I hadn't even thought about it till you mentioned it! LOL In Florida summer tends to start in April or May and last till September, or even October. I'm glad you have a nice sunny day today! We had a lot of rain this week up until yesterday and now it's just a steam bath. 94 degrees with 51% humidity.

Donna

Wow, going to Stonehenge to see the summer solstice sunrise... That sounds like a bucket list experience. Vee, How come you don't remember the sunrise?

Here the summer solstice is a big deal. Since winter, local TV stations intermittenly have mentioned the countdown to summer (especially back in February when we got more snow than usual.) This morning, they were counting the minutes left to the start of summer.

One of the neighborhoods has a weekend-long Solstice Festival, including the Solstice Cyclists Ride, which is famous because the cyclists are nude. Well, most of them are covered with so much body paint that you hardly notice that they are not wearing anything.

http://www.solsticecyclist.org/

Vee, being the Winter Solstice, there doesn't seem to be much done in celebration.

We are looking forward to the Christmas in July dinners though. That is quite a big deal, both commercially and with charity fund-raising events. A good mid-year boost for the caterers and a chance for the charity shops to get rid of the decorations donated after last December. Ho-ho-ho!

Nude cycling! Hope they don't get tangled up in their bike chains.

Reader I didn't notice the sunrise because the sky was very overcast, certainly nothing like the pics on the link.

I think I'm with the 'weather' people who for practical reasons divide the year into the four seasons . . . so Midsummer isn't the start of summer but the middle.

Ann do you really eat turkey, plum pud etc in July? It certainly makes more sense than during the heat of December. And if your winter weather is cold and gloomy it will help lighten the mood. Do people give presents (however small) to children?

I should have asked at the start of the thread . . .what time does the sun rise and set in your area? Here in our part of the UK last night wasn't 'properly' dark until well after 10pm and it was light again by 4am. I imagine those of you living further South have shorter dusks/dawns than we do.

Have just checked in today's paper and 'lighting up' is from 21-34 to 4-45am

Sunrise is from 4-44 sunset is 21-23

Annpan yours should be more or less the opposite.

Vee, "Christmas in July" isn't like a family tradition, it's usually a special event run by pubs to boost sales or run by community groups as a fundraiser. Traditional English Christmas dinner is served, with as you ask, turkey (and often roast pork or ham), hot vegetables and plum pudding with all the trimmings.

At Christmas in December, many people opt for a cold meal, with lobsters, prawns, cold cuts, salads and cold desserts. However, there are some of us die hards who still have the turkey dinner despite the heat :-)

Vee, Colleen has covered our strange celebration fully! We even had Xmas cake at the retirement village and a Santa to give out the raffle prizes last year.

Sunrise in Perth was at 7.16am and sunset was at 5.20pm today.

I had a weird experience this afternoon. I am recovering from bronchitis and I am still very lethargic so I went for a nap at 2pm. My D rang me at 4pm and I thought it was tomorrow morning! Luckily she wasn't too worried when I sleepily asked her why she was ringing so early. I could see the time on my electric clock but we have had power cuts recently (no TV last night) and my clock shows a different time after a cut.

It took me a few minutes to adjust.

Annpan, I hope you get over the bronchitis in time to enjoy your non-Christmas 'do'. We used to be plagued by power outages. Parts of our village still have overhead cables which are easily damaged by tree-falls, high winds etc. It takes ages to re-set all the electrically controlled 'devises'.

Are you and Colleen in the same part/state of Aus?

Vee, thanks, the worst is over and I just have a bad cough so I stay indoors in the warm these days. We are having lots of rain so that isn't a hardship!

Colleen and I live in Western Australia but I am not far from the centre of Perth, the capital, while she lives in a country area.

I’m sorry to hear you’re unwell, Ann. We’ve just got back from be away but I could tell the power had been off.

I did that “disoriented after a nap” thing once. I was working a 6am- 2pm shift, and I was so tired when I got home I had a nap. When I woke up, it was fairly dark and the time about 6, and I thought it was morning. There was no way I could shower and get to work on time so I phoned and apologised profusely and said I’d be in ASAP. A very puzzled coworker told me I had plenty of time as it was the evening, not the morning...how embarrassing!

Sunrise today was at 5:11 am, sunset will be at 9:11 pm.

Waking after a nap can be very disconcerting when one does shift work. My husband was advised by a colleague to get a 24 hour clock after he had a similar fright to Colleen by thinking he was late for his evening work when it was actually morning. He got one with a battery backup which cut in if there was a power cut and never had any more trouble.

My worst fright was when I was sitting on a bus and the seat gave way under me and then I realised I was actually lying on my back in bed, having had a very vivid dream. Some of the dreams I have are so real that I can believe I have actually been to the place I have been dreaming of and have never been to in real life.

Sunrise at 5:44 am and sunset at 8:38 pm in Central Missouri.

I live in Louisville, KY. Sunrise about 6:00 and sunset around 9:00 in the Eastern time zone half of Kentucky. The western half is in the Central time zone (with kathy_t in Missouri).

On the first night after arrival in Prague following a flight from Kentucky, I went to bed early, woke at 8:30, thought it was morning, got up, took a shower, and put on my makeup. My daughter was reading through all of this, and when I told her we would be late for breakfast, she laughed and told me it was night, not morning. Jet lag is a strange thing.

So true, Carolyn!

I got confused at the hotel when I flew from the UK for a stop over in Kuala Lompar and had a sleep. When I woke, I looked at my watch upside down and thought it was morning but the housekeeping staff arrived and put me right. I expect they are used to it!

I had missed the excursions so instead went to the hotel gym and had a relaxing massage, sauna etc. which helped take the kinks out before the next leg of the trip to Australia.

In Honolulu today sunrise was at 5:50 am, sunset this evening will be at 7:16 pm.

In Hilo (on the Big Island where my son lives) sunrise was at 5:42 am and sunset will be at 7:02 pm.

Their sunrise is generally about eight minutes before ours in Honolulu and the sun sets there about fifteen minutes before it does here. In summer we get about 13.5 hours of daylight.

Our twilights, at either side of daylight, only last about half an hour each, much shorter than those of higher latitudes. Honolulu is 21.30 degrees N and Hilo is 19.71 degrees N. Visitors to Hawai'i often notice and comment on how short are the durations of dawn and dusk. They should visit the equator! There one minute it can be completely dark and the next the sun pops up and it's completely light, and that is also true in reverse at the end of daylight. There's little warning and it can be downright discombobulating until you get accustomed to it.

Frieda, I am so ready for another trip to Hawaii. Maybe next year; sooner if I should win the lottery but it's hard if you don't play.

We finally had two proper sunny, warm summer days in a row this weekend. We've had so much rain through May and June I've hardly had to water the garden at all. Sunrise was 5:17 this morning in Connecticut and sunset was 8:30.

A visit to Stonehenge is definitely on my bucket list, and any date will do!

Wow, Netla, that's a lot of daylight! We experienced that in Alaska a couple of years ago. We were there in August and I think it was fully dark for only an hour or so. I remember walking around our hotel garden at 10 pm and it was pretty light.

We will be in Norway and Denmark next week, so I expect we'll have some pretty long days there, too.

Donna

Donna, you'll have some looong daylight hours, especially in Norway. Depending on how far north in Norway you'll be going, you may experience 24 hours of daylight.

Enjoy your trip!