And an extra two minutes sunlight a day merely only helps getting some firewood in without needing the torch.
So climatically and physically and whatever, it is not quite spring.
But the "signs" of spring are most certainly there and the psychological benefits are huge ... especially for people like me who live in denial of winter.
People like me who daily scour the global temperatures seeking somewhere in the northern hemisphere where their summer day is only one or two degrees more than our current winter temperature.
And I make a point of telling (boring) anyone I come across ... and every mid to late August I take up pen and paper (in the figurative sense) and declare that last Tuesday the sun was out and the thermometers in Napier and Hastings were showing 17C at the height of the day.
In the late summer of Edinburgh it was just one degree more and in Vancouver it was only two degrees more ... and raining.
Ahh the signs are all there.
It was time, I figured, to start getting the vege garden ready for another tilt at planting things only to watch them eventually succumb to a late frost or a three-day belt of torrential rain.
Or my "skills".
I have green fingers.
Not green in the descriptive sense of a knowledgeable gardener ... green from a well-practised ineptitude which I continue to hone every year.
It takes years to build up this terrible tilling and toiling ineptitude.
It just doesn't happen overnight you know.
You have to become adept at planting things too early and far too close together and mistaking cat litter for fertiliser ... and catnip for mint.
The latter of course does sort of go hand in hand with spreading cat litter because they tend to spend more time down there in what they regard as a feline ablutions block ... to the detriment of the struggling broccoli stems.
I think the people at the plant stores have got to know me now, for when I buy a punnet of vege sprouts they kind of look solemnly at them, as they carefully place them in the bag, as if they are young men off to war and who may never reach adulthood.
On one occasion they were lucky to make it to the car as I dropped the bag whilst fumbling for the keys.
However, it is with great pride (and surprise) I can reveal that last year's crop of broccoli emerged as splendid as anything one would purchase from an accredited market gardener.
They just worked.
The previous year they threw whatever a broccoli would use as a towel in.
But last year, six beauts.
They took about two months to get to that remarkable stage where I had to take a photo of them, and a lot of tilling and fertilising time of course.
And with summer into its stride they were being sold down the road at three for $1.50.
I had saved $3.
Now that's the true value of creating a vege garden.
The other value is the fitness issue.
One must remain active, but of course at a sensible level which suits one's age and general physical condition.
Aware that I am on the eve of embarking on my 64th year and that my knees and one wrist are enduring victims of three or four impressive motorcycle crashes back in the 70s, I tend to use a trowel which I have bolted to the end of an old length of vacuum cleaner piping to avoid excessive body bending ... and it works well.
Plan B is giving my son a tenner and getting him to give it a rough-up for me.
Which means the year of the spectacular broccoli actually cost me $7.
I think I'll give capsicums a shot this year, and with the right knee playing up will get the kid on to the tilling.
By Christmas they'll also be three for $1.50 ... so potentially that's a loss of just $14 in three years.
I think I can deal with that.
