Due to delicate timing of my filming, the light changes significantly during my ten minutes in front of the camera each day and it can look radically different by the time I finish recording. I am always aware of the winter darkness living here, but right now every minute makes a difference. So this is the first year I’ve noticed that the mornings actually kept getting darker after the solstice until well after Christmas, which is not really meant to happen.

I have a sunrise/sunset time chart that I used when I was planning the project and when to film and it confirmed this. Sunset has been getting later so the days longer but the mornings actually only started getting lighter since the New ear yesterday. To get one for where you live you just need to click here.

This seemed weird so I looked it up and found that because the earth is closest to the sun during January it is moving fastest in it’s orbit, but our human constructed 24 hour day is based on the average time it takes the earth to spin once on it’s axis.  So at different times of the year, time as we measure it and the movement we see of the sun across the sky grow slightly out of alignment and this is most noticeable – (to those who notice) – at this time of the year.

It seems very fitting therefore to have spent this darkest time in the company of family friends who have filled my house for the last two weeks with warmth and light and quite a lot of alcohol. The alcohol bit hasn’t necessarily helped with the early morning filming, but it has made the last two weeks of working in near darkness a lot easier and more fun and given me renewed perspective on the project. And today, just as the house has became empty again, the mornings suddenly became noticeably lighter and the upward trajectory I am now on became clear.

The weather is still awful, possibly the worst winter I have ever spent here, but somedays this is even kind of fun. (Last week the tide at been pushed in by the wind so the sea was actually coming up and over the platform and around my feet!). I wanted a test of endurance and at the moment the simple act of getting out of bed and standing for ten minutes on a very cold, wet and windy beach before dawn without a coat on is just that.

I am looking forward to the next six months and what they bring. The change of light and the point at which I start editing the film, which is very exciting. I am also now very aware of how much can happen in six months.  Lots of the projects I started when I began this year are now coming to fruition and it is actually going to be quite a busy time.

So to mark the new year which felt like it started today I thought I would share some clocks, even if they are just that little bit out of time with the mechanics of the universe.