You think, because I grew up in Winnipeg that I shouldn't mind the encroaching darkness of November as it slinks its way to the shortest day of the year. Wrong. I mind. Winnipeg may be cold but it enjoys a lot of sunshine, more than bleak Toronto. I should say, in TO's defence this year, that the days have been quite bright. But when the light begins to fade, shortly after 4 o'clock, I feel as if I'm late for something. Remember Robert Louis Stevenson's poem: "In winter I go to bed at night/And have to dress by candlelight./ In summer it's quite the other way/ I have to go to bed by day. " i spent one Christmas in Iceland because I wanted to see what it was like there on the shortest day of the year. It was quite Dickensian. Of course, they have electric light but every shop had a little kerosene lamp on the sidewalk outside the door every morning, to make up for shopping in the dark. Very cosy. I like cosy.