bubosquared | (no subject)

You know, the thing about summer that always throws me isn't the heat--I can handle that with shorts and skirts and the airco at work and a fan at home, and by chanting "It'll be over soon," because this is, after all, Scotland, and it will be over soon. It's that it's so light out all the time, especially around this time, as we're closing in on the Equinox, and it gets me more since moving here, because in my mind, the UK is east of Belgium, and I huess I wasn't quite prepared for exactly how long it stays light out up here, compared to back home, and I do like going out for a walk late summer evenings (which i did tonight, hence this conveluted thought), but it kinda throws off my bioclock a little.

In other news, I'm watching this thing on the summer of '89 (what is it about long hot summers and huge changes in the UK, by the way? '67, '78, '89, ... not 2000 as far as I can remember, which would be the logical next step, but there's one more in the series), and um. WTF happened to Jason Donovan? o_O

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It's not so much that it's 'east', but that it's /north/ of Belgium.

It was horribly bright today, though. We walked back from the cinema and even with my tinted glasses the evil ball of light gave me a headache. 'Tis unnatural, I tell you!

Well, that's the thing, I know that now, but I never quite realised how much more north than east from Belgium we are. :)

Well, we're north and /west/... ;o)

But yeah, we're up there with the bottom end of the Scandinavian countries.

Oh, and it's the solstice, not the equinox. ;o)

Oh, shaddup, it's late and it's hot. :p

Wouldn't the next one have been 1990? 67, 78, 89, 90, 01, 02.. hold on!! Wasn't 90 the last "normal" summer we had...?!

90, 01, 12... I messed up.

The previous ones have all been eleven years apart, so it'd be 2000. I think the next Hot Summer was ... '98? I remember it being really hot in '98 back in Belgium, but that might be perception--I was studying for my final exams at the time, and really suffering from the heat.

Ah, I was thinking laterally ... 678910... 67, 78, 89. But then I've 'ad a puff.

I just find it frustrating becuase it means the yahoos are out later - I live in Leith, and used to live in a residential area in Edmonton....

Ah, yeah, I can see that. Over here in Gorgie, they're pretty much constant all year round, sigh.

I'm thinking of filling up water balloons at tossing them out the window. Maybe fill them will pudding?

OMG yis. When I first moved to Oregon, I couldn't believe how late it stayed light in the summer. And then in the winter you get like, maybe 8 hours of daylight.

God, yes, that too--mid-December I get home around 4:30 and it's dark, like, half an hour later, though that feels slightly less odd as I worked a lot later in belgium, and so am used to it being/cecoming dark by the time I get home, but still.

It's disconcerting. But Not as much so as in Anchorage, Alaska - on the Summer Solstice the sun doesn't set at all.

Oh, if you go further north here, you can, I'm told, see the sun setting on the Solstice and then rise again half an hour later, so it doesn't raelly get dark at all there, either. It's bad enough down here, frankly.

YIS. Sometimes I have dreams where it's like, 2 AM and the sun is high in the sky and they always creep me out.

I hear ya. It hardly ever gets dark here any more, which is nice, but it does mean I feel guilty for staying indoors and watching tv, and there's no way I can go to sleep before about 11...

I ... I can't go to sleep before 11 anyway, not unless I want to waky up at four in the morning again. Um. Yes.

Well, to be honest, even that's getting to be a bit of a tall order. It's 11.10 now, and it's still light enough to read inside without the light on -- kind of distracting.

It's riiily difficult to get any sleep this time of the year because of the light. I have to make sure to totally exhaust myself during the day or I'm screwed. :\

"You give me one good reason to leave meeeeeeeeeeeee
I'll give you ten good reasons to staaaaaaaaaaaaaay" Erm. I think I read somewhere, not too long ago, that he's still touring, but he hasn't released anything new since... forever.

I'm pretty good about sleeping in the light--even in darkest winter, the streetlights here shine into my window and through my flimsy curtains, so--but the natural light just throws my body off.

He appeared on this show, and it took me a minute to recognise him, because he's not blonde anymore! And he has a beard! And looks old! And it totally made me feel old, too!

Oh, same here. Artificial light doesn't really bother me, I fall asleep with the lights on all the time, but in the summer.. Meh.

I googled him! Geez, he really does look old now. And much less cute.

o_O How long does it stay light for in Scotland, then? Maybe you should buy thicker curtains or something, and close them about an hour before you're going to sleep so as to convince your body that yes, really, it's night.

Right now, it doesn't really get dark till after midnight. And then it gets light again by around three-ish. It's really weird! And sadly, thicker curtains, especially for large windows like mine, are not currently in my budget, woe.

Wow. That really is a big difference with Belgium. o_O Don't you have some spare blankets or something you could hang in front of your window? It might block out some of the light, at least. :-/

See, it's not really the light itself, cause even in winter, the streetlights shine into my bedroom, it's the weird day rhytm in general, so I don't think it'll work. And it's not that I can't sleep, per se, cause I sleep like a log, it's that my body keeps going "wait, what?" and doubting its own bioclock.