dark evenings

The days are getting too short.  It seems worse since the clocks changed, but that's not the root cause of the problem, since I could perfectly well set my alarm to get up an hour earlier than I do to make the most of the daylight.  I always thought that the argument that if the clocks didn't change in the winter then farmers would have to start work in the dark was pretty weak, since there aren't many farmers, and they are largely autonomous, if no longer self-employed, so it's entirely up to them how they schedule their working day.  The cows can't tell the time, just go and milk them when it's convenient.  It's not as if farmers had to interface with the public, day in, day out.

I have to admit, though, that it's hard to shift your whole day out of kilter with what it says on the clock.  Lunchtime radio programmes wouldn't come at lunchtime, and evenings out could feel very late indeed if you'd started the day an hour ahead of everybody else.  Habit rules, and we are still eating our lunch when The World At One is on, while by half past four I can't see properly to weed. But the basic problem is that today sunrise in Colchester was at 06.40 and sunset at 16.40.  That's ten hours of daylight, and it's getting shorter by four minutes per day.  By Christmas it will be a measly seven hours and forty-six minutes.

We have shifted our ritual afternoon tea break later until it's dark and the chickens have gone in, if they were out in the first place.  That wins back an extra twenty minutes of daylight.  I could cut back on the time I take for lunch if I'm not going to get up earlier, but I do like taking half an hour to digest before getting back to the weeding.  Maybe I should set the alarm and try and be in the garden by eight.

In the meantime, since I was indoors by five, I am attempting a new sort of cake, chocolate honey fudge squares out of Geraldine Holt's legendary book.  The cake base is still cooling in its tin, so the moment of truth when I discover if it's cooked all the way through has yet to come.  The fudge topping sounds a lot more trouble than the chocolate icing you can make by melting a good cooking chocolate with double cream, so it had better be worth it, but I thought it was time to break out of the pattern of alternating between honey sponge, lemon drizzle, and Victoria sandwich.

I have offered to make refreshments for the young musicians' concert this weekend if required, but they are certainly not getting chocolate honey fudge squares.  Numbers for the concert are still uncertain, but on reflection I hope the chairman does ask me to make cake and not egg sandwiches, since at least you can freeze left-over cake or simply make something like flapjack that keeps for days.  Left-over egg sandwiches are no use to man nor beast.