Lighten our darkness...

Leaf wrangling in the drizzle

Though earlier in the week I picked and ate more raspberries (see post of 10 November) and even saw a couple of bumblebees, I have just come in from the gloom and drizzle of a typical December afternoon, fit for a bit of half-hearted leaf raking and some pruning of currant bushes, but not much else. Although the thermometer – had I cared to look – would probably have read a respectable 8 or 9 centigrade, and there were little clouds of gnat-like insects, one of which I managed to inhale extremely successfully, the dankness permeated everything. My hands and fingers are only now beginning to warm up as I sit typing away in front of a log fire.

Lichen on rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) trunk

Yet all is not lost. Today marks one of four special days at this end of the solar calendar, around which the year turns and the light gradually starts to come back. We're still two weeks away from the actual winter solstice, but today the afternoons stopped getting shorter. At this latitude and longitude, 'official' sunset today was at 16.09, the earliest of the winter. It  will remain at that time until 18 December, the second of the crucial dates, when the afternoon gets longer – by one whole minute! – with sunset occurring at 16.10. The mornings, on the other hand continue to shorten and darken, the latest sunrise of the year, at 08.20, not occurring until 25 December and staying that way until 6 January, the fourth and decisive date, when sunrise is a minute earlier at 08.19. By then, sunset will already have stretched out to 16.25 and the slow lengthening of the days will gradually become perceptible. This natural period of renewal in the northern hemisphere has of course long been celebrated by human beings, from pagan times to the marking of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany in the Christian calendar. Whether we individually hold scientific or religious convictions, both, or neither, I suspect that most of us who garden share a special sense of optimism as the light on which we all depend returns. And the hazel catkins are already poised to take advantage in a few weeks' time...