Still on the Quest

http://littleprofessor.typepad.com/the_little_professor/2007/08/no-sex-please-w.html

A professor looking at the Victorians and their coded ways of talking about sex in literature. Which is cool.

But oh, my gosh, look at the USEFUL LINKS down the side of the page! *drool*

I've been playing silly buggers with insomnia this week, so belegcuthalion suggested hot milk with honey in, and I tried it last night...er... very early yesterday morning and it was good.

Tonight I tipped over at 8:30 and woke up at 9:15 unbearably cold so I took a hot bath with Lord Peter the book, darn it and when I finally clambered out of the cooling water I decided to short circuit tonight's sleeplessness with honey and milk again.

Only I added a smidgen of brandy.

I think that's just about the ingredients of a posset, although microwaved, so I am now going to feel virtuously smug about doing useless research for a story I've already written down...

And sleep. Yeah. Got to remember the sleep part of the equation...

*yawn*

Okay... I can't just assume that the hours of daylight at midsummer and Christmas are different in Shrewsbury and Jerusalem for a Cadfael drabble, I've got to go mucking around on the net for more exact info...

But I'll admit to goggling at what I figured out.

For June 22:

Jerusalem, 14 hours 14 minutes between sunrise and sunset
Shrewsbury, 16 hours 52 minutes ditto.

For December 25:
Jerusalem, 10 hours 4 minutes from sun up to sundown
Shrewsbury, 7 hours, 40 minutes...
The sun isn't above the horizon for even eight hours! Granted the twilight is a lot longer in Shrewsbury, forty minutes at midwinter to Jerusalem's twenty minutes, but wow, that's a lot of hours of dark!

Now, considering that medieval clocks set the hours by sunrise and sunset, dividing day and night each into twelve hours, and the monks had to get up in the middle of the night for at least one service... *wanders off in a fit of geekishness*

...er... there may be a drabble, eventually. I've got to go research medieval church services now.