The Shortest Day

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day. Gen 1:5

This is the best day of the year, why? Because it is the shortest! From today the days get longer and the nights get shorter. From today we look forward to the arrival of Spring, warm weather and, being the UK, lots of rain! Still never mind eh? We are headed in the right direction and this makes me happy! Some folks may live in places where the nights never vary, in those regions where there is an almost constant warmth and allowance of daylight. How I wished I lived there! Of course it could be worse. In places like Finland there are six months of total darkness, then followed by six months of constant daylight. Now the latter part of that suits me! I suppose six months of daylight must affect an individual in some way? The darkness certainly does! The areas affected do see lots of suicides and depression as the months tick by I understand, and I can believe it. We work better in natural daylight and flounder with the dark. No wonder so many there take to drink!

However, now we can rise in the darkness knowing that soon we will rise with the the dawn chorus greeting the rising sun. Blackbirds and Thrushes, Robins and Tits greeting one another in the early morning before any bar the milkman and postman have risen remains a favourite time for me. Their song fits the sky above - unless the weather interferes! Ah yes, the British weather! Caught between the Atlantic and the Continent which leaves us with warmish rainy weather and lots of reason to grumble! Where would we be without that? However even Brits find it hard to grumble when their eyes meet a sight like this as they rise.