Cherish the Morning Light

Five days into the time change, and my strategy is paying off handsomely. I am still going to sleep four and half hours after sunset and waking up an hour before sunrise. Society, however, has combined to move its activities an hour back. This causes humans to go to bed and rise an hour later than hitherto; this did not happen to cats. Their circadian rhythm goes on as it has done, dictated by dawn and dusk. You may wish to benefit from a lie-in, but animals need feeding at the regular time.

The main reason I ignore the time change is to make the most of the shrinking day. Less than ten hours today, and by 21 December, the shortest day, we'll have less than eight hours of daylight. Missing the dawn because you've been told that it's acceptable to have a lie-in is bad for mental health, as is staying up that extra hour later in the evening. My bedroom clock remains set to summertime, keeping me grounded in solar realities.

And so, I went to bed yesterday at 10pm (11pm summertime) and woke up at 5:30am (6:30am summertime). Eight and half hours in bed, waking up twice for a wee (and dropping off straight after). A good night's sleep. Out of bed, I feed the kittens, make myself a coffee, open the laptop, click on BBC Radio 4 expecting to hear Farming Today to find that it's not even 5am in London yet. But I have gained an hour's daylight, and having eaten breakfast, the sun rises. So around half past six I am ready to go out for my first walk of the day. I get 8.000 paces in before returning home in good time for the morning call with the office.

Below: round the corner from my działka on the unpaved road that winds its way towards Grobice. Three new houses are currently being built along this stretch.

Below: back home and the kittens are out in the front garden. Right-click to open the image in a new tab, then expand it to see them – all five together (from l to r: Czestuś, Pacio, Arkcio, Céleste and Scrapper).

Below: zooming on them. A good breakfast, then out in the open air. What more could growing kittens require?

Having done the bulk of the day's paces in the morning, I can focus on work until the mid-afternoon, and then get ready to chase the sunset. Should be a good one! Below: looking at the DK50 at Nowe Grobice.

Below: a double-decker Koleje Mazowieckie train approaches Chynów station against a dramatic sky.

Two walks, total over 13,000 paces; daily average across the first ten months of this year is just over 12,500 paces every day since 1 January.

This time last year:
Post-consumerist hygiene

This time last year:
October's benign end

This time two years ago:
Disclosure day tomorrow?
[Next congressional UFO hearing: 13 November 2024]

This time three years ago:
Coping with time change (go to bed an hour earlier!)

This time four years ago:
A sustainable food system for rural Poland

This time five years ago:
Sifting through a life

This time seven years ago:
Throwing It All Away

This time nine years ago:
Hammer of Darkness falls on us again
[This is what going to be early in winter protects us from!]

This time ten years ago:
The working week with the clocks gone back

This time 12 years:
Slowly on the mend after calf injury

This time 13 years ago:
Thorunium the Gothick

This time 14 years ago:
Łódź Widzew or Widź Łódzew 

This time 16 years ago:
A touch of frost in the garden