Confusion

It was an overnight scene which for several minutes flummoxed its main protagonist. In his newly woken state, the unexpected vision causing his recently focussed eyes to ponder whether a) he was still in the throes of a dream, or b) he’d woken from slumber with newfound powers of time travel.

To add context to this plotline, it was early hours of last Sunday morning. Fifty minutes earlier the central character had awoken, his Amazon smart speaker highlighting the time as 1.16am.

In addition to noticing the time, the main protagonist (me) also greeted by sounds of an audiobook. An audible tome playing through the Amazon Echo Dot providing the time check.

Upon realising I’d nodded off through a highly amusing audio offering, written and narrated by late comedian Spike Milligan, I concluded my fatigue levels must’ve been overwhelming. After all, how can anyone fall asleep when party to such wonderfully funny prose, delivered with Milligan’s trademark mischief and whimsy?!… How dare you, Gary!

Anyhow, after politely requesting Alexa stopped playing Spike’s entertaining anecdotes, I turned over, fluffed up my pillows, prior to resting my still weary bonce and drifting back off to sleep.

My parting thought prior to losing consciousness being a hope I didn’t return to my earlier unpleasant dream. A night vision playing out with me living where it was mandatory to wear cheesecloth jumpsuits, clogs and a bonnet made of gruyere cheese.

Fast forward fifty minutes to me regaining consciousness. Having felt I’d been in the Land of Nod for hours; yours truly fully expecting my Echo Dot device to inform me the current time at around 7am.

However, as my peepers eventually gained focus enough to see the device’s digital numbers, the time was showing as 1.06am. According to the same electronic clock, the current time was ten minutes before I fell asleep earlier!

After performing a doubletake, clarifying I wasn’t misreading the time, the smart speaker confirmed it was indeed only sixty-six minutes into the new day, despite me earlier drifting off to sleep seventy-six minutes into the day.

At this juncture I was utterly bewildered. Trying to make sense of the situation, I pondered whether I’d possibly slept all through Sunday. However, although feeling reasonably refreshed, I concluded when ordinarily struggling to achieve two hours unbroken sleep, there’s no way I’d have slept for over 24 hours.

I immediately dismissing the possibility I had travelled back in time during my latest nap. However, understandably, I still sought an explanation why my clock now displayed 1.06am when it showed 1.16am at the time of earlier drifting into slumber.

My mind pondered what kind of witchcraft had I become embroiled in. Not to mention, why had I woken wearing a bonnet made of gruyere cheese?

Feeling wide awake, I asked Alexa to restart my Spike Milligan audiobook. Moving across my bed to find a cooler mattress spot and a pillow that didn’t smell of gruyere cheese, I mulled over further explanations for the time anomaly.

I speculated that maybe when waking the first time I misread the device, and it hadn’t been 1.16am. After all, I didn’t have my specs on at the time… However, with the device’s large number font and close proximity on bedside table, I swiftly concluded, as Mr Magoo would be able to see the time without sight-correction, it was unlikely.

With the clock ticking onto 1.08am, and thoughts turning to a faulty time function on the device maybe explaining the conundrum, the actual root cause struck me.

If you are sitting comfortably, if you haven’t already guessed it, the explanation as follows:-

• When I first woke at 1.16am the device time was correct. After asking Alexa to turn off the Spike Milligan audiobook, I drifted back off to sleep.
• At 2am in the UK the clocks reverted an hour to 1am. Moving from British Summer Time (BST) to Greenwich Meantime (GMT).
• Six minutes after it reverted to 1am I woke back up to see a time of 1.06am; causing the subsequent confusion within GJ Strachan’s neurological corridors.

So, there we are.  A short story of how for a brief period I appeared to go travel back in time… You silly sod, Gary!

Incidentally, does anyone know how to get rid of the smell of gruyere cheese from pillow cases?!