Sunrise, sunset swiftly flow the days

Currently, the projected sunrise and subsequent sunset in London are scheduled for 7:48 am and 3:53 pm. I'm told the day will get progressively shorter. 8 hours of sunlight seems such a short period of time. By sunlight, I mean lighter than night since many times the clouds cover the sun for a large portion of the day. It's strange to look out the window at 4:15 in the afternoon and see things all dark. And we're not talking the sun's just started going down. By that time, it's down for a long winter's nap.