Shortest day plus one

The December solstice. The shortest day of the year. This December, after the fury of the Brexit General Election, it was a calm, jolly day, spent feasting on mince pies and dark at 4:10pm. I made a special point of noting the time.

Almost a month later, calculating and mentally allowing for the evenings  to stay lighter for 15 minutes extra per week, I estimate, one day soon, that it will be dark at 5:10pm. If not tonight then tomorrow night or the evening after that. Because of the tilt of the earth lighter mornings occur before the solstice. The winter solstice or midwinter occurs when one of the Earth's poles has its maximum tilt away from the sun. For us the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation.

Although day length increases in the evenings from December 22 onwards it can be darker in the mornings. Day length at midwinter is seven hours fifty minutes. Today it should average 8 hours 26 minutes. The days are indeed getting longer. We can look forward to 2 minutes extra light, roughly,  on a daily basis.

Today is a beautifully cold, sunny winter’s day. There was surface frost on the soil this morning but that melted in the sunshine. Not yet have we had ice nor snow. It’s a very mild winter. We have had many, many days of rain and hopefully the country’s reservoirs will be so full that there won’t be water shortages nor any need for a hosepipe ban in the summer. 

Riskily, and prompted by the appearance of a timid sun, I bought eight cyclamen plants this weekend. I foolishly and optimistically put them into soil which was still frosted. Perhaps I have been too forward in my attempt to brighten the front garden. But in the welcome sunshine it’s tempting to get on. I may need to get bubble wrap ready in case of much harder frost in coming days. Cyclamen are hardy, of course, but the poor things will have a shock after sitting in the warmth of our breakfast room since Thursday.

Today it is ‘shortest day plus thirty’. The phrase ‘D-day plus one’ reminds me of my father’s endurance in the second world war. When he crossed the channel in June 1944 he went out on ‘D-day plus one’. In other words he wasn’t in the first round of troops to land on the Normandy beaches. He escaped the worst of overhead enemy fire and he and his comrades swung round to Berlin. In 1945, when confronted, along with the allied forces, with the horrors of Belsen, he was a member of the liberating army and went in on ‘liberation day plus two.’

Now, seventy five years later, all I have to concern myself with is whether my cyclamen will get through the night to ‘planting out day plus one’. Will they withstand the weather overnight and for the next 5-6 weeks? I don’t have to cope with bombardment from enemy fire nor risk catching typhus or witness humanity’s behaviour at its very worst. It’s a sunny late January afternoon. In a week’s time it will be holocaust memorial day. If winter comes, can spring be far behind?  ( with thanks to Percy Bysshe)