I have vowed on many occasions to keep a diary but have hardly ever got beyond a neat entry on the first day. Will this enterprise be any more successful, perhaps not, but I hope so.
It begins on the day after the shortest day of 2006 and this date is for me significant. I suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and I intensely dislike the short days and long nights. Once it gets dark for me the day is over. Talk of the joys of gathering round the fire to watch some celebrity claptrap or play canasta don't wash with me ( Whoops! Sorry about the regression to the 50's. I'll be on to the delights of Chivers Jelly and sugar sandwiches in a minute.). You cannot get away from it, you are just sitting waiting until it is time to go to bed.
Light boxes have been suggested as a cure but I have never tried one. It seems a rather mechanistic and lifeless alternative to what I think I am missing, the opportunity to be out and about.
I say I suffer from SAD but this is the winter self diagnosis. The rest of the year I just have free floating anxiety and neurosis. My family however think I am just a miserable hypochondriac!
Anyway things get better from now on and by the time we have struggled through the festive season (no misery me) into January I will be feeling quite upbeat and optimistic again.
Whilst we are on the shortest day. My dad advised me many years ago that you should always plant your shallots on the shortest day and harvest them on the longest. Can this be right? Like the light box I have never tried it.
1 comment:
almost, but like you, he was a little confused.
it really should be to plant them on the longest day, especially if you live in Norway, so you can see what you are doing.
of course digging them up on the shortest day doesn't make alot of difference, 'cos you cannot see a lot, but it doesn't matter as they are horrible things and whatever the result, you wo't be too disappointed as long as you can find your way home.
Good Luck next year... Tom
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