Smash repair, trains and daylight savings
Posted on October 29, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under |
I dropped my car in at the smash repair today. It always makes me giggle a little at how literal Australians are. “Snowy Mountains.” “Sandy Desert.” “Smash Repair.” There is even a car aid called “Start Ya Bastard.” How appropos. 
But I digress…
With my car in the shop getting the dent beaten out of it, I’m training it to work and today I used the William Street Station for the first time. I hadn’t even realized that it was functional. The last time I walked by, it was still under construction. Now, it’s all shiny and new looking with touch screen ticket machines and lots of glass. Very flash.
I only waited 9 minutes for the train and that, because the first one was an express train that flies past my stop. This wasn’t even rush hour! I was very impressed by the new Mandurah line now that it’s finally built and on it’s way to running. The only problem now is that there aren’t enough trains to have it running steadily, often enough. Another few years, they say. Thank goodness I rarely need to go to Mandurah and when we do, it’s usually to visit Brian’s Dad for a family affair. We drive.
On another note, daylight savings has begun again for the second year of a three year trial run. With any luck, I’ll be a citizen by the time we need to vote on it. There are way too many oldies out there that are afraid the cows won’t milk or the drapes will fade. Just TRY and explain to them that the drapes fade just as much at 4 in the morning as 8 at night. Oh, no! As for cows, I’m pretty sure the cows in Canada don’t all drop dead every year in the spring because they get milked an hour sooner (or later in the autumn.)
This does pose a small problem for me, in that, with Canada’s ending daylight saving, and ours just beginning, we then become 14 hours apart in time rather than 12. This can make correspondence a little trickier but manageable on the whole.
With any luck, there will be a big boost in the younger vote, those who appreciate not having to run from the mosquitoes at 6:30 because it’s starting to get dark or waking up at 4am because the sun is blaring into your bedroom at full force!
And though I feel for the joggers and surfers out there that enjoy the morning hours more keenly than the evening ones…well, it’s my vote isn’t it?
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The only time I have an appreciation for clock changing is when I get an extra hour in bed.
And I had no appreciation at all when I worked at the school in England and had to go around what seemed like a million clocks nudging them forward or back an hour twice a year!
Oh dear! I can imagine! I saw a special on TV a while ago on the Queen’s clock-keeper. Not an easy task by far but on the days when they change…oh my goodness, that man worked from before dawn until well past dusk! Some of those old clocks can’t be wound back, so they must be wound forward 13 hours and many of them require special mechanisms in order to do so.
Imagine trying to make about 2000 clocks all read the exact same time! LOL
Thank the stars for self changing computers, mobile phones, TV’s and the like. Now the only clock I change is the alarm clock and the microwave LOL
Because most of the clocks at the school were simply battery operated they also expected us to keep them pretty much sychronised with each other and as you might imagine there were clocks that lost time, gained time and in general it was a bit of a pain to keep on top of.
Fortunately it was a case of nudging the hands back and forward and certainly not worrying about going around the clockface another 12 hours unlike the Queen’s clock-keeper.
We did have a clock in a small tower on one of the buildings.
If you follow the link and click on senior school the background picture shows the building with the tower.
http://www.brentwoodschool.co.uk/
It was an old building and we had to climb up and wind this clock up twice a week with two big handles connected to two pulleys that would hoist up two weights. (I’m saying “two” a lot aren’t I?) Anyway it was a surprisingly physical job and the novelty soon wore after I first started doing it.