Timetables

Time, it trips and slips and moves at variable paces. Some days it moves in aeons and other times in a blink three hours have gone by and suddenly am facing the prospect of three and a half hours sleep before the alarm goes off.

I remember reading about how each village used to have its own time. Midday in each place would arrive just as the sun hit its apex, which essentially meant that every place was a few minutes different. I like this idea, it feels very autonomous. But then, in this glorious age of technology, trains arrived and in order to generate accurate timetables, time had to standardise. Although based on a recent train journey that took an hour and a half longer than expected, maybe this was optimism.

When I go out and park my car somewhere, in the variety of parking that both costs money and also requires me to preplan my existence (and stipulate precisely how long I would like to park for), I have continual clock watching stress. Never am I so aware of precisely how long a minute is. And it is almost always shorter than I have previously imagined.

Other times I have planned evenings out with friends. I have overnight sittage for my daughter arranged, I can stay out as late as I desire, and as often as not, am home tucked up in bed with a mug of tea by eleven thirty. And other times, when I know I have mass activity the following day, I am matching socks at quarter to one in the morning. Maybe in a place of high energy, I simply need less sleep, enabling me to get more done. And maybe when I know I have all the time in the world, I see that time as more precious than usual.

There are friendships that I have that are incredibly dear to me. People I love, yet six months, or even a year can go by, and suddenly it occurs to me that I haven’t seen them. Luckily for me, a lot of my friends work on the same premise, and I am incredibly lucky to have these people in my life!

I think that I use my time well, I get to places when I need to be somewhere, I try and schedule as much as I can. For me, it’s more about remembering that my time is valuable and choosing to spend it doing what I love is my utmost priority.

Map Point. What do I want to achieve tomorrow?