Ben Lowry: It is grey and damp now but at least the days keep getting longer

It has been the worst sort of wintry week. The weather has been grey and damp and bleak.
By Ben Lowry
Published 6th Feb 2021, 11:43 BST
Updated 6th Feb 2021, 12:14 BST
A woman performs yoga stretches on Primrose Hill, London as the sun rises over the city skyline last week. There wasn't much sun in Northern Ireland but the days are getting ever longer and brighterA woman performs yoga stretches on Primrose Hill, London as the sun rises over the city skyline last week. There wasn't much sun in Northern Ireland but the days are getting ever longer and brighter
A woman performs yoga stretches on Primrose Hill, London as the sun rises over the city skyline last week. There wasn't much sun in Northern Ireland but the days are getting ever longer and brighter

Around where I live there has not been any of the atmospheric, crisp, sunny, snowy conditions that we saw in late January.

But I feel seasonably content even so. The days get ever longer.

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February vies with March to be the month that seems to bring the most noticeable change in daylight of any month of the year.

Gardener Andrea Topalovic Arthan amid the first snowdrops of the season at Audley End House and Gardens in Saffron Waldon, Essex on Thursday. Photo: Joe Giddens/PA WireGardener Andrea Topalovic Arthan amid the first snowdrops of the season at Audley End House and Gardens in Saffron Waldon, Essex on Thursday. Photo: Joe Giddens/PA Wire
Gardener Andrea Topalovic Arthan amid the first snowdrops of the season at Audley End House and Gardens in Saffron Waldon, Essex on Thursday. Photo: Joe Giddens/PA Wire

At the start of the month the sun in Belfast sets at 5.02pm, which is already more than an hour of extra evening daylight on the shortest days of late December. And by today, six days later, there is a further 11 minutes on top of that.

Yet it is still a dark time of year. By the end of this month, however, the sun will not set until 6pm, and it is not properly dark until 6.30pm.

Here is another optimistic way of looking at it: it will be almost November before the sun sets as early as it does today, That means we have nine long months ahead that are brighter than it is now.

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Last weekend I also was pleased to see my first daffodils (albeit in a shop!)I have a common form of red-green-brown colour blindness. It is one reason I enjoy the primary colours that I can see, above all yellow.

Perhaps it is a reminder of the sun. Talking of which, I work from a room that looks out at roofs and trees behind which, only weeks ago, the sun barely emerged.

Now it clears them. And when you are outside and the sun does shine, it now has a strength, even on a cold day, that it always lacks in December.

• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter deputy editor

• Ben Lowry: There’s tiny unionist support for violence, despite justified anger at the Irish Sea border

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Related topics:Ben LowryBelfastNorthern IrelandIrish Sea