Determination and hope
I always feel that there is hope now that we have gone past the winter solstice. Until this week the daylight hours have been getting shorter and shorter by the minute, but that is all over. We have turned a corner, now that the darkest day has gone, and we are working towards shorter nights and longer days. It is only little by little, but on 21 st December the solstice sun set here in the afternoon at 15.38, by the end of the week the sun sets at 16.01. It’s not much, but it’s a start. I remember my grandmother saying that after the winter solstice the day was a cockerel stride longer each week. Three minutes seems about right for the stride of a cockerel. I have made two marks on the grey slate of our sunroom floor. They show where the sun reaches on the summer and winter solstices. On the shortest day, the sun is low and can almost touch the far wall. But it will never get there because, from now on, it will be getting higher in the sky. And, by the summer, the sunshine ...