1. When the Trick or Treaters start knocking on your door, tell yourself that Bonfire Night is just around the corner.
2. Get through bonfire Night under the bed with your dogs and then suddenly become absorbed with how many days it is until Christmas. Use an Advent Calender with pieces of chocolate behind the doors.
3. Christmas Midwinterfest of over-indulgence doesn't really finish until the third of January. Just hang on till the Misery Nadir of January 16th and you can then tell yourself that by the 21st you are past the coldest, darkest 2 months of the year!
4. Hang on till 21st February and suddenly you are past the coldest, darkest THIRD of the year and the days are getting perceptably LONGER and LIGHTER! For us "Pot Half Full" Optimists that means we are just entering the brightest, lightest TWO THIRDS of the Year! Simples!
The scientifically minded amongst us will obviously have obtained our Latitude and Longitude here and placed it into this excellent web calculator to follow the exact day length and sunset times as they change.
We here in Mid-Norfolk currently get 9hrs 20 minutes daylight with the sun going down at 16.57, but if we lived, say, 100 miles South in North Kent, the day would be 2 minutes longer. If we lived 100 miles North it would be 7 minutes shorter, although that would pale into insignificance when placed against the more urgent problem of living in the North Sea.
If you follow the Pet Shop Boys or the British Economy and "Go West" the sun sets later, go North and the day gets shorter still. Kaz in Manchester only has a 9hr 14 minute day (unless she's buggered off to Spain again) whereas Malcolm in the Scottish Islands has but 8 hours 29 minutes of daylight to tend his lovely piggies. He will of course get his revenge in July when his day will start at 3.12am and last till 20 past nine. Exeter currently has 10 minutes longer day than us and the sun doesn't set till 17.15.
I hope all you SADDO's out there have managed to get through this extensively researched piece without taking an overdose. I nearly didn't make it myself.
22 comments:
Daylight is overrated. Well it is if all you can see are miserable North Kentish mugs as their owners trudge from shop to shop.
I've just come in off my sun-lounger.
It's 20.40.
(I put that in because your clock seems to tell a different time from anywhere else. May be that's at the heart of your problem.)
You see? The above comment was timed at 11.42 NMT.
I am always shining.
I confess to preferring winter and autumn to spring and summer. I like dark crisp nights rather more than irritating hot stuffy ones.
I'm with Geoff -- daylight is overrated. The best things go on at night, in every sense of the phrase. Kids are quiet and out of your hair, no one calls you (God forbid), dogs are sleeping, and you have time for yourself -- or each other, or whatever is on your mind.
On the other hand, daylight is perfect for sleeping.
Geoff: If you moved North you'd miss the Kentish Mugs and get less daylight.
Christopher: I hiope you used sunblock. I think this blog is set to NuMTy time.
Vicus: I think you were in it as well weren't you?
Madame DF: Hello and welcome. Fair point, but just remember those dark, chilly overcast days of drizzle. In July.
Elizabeth: You're obviously an Owl person as opposed to a Lark person. Just wait till Snowmageddon reaches you though ... those balmy evenings on the back stoop playing your banjo will seem more attractive!
Christopher: I've just corrected the time so your comment looks a bit deranged. I had to choose "Adibjan" time zone so maybe the nights will get a bit shorter now.
Good Lord! Is that the time? I should be on my way to Attleborough soon. Sermons won't preach themselves. Can't leave the good folk there in the dark.
9 hours 14 minutes would be quite enough - as long as it really was daylight and not some grey cloud covered miserable apology for it.
So glad you've seen the light. It was high time.
How's the dog watch going? Haven't heard from them for some time.
Dave: We look forward to being bathed in your shining light.
Kaz: Those dark satanic mills wouldn't be so atmospheric in the sunshine. Plus they've all been turned into Cash 'n Carrys.
Christopher: Oz sends his regards and thanks for asking. Lily would have to look it up on Google translate.
Alfresco sex is not much fun in the Winter either LOL
Tho' I expect you and Mrs Rine are far too polite/old for that sort of carry on....??
What a positive post. I may consider coming out of hibernation soon. I may invite Kaz over for a bottle of chilled white and a plate of pulpo to celebrate the return of light.
I'm just going to moulder until I can lie out in the garden again.
Sarah: What a delightful imagination you have. Oz is completely undetered by inclement weather in the dogging department.
Rosie: I'm sure Kaz would be very pleased with that. I'm not sure what Pulpo is though - sounds a bit like soggy cornflakes.
Roses: Make do with "mouldering" until you can put an "s" in front of it!
Since moving away from the North Sea coast, I've hardly noticed winter. It seems delightfully balmy here all year round.
And delightfully barmy on most blogs.
I see my use of the term 'saddo' has been taken in the perjorative sense, which is highly unfortunate.
I was merely highlighting a certain wistful (whistful?) pathos so prevalent in the Norfolk blogging community. That's all.
Besides, some of my favourite care in the community patients are saddoes...
;)
Great post Rog - right up there with 'Autumn almanac'
Have a bright and sunny week
xxx
'Berta
Z: It's horizontal sleet here...you must be in a microclimate behind Dave's wall.
Roberta: You are manfully standing in for the unfortunate R.s but you won't find much whistful pathos here. Try "Last of the Summer Wine".
You should try Lowestoft seafront. Salt-laden horizontal sleet stings even worse than the inland sort.
Having said that, it is a bit nippy today.
WV - optint - pink, like my glasses, I expect.
Crewe has its own microclimate. Sub-tropical all year round here without the respite of a winter. The constant clanging of the mooring chains of the cruise liners does make one a trifle irritable of a morning but it's a cross we have to bear nevertheless. Must dash, I've got to go and pick Gordon Brown's bananas...
Kev thinks I'm so clever to find this daylight calculator all by myself.
Ta.
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