Depending on where you are in the world, Tuesday will be the shortest day of the year. Of course, that means that it is the first day of winter in the Northern hemisphere.

This makes me think back six years ago to a trip that I made to the UK to visit some customers.

My first stop was in Glasgow and it was not quite the shortest day for them. I was there the day before the solstice.

Of course, when I use the term day in this post it refers to the time between sunrise and sunset.

That day in Glasgow sunrise was at 8:46 am and sunset was at 3:44 pm for a total daylight time of just under seven hours. That was the shortest day that I have experienced as it was the double witching point of being the farthest north for a complete day and being within a day of the solstice.

The next day was about 40 minutes longer for me since I was further south in the Midlands of England.

That day was a rainy dreary day which made the day seem even shorter. There were only a few brief glimpses of sunshine that day. The picture above was taken while we were on the way to our first customer. A drive on a narrow winding road in Scotland during a rain storm is an interesting experience.

I couldn’t resist taking this picture. Is it a police call box or is it the TARDIS?

We did take a short driving tour of Glasgow between visits to customers. Here is a picture that I took of the Glasgow Cathedral. There is a lot of history there.

For lunch we stopped and had fish and chips. Much better and definitely much cheaper than what I had at Heathrow the day before. See: Long Travel Day

That evening I took a flight from Glasgow to Birmingham. Here is the airplane that I flew on. It has been a long time since I had flown on a prop plane.

Be aware if you are traveling to Europe and flying a budget airline. Make sure you look closely at the fee structure for checked bags and other items. I paid more to check my bag than the guy sitting next to me paid for his round trip ticket. I guess that this applies anywhere in the world, but it just hit me there. Luckily, I was able to expense the charge.

The day was short, but the day was long.

This Tuesday I will have 9 hours, 33 minutes and 5 seconds of daytime. However, it will seem like a shorter time as it will be cloudy much of the day and most likely rain will start around sunset.

Steven