Daylight savings whinge

Daylight savings time is back. Every year on the Queensland/NSW border, this is greeted by an avalanche of articles in local newspapers complaining about it.

When we lived further south than we do now, I loved daylight savings time. I couldn't wait for it to start every year. I loved being able to go for long walks on the beach after work with my husband and the one child we had back then.

Since living on the border, it hasn't been so enjoyable. We still run our clocks on daylight savings time every year because most of what we do runs on NSW time (Chris' work, kids' school hours, after school activities etc) but in the past few years I have come to realise that there are now many things that happen on Queensland time for us as well. They include my work when I'm there, all our church activities and Bible studies, and most of our friends live in Queensland so any socialising we do with them as well. The kids' GP runs on Queensland time (mine is on the NSW side). Rosie's music class is in Queensland. The more things we have started doing since we've lived here, the trickier it's become.

And our TV programs come from a Queensland transmission station so our TV programs run on Queensland time and anything on at 9.30 or later is too late to stay up for. Although at least the ABC have given us a nice gift this year by putting Q&A on their news channel at 8.30 Queensland time so that those north of the border can contribute to the twitter feed and submit questions. So I can still see it at 9.30 here. That is good. I missed being able to watch it last year.

I want to keep liking DST, I really do. And surprisingly, I do get used to running with two different time zones in my brain. It does get easier as the months go on.

But over the last few years, it has just felt more and more difficult as our family, our range of activities, and our circle of friends has grown.