If you’ve been jolted awake by the alarm this week and thought, 'these mornings aren’t getting any lighter' – you’re right.

Although the shortest day was all the way back at 22 December, a quirk of the earth’s rotation means that sunrises continue to get later until January.

In Worcester the sun, such as it was, rose on 22 December at 8.16 am. Today and tomorrow it will rise at 8.17, and then finally, on Saturday, dawn will arrive at the same time as it did on the Solstice, a full 15 days earlier.

No wonder the return to work after Christmas has been such a struggle.

But take heart, once the ball is rolling, it starts to pick up pace.

By 31 January the sun will be rise before 8am, at 7.51 am.

Then it’s full speed ahead to the Spring Equinox on March 20; sunrise a glorious 6.11 am.

After that of course, and allowing for the clocks going forward, which will plunge mornings back into darkness for a while, the days are long than the nights.

It’s summer basically and it’ll be sunny and warm all the way until September.

Perhaps.