Living in Scotland

We live in Aberdeen, which is as far north as Moscow. That makes for some dark winter days.

Whenever I tell people that we live in Scotland, they practically get stars in their eyes and ask if it is wonderful.  Sometimes I say yes, sometimes no (it really depends on my mood), but I can always picture what they’re imagining.  If I am feeling particularly rude, I might mention that we don’t live in a castle, next door to Sean Connery or James McAvoy.  We live in a small flat that is cold more often than not.  We get more rain that I could ever have imagined, which does lend itself to lush vegetation and green, rolling hills.  However, we don’t always get to get out and actually enjoy aforementioned backdrops due to the cold, the wetness, and the dark.  While summers are great with a sunrise at 3 or 4am and a sunset at 10 or 11pm, the exact opposite is true for winter.  This morning, I didn’t even bother to open the blinds until 8:30am because there was no point.  We don’t even have to close the blinds to go to sleep November-February because I can guarantee that NO SUNLIGHT will be peeking through during that time.

How much sunlight do you get in winter?

The worst most extreme days are when the sun rises at 9am and sets at 3pm.  That means that Scottish children walk to and from school in the dark.   The peak is December 21st- we get 4 minutes back a day form that point forward: 2 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon.  I personally celebrate those 4 minutes- 4×7=28 minutes a week!  In all seriousness, that much darkness is tough.  Many people suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD).  In everyday terms, SAD is when people feel depressed as a result of the seasons.  Usually, it is the winter’s lack of light that affects people.

How do we cope with so much daylight in the summer and so little in the winter?

Well, these are opposite issues, but I’ll list a few things that keep us sane:

1. Kids tend to sleep more in the winter and less in the summer.  Deal with it, whether you like it or not.  Something about Circadian Rhythm, but their bodies adjust nicely.  We enjoy this and take advantage- if the sun is out, why not delay bedtime or a nap?
2. We usually get to go home (Texas) once a year.  We plan this trip for the winter- we try to overlap it with Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we can enjoy those days with family and miss a lot of the darkness.  This doesn’t work for everyone’s schedule/work, but it’s what works for us.
3. We never travel home during the summer.  Since school is year-round here anyway, there are lots of breaks that aren’t just in the summer we can take advantage of (such as Christmas, see #2), while staying home to enjoy the extra degrees and sun in the summer months.
4. To preserve sleep, we invested in blackout blinds.  They are worth every pound.  I prefer the velcro kind that adheres directly to the window so as to literally black out a room.  While it’s kind of a pain to initially install the velcro strips, once installed the blinds are easy to take off and on.
5. On the flip side, light therapy can be useful, especially if you’re prone to SAD.  My friends call it a “happy light“- true to its name, this happy light keeps us happy instead of wallowing in misery.
6. If there’s a sunny day in the winter (or the summer for that matter!), we drop everything and enjoy it.  There is time to work later, but you can’t count on the sun this far north.
7. We also find that having something to look forward to is helpful: a play date, a real date, movie night, downloaded TV shows from home, a trip, a visit from family, etc.  It keeps our minds off the dreary weather.

Hope that helps anyone out there who hates the winter as much as I do!