SAD? SW Scotland? Vitamin D?

The Libyan sojourn earlier this year means that now, nearly three months after my return, the rain is still something of a novelty. Just as well, given the SW Scotland climate - which is noticeably much wetter than it was in NE England: you understand the meaning of rain shadow when you move from one to the other.

Maybe that's why Glasgow and environs have such poor health. It's a vitamin D deficiency, and all those lectures from middle-class people in Islington about diet (based on the deeply rooted belief that everyone here is munching deep fried Mars bars all day long), were misplaced.

Incidentally, I notice that the BBC's "news" story looks as if it has been based on a 2006 paper, (you can't get it without Athens or a payment, but there is a less detailed open-access article on the same subject by the same author, Oliver Gillie, here).

There's the whole SAD thing to consider, too. I don't think Gillie mentions happy-lamps. You can buy Vitamin D online... (of course, what can't you buy online?) It's on my mind now, as the equinox approaches, because I can be known to suffer from fearful depressions come November, and I've a theory that this is due to climate because I've never gotten them during the several winters I've spent in the last decade in southerly latitudes.

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