Making Good Use: Geek

I don't suppose I really am a geek (certainly not technically at least), but there is one thing that I am somewhat obsessed and geekish about, and that is the hours of daylight. I certainly suffer to some extent from Seasonal Affective Disorder and find the winter months VERY difficult. Hence why I rather geekishly check the sunrise and sunset times on the BBC Weather Site several times a week. And this year, for the first time ever, I remembered to make a note of the sunrise and sunset times at the winter solstice so that I could check every week just how much extra daylight we've now got (and can compare the times with the sunrise and sunset at the summer solstice if I, hopefully, remember to make a note of those too.) If anyone (apart from me) is the least bit interested, I can confidently tell you that at eight weeks past the solstice this Sunday we will have gained 47 minutes extra daylight in the morning and 1 hour and 20 minutes extra in the evening.

Sadly, my geekishness doesn't stop with details of sunrise and sunset just for where I live, oh no. I also have comparison times written down for Bristol (the same gain in daylight as where I live but 13 minutes later with both the sunrise and sunset), and Lerwick in the Shetland Islands (a gain of an hour and 22 minutes in the morning and just short of two hours in the evening - impressive). I've also noted that this coming Saturday, Qaanaaq in Northern Greenland will finally glimpse daylight again after living in perpetual darkness since mid-October. (Again, for any fellow sunrise / sunset geeks out there - or am I the only one? - Qaanaaq will be in 24 hour daylight from mid-April. Wow, that must really mess your body clock about!!)

So, for anyone else who finds the long, dark days of a British winter very trying I can thoroughly recommend making a note of the hours of daylight and checking them regularly - there is something undeniably geekish about it, but I also find it a huge comfort to see the daylight increasing on a regular weekly basis.