It is 7.30 am and I have cooked the pre-fast meal for tomorrow, been for a walk, sent out several emails, and prepared notes for a meeting I have later this morning. I say this not to boast that I’m superwoman, but to illustrate that in Israel it is now officially winter time. No, not wintertime - we’re still in T-shirts and sandals and will be until at least November - but winter TIME. We’ve moved the clocks back one hour, so 5am is the new 6am. Habitual early risers like yours truly are now up even earlier. Worse still, 6pm is the new 7pm so the evenings are drawing in, despite the still very hot summer days.

The clocks are moved back every year immediately after Rosh Hashana because the powers that be think Israelis can’t fast ‘an extra hour’ on Yom Kippur. (The fact that we have the extra hour on Kol Nidre night seems to have escaped them; I guess they reason that we can all get through the first few hours of the fast but will struggle through the interminable final ones.)

Still, being out and about so early has allowed me the opportunity of checking whether my local supermarket has taken delivery of fresh milk. There has been a milk shortage in Israel this week, apparently due to the seasonal high demand and the limited number of working days in the holiday period. The supermarket manager told me that the hot weather is an additional problem, because it causes the cows to produce less milk. There could be a further shortage before Sukkot, he warned.

I’m the kind of consumer who hears the word ‘shortage’ and immediately thinks ‘stockpile’, so I’m off to the supermarket to ensure we have enough milk for the many cups of tea we drink post-Yom Kippur – especially when the fast ends an hour early.

Gmar chatima tova