Winter is coming
In this month’s very short update: –
- The day the sun stood still.
- Lintels & drains. What fun!
The day the sun stood still
Winter solstice
For a moment, the sun stood still in the sky. It had reached its southernmost point in its journey towards the southern horizon, at midday, its lowest point in the sky above the horizon. The shortest day and longest night.
Then, imperceptibly at first, the sun’s path in the sky reversed and it began the six month long journey back to the North. This path reversal, this signal of change, began at 1503 on December the 21st 2025. It was for us in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice, from the Latin sol sistere, literally sun, standing.
It marks the commencement of winter, but it’s a moment that brings some cheer as the days will start to lengthen again, with increasing rapidity. At the winter solstice, our days in Orkney were 6 hours and 13 minutes long. Even now as I write on Hogmany, 10 days later, this has already lengthened to 6 hours and 21 minutes.
Solstice to solstice is called the tropical year and this is the length we use for our civil or Gregorian calendar. This slow traversal in the sky from North to South comes about because of the declination of the earth, the tilt of the planet’s celestial equator with respect to the sun, a projection of the earth’s equator into space.
Give or take, this is about 23.4 degrees from the horizontal and the reason we have seasons.
Winter solstice example
Image by Przemyslaw "Blueshade" Idzkiewicz released under the CC BY-SA licence.
Perihelion and Aphelion
Graphic by Chris55 : released under the CC BY-SA licence.
Perihelion & Aphelion
Two weeks after the winter solstice, comes perihelion, perhaps counter-intuitively for those of us experiencing the cold of winter, the point where the earth is closest to the sun.
Its summer partner is aphelion, the point in the orbit where the Earth is furthest from the sun.
From perihelion to perihelion, this is the anomalistic year and is roughly 25 minutes longer than the tropical year.
After perihelion and aphelion, the next key point of interest in our spiral journey around the sun and through space time, is the first of the year’s equinoxes.
Incidentally, the time to orbit the sun as measured against the backdrop of stars is the sidereal year, longer than the tropical year by about 20 minutes.
It’s a complex business, this year stuff.
It has been breezy
The weather has not disappointed.
I love this transition into Winter when the winds get up and the journey into town can get a little interesting.
This is the view looking North along Churchill barrier two when it’s blowing a bit from the East.
There are clear signs saying that folk should use extreme care and cross at their own risk.
In Scotland, we feel closely tied to the hours of daylight.
Daylight is a precious commodity which impacts the amount of work we can easily do outside.
If the lack of daylight doesn’t curtail your progress, then the wind will.
Moving sheet material around by hand when it’s blowing a hoolie here, is not recommended.
Lintels & drains
The brewery build is currently at a stage where the trenches for the brewery sink’s drain pipework are being cut out. The first of the lintels for the brewery store has been installed. This is the store side door lintel. A longer one will be put in for the brewery store window.
The amount of available daylight, combined with the wind and rain, has impacted progress on both of these tasks.
The next few weeks will be tough, but once these major tasks are complete I think I’ll feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel, if not in the sky.
What’s next?
On the brewery build, the same as last month I’m afraid, finish the drain work and continue with the store build.
However, up in Shetland on the 27th of January, they’ll be celebrating the spectacular festival of Up Helly Aa, a blend of traditional and more modern celebrations to mark the end of Yule. These days there’s not so much of the tar barrelling, but there will be fire, Viking longships, a fire torch procession, guising and with any luck, some decent beer flowing.
