How About A Weather Post?

Well, this green island has moved its clocks back to Greenwich Mean Time, leaves are leaping from branches, and the ground is taking on the permaslop texture (the tundra has permafrost, but Britain has permaslop), so autumn must have caught us. While I'm a big fan of the secret summer of September, I have to admit this time of year is hardest of all--not for the cold, but for the lack of light. Losing approximately an hour of daylight at the winter solstice compared to Washington, D.C., was even harder than I expected last year. We're about six weeks away from our earliest sunsets (3:50 p.m. from Dec. 12 through Dec. 15), so maybe I should consider getting used to it. At least I can look forward to mince pies, a dish which I believe has its roots in the ingredients a royal chef put by mistake in a pie because his kitchen was too dark in December.