Daylight Saving Time 2024: take my hour, I'll only waste it on Candy Crush - Gaby Soutar

“Spring forward, fall back,” they say. That has to be the most confusing mnemonic ever invented, since “spring back, fall forward” also makes total sense. It could be either.Thus, it’ll certainly never beat my childhood phrase for remembering the points of the compass; Never Eat Shredded Wheat. Pretty nifty, especially as it’s doubly useful as a warning to avoid the worst cereal, which only comes second to the punishment breakfast that is All Bran.

Melting clock Pic: Adobe

Anyway, this Sunday, we shall have to sacrifice one hour of our precious weekend.

The clocks will change at 1am in the morning and we will have to account for that switcheroo. It’ll be straight to bed while the end credits of Antiques Roadshow have barely finished rolling.

At least it’s not like the old days, when every household clock would need to be wound back. You’d have to rummage around with the cuckoo, and tinker with the Rolex. Oh no, actually, it was a Patek Phillipe that was on my wrist back then. I have upgraded since. Anyway, it was an awful hassle. Poor Salvador Dali had the worst trouble, since his timepieces were all gooey, with hands that were stickier than those of a child who’s just finished guzzling a Creme Egg.

Now, in a digital world, our phones just obediently ping to the correct time overnight. Ignore the oven and the car clock, and you could almost lose that hour without noticing.

In fact, my husband has a twentysomething colleague who only just discovered, while in a recent work meeting, about the clocks going back (or forward). He was shocked, after managing to spend over two decades in ignorance. His annual spare hour was lost as easily as the television switcher between the sofa cushions. I don’t know what the opposite of a timelord is - Dr When, maybe? - but that’s him.

They don’t know they’re born, these young people, who have never had to phone 123 to find out what time it is, in case they’re home late for their tea. Interestingly, I just tried that number with my mobile and the speaking clock person is still there. I’m probably the first to call her since 1998.

The youth of today have also never had to ask a random citizen the time, only for them to look at their bare wrist and reply, “a freckle past a hair”. They used to expect you to laugh at that joke.

I would be much happier about transitioning into BST, if it happened on a Monday. The morning would be best, in the eating lull between breakfast and lunch. Or, at 5pm, when I’m wishing that the final working hour of the day would evaporate.

I do feel a bit grudging about sacrificing it at the allocated time, though it’s not like I deserve that extra 60 minutes in bed.

There are loads of hours that I’ve already frittered away. My past is littered with them. My future will probably follow the same pattern.

I’ve got a terrible habit of continuing to read books that I hate, out of obligation, and I’ll never get the time back that I’ve spent on terrible films, playing Candy Crush, failed recipes - most notably that freshly-baked lasagne that I dropped on the floor - or bad boyfriends.

All the hours spent queuing for toilets, waiting for buses, or for the bill, then the card machine, in restaurants.

It’s even worse for us Soutars, as we are renowned for being early for everything.

This was a tradition started by my dad, who, among other things, would insist on arriving at the Ardrossan ferry terminal at least an hour before we were due to catch the ferry to Arran for our annual summer holiday. It was the same on the return journey. His loss, as he’s the one who’d have to fork out on Calmac chips, to keep his offspring occupied.

Even today, I arrived at a doctor’s appointment half an hour early, just so I could spend that time staring vacantly at a poster about monkeypox.

Then there are the fretful and liminal hours that have been used up while trying to get to sleep. Expect more of those, when our circadian rhythms have to reset next week.

Even though it’s no longer on my side, I’ve got other methods of fecklessly wasting time. My hour will never be as valuable as the one that was used to complete 1/60th of the Barkley Marathon. I probably won’t even make the most of the lighter evenings by trying to emulate Jasmin Paris with a post-prandial canter. Instead, I’ll just get annoyed when the light bounces off my telly screen and make an annual note to get the blinds fixed.

It’s unlikely that I’ll ever start writing that book, or even get started on the spring cleaning.

I continue to watch brain-drain guff on telly. I scroll through my phone. These are very rightly considered the very worst crimes against time.

In office hours, I’m keen to start employing the Pomodoro Method, which suggests that you work for 25 minutes, then take a five-minute break, before repeating the process. It promises maximum productivity, and I’ve been meaning to try it for ages. Instead, I stick to my own invention, the Ketchup Technique, which involves splurging as much time as possible in front of a screen, then hitting the bottom when you’ve run out of words.

Go on then, take my precious hour, I don’t deserve it.