Saltaire Advent Windows

Midwinter Saltaire Advent Windows - the opening "Number Ones"

Counting down to Christmas

Every year since 2006 residents of Saltaire have decorated a series of windows in local houses that stay on display for visitors until Epiphany. As of today, Saturday 28th January, there are only 330 days to the next Christmas Day so posting 2016’s images is just a reminder that Christmas will come again. Measuring life in hours, days, weeks, months, seasons and years is a compelling human activity and has been complicated over centuries as we have come to understand the orbit of the Sun and the tilt of planet Earth. Every now and again seconds are shaved off the year, days are added in Leap Years and, once, eleven days were entirely removed from the calendar.

Windows 2 to 10 in 2016 (Saltaire Advent Windows)

1752

English folk went to sleep in 1752 on September 2nd and woke up on September 14th in order to join Pope Gregory’s newly calculated calendar of 1582 with which the rest of Europe had been synchronising during the previous 50 years. Britain wasn’t the last country to catch up, by any means. Russia waited until after the Russian Revolution in 1918 and Greece held out until 1923. In my fantasy saga, The Rhenium Tales, there are 100 minutes an hour, 15 hours in a day/night cycle, 10 days a week, 10 months a year, 50 days a month, 5 seasons a year, 50 weeks a year and therefore 500 days every year. It was a bugger working it out but is entirely feasible, in my universe….

Windows 11 to 24 in 2016 (Saltaire Advent Windows)