November Is Scotland’s Best Month, and I Will Not Be Taking Questions, Mainly Because It’s Dark by Half Four and I Can’t See You

By our Contrarian Columnist

Everybody hates November. It’s dark, it’s cold, Christmas is too far away and the leaves have gone from pretty to slippery. I would like to say, for the record, that everybody is wrong.

Look at today. Frost first thing, bright sunshine, barely a breath of wind and 11°C by the afternoon. The Tay is like glass. Kinnoull Hill is gold and brown. A heron is standing in the river looking like it’s been made redundant. This is perfection.

November has no pressure. In summer, if the sun comes out, you have to go and do something. In December, you have to buy presents. In November, you are allowed to do nothing at all. You can sit inside with soup. Nobody expects anything of you. It’s the month of the cardigan.

And then there is the darkness. People complain it gets dark at half four. I say: wonderful. At half four I can close the curtains, put on the lamp and say “well, that’s the day done”, with no guilt whatsoever.

I accept that by Thursday it will be drizzling, there will be fog, and the fireworks will vanish into the cloud. I don’t mind. That is the November experience. It’s like a good soup. It’s grey, but it’s comforting.

I would now like to go and sit in my chair by the radiator, and I will be back in March.

The real story: Perth forecast (Met Office)