Falling Back

I have a question about daylight saving. As a loyal Queenslander, I am more than aware of its cow-confusing, curtain-fading and, as I have recently been informed, cancer-causing abilities. What I had not realised, however, is that daylight saving actually controls nature with its evil iron fist. It has the power, it seems, to change seasons.

We've had a very mild autumn here so far. The trees have held onto their still-green leaves, my summer-weight duvet has been doing its job more than adequately. People have remarked to each other as they stroll down the street what a lovely balmy October we are having. It's almost as if those doomsaying global warming folk have a point. I wore flip-flops (please note: not thongs) all day on Saturday.

Early Sunday morning, we fell back to ye olde GMT. I very much enjoyed my extra hour of Sunday loafing, but the prospect of actual winter was far from my mind.

Until yesterday, when it officially arrived.

I've never been able to pinpoint a season with such remarkable accuracy. Has this ever been investigated? An irrefutable link between human-imposed time contructs and the ravages of Mother Nature? I wouldn't have believed it, but the evidence seems too clear to ignore: we changed the clocks, a mere 72 hours later the season was different. Apparently winter has been lurking in the sidelines just waiting for the ritual to be over and done with so it could burst forth and catch us underwears.

Good gracious, but it got cold here this week. The skin on my hands is cracking after just one day, the pashmina has come out of its hidey hole and apparently I need to go shopping for new boots and a pair of gloves as a matter of some urgency. I went out for a cigarette at 4:30pm this afternoon and the planes were criss-crossing lovely thin pink lines of jet stream in the already-twilit sky.

Brrrrrr.