The winter solstice, the best day of winter, is this weekend. It is the best day of winter because it marks the shortest day and the longest night. Afterwards, the days grow longer steadily as we head back for summer.
The sun is now setting before 5pm, and not rising again till a quarter to eight. Though this has been a benign winter so far, it is still a dark one.
I like daylight. I am a morning person, up most days by 5.40am. It is very, very dark at 5.40am at present.
That said, the almost-full moon that greeted me as I got off the bus home from work tonight was magnificent and brilliant in the cloudless sky.
- addendum: Keri Hulme has posted such a marvellous response to the above that it simply has to be reproduced more prominently here:
O good people! Why not celebrate the good things of winter!
There is no order to this list but
- roasties & chowders & thick succulent pumpkin soups not to mention baked potatoes;
- mutton birds and oysters and fat-rich bluecod and wonderful heartwarming body-enriching stews;
- driftwood fires inside (because they give a blue saltflame flicker) and yep! coal on top;
- quaffing whisky & green ginger wine (only time we can really legitimately drink it!)
- our seaweeds, especially kareko, are coming to their best (August in the south);
- really appreciating our layers of merino jerseys! Light! Warm! Silky!
- nestling down to reading (rather than tv watching) by a fire with a really good pinot noir in hand-
and, not least, a walk on a beach on a frost-crisp evening with someone you love or by yourself, enjoying seas/scent & sound & the wonderful poroporotitiwai/luminescent animacules that come into their own at this time of year (here, anyway!)
annnd
winter bonfires! When fireworks are not only much more splendid but totally legitimate (except for a stupid law!)
Enjoy good people, enjoy!
– Keri Hulme
34 Comments
June 18, 2008 at 6:46 pm
The days are slightly shorter still in North Otago. That’s the price we pay for the earlier dawns and longer twilights we enjoy in summer.
You can check the official times here: http://www.rasnz.org.nz/SRSStimes.htm or here: http://www.hydro.linz.govt.nz/astro/sunrise-set-2008.pdf
June 18, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I need sunlight, too. I’ve seriously considered moving forver to an equatorial country but my other half won’t do it. So we quietly suffer “seasonal affective disorder” together for a quarter of the year and make sure we live in places with LOTS of windows, bright lights and white paint on the walls.
SAD makes me do dumb things like decide to start a blog and read 20 others. Every day. Maybe just until the Sun comes back. We’ll see.
The screen is so bright. Hmmmm.
June 18, 2008 at 8:51 pm
I can’t wait to begin the long slide back into summer. Nothing worse than dragging my sleepy butt to the gym at 5.30 in the morning only to find that it is STILL dark when I am leaving at 7.00.
June 18, 2008 at 9:41 pm
O good people! Why not celebrate the good things of winter!
There is no order to this list but
roasties & chowders & thick succulent pumpkin soups not to mention baked potatoes;
mutton birds and oysters and fat-rich bluecod and wonderful heartwarming body-enriching stews;
driftwood fires inside (because they give a blue saltflame flicker) and yep! coal on top;
quaffing whisky & green ginger wine (only time we can really legitimately drink it!)
our seaweeds, especially kareko, are coming to their best (August in the south);
really appreciating our layers of merino jerseys!
Light! Warm! Silky!
-nestling down to reading (rather than tv watching) by a fire with a really good pinot noir in hand-
and, not least, a walk on a beach on a frost-crisp evening with someone you love or by yourself, enjoying seas/scent & sound & the wonderful poroporotitiwai/luminescent animacules that come into their own at this time of year (here, anyway!)
annnd
winter bonfires! When fireworks are not only much more splendid but totally legitimate (except for a stupid law!)
Enjoy good people, enjoy!
June 18, 2008 at 9:48 pm
And the winter solstice also means six months to my birthday! Hooray!
On the train home today, I gazed at the moon beautifully reflected in the lightly rippling harbour. Another way in which public transport is better than driving a car!
June 18, 2008 at 10:20 pm
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
[and I thought kd lang coined that phrase..]
June 18, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Winter/summer/autumn/spring
only mean anything
one with the other-
June 19, 2008 at 2:39 am
We are the opposite of you, heading for our Summer Solstice at which point we will be heading down the slippery slope to Winter each day getting progressively shorter; therefore you will be starting the long haul up to your Summer your days getting longer.
Make the most of it, I say, for all too soon it is time to put away the things of pleasure and curl up in front of a warm fire.
June 19, 2008 at 7:36 am
the worst thing is the move to the bad weather. now till november is usually *awful*.
but keri is right. it’s a great excuse to rug up at home and chill out.
June 19, 2008 at 8:53 am
Keri’s list is pretty good….except for the whisky/green ginger wine combination.
Sounds like the sort of thing you’d drink for a bet.
June 19, 2008 at 9:05 am
truthseekernz: I know your pain. Growing up in northern Canada, I’m a sufferer of SAD as well. February was the nasty one for me. Moving to NZ made it much less of a problem (and you want to move away…). I deal with the short days by waking up crazily early, being really active (stef and I have very similar schedules) and enjoying the sunrise on my bus-ride around the harbour to get to work. (And a hat-tip to Robyn: I was doing the same thing last night. A very lovely near-full moon to cheer on my bus.)
