Yes! It's that time of year again, when we all struggle to remember whether the clocks go forward or back....
This marks the official end of European summertime. Here’s a clever way (or how the Dutchies say, ‘a donkey’s bridge’) to remember the hour-change rule: "Spring forward, Fall back".
So this weekend the clocks go back, giving us all a blissful extra hour in bed... The mornings will be lighter and the evenings will be darker.
And bear the event in mind when making plans for the day: despite the prevalence of smartphones and other devices which change the time for you automatically, there will always be one person you know who didn't get the memo. And very often that person is me…. Duh!
Today, clocks are almost always set one hour back or ahead, but throughout history there have been several variations, did you know that?? Like half adjustment (30 minutes) or double adjustment (two hours), and adjustments of 20 and 40 minutes have also been used. Weird hey.
But let me tell you a little bit of history….It started all with Edwardian builder William Willett who introduced the idea of British Summer Time, also known as Daylight Saving Time, in 1907.
As a super keen supporter of the outdoors, he noticed that during the summer people were still asleep when the sun had risen and wanted to stop Brits from wasting valuable daylight hours. Back then the clocks were set to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) meaning it was light by 3am and dark at 9pm midsummer.
This guy Willett published a pamphlet called 'The Waste of Daylight' in a bid to get people out of bed earlier by changing the nation’s clocks, arguing it would not only improve health and happiness but it would save the country £2.5 million.
He actually spent the rest of his life trying to convince people that his idea was a good one. Sadly, he died of the flu in 1915 exactly a year before Germany adopted his clock-changing plan on April 30, 1916 when the clocks were put forward at 11pm. Britain followed a month later on May 21 and Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey all followed. So here we are! Having more daylight hours in the summer and less in the winter. Meaning that the autumn/winter days will not only be super cozy but also really dark early! And therefor here at GOSOAKY we’ve created styles with reflective prints, and give away reflective snapbands with every order so your kids will always be save when they’re out in the streets during those dark days..
Uhm…And I don’t know about you, but me, I’m already looking forward to Halloween, and all those other super festive days these coming 6 months! And while I’m writing all this I’m sipping away a nice hot chocolate… Something I definitely wouldn’t do during summertime….Ah I loooove it!