Sunlight breaks through the slick of oily darkness

The swollen rivers across much of England serve as an apt metaphor for the early days of January.

The waters are dark and curdled – filled, no doubt, with sewage and soil run-off from the near constant rainfall that parts of the country have been inundated by over recent days – while their breached banks blur the boundaries between land, water and sky.

I recently read a description by the author Hilary Mantel of the days surrounding Christmas as “oily”, given that there is little distinction between darkness and light. So far, 2024 has provided one great slick of the stuff. It is as if a toddler has been playing with the paint palette and muddled everything into a great brown smudge.

As Storm Henk blows over, and poor beleaguered souls begin to count the cost of their flooded homes, there is hope in the clouds. This weekend, bands of high pressure arriving from the south and north merge together over the British Isles and squeeze out the low-pressure systems which have brought so much miserable rain with them, like wringing out a dishcloth.

The result: calm(ish) winds, clear(ish) skies, plunging temperatures and hard frosts. Today and tomorrow, temperatures will struggle to exceed around five degrees across much of the country, particularly along the east coast.

With the more settled weather comes another welcome change. Even though the winter solstice is on Dec 21, it takes until early January for the mornings to start getting lighter again. No doubt many of you will have noticed this when attempting to prise yourselves from your beds.

This week we finally passed that threshold. In the south-east of England, by the middle of the month, the sun will start rising before 8am.

Sunrise at Boscombe pier in Dorset