It’s Sunday 26th October 2025 and in the early hours of this morning the clocks went back, bidding goodbye to Summer Time. You can tell I’m an oldie because I have quite a lot of time-keeping devices around the house that need to be set by hand. My computer updates itself, of course, but I’m not sure if WordPress does. I’ll find out when I publish this post!
I’ve written before about the silly business of moving the clocks backwards and forwards (e.g. here) so I won’t repeat it all again. I will mention, however, that some time ago, before the Covid-19 Pandemic, the European Parliament approved a directive that would abolish `Daylight Saving Time’. Unfortunately that plan was ‘paused’ although Spain is apparently going to try to get it going again. I’ve long felt that the annual ritual of putting the clocks forward in the Spring and back again in the Autumn was a waste of time effort, so I’ll be glad if and when this silly practice is terminated. It would be far better in my view to stick with a single Mean Time throughout the year. I’m disappointed that this hasn’t already happened.
Anyway, talking of time, we have now completed five weeks of teaching in Semester 1 at Maynooth University. Tomorrow (Monday 27th October) is the October Bank Holiday and next week is Study Week so there are no lectures or tutorials. We do, however, have conferring (graduation) ceremonies including one that involves my recently-completed PhD student. Looking at my diary I notice also that I also have an appointment for my flu jab and Covid-19 booster, another sign that I’m an old codger.
Normally Study Break comes halfway through the 12-week teaching term but this year it splits 5-7. It did so last year too, actually. I am not unhappy to have an earlier break as I’m very tired, but I am conscious that this is going to make for a longer run-in to the Christmas holiday. We are supposed to teach up until Friday 19th December, but I don’t have any lectures on that day.
I’m not sure how much studying the students do during Study Week, but it’s not a holiday for academic staff even though there is no undergraduate teaching. Among other things we have examinations to write for the January examination period, which must be checked and printed well in advance. The deadline for these is November 3rd, so I have all week but I am planning to spend next weekend elsewhere so I need to get them done beforehand.
In the Dark 