The Great English Summer starts now.

yeah but the sunrises continue to get ever later

Who cares.  Sunrises are something to look forward to, sundowns aint.  Summer has started.

Days shorten till 21st Dec....shirely shome mishtake !

Yes but because of the way the earth is tilted (or something like that) the earliest sunset is some time before the solstice, and the latest sunrise is sometime after it.

Wonderful news. I thought we had over a week to wait.

Yes, I thought so too. It really is great news.

Feb 5th - is THE day.

First day of the year when the Sunset is 5 pm.... and NOT still  IN the afternoon - as earlier.

'Off and running', then.

surely that 5pm depends on where you are in the country.  Steve Wright always tells you the "exact" time that Sunset will be on any given day.  I bet the Scots are all there going "yeah right!!"

When the Scots get their Independence  -

Then they can have their OWN bloody Time Zone .....

- and we can then leave our Clocks alone.... ALL year round.

never realised the earliest sunset is about now - always assumed it was on the shortest day

well there you go 

anyway, i like winter 

by my reckoning we must also be officially in the gloomiest week of the year - in other words lack of sunshine ,although it's been  sunny every day this week

Lack of daylight and lack of sunshine are often very much different things!!

Since Rob mentioned that the nights start getting shorter from the 12th, I've purposely taken note of how long the daylight has lasted in the evenings - and he's been right, it has increased.

Still proper daylight in Stoke and it's almost 4pm

Now we're over the shortest day altogether (yesterday) we're laughing.

Bring on the summer!

terrible fred... nothing wrong with winter imo 

yeah ,winter is possibly my happiest time


summer is good for drinking out ,swimming,laying out in the sun ,canoeing etc 

but winter for gambling ,spanish football,catch up on telly - couldn't handle summer all year round


would be a serious head do-er imo

women need summer though - they get seriously depressed in winter 

Like winter today in East Anglia after all that sunny weather last week

11c and as grey as grandmas underwear 

Coat on time


and......

24c and sunny at the same time today  in friggin Glasgow .

wtf ???

Same here in York Coach, did a bit of gardening earlier and I was wearing more clothes than I wore at Wetherby races on Boxing Day!!

yeah ,saw the 9c in Yorkshire Dan - thats one hell of a difference  from 24c  some 200 miles or so  north

Spent a whole summer in lovely England land once, it was a great 2 days.

Freezing