By 10:30pm, your brain is a conflicted mess. Part of you knows you have a 7am alarm tomorrow, but the other part is staring at a gloriously pink sky and thinking, “I could go for a walk. Or paint the fence. Or learn the flute.” It’s a dangerous level of delusion.
This is when you’ll find people standing in their back gardens, arms crossed, staring at the horizon like they’re judging the sun. “Go on then,” you mutter to the sky. “Just set already.” But the sun is a stubborn toddler, refusing to go to bed. It’s a standoff between humanity and a giant ball of gas, and we always lose.
The Midnight Sun (Sort Of)
In Scotland, the Orkney Isles, or even just the top of a hill in Yorkshire, it barely gets dark at all. You can read a book without a lamp at 11pm. It’s magical, but also deeply confusing for your cat, who starts demanding breakfast at 2am because the “dawn” has been going on for ten hours.
Longest Day Of The Year Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images
There’s also the inevitable social media explosion. Everyone posts a photo of the sunset at 10:15pm, captioned “#LongestDay” or “Summer is here!” You’ll double-tap it, even though you took the exact same photo last year. We are a predictable, sun-loving species.
