Ben Lowry: The joy and January in Northern Ireland and the gradual return of light and life
Many years ago, my eldest brother – also a journalist – gave me an important nugget of writing advice.
One of the worst ways to introduce an article, a features journalist had told him, was: ‘It’s that time of the year again.’
It was such an overworked, and obvious, cliche that any unsolicited article was likely to binned if it began with that sentence.
Avoiding cliches is one of the perils of my line of work. So I won’t use those very words, but will instead say that I do tend to write a lot about the light at this time of the year.
I am wary not just of being cliched, but of seeming to be smugly contrary when I refer to the joy of January, when many people think it so depressing.
I can only say that this week reminded me why I really do enjoy this point in the calendar, and the gradual return of light and life (to which I referred last week, click here: ‘On my visit to the SW US I saw how it now faces worryingly extreme weather’).
I was not working on Thursday and could savour that stunning, sunny day. Wednesday was almost as good. Yesterday (Friday) was fine in Belfast and much of NI.
This morning Saturday is again very pleasant, with plenty of colours in the skies, including blue. The picture on this page was taken in the heart of Belfast at 9am, less than half an hour after sunrise. And the video was taken earlier in the month, in wintry sunshine.
We can get sunny days at any point of year. But now they are happening when we get almost an hour extra daylight each day. We have 13 minutes more in the morning (8.33am sunrise compared to a latest of 8.46am), and 37 extra in the evening (4.34pm compared to the earliest December sunset of 3.57pm).
It is truly wonderful.
• Ben Lowry (@Benlowry2) is News Letter editor