When I lived in the South Pacific (and Oz) I loved the way I was half a day in front of my homeland - and friends in the UK. Years later I loved seeing Christmas Island in Micronesia meeting the Millennium so many hours before our new year's eve parties kicked off! This post is by Nicola Baird (pix, top of my friend Hannah with Lola and Nell on the meridian line at Greenwich, and below, irresistible to bestride a 0 degrees longitude line.. one foot in the west, one in the east.)
There are fantastic books about time. Pip Pip (a sideways look at time) by Jay Griffiths, is a favourite.
In hospital over the Easter weekend a nurse administering asthma medicine to my 10 year old at around 3am got me thinking about it again. Time goes so fast, sometimes. That night Nell was being made better but the two hour gaps between each dose of medicine seemed to go rather faster than the time it took Nell to breathe in the 10 puffs or reliever... And look, already quarter of the year has passed, the tax year is over and summer's upon us. Blink and time rushes along.
Je ne regret rien
Obviously no point wishing to turn back the clock, but it was fun to finally find t-i-m-e to visit the Greenwich Meridian line and muse about humans' attempts to make time less painful by measuring it into 24 hour bite-sized chunks. Go see what I mean (and use the side gate if you want to avoid a rather hefty ticket price).