The Times, They are a-Changing!

"Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom of the blanket and have a longer blanket."  So runs the American Indian proverb.  My own theory - sadly soon to become somewhat irrelevant, thanks to Brexit - is that if we were simply to adjust our start and stop times, we could just as easily live in the same nominal time zone as our European neighbours, without prejudicing the efficiency of our timepieces by deliberately interfering twice a year with the way they work.

Notwithstanding the above, I remarked this week - as I seem to every year - on the sudden change, even allowing for the change in our clocks, in the time of twilight.  I'm doing things easily this week without artificial light at 7.15 BST that I would have scarcely have seen to do at all at 6.15 GMT only a week ago.  It's rather like jet-lag; it requires adjustment.  Failure to adjust in this way has meant that some nights I've forgotten all about my dinner until 6.30 or later, when it's usually 5.30 or 6.0!

Talking of adjustment, I realise that I'm still in recovery mode following my mental exertions recently producing those family trees for the golden wedding gift.  I'm finding it difficult to concentrate for more than a few minutes on anything and frequently get up from my desk and walk around trying to determine what it is that needs to be done ... before sitting down again to pick up what I'd just left off.

The other morning, in the bright sunshine, I took myself off for a wander in town, stopping frequently to rejoice in my freedom and decide which road to take next.  Everywhere, it seemed, there was new-mown grass and the smell of it (they say it's the strongest of our senses) took my thoughts back to childhood.  In particular, I recalled a patch of worn ground at the side of the playing field next to my primary school.  That part of the boundary wasn't vegetation like the rest of the field-edge, but the galvanised metal wall of a shed on the neighbouring property.  It was thus an ideal venue for football games in winter and quite a heat trap in summer, attracting many pupils to gather there at break-times to sit and play, or read ... or just to sit.

One of the favourite games was 'families' or 'mothers and fathers', and girls and boys would indulge in role-play based on what they observed every day in their own or each other's families, quite oblivious of the reality of what it was they were portraying.  It was normal innocent behaviour, and probably the same thing goes on today, as in every age, although possibly fuelled these days by a greater media influence.  In my view, it's only the application of an adult interpretation to certain aspects of those games that makes them in any way sinister.

Like the Indian and daylight 'saving', it all depends on how you look at it, and who it is that's doing the looking.  The same is true of so much in life, from the personal, like the fact that I'm now going to settle down to sorting out my accounts for the last tax year - not something everyone thinks about at the beginning of April - to the global.

I wonder just how many people now preparing to take part in the negotiations between Britain and the EC will really have any idea what motivates those in the opposite camp.  My guess is that most will be thinking almost exclusively along the lines of 'what will my folks back home think of the attitudes I'm taking here?'  Of one thing we can be certain: however the negotiations conclude, there will be many millions who will be disappointed in some measure with the outcome.