The Summer Solstice on 21 June 2026 marks the longest day and shortest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. In the UK, it happens at 9:24 am BST, when the Sun reaches its highest point in the sky. For thousands of years, people have celebrated this special day, with ancient sites such as Stonehenge drawing visitors to welcome the sunrise. In Scotland, midsummer traditions have long included hilltop gatherings, bonfires, music, and celebrations linked to the Sun’s power and the changing seasons. Some communities also associated the solstice period with good fortune, protection, and a strong connection to the natural world. After the solstice, daylight hours gradually begin to shorten, leading towards the Winter Solstice on 21 December 2026, which is 183 days later and marks the shortest day of the year. Today, the Summer Solstice signals the start of astronomical summer and brings the long, bright days that make this time of year so special.
Believe
Currently feeling
It’s possible that I have posted this before but it seems particularly appropriate today. It’s definite that I am James Tiberius Kirk as much as I would like to be.
Times gone by.
Have been meaning to post these old photographs that were past on to me by my sister (Catherine) recently. It was a time of three TV channels on ‘council telly’, cassettes were the heights of technology as long as you had a pencil and the summer seemed to last forwever. Has much changed? Sometime it doesn’t feel like it.
Both photogrpahs feature myself and my brother Tom.
My early engineering days. Appaeently I was into ET at this point, not much has chnaged in some rescpects to that.
Spence Street circa. !980. You can littrealy not drive down this street now due to cars being arked noth sides of the road. Tom rocking the denim jacket even then.
Winter Solstice
Totally cheesy solstice design thanks to chatGPT
Happy Winter Solstice, the day with the least amount of light in the northern hemisphere of this blue ball that we are travelling on. Stirling at around 56.1° N gets less than 7 hours of sunlight, assuming the sun makes an appearance which by the looks of today is unlikely due to cloud cover. Striling is one of the darker parts of Central Scotland during the winter solstice but is far better of than someplace like Thurso (58.6° N) which gets less than six hours.
The winter grows noticeably longer the farther north you travel. Take Shetland, for example—often overlooked on maps of Scotland, yet it represents the very northern edge of the country. At its northernmost point, around 60.8° N, daylight lasts only about five hours, a stark reminder of how dramatically the seasons shift as you approach the Arctic.
At this time of year I always feel that winter solstice gives me time to slow down and reflect on the previous year and to take stock if anything has changed with myself, a little older, fatter and balder are my day to day observations, At this time of year gives me pause for deeper reflection, about what has grown, shed and where I see my direction for the next year.
As AI is the. hot topic just now I let chatGPT design the artwork for this post, a change from my normal solstice artowrk, but I like the AI design for it’s cheesy and a. little over the top desgin. Can’t wait till the machines ruse up, can’t be that long now 🤣.
The daylight gets longer from here on in, enjoy.