today is the actual winter solstice

london 7.09am 14.3C tuesday 2015

Dec. 22, 2015	Rise	Set
Actual Time	8:04 AM GMT	3:53 PM GMT

Length of Visible Light	9h 10m
Length of Day	7h 49m Tomorrow will be 0m4s longer.

so, finally the shortest day of the year. not surprising that olden days people celebrate this day. solstice means sun staying still. that describes how it rises at noon lower and lower in the sky until the lowest position in the sky  at noon on one day,before it starts to get higher in the sky at noon again. that would be how ordinary people in olden days notice it. 

though with the hit and miss nature of time keeping they did in old days i am sure the day they celebrate it might well be a day or two out. it does not matter does it? any excuse to have a feast haha.

that might also explain why 25th dec is a special day. it might take that long to notice the day is lengthening again. and that might also explain why so many religions seem to use it, or a similar day around now to hang their hook of significant event on it. who knows if not for the wonky time keeping of the old days, christmas might  be 21 dec after all. haha. instead i would like to think it was to replace saturnalia which was celebrated around december. and so they chose  25 dec, just so  the christians wanted a christian feast to overlay that decadent celebration of the heathens, and now the christian version has completely obliterated that heathen one, so much so that no one now celebrates that heathen one anymore.

i suspect that children in olden days were a collective responsiblity, and each child is not treated any different from another. they all were collectively looked after. so it might serve a community to have all the births come in a batch.

so saturnalia is a good way of ensuring lots of babies born 9months later, and have a bunch of nursing mothers to provide milk to all those babies and frees other mums from nursing duties and getting on with other businesses.

it seems to me to be a really good arrangement. and allows every child an equal chance to get advancement in that society.

now in our present time, if u are lucky to get born into a rich family u have a better chance than another born into a poor one. and the difference gets more pronounced with each generation. the inequalities get wider.

winter solstice

london 7.57am 9.3C monday 2015 clear blue sky

Dec. 21, 2015	Rise	Set
Actual Time	8:03 AM GMT	3:53 PM GMT

maybe today is not the shortest day. the website says tomorrow will be 1s shorter. last year the shortest day has sunrise at 8.05am, with sunset the same at 3.53pm. it moves about this shortest day.

 added. oil is $36.13 a barrel today, lowest since 2004. $115 in june 2014.

 

sunrise and sunset

london 9.28am

Dec. 13, 2015	Rise	Set
Actual Time	7:57 AM GMT	3:51 PM GMT

i have noticed a curious thing. the sunset time seem to get stuck at about 3.51pm, as the days shorten. it is the sunrise time that seem to get later and later. that means it gets dark at about the same time every day till we get to the shortest day, but not with sunrise, it is only the mornings that we notice it leaping away later and later.

why it should do that is a mystery to me.

time is such a funny thing. as any man made thing, it does not always follow what the earth and sun are really doing.

to those who like lighter mornings, nature seem to persist in making it stay dark and what is more,getting darker for them. whilst making the sunset stay the same time. though perhaps in compensation once we pass the shortest day, the mornings might start to get brighter faster and faster, whilst the sunset continue to be about the same. well, in a fair world that will happen , but nature does not play fair, so it would be real funny if after the winter solstice, the evenings get to move  more rapidly later, whilst the sunrise hardly moves. 

added. 31.12.15 thursday it is true, the sunrise stays at 8.06am, whilst the sunset is 4pm today.

shortest day of the year

london

Just for the record.this winter solstice is on 5.11pm on Saturday December 21st 2013. (not sure what that means haha. I would have thought it should be 12noon that would be the sun being the lowest.

The winter solstice occurs at a specific time, not just day. This year, at 12:11 p.m. EST on Saturday, Dec. 21, the sun shone directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, the farthest south the sun reaches, leading to less light and colder temperatures in the north.

Read more: 5 Things to Know About the Winter Solstice | TIME.com http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/21/5-things-to-know-about-the-winter-solstice/#ixzz2o9PtHMhs

the sunset at 3.53pm, so what is that 5.11pm mean?).Today, Sunrise 8.03am, Sunset 3.53pm. GMT. daylight is 7hrs 49mins.  temperature now (2pm) is 11.8C in london. lowest temp today is 10.4C at about 2am.  It’s really very mild. 

from today, the day will get longer. I for one, won’t notice it much. in fact, most of us will have noticed something is happening to the daylight hours on  the day after the clocks go back on 24nov.

this one is so slow and gradual, if not for the calendar we would never notice it.

One nice thing about this is that we dont have to wait too long to see the sunset. And that is assuming( and it is a big If) the sky is clear and not raining as it most probably will be.

i think that is why sunset watching is not prevalent in uk. even those living near the sea in the uk dont go to the beach every day and watch the sun set. i remember when i was visiting Salvador, bahia, in brazil, people will sit on the beach near sunset time and just watch the sun set. it is part of their leisure activity or ritual. We know that any sunset watching relies on it not raining. maybe that is why sunsets in uk are not very spectacular. 

looking out of the window now, it is cloudy, and very grey and there is a drizzle. those guys in stonehenge will be disappointed as they wont be able to see the sun shining into stonehenge.

I wonder if people will be shopping today. they might, as shopping involves being indoors so it raining and dull is not a deterrant; and the papers have been shouting that the stores are discounting deeply which they dont normally do before christmas.  and today is pass the online delivery date , so anyone who wants to receive the gift before christmas will have to buy it from the shops.