The shortest day of the year

It's only four days until Christmas now and it's also the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. The sun will come up here in Shetland at 09.12 and will go back down at 14.55 which means that the sun is up for just under six hours, a very short day indeed.

An hour before sunrise

Come the middle of June things will have changed. The sun will go down at about 22.30 and will come back up at about 03.30, meaning a long, long day and an almost non-existent night as at this time it is never really dark, only dusky for a while.

I find this quite difficult at times. At the moment I'm comfortable living in a predominantly dark environment. Come the spring and it starts to change, becoming very much the opposite and for a while it's hard work coping with the change but I will get into it – and soon after it will start to go the other way again and it's time to settle into that yet again.

Some things never change and yet, they change so much. From winter to summer, the time that the sun goes down changes by approximately seven and a half hours and the change in the morning is similar.

I wonder why I can't sleep sensibly?

I had plans

Today, my perhaps shrunken mind was full. It was full of plans to go rushing out and grab some beautiful snapshots of the freshly laid snow and the sun bouncing off it, making the whole place really bright and beautiful.

Linlithgow Castle

Aye, that will be right. It's rained off and on all day and the sun has been hiding behind the clouds the whole time. Pity that I didn't put a little more effort into it yesterday when it was just as I needed for spot-on photo's all day but I was too bloody lazy to go out and get them.

The picture was taken a couple of years ago. It's Linlithgow Castle, down in central Scotland. It's the snowiest that I've got to show at the moment.

Brilliant weather

I love the snow. I know that, at my age, I really should have grown up and got over it now but it's been snowing off and on for a couple of days now and it's brilliant.

I just hope that it lasts like this for a good few months :))

I missed it!!!

I missed the lunar eclipse today. It was only half my fault though. I forgot when to look for it but it was all cloudy anyway so it was hardly visible.

I checked up for the next one to miss, either by forgetting to look in my diary or by bad weather making it impossible to see here in Shetland. April the twenty-fifth next year there will be a partial eclipse and October the eighteenth will be a penumbral one meaning that the sun is on one side of the earth and the moon is at the opposite side of planet earth.

Keep your eyes open on the twenty-eighth of September, 2015 as there will be a total lunar eclipse which will let all the bad luck fall upon us - if you believe in that sort of thing.

I believe in it but I call it marriage :))

Oh, I nearly forgot to say that there will be a total eclipse of the sun on the twentieth of March, 2015. Remember to get some new batteries for your torch!!!

Serco Northlink Ferries

At last, at long, long last it has been announced that people travelling on Serco Northlink Ferries between Shetland, Orkney and Aberdeen in Scotland, no longer need to provide photographic ID to allow them to get on board the ferry that they have bought the ticket for.

It was farcical in the first place. You don't need ID to get a taxi and you don't need ID to get on the bus (just yet) so what justified the demand for ID to get on a ferry that never leaves the country that we live in, in the first place? Sorry, I cannot work out what goes behind it - other than the stupidity and big-headedness that goes with the company running the ferries, of course!!!

In a couple of days I hope to be on the bus into Lerwick, the only real town in Shetland. If they demand any ID other than my bus pass then I'll let you know.

Shetland's shortening day

Today the sun came up at 8.27 and went down again at 3.15. That cannot be called a long day, now can it.

A good day but a short one.
In just over a week the sun comes up at 8.50 in the morning and goes down again at 3.00 in the afternoon. That's about six hours of sunlight - how much shorter can the day get? Will it be worth getting out of bed in the morning? Will I still be snoring in the afternoon? Who can tell and who cares :))

The days are getting shorter

The days are really getting shorter now as the sun comes up at around ten past eight in the morning, stays up and visible for less than seven and a half hours and goes down again a minute before three thirty in the middle of the afternoon.

Certainly not a long day now but don't worry, it will get shorter yet. Sunrise and sunset at the moment are beautiful and happen at just the right time to enjoy!!!

That's Shetland for us, eh :))