There is one thing that I need to add to this thread: it is the long and the cold of winter that brings appreciation for the summer. Coming from a country that expects snowfall between October and May, the summer months are a blessing not to be taken lightly. (Okay, Keri said basically the same thing. There goes my chance for originality…)
June 19, 2008 at 9:29 am
Watching the sun rise through the clouds over the eastern hills as the oars slap on the water and the sounds of the city awakening drift out over the glass like sea. And knowing you are only two minutes from the city centre when you get back. I hate mornings, but I like being part of them when they are like that.
June 19, 2008 at 9:40 am
And the really good news Keri… is it is only 7 weeks to the East Coast whitebait season
Time to replace the netting on the worn net
And eat the ‘bait in the freezer
June 19, 2008 at 10:47 am
I know you don’t like me poneckie but I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that I have now dedicated my life to annoying Kenn Orr.
June 19, 2008 at 10:53 am
Rob: the Whisky Mac is an honourable winter drink and good for what ails you. I wouldn’t put single malt in it, mind…
June 19, 2008 at 11:53 am
Horrors! The very idea of so contaminating one of my Islay single malts….but a dram or so of Scotch
with a slug of the Stoney…ahhh!
rayinnz – yes o lucky one, you fellas get a fortnight’s jump on the Coast either end of the season (and we finished all the ‘bait in the freezers in March – last year was one of the worst in South Westland for over a decade but – this year!)
June 19, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I love every season, they all have their joys, from warm late evening walks in summer to the smell of honeysuckle and jasmine and the murmur of al fresco life to winter with its open fire, hearty food and crisp nights that thrill the body.
Personally I celebrate the changing of the seasons with the equinox. In particular I think its stupid to start summer on December the 1st because the calendar says that when summer begins. I take my summer holidays in February and I have my biannual overseas trip from mid-August to early September. So I avoid all the hand wringing about how awful the summer holidays are/how little snow there is/how cold spring is we have in NZ every year without fail, because we are fully almost a third out of kilter with the seasons. Sunday is the first day of winter and we are celebrating with a huge roast pork with crackling and all the imaginable trimmings and I have a particular fancy to have a nice rice pudding to follow. When spring is sprung a lamb will meet its fate, and Xmas we can indulge in traditional roast food without guilt, for it is only early early summer.
June 19, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Keri puts it so well.
I like winter. I was in Newfoundland last year. It’s the first time I’ve been in a place where it snows. The snow was three feet deep in the back yard. The footpaths had large thigh-high piles where the snowploughs had heaped them. I didn’t have a car so I walked. Jacket. Hat. Gloves. The cold – it was getting down to about minus 15 – would sting then numb your face. It was glorious. You knew you were alive. Mind you, the houses, even the poorest wooden buildings, were warm. That’s the only caveat that I have on enjoying winter in New Zealand. The houses here are cold.
June 19, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I too love Islay malts but I’m starting to wonder if there’s truth to the claims that Laphraoig is being softened and is halfway to being neutered. Maybe the distillery is throwing less seaweed into the barrels. One Wellington bottlestore now has Laphraoig for just under $50 a bottle, which makes it affordable but arouses suspicions that the marketing division of whichever multinational owns it has decided that dumbing it down will help sales to wherever Scotch is becoming fashionable this month (California? China?).
On a really cold winter evening, you can’t beat neat vodka straight from the freezer, poured into a chilled glass. Those Russian peasants who used to spend winters lying on a giant stove in an alcoholic haze knew a thing or two.
June 19, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Best not to blog while under the influence of the single malt. From the evidence of those who habitually attempt to do so, that stuff is bottled pomposity.
June 19, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Laphroaig is available in the south for $49.99 too…I admit to having bought a bottle or so. It’s only the 10yrold, and doesnt taste significantly different to me. The Lagavulin, alas, remains at stratospheric price heights.
Whisky (and a bit of the Irish stuff) is really the only spirit I enjoy, mainly because of taste and aroma, but also because of that wonderfully seaweedy haze! – I know there are flavoured vodkas but the only ones I have tried were plain & seemed mainly to be about bludgeoning the drinker comatose. But each to their own-
June 19, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Keri – if you’ve only tried bland vodkas like the Absoluts and Smirnoffs, you’d be justified in being indifferent. But pretty much the best easily-available-in-NZ vodka is actually made in NZ: the wonderful 42 South range. Sit out on a porch with the evening frost settling and try the unflavoured version (after leaving it in the freezer for an hour), or the manuka honey version if you want something less dry. Disclaimer: I have no association with the makers of 42 South. I wish I did – I’d be able to get it much more cheaply.
June 19, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I’ll give 42 South plain a go Ian – thanks!
