Darkness Has Fallen

For the past two years, I lived in Uganda just near the equator.  That means there was virtually no change of seasons (except for rainy or dry) and no change in daylight hours.  Every day was always 12 hours of sunlight (sunrise at 7:00am and sunset at 7:00pm).  The seasons were in limbo and time stood still for two years - May and November felt exactly the same.

Now I'm living in Leeds, United Kingdom which is located at +52 degrees latitude.  It's farther north than Calgary, Canada.  Being that it was just daylight savings a few weeks ago (it's different dates than the US), I'm now thrust into darkness for the majority of my day.  And it's going to get worse until we reach December 21st.  I am told that on the shortest days of the year the sun will rise at 8:30am and set at 3:30pm.  Yikes.

And come June, I will experience the other extreme - sunrise at 4:30am and sunset at 9:30pm.  Yikes again.

I will cope with the time changes (and take some vitamin D supplements this month) because I realized that I'm much happier having four seasons in the year.  Fall has always been my favorite time of year and it just doesn't feel like Christmas without winter.  :)

(Only 6 more weeks until I'm back in Chicago for the holidays!!!)