Summer

I’ve just returned from Shetland and the endless twilight 'Da simmer dim', according to John J Graham's Shetland Dictionary, doesn't actually mean 'midsummer'. It translates as 'the twilight of a Shetland summer evening'. This means that da simmer dim lasts beyond one day. Being so far north, Shetland can expect to see 19 hours of daylight as the sun merely dips its head below the horizon before rising again; this is a polar opposite to the six of hours during midwinter. Laurie Goodlad observes this interim period gives a milky white light, soft and pure, bathing the landscape in a quiet, subdued cloak. At this time, the birds’ lull and the approaching night hangs, as if suspended, and the whole world stops-in-motion, waiting for the sun to lift again…