Has anyone else been making breakfast by lamplight this week? Lately the kettle goes on while it's still properly dark outside, and the bins go out in the dark too. There's good news, sort of: this Sunday, 25 October, the clocks go back, and the mornings get a bit of their light back.
What actually happens on Sunday
At 2am on Sunday, British Summer Time ends and the clocks go back to 1am, which puts us back on Greenwich Mean Time. It's always the last Sunday in October. That's the "fall back" half of "spring forward, fall back", which is the only way most of us remember which way they go.
Your phone and laptop will change on their own. The oven, the microwave, the car dashboard and the kitchen wall clock won't. They're your job.
A confession: I've left the car clock wrong until spring more than once. Every journey starts with a bit of mental arithmetic. I don't recommend it.
The best bit: an extra hour, free
An hour that doesn't cost a thing and doesn't belong to anybody yet is about the best present the calendar gives out all year. You could do something useful with it. Or you could stay in bed, have a cuppa you didn't have to rush and call that a result.
One word of warning. Pets and small children have never once read the memo. Their body clocks will get them up at the usual time, which is now an hour earlier. Plan your lie-in with that in mind.
The trade-off: darker evenings
We get lighter mornings, but the evenings pay for it. From Monday it'll be dark before most of us have finished work, and by about half four the sofa starts calling.
It isn't all bad, though. Halloween falls the following Saturday, and trick-or-treating gets proper spooky darkness to work with. Bonfire Night comes the week after that, and fireworks always look better against a dark sky. If you're getting ready for either, have a look at our Halloween Mugs and Bonfire Night Mugs.
A few mugs that suit the weekend
We don't have anything special in the shop for the clocks changing. Nobody's asked for a commemorative oven clock mug yet. A few of our hashtag mugs could have been made for this weekend, though.
- #SleepingBeauty Mug: our favourite of the lot. It's for the person who's spending every minute of the extra hour asleep and won't be sorry about it.
- #TimeLord Mug: for whoever goes round the house on Sunday morning putting every clock right, and knows which way they go without having to think. Every household needs one.
- #DarkestHour Mug: for next Monday, when it's five o'clock and feels like midnight.
- #WinterIsComing Mug: the clocks going back is the unofficial start of the cold months, so this fits nicely.
- #WinterSolstice Mug: for the person already counting down to the shortest day in December, because after that the days get longer again.
- #TimeToTalk Mug: dark evenings are good for a proper catch-up. Put the kettle on and ring someone you haven't spoken to in a while.
If none of those quite fits the person you have in mind, the full Hashtag Mugs collection is enormous. For something with a name on it, try Hashtag Name Mugs. A mug with their own name on it would make a very good Sunday-morning surprise for your household TimeLord.
Before you go to bed on Saturday
Here's a short list, so you don't spend Sunday wondering why the microwave says it's lunchtime:
- Check your phone is set to update the time by itself. It almost certainly is, but check anyway.
- Work out which clocks in the house don't change themselves. It's usually more than you'd think.
- Decide now what the extra hour is for, before a pet or a small person decides for you.
- Fill the kettle. Future you will be grateful.
Whatever you do with yours, enjoy the hour. You'll have to give it back in March.
