Advent Star

Today has been a day of work with my head deep in a computer. We arrived and left work in deepest darkness and in heavy rain. I suppose there was some daylight but I never got to see it from my office, nicknamed "the cave" because of its distance from the nearest window.
It was also in stark contrast to yesterday (blipped here) with glorious sunshine for the few hours the sun was up, and cold and frosty loveliness all around.
Mid Sweden in December doesn't get a whole lot of daylight but with no snow, thick cloud and heavy rain the darkness seems all the deeper, the day all the shorter.
So the advent stars, light bridges, and outside lights are not luxuries but necessities. They remind us that despite the approach of midwinter there is light in our world and soon the snow will fall and lighten up everything and in 6 days we reach the winter solstice, midwinter, and every day thereafter is a few minutes longer.