Hump Day and Winter Floods

While the rest of the world was counting down the days until Christmas, we Arctic-Circlers were counting down the days until December 21. The winter solstice marks our hump day. It’s the shortest day of the year and from here on out, the days only get longer. Thank goodness too because 6 hours of daylight is simply not enough. You can already tell a difference. For instance, this is a picture taken at 4 pm on Dec 21:

...and this is one taken at the same time on Dec 23.

It’s subtle, but it’s there- literally the light at the end of the wintery tunnel. Of course, a few more minutes of ‘daylight’ isn’t a promise of more sunshine, and this week we were blasted with rain and wind. I attempted to take Bailey for a run on Thursday and was rewarded with a flooded running trail that held about 3 inches of standing water over 90% of the path.

Not to mention that it was pelting down rain on us the whole time. We were absolutely drenched.

After 4 days straight of nonstop rain, we had started to forget what the sun even looked like. When Jonathan rolled out of bed at 8:30 yesterday morning and told me that the sun was out, I thought it was just a ruse to get my lazy S.A.D-affected butt out of bed. I called his bluff and sure enough there were blue skies outside my window.

We threw on our walking clothes, hunter boots, and 3 layers of clothing before setting out with the dogs. When we got outside we not only found that the sky was clear but that the temperature was warm. We stripped down to one layer and basked in the glorious summer like weather (aka 50 degrees). It was such a welcome break from the disastrous weather we’ve been having over the past few weeks and we crossed our fingers that the worst of winter was over.

It was such a nice day that we decided to walk the dogs all the way to Hazlehead park and let them off leash on the flooded soccer fields.

Though the skies were blue, the evidence of the past few rainy days was still evident.

Thank goodness for Hunter boots or else some of the trail would have seriously been impassable. Of course, as soon as we got to the park, ominous clouds rolled in and within seconds we were soaking wet from a pour down rain storm. Good thing we were only 2 miles away from home. At least the dogs enjoyed themselves....right up until bath time that is.

Just another (winter) day in Scotland….