No, this blogpost isn’t about the Rosamunde Pilcher book of that name which I still haven’t bought. It is the Winter Solstice today, that is the shortest day of the year, and really I always think that we should be celebrating the event instead of waiting another few days and celebrating Christmas. But if you have kids you have to stick with the Santa Claus stuff. We did tell our kids that Santa was dead now and people just pretended. Honestly it didn’t do them any harm and they enjoyed their Christmas just as much, but I did get nasty looks from other mums at the nursery. Silly them!

In good old Pagan Celtic times this was our winter festival, something to look forward to. Anyway the 21st of December always cheers me up because I hate the dark days of winter, when it begins to get dark at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and it’s dark by 4 o’clock.

After the solstice the daylight begins to get a teeny wee bit longer day by day and even although the worst of the winter weather is probably still ahead of us, (but surely not this year) I’m always able to look forward to the lighter, longer days.

This year the solstice is extra special because there is also a lunar eclipse which you can read about here.

Happy Winter Solstice!