Into darkness

It's that time of year again; brace yourselves (unless you're reading this in the Southern Hemisphere) for six dark months. At 21:22 today, Central European Summer Time, the sun dipped below the plane of the Earth's equator. Equinox. 

Technically, however, night isn't yet equal to day - today, the day's length was 12 hours and 16 minutes - we won't have equilux until Saturday 25 September, when the day will be 12 hours and five seconds long.

Coping with the darkness is a problem, not a debilitating one but certainly it's a factor that adversely affects me. The worst time of year for me mentally is mid- to late-November, when daylength shortens by some three minutes each day. Week by week it's getting noticeably darker; the clocks have gone back at the end of October, and Christmas is still weeks away. Both my parents died at the end of October, as though facing another dark winter was too much for them to bear.

The asymmetry in the way our planet spins means that the earliest sunsets in Warsaw will be between 8 and 18 December (15:23 each day), while the latest sunrises will be between 27 December and 2 January (07:45 each day). I could do with dropping the time change, gaining an hour of evening daylight at the expense of an even later sunrise; it seems this is too difficult to do at national, let alone at EU level. 

From 18 December onwards, sunset starts getting later again; by Christmas Day we've gained five minutes of daylight at the end of the day (though the mornings are still getting darker). By New Year's Eve, sunset is nine minutes later than at its earliest, and from 3 January, the sunrise will start getting earlier. And on 20 March 2022, the sun will cross the equator in a northern direction again.

Summer warmth encouraged me to stay on the działka longer this year. However, as the heat stored in the walls of the house begins to dissipate, initiating the need to heat two houses, so I return to Jeziorki. Sitting indoors wearing a shirt and jumper is OK, but shirt and jumper and outdoor jacket is a bit much. Within the next week or two, instead of popping up to Jeziorki once a week for a beard-trim and change of clothes, I shall be popping down to Jakubowizna once a week to check that all's well. Turn over the motorbike engines (especially in mid-winter), and keep an eye open for signs of mildew or cobwebs.

The laziness of summer is dying away too. I'm piling on more sets of exercise again after taking it easy in June and July, returning to an intensity last seen in April and May. 

Now the evenings are drawing in, I have noticed that my dreams - forgettable over summer - are returning to the vividness and memorability they had in the winter and spring. An interesting phenomenon. Is it location? In Jeziorki and Jakubowizna, I sleep with my feet pointing south, my head towards the north. Both bedrooms are triple-glazed and with roller blinds. I can only posit that temperature or indeed daylength have a role in this.

There will still be several warm, sunny days, a few weeks' worth even. I remember 3 October last year - a gentle wind from the south could still bring relief from the hot sun, walking around Sułkowice. But one cannot expect warmth in late winter, even in late March.

But then the pandemic accelerated; two waves have hit Poland since. The first reached a peak on 11 November for new cases (25,611 a day, rolling seven-day average), and on 25 November for deaths (505 a day, rolling seven-day average), before falling back towards the end of December. In the New Year, they started rising again (from 7,668 cases/239 deaths), hitting the peak of the deadliest wave on 1 April for cases (28,878) and 14 April for deaths (604 in that one day). 

Since then, the pandemic waned over the summer, with another low point on 10 July for cases (77) and 15 August for deaths (just two!). Since then, it's been rising again. Although the number of new cases is roughly similar to this time last year, the number of deaths is about one third fewer than in the third week of September 2020.

Will we get used to the situation in which several hundred people a day lose their lives because of the unvaccinated and those who refuse to wear masks in shops, offices and public transport?

This time three years ago:
Summer's end

This time four years ago:
In which I lose a lot of data from my old laptop

This time five years ago:
Konin - town of aluminium, electricity and coal

This time eight years ago:
Car-free day falls on a Sunday

This time nine years ago:
Vistula at record low level

This time 12 years ago:
Car-free day? Warsaw's roads busier than ever

This time 13 years ago:
The shape of equinox

This time 14 years ago:
Potato harvest time in Jeziorki