In Singapore there's an average day temp of around 30c, and it's very humid. The sun rises at about 7am, sets again (quickly!) at 7pm. Every day. 365. There's a rainy season, and there are dramatic storms too. But otherwise it's pretty uniform. That's the tropics, innit.
Temperate climates, like the UK and Japan, as we all know, have seasons. Usually four. But one thing that seems to have taken most of my Asian friends by surprise is the daylight variations we have in Britain. I'd kind of assumed that somewhere like Japan (which actually has more extreme seasons than Britain) had dark winters and bright summers like the UK. They don't. Apparently.
In fact the UK is quite a bit further North than Japan. And I guess Britain's deceptively mild seasons are a result of the Gulf Stream (warm current from the Atlantic, which heats things up!)
Anyway, the Northerliness, due to the tilt of the earth's axis, means that in the winter, we have hardly any daylight. And in the summer the reverse is true. Personally I find the winter aspect particularly grim. The end of December (around Christmas - no coincidence!) and the Winter Solstice are the shortest days of the year. A weak sun rises at maybe 9am, then it is dark again by 4pm. This is nowhere near as extreme as what the Scandinavian countries experience, but when you add cold and rain, it's miserable as hell! You wake up (with difficulty!) and go to work in cold and pitch dark, and return home in the same. Unless you have a nice desk next to a window, you might only catch one hour of daylight per day for quite some weeks!
Humans get very depressed under these conditions. Natural daylight offers many health benefits to animals, and many UK people suffer from a winter condition called 'seasonal affective disorder: SAD' which is basically sadness, due to no daylight! Special electric devices have even been invented to imitate the effects of natural daylight on the body, and help combat this condition. It takes several months for the days to lengthen into something happier again.
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| Weak daylight on a London winter afternoon |
I guess the one pleasant aspect of this period is winter Sundays, warm at home with friends/family, hot tea and crumpets, at about 4pm, when it is already cold, pitch dark and wild outside. Or, of course, Christmas feasting and relaxation under similar conditions. But frankly, I'm happy to do that once every five years. I don't need months of it. Trees also lose their leaves in winter, so the whole outlook is pretty bleak tbh! Give me sunny tropics any day!
The upside of Northerliness in England is, of course, looooooong days in summer. The Summer Solstice (around 21 June) is the peak day, when it might get light at 5am, and start getting dark again at something crazy like 10.30pm. Sunsets away from the equator also take ages. You watch the shadows get longer and longer over some hours, as the sun drifts lower on the horizon. :)
Summertime in London signals long, warm, light evenings playing sports or having picnics in the parks. Open air performances. Or (if you are somewhere more rural where gardens are affordable) drinks outside at home! People are generally much happier and more energetic during these months. Waking up in sunshine is a piece of cake, compared to winter. Sunlight makes you naturally ready to take on the day! Unfortunately many UK summers are hijacked by endless grey days of rain, but you still get a better daylight deal. And when it's good, it's really worth having!
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| Some kind of performance festival at Hampton Court, on a summer evening (with long shadows!) |
Oddly, I haven't missed the seasons at all since moving to the tropics nearly five years ago. Many friends from temperate countries do miss them. But as far as I'm concerned, long summer evenings are great, and if I get the chance to go home for a few weeks over summertime, I do. But the trade-off of miserable, long dark winters? No thanks!
(And yes, I'm talking about the weather again.. which is apparently both a British and Japanese cliche!)
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