Put out the light

It’s 27th October. As Bruce Springsteen used to sing, it’s Saturday night, you’re all alone and feeling blue. Well hopefully you’re not, but I am.

The clocks go back tonight. It’s now officially  UT, GMT, Universal Time, Greenwich Mean Time. Not British Summer Time, as it’s been since 31st March. It’s officially Not Summer any more.

Summer, flowing past.
Summer, flowing past.

I don’t like this part of the year, the days getting shorter. Everything seems worse in the dark. I keep telling myself all I have to do is get through to the 21st December, not even two months and then the evenings will get lighter again, really quickly and long, long before the 31st March and official Summer time again everything will be ok. Well, the evenings will be lighter anyway. It helps.

I even don’t like July and August, for the same reason. It’s past the peak, past the longest day and however deliriously summery and drowsy and hot and torpid the evenings, you know that slowly but surely the year like the wasp-eaten fruit is past its best and it’s all downhill to Beltane.

I know. It’s being so cheerful what keeps me going. I got one of those SAD lamps, for Seasonally Acquired Disasters or whatever they’re called, and that helps a bit. Nothing helps so much as getting outside, which means getting up early and getting out for a walk before things start for the day. I haven’t got a dog. I can understand getting one, even if only to make you get up and out and smell the clouds before the day really starts. It’s been a long journey, this summer.

 

Put out the light, and then put out the light: 

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, 
I can again thy former light restore, 
Should I repent me:–but once put out thy light, 
Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature, 
I know not where is that Promethean heat 
That can thy light relume.

But it will be relumed, if that’s actually a thing. The days will get longer again. Just eight weeks of this to get through. I can do it. We all can.

And the clocks will go back again. Next year it’s 20th March. There’s even a special government website about it, to tell you, so you don’t have to listen to The Archers, the normal way of learning what’s going on. All I need to do is get through this next bit. Like all of life. It’ll be ok.

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