Spanish views from a small town

The alarm goes off. Something's wrong. Why is the clock radio already chirping away when it's not quite light yet? At eight thirty the light is already supposed to be pouring into the room through the cracks in the blinds. Through my foggy brain comes the memory of changing the hour on the clock before going to sleep. That's right. Daylight savings begins today. This travesty we are obliged to participate in every year becomes more and more difficult to swallow. We should be on the same hour as Portugal just to the south, or Great Britain and Ireland straight to the north. Yet, this change every spring takes us even further away from the sun, into an artificial dependency on our clocks. It makes it more difficult to get up early for me. My eyes tend to drift open with the sun, which is why I leave the blinds up a bit during the winter. But, with this change in the hour, the only time of the year I even feel comfortable getting up earlier is around the summer solstice, whe...

God did not make clocks. God did not make time zones. God made even less the twice a year hour changes. "Fall back" and "spring forward" were never meant to describe the changes on the hour hand of the clock face. They have now become two of the vilest phrases in the English language. This past night we were supposed the move the clocks back one hour and gain some sleep, besides ruining our circadian rhythm and having nightfall cut off our afternoon plans earlier than usual. Early this morning my husband had planned to go fishing, and had to get up at 4:15 by the new hour. Accordingly, when I went to bed after he did, I adjusted the clock radio, setting it one hour back and setting the alarm. Instead of 00:15 it now read 23:15. Our clock radio is at least ten or fifteen years old, and is a similar model to one we had before. It is not connected to any form of internet, only the radio waves, and does not change the hour automatically like computers or smartphones...