Ben Lowry: Happiness at new year as winter by one measure begins to retreat

Not, I would say, because of the celebrations, which are brief, but because in one key respect we have passed the worst of winter.

The coldest weather is still ahead but in a sense winter is already going, being past the darkest part of the calendar. The solstice was only eight days ago, but the evenings have been getting slightly later since December 11 (a date I know, because it was my late father’s birthday). It is so gradual that you are unlikely yet to notice, with eight extra minutes in the evening compared to then.

The mornings, however, are still getting darker. Today and tomorrow, new year’s day, are in fact the latest sunrises, at 8.46am in Belfast. On Tuesday, the dawns will slowly retreat.

With sunrises getting earlier and sunsets later, the days will get longer and longer until June. How could anyone find January depressing, with the return of light and flower?

The gardener Monty Don has said that he finds November the most depressing month, with the encroaching darkness. How true. He has the good fortune to work outdoors, and be close to nature, which is as likely to lift one’s spirits as anything I can imagine.

The seasons are more stark at a latitude as northerly as Belfast, 54 degrees, higher than almost all the North American population.

Happy new year!