June 19, 2008 at 5:35 pm
“Horrors! The very idea of so contaminating one of my Islay single malts….but a dram or so of Scotch
with a slug of the Stoney…ahhh!”
Whew.
Because I had visions of that cheap ginger stuff going into a Lagavulin and my first thought was ‘Barbarism!’
In fact that was how my comment initially started before I remembered this is a gentle blog.
5leggeddog: Single malts don’t make me pompous, they tend to make me silly and exuberant and sing Very Bad Songs (‘You know I’ll beg, steal or borrow, de do do do…’) and, in really bad cases, hug people and tell them how great they are.
Which is a lot of things, but not pompous.
June 19, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I’ve never understood why people contaminate their single malts with one of the most poisonous chemicals know to man – water.
June 19, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Insider:
There is a respectable theory that a splash – and only a splash – of water brings out the flavour more.
June 19, 2008 at 5:59 pm
A little water Insider, a leeetle water in a single malt seems to give it more nose – try the aroma undiluted at first, and then add a wee bit of unchilled good water (not chlorinated for heavens’sake) and try again…I’m lucky: I live in an area that has its own water supply, essentially rain water fresh off the Tasman (o, with probably the odd smidgeon of E. coli because we dont add anything at all to the 30000ltr community tank…)
June 19, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I bow to your greater experiences…
June 19, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Because I had visions of that cheap ginger stuff going into a Lagavulin and my first thought was ‘Barbarism!’ In fact that was how my comment initially started before I remembered this is a gentle blog.
Barbarism is a polite way to describe such sacrilege, even on a gentle blog.
June 19, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I went to one of the wonderful whisky tastings that are held at Regional Wines under the tutelage of Daniel McLaren Moon.
The guest speaker this particular tasting was the chief whisky maker (?) (distiller ?) from the Glenmorangie Distillery (“Glenmorangie – rhymes with orangie….” he said). Anyhoo….
He was asked about adding water to a wee dram.
We did a tasting – one with water and one without.
The one with the water was smoother and had a lower alcohol “sensation”. It definitely sold me on adding a splash….
As an aside – he also had a name for the process of adding water to whisky – he called it “releasing the serpent….” (although he pronounced it wonderfully – “rrrreleasing thur serrrrpent….” he said….)
June 20, 2008 at 6:17 am
” Single malts don’t make me pompous, they tend to make me silly and exuberant and sing Very Bad Songs . . .”
Single-malt singing, yes.
But a shameful waste of the water of life to be moved to blog under its fickle spell.
June 20, 2008 at 10:43 am
Mobsta,
Must go to one of those. I only live up the hill from the place and one of the guys who runs the place is a neighbour.
If they do an Islay malts tasting I’ll be in, no wuckers.
June 20, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Over at Poneke, they’ve been talking about the joys of winter. Aside from the just insane coolness of the author of one of my favourite books commenting over there, it is nice to see people actually enjoying the season.
Granted, here in Welly, we’ve been doing pretty well this winter – it’s felt a lot like christchuch with cold, crisp, sunny mornings, and not a lot of wind, but even so, winter has its joys too.
Sure, there’s no sitting out in the sun with a gorgeous pinot gris and some mates, but there is sitting inside in front of a fire with a spactacular red, and a book. There’s casseroles and bread and butter pudding, and oh yes, roast dinners.
Have I told you I cook maybe the best roast chicken you’ll ever taste? No. Oh, well, I do. And no, you can’t have any. It’s a variation on this recipe, and when I was once asked what I do to make a roast meal so good, I replied “a judicious application of fat”. Anyway, winter is an excuse for me to cook more roasts. Seriously – that chicken? When you first put it in the oven, and open the door a few minutes later, it smells like onions, garlic and bacon frying in butter. Which could be the best smell ever.
There’s also vegetable soup, and pumpkin soup and crumpets. And good grany smiths, to eat, and to make crumble and all kinds of wintery food you don’t want in summer. I don’t personally like them, but I’m told mashed potatoes are good at this time of year (I know, it’s wierd, don’t start).
And is there anything nicer, than lying in bed, warm and cosy, wrapped in a duvet, and listening to the rain?
Except maybe embracing your inner child and running through fallen leaves and jumping in puddles.
Or walking along a freezing and windswept beach, and then warming up with mulled wine, or just really hot tea.
There’s rugby (it’s still technically a winter sport, right?) and netball and basketball, and cricket from England in the middle of the night – where it looks like winter anyway.
Tights, and long skirts, and knee high boots and scarves and hats and knee high socks. An excuse to wear knitwear. I can get out the glovelies.
My skin might be dry, and my hair might be frizzy, but who cares? I can go home, pour myself a baileys, and sink into a hot bath for hours, and then into my be-flannelled bed.
It’s the one time of year it’s ok to be my natural colour – deathly pale. And when wearing red lipstick looks great, rather than just slutty.
So yeah, I love winter. So far I am enjoying it, this year. What do you like about winter?
June 21, 2008 at 12:40 pm
The driftwood fire with glowing hot coals on top is the perfect fire. Ahhh. I love the West Coast.