I've never experienced a sunset before 4:00 pm before--except for, well, yesterday--when the sun set at 3:54 at our home here in Birmingham. Today the sun is scheduled to set at 3:53pm in England, which means it will be nearly dark by 3:45 or so. It's the Winter Solstice--the shortest day of the year for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, which means that our minutes and seconds of daylight will gradually begin to increase again after today (thank god!). Although it's not really speeding towards summer-time's gloriously long days; tomorrow is only longer by a mere 2 seconds, and Wednesday will be a scant 7 seconds longer than that!
Equally strange is the late sunrise, which today occurred at 8:04am, and by a strange trick of science is still continuing to get later, even though the days are getting longer. By next weekend, the sunrise will occur at 8:07am. I feel terribly for D at this time of year. He gets up at 5:30am when it's still the dead-dark of night, and begins his workday at a reasonable 7:30am, when daylight has not yet even scratched the surface of the horizon. Meanwhile, I'm barely able to scrape myself out of bed at 8:00 when the light starts to peek through the windows. This photo was taken yesterday from our bedroom window--from the slant of the light, it looks like the early hours of morning, but I think it was actually taken closer to 10am.
Although we had snow this weekend for the first time this winter (beautiful!) and are having a terrible cold-snap, the sun has been shining for more hours of the day than in previous weeks, which has been great for taking quick runs and walking the dog. I'm trying to get outside for at least 30 minutes a day to make sure I get a vitamin D infusion from the sunlight and avoid the symptoms of Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) experienced by so many northern-dwellers. So far, I haven't felt too bad, and am looking forward to the sun rising on Friday at 8:06am over the first "White Christmas" I've ever had without leaving home.
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