for the Argentina/All Blacks test is down for 10.30am. But could that be 9.30am? Or 11.30am?

I'm getting up at 8.30am ... just in case.