I managed to capture this image of the new moon last night about 10.30 pm British Summer Time. I don’t know how I managed to hold the camera still enough to get a reasonably sharp image. I haven’t adjusted it in any way.
New moon
Tag: British summer time
A bank holiday in October
Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.
The UK has bank holidays in winter, spring and summer, but nothing in Autumn. We have Rememberence day and Guy Fawkes night in November. But some people don’t get many days off in the year, so why not?
The government would no doubt object to this day off, because it would reduce productivity. But if they had their way we would be on fifty or sixty hour weeks. Elon Musk said this week that all jobs would be taken over by AI or robots, so why not start working towards it now? We could have Autumn cards, buy jigsaw puzzles of gorgeous trees, or squirrels and their nut collections. Hazelnut or Cob nut cakes? Conker fights, displays of autumn flowering crocuses. I would also keep British Summer time so that the evenings stayed lighter and it would cost less in power usage!
Today is….
So, we have equal amounts of day and night today according to this.
Days will get shorter than nights until the Winter Solstice around the 21st of December 2023, then lengthen again. In the Southern Hemisphere the days will get longer until their Summer Solstice.
I don’t like the lack of sunlight and the change from British Summer time to Greenwich Mean time also gets to me. We lose an hour of evening daylight in October, although we get lighter mornings. But studies in the 1960’s or 1970’s showed that overall there were less accidents when they kept British Summertime for three years. Sadly the change was abandoned.
Maybe we could revisit the idea? Saving an hours electricity in the winter evenings might even help the environment?
Spring forward
The clocks in the UK go forward tonight so we lose an hour in bed. The good things is that there are less accidents in the summer. When I was a child in the 70’s I think? They bought in three years where the clocks didn’t go back in autumn. It was darker in the morning but children who were tired in the evening were going home from school in brighter light. They had less accidents according to Rospa (royal society for the prevention of accidents).
The idea of extending British Summer time was not taken up because the sun didn’t come up in Scotland until after 10am I think. It was suggested again in the nineties but was not accepted by parliament. It also saves energy because people use less lighting and heating. Maybe the idea should be revisited.
Still light
5pm sky. Less than a month after the shortest day, and this afternoon I noticed there was still light in the sky after 5pm.
Why does it matter? When I was working and doing a 9 to 5 job I hated starting and finishing the day in the dark, particularly in the evening.
There was an experiment in the 1960’s when the UK kept British Summer time throughout the year. It only lasted for about three years, but it was much better to walk home from school in daylight. The Royal Society for the prevention of accidents? (I think), worked out it was safer for children because in the evening people were tired and there were less accidents when children were more visible when walking home.
For me, when it starts to get lighter in the evening I feel less gloomy, my spirits lift. I’m pretty sure I don’t suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. (SAD). I can’t imagine how bad it must be for people that do.
Now I’m looking forward to Spring despite the rest of the winter to come.
Nights drawing in
The sun is setting earlier now. It was dark at 9pm today, and the sunrise is later too. In September we will reach the point when day and night are of equal length. Then in October we will revert back to Greenwich mean time and lose an hour of daylight in the evening. Although we gain an hour on the morning I think it’s sad to get darknrss earlier just when you want to cling to brightness.
Why talk about this? I need to get a daylight bulb. I find if I paint in normal electric light the colours I use look different from in the daytime. They are often distorted, I find I can’t see yellow properly compared with white. I also think LED lights are a lot dimmer than the old 100 watt bulbs and you can’t get a bright enough equivalent. I want to be able to see colours properly so I can paint better.
Cloud scape
This swirl of cloud was visible from our back door tonight at 9pm British Summer time. We have had strong winds and hefty showers all day. Some plants have been a bit battered, especially the trees that are now in full leaf. The white line across the bottom is a condensation trail from a plane. I don’t know what the type of cloud is, I think it might be a type of Cumulus? I love the way the setting sun was catching the side of the cloud and a few seconds before proper sun rays were shining upwards from behind the roof of our neighbours house.
Clocks go forward
Tonight the clocks go forward. It means that sunrise is an hour later and sunset also an hour later than in the winter. This is BST or British Summer Time. We revert back to GMT or Greenwich Mean Time in autumn. The idea was adopted in the second World War to give farmers extra time to get crops in? The zero meridian runs through Greenwich, England, and is where the world’s time is set. As you go round the globe there are time zones set covering sections of the globe going forward or back in hourly segments.
At one stage in the UK they kept British Summer time in the winter. This was for two or three years in the 60’s or 70’s. It was darker in the mornings but lighter in the evenings. They found less traffic accidents involving children because although they were tired at the end of the school day they were able to see cars better. There were less deaths. But the government decided against keeping it because people in the far north weren’t having sunrise until 10 or 11am if I remember correctly.
There have been more recent suggestions of creating double summer time, where the clocks would permanently go forward an hour all year round, but then in the summer the clocks would go forward another hour. The idea is that this would save energy. However it has not been approved by Parliament.
Cloudy
Sun sets about 6pm now and dark clouds bordered by edges of creamy white. Soon the clocks will be going back and we will lose an hour of light in the afternoons. It’s then I start getting very sad, I don’t suffer from depression, but I just wish we could hold on to that extra hour. I’m not bothered about gaining an extra hour of light in the morning. There was an experiment in the 1970’s in Britain where we kept British Summer time in the winter. They found that there were less accidents involving children because if they were tired this was combated by them being able to see traffic with the lighter evenings. I’m sure there are statistics somewhere on the net that confirms this. For whatever reason the experiment was ended after three years and we reverted to Greenwich mean time in the winter and British Summer time in the summer.
Why go on about this? I think the British Summer time experiment saved energy while it was going on. Somehow less energy was used. Maybe they should think about it again?
Clocks going back
Oh no! Clocks go back tomorrow night. What does that mean? Lighter mornings, but it goes dark an hour earlier.
They did an experiment in the 1960’s I think. They kept British summer time for about three years. It stayed lighter in the evenings. The other effect was that there were less accidental deaths of children because they were not going back from school in the dark when they were tired. But it didn’t catch on because sunrise in the North and Scotland was at about 10am. The idea has been suggested a few times since then but was voted down in Parliament. Maybe one day they will change it permanently. I wish they would. It also saved money and reduced power usage. So maybe its worth it.
Mallaband-Brown 