Solsticial

Shortest Day! Shortest Day!

Tra-la-la-la, it’s the Winter Solstice.

I don’t think I need to say any more than that, really.


Shortest

In happier news, today is the Winter Solstice (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) so it’s the shortest day. This year that shortest day is 7 hours 49 minutes and 49 seconds.

The changes are (as always) tiny for a while, but it’s at least good to know that we’re done with the shortest one and that we’re heading back towards the time of sunlight…


September Restart (Hopefully)

So, yes, I’m still alive. There’s been a bundle of stuff going on that isn’t blog-friendly (or even interesting) and August has been it’s usual shower of shit.

I don’t know why it happens, but it does, and it’s not a conscious process at all.  But I’ll have about two weeks where pretty much nothing goes right, and it whacks my brain hard, and then I realise that yes, yet again, it’s bloody August.

Obviously this year I also got slightly walloped by July, but well, who’s counting?

As is obvious, I got through it all – and in fairness, it’s nothing major that’s been occurring, I’m still in the same house, same job, nothing epic has altered.  But it hits me hard anyway, like I’ve had enough energy to keep going ’til now, then I just feel like I’ve been slammed into a wall, and there’s little to no time or energy to do anything for a few weeks.

So anyway, yes, September. Let’s see how things go from here…


Extending Daylight

As of today, the days are getting longer again (for the next six months, anyway)  It’s only five seconds longer today than yesterday, but at least it’s heading in the right direction.

This is A Good Thing.

That is all.


Solsticial

Today’s the Winter Solstice – the shortest day of the year. From here, the days get longer again, although initially it’s barely noticeable. (From that page, by New Year the day will be one whole minute longer than today, although the differences do increase as we go through the year)

In terms of daylight, this day is 8 hours, 49 minutes shorter than on June Solstice.

Oddly, the latest sunrise doesn’t happen ’til the end of the year, rather than being on the shortest day. (Orbital mechanics be weird, y’all)

Regardless, at least the days are going to get longer. We’re almost over the hump.


Booking Time Out

At the end of 2017 (and of 2016, and of 2015 – I know, I know) I said about needing to take more time out, take some breaks from work and so on.

I am rotten at taking time off – it’s never been high on my driving factors, and really it just ends up being expensive, and me just spending time on my own somewhere else.  And with all that, I find it way too easy to put off booking holidays and time away, it’s such a low priority that it always falls off the bottom of the list of things to do.

So this year, I’ve booked stuff already. I’ve got three breaks locked in, booked and paid for.  One in February, one in May, and one in November.

It’ll be interesting to see, come the end of 2018, whether I feel better for having those breaks or not.  I’m not sure, but I’m going to give it all a go, and find out.


Missing Time/Posts

So we’re only three weeks into 2018, and already I’ve lost a week’s posts. Just didn’t do them – started stuff, but life and other stuff got in the way, so I’ve started the year by being crap.  (Not that that’s anything unusual, but there we go)  Sure, I could cheat and backdate some things, but that’s not really the way to go. I could, but I won’t.

It’s sort-of annoying, but at the same time it’s a result of being a) stupidly busy and b) that overall sense of Grey. Thankfully,the tail-end of last week involved some brighter days where blue sky was visible along with direct sunlight, and that’s helped a lot.

This year I don’t know that I’ll always keep to the posting routine – but I’ll do my best.

Anyway, here we go for the rest of the year, and let’s see how I do…