W. Wonderland

I read on Wikipedia that the winter solstice only lasts for an instant. However, the day when the solstice occurs is also commonly called winter solstice. I am going to rule that either usage is acceptable.

I was up for a few minutes during the middle of the night, probably quite close to the time when the solstice occurred (shortly after midnight local time) and discovered that it was raining outside. I went to the window and watched for a bit. My thought was that the melting effect of the rain could combine with the possibility that the streets might dry and produce a day on which a bicycle ride might be possible. Alas, the temperatures continued to decline throughout the darkness, as they usually do, and by the time I got up this morning the rain had turned to snow.It is a very heavy snow but fortunately most of the weight fell as the rain and we don't have much snow. What we do have has assumed picturesque poses in our backyard (above) and in our neighbor's (below). The weight that fell as rainfall does not have to be shoveled and also does not bow the branches of the trees the way heavy snow would. The trees are spared.Apparently it is also winter in France (who knew?) and four games from round 19 of Ligue 2 have been postponed due to poor field conditions. This from the FC Nantes website: "En raison des conditions climatiques délicates, quatre rencontres de la 19ème journées ont été remises à une date ultérieure." The postponed games were all scheduled for yesterday in cities in the northern part of France and included the Le Havre home game against third place Clermont Foot.

Nantes and Guingamp were scheduled for today and a slight rise in temperature meant that the field was not frozen and the game went on.

Interviewed on the Nantes website earlier in the week, manager Michel Der Zakarian commented on the nearly complete first half. "Même si ce n'est qu'un titre honorifique, j'ai envie d'être champion d'automne,", even though it is only an honorary title, I still want to be the champion of autumn.

Nantes may have done enough against Guingamp to earn the autumn champion label as the Canaries earned a point away from home by drawing 0-0. The result leaves Nantes on 39 points for the first half of the season, one short of their goal of 40. The result also leaves the door open for Le Havre to spoil the other goal as a victory by Le Havre in the make up against Clermont would put Le Havre on 39 with a superior goal differential and therefore the "champion d'automne".

Nonetheless, Nantes is on a path which clearly leads back to Ligue 1 as they lead the fourth place team by 9. Last year 70 points earned the third promotion slot.