Tonight too soon

So, last night was 'that' night.

You know, 'the' night when you get home in the dark for the first time.

Now, granted last night was because I went swimming, but that means when I get back tonight I will have just one hour of light to erect some trellis.

And the kids are back at school too. That means the next time they are off will be Halloween half-term, and then it's Christmas.

How disappointing is that? Probably made all the worse by still waiting for the summer that never came. September really is the last gasp of summer.

But it really is the nights drawing in which is particularly devastating.

Last night the sun set around 19:45 and by the time I got home just after 8pm it was too dark to do anything outside. By the end of September the sun will be setting an hour earlier meaning I will be getting home in the dark. Whilst not quite at the maximum rate of change yet, the setting is currently occurring 2:20 minutes earlier each night. The greatest rate of change is towards the end of September, where you are losing around 2:50 minutes per day of evening, and a similar amount in the mornings too.

And an even more scary thought - as well as that it gets worse still and there will be occasions when I even leave the office in the dark - is that we won't be seeing sunsets at this time again until April once the clocks spring forward again.

It's already somewhat hazy in a morning - I already have to have my bathroom light on to shave.

This obviously puts pressure on my weekends. It means that the top priority has to be getting the garden ready for the first frosts coming on; pruning back trees and hedges and abandoning all the various tasks and bits of weeding that I never quite got round to.

It doesn't, however, leave me with a life of luxury of a weekday evening as now my attentions are diverted to DIY tasks and such like.

But that will all be done in the dark very soon.