Midsummer celebrations?

[mrsflibble]

i was at my mum in law's house, i couldnt stay up all night because of the squidge, but i did wake up to watch the sun rise. going to have a fire as it gets dark tonight to mark the end of the solstace.

[sleepyowl]

I'm not entirely sure the Sun had fully risen by the time I went back to bed as it was as cloudy as hell round by me, but we feasted on homemade Indian food & picked the first strawberries. I'm going to Stonehenge with my Pagan group to do a healing ritual for the stones & do a litter pick to tidy up after the hippies, we do it every year, as well as assess the damage they have done to the stones as there is atleast one person who has carved something into them

[Millymollymandy]

I tried to stay awake last night to see at what time it got properly dark but fell asleep at 10.40pm when it was still half light.

Green Aura I am surprised you have practically no night at all in summer in northern Scotland, I thought you had to go way north in Scandinavia for that!

[the.fee.fairy]

Sleepyowl - sosrry to shatter your illusions, but there's not just hippies who go.

Its also full of local groups of teenagers who go to 'get drunk and take drugs' (as quoted by said local teenager), and tourists who complain if you happen to move anywhere that means you have to get past them.

The stewards were quite good this year and i did see them going into the centre of the stones to remove people who were climbing the taller ones.

Personally, i'd like to see them remove all people standing on stones and all people who sit against them all night not leaving room for anyone else.

It was a good night, and extremely calming.

[Green Aura]

Yup, no lights on here to go to the loo in the middle of the night

Still it'll start to shorten quite quickly now. By November we'll need the SAD lamp on over breakfast - to help me stay vaguely sane.

We're only a few degrees south of my brother, who lives in Turku, Finland. They get the full works!

Edited to add - We're 58 degrees North.

[Millymollymandy]

Still it'll start to shorten quite quickly now. By November we'll need the SAD lamp on over breakfast - to help me stay vaguely sane.

That's the downside though - how many hours of daylight do you get in mid winter? I couldn't live like that in the dark.

[Green Aura]

It's not so much the length of light - approx 8-4pm ish. But the quality of light most days is poor. You don't really realise until you get a really clear, sunny day, then you feel bursting with energy and realise you've been a bit below par. The SAD lamp sorts it out a treat.


This is on a sunny day and the snow reflects it.

[Millymollymandy]

8am-4pm is about the same as London in mid winter which doesn't make a lot of sense - I thought if you had hardly any night in summer you'd have hardly any day in winter. The photo is lovely - is that your view?

[Green Aura]

Mine all mine all mine - don't tell the neighbours

Like I said it's not so much the length of daylight, it might be slightly less but only by half an hour or so. But the quality is poor - days like in the photo are fairly rare and of course the snow amplifies it, but as we only seem to have snow for about a fortnight, in February, it's not much use.

The weird thing is that during you winter you forget how light it is during the summer and vice versa - even my friends who've lived here many years longer than us comment on it.

[Millymollymandy]

Talking about poor light - last night it clouded over and thunderstorms were threatening. What I noticed the most was about 6.30pm it suddenly went REALLY dark to the point of having to put lights on inside the house which is ridiculous in mid summer! Very wierd and almost like having a partial eclipse of the sun.

[compostwoman]

It was so dark here at noon that I had to turn on a light to see to make lunch ! We had the most enormous thunder and rainstorm!

For the solstice weekend I had a party of 30 children from a local school doing Forest School stuff with me in my wood on Fri and Mon, Fri evening DD and I made some mud sprits to put on the trees in the clearing in the wood, and then I quietly got up at 4 am Sat and Sun and went down to the clearing and leaned against the 300 yr old Oak tree and watched the sun rise....

while listening to Nightingales singing, and then every thing else joining in..

I LOVE where I live....its magic! ( in every possible sense of the word....)

[sleepyowl]

Sleepyowl - sosrry to shatter your illusions, but there's not just hippies who go.

Its also full of local groups of teenagers who go to 'get drunk and take drugs' (as quoted by said local teenager), and tourists who complain if you happen to move anywhere that means you have to get past them.

There also was no new carvings in the stones this year which is a good thing, but there was a load of rubbish there, I know it is not just hippies who are there on that day I have been doing this for 5 years now