Actually it was 17 days ago, on the 22 December 2007, the day that Toby and I walked along the Ridgeway. On our walk we met a very nice young man who had wonderful long dreadlocks and carrying a rucksack and sleeping bag, he explained that he had just started out on a 3 day trek along the trail. As we finished talking he wished Toby and I “A Happy Winter Solstice Day”. Toby gave me ‘one of those looks’ and I smiled, and explained that he had probably just come from the celebrations at Avebury, a heritage site, similar in age and meaning as Stonehenge.
However what ‘Winter Solstice’ means to most of us, is the days will start to gradually get longer, some thing that I can safely say most of us look forward to and even more so if you suffer from SAD.
Now, if you happen to leave work at 5pm and you also happen to work in a rural area, just I like I do. I work in a 100 year old converted drying barn, on a farm, where the nearest urban lighting is approximately 2 miles away. You may have noticed that, it is no longer pitch black when you leave, the sky is now actually dark blue and that you can just make out the colours on buildings in the near distance. I travel east to go home, so the setting sun is behind me, and yesterday I noticed the very last of the setting suns rays on the horizon. Enough to say to you all, it won’t be long and it will soon be light at home time. I do pray that this thought makes you smile. The BBC weather site is a good source of sunrise and sunset times plus the weather of course.
