Daylight Saving Time Patch

Nothing and everything happens in La Folie

Amélie, four, comes stomping along the corridor from her room. Most days, she announces that she doesn’t feel well, because she has a crocodile in her tummy. I know what this means. It means she has inherited my hypochondria gene.

Downstairs, Digby hurriedly leaps from his bed, appalled to have been caught sleeping with Cat.

“Att, Ogg,” declares Mirabelle firmly, pointing at them both. Though she is rather good at finishing words, she does not know how to start them yet.

The Ogg stiffly negotiates the stone steps outside the front door, and then cocks his leg beneath what is left of the old box tree. Sphinx-like, Cat watches him as he gazes out over the misty valley, her tail flicking with annoyance at his presumption in using her loo with a view.

Down there in the potager, with its grey-brown crumble topping of well-dug earth, the onions and shallots should be poking up their bright green tips any day now. A little rain would help. A lot would be better.

7.15am

Out in the chicken house, poor Myrtle – big, blonde and a bit bunged-up – is all that remains of the once-proud Egg Squad. Amélie rattles some grain into her feeder and Myrtle pecks at it with all the conviction of a footballer faced with a typewriter.

Hearing the noise, the Rastafarians arrive in a braying mob, pleading for a snack, and I do my best to count them: nine ewes, nine lambs, three unruly young rams and two hangers-on. Their dreadlocks are beginning to look manky. Thank goodness shearing time is not too far away, for this hot weather is no time to be wearing thermal undies and an Astrakhan coat.

7.45am

Though occasionally the girls and I will drive down to the boulangerie in town for croissants or pains au chocolat, mostly our breakfasts are more puritanically English than that: a mug of PG Tips; muesli; Marmite on wholemeal toast. I used to buy a daily baguette, until I worked out that this was why I kept falling asleep at my desk.

8.25am

Although Alice does the lion’s share of the monster management, today it is my turn to drive Amélie to school, having first flicked through the exercise book in which her teacher sends us missives about nits and demands for a freshly baked cake by tomorrow.

FAQ: What the daylight saving shift means to you » Get Rich

Editor’s note: This FAQ was originally published last spring. It’s been updated to account for the fall changing of the clocks.

faq The fact that the U.S. is “falling back” a week late has left some folks with a few headaches, along with an unwarranted extra hour of sleep.

Standard time, which ordinarily would have kicked in at 2 a.m. Sunday, won’t take place until next Sunday. Congress is to thank (or blame) for the change, which also meant daylight saving time started two weeks early. The thing is, computers weren’t programmed with legislative intent in mind. Many gadget and software makers have issued patches to adjust to the change, though not everyone has installed the changes, and even people whose systems are now patched could see some calendar items showing up an hour off.

Here’s a list of some commonly asked questions and answers regarding the time shift.

Q: So, daylight saving time is lasting an extra week. What’s the big deal? Microsoft released an update to Windows in November that prompts Windows to make the move. The company also has other patches available on its Web site. The patch was delivered in February to Windows XP Service Pack 2 users who have automatic updates turned on, but others may need to download the patch or manually adjust their PC’s clock. Apple issued an update for Mac OS X Tiger in February 2006 and offered an updated patch last month for users of Tiger as well as Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.

Are all my calendar items going to be off by an hour? No. Only calendar items during the extra daylight saving time (the additional three weeks of March and the last week of October) will be affected. Depending on how your business is managing things, many of your one-time calendar items might already be fixed, but it is worth taking a look at your calendar and double-checking the time for any crucial meetings.

Are there any precautions that I should take? No. The move could impact time-sensitive applications other than calendaring, such as those that process sales orders or keep track of time cards. Gartner, for example, says the bug could lead to incorrect arrival and departure times in the travel industry and result in errors in bank transactions. In addition, trading applications might execute purchases and sales at the wrong time, and cell phone-billing software could charge peak rates at off-peak hours. Manufacturing operations that are computer-automated could also suffer.

Seize the Daylight, The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time

Spring Forward, The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time

Introducing biological rhythms, a primer on the temporal organization of life, with implications for health, society, reproduction and the natural environment

Light and variable, a year of celebrations, holidays, recipes, and Emily Dickinson

An Introduction to Physical Science