Colder Than Necessary
Posted: Sat 5 December, 2020 Filed under: Driving, Getting Out More, M1, People, Stupidity, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »Yesterday, for reasons I’ll write about some other time, I had to drive up to Newark.
It’s not a horrific drive, about 90 minutes usually, and pretty easy. Straight up the A1 , and then down the M1 to come home.
Yesterday though, was bloody vile. About halfway through the drive up, it started to snow – not super-heavy, but enough to make things interesting in the still-quite-dark winter morning.
It was at this point that I discovered that my car’s heating had packed up. Fuck.
By the time I stopped at Newark, it was snowing fairly heavily, and starting to settle.
When I came out to go home, the car had a good three or four inches of snow all over it, and the roads were full of it as well. The start of the drive home was emphatically Not Fun, although for me that was mainly because it was bloody cold inside the car, and no heating meant it was also steaming up a bit. The real Not Fun was more in the purview of other drivers who couldn’t handle snowy roads and/or hadn’t put lights on, and were generally utter fucksticks.
The M1 was OK – once I got down past Leicester the snow turned to heavy rain, and then it was just a slog through shitty weather and shitty traffic.
All in, the temperature (according to my car) rose by five full degrees (Centigrade) in the hundred miles between Newark and Home.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a drive where I was actually thankful to get out at the end of it. But that was definitely one of them.
Road Muck
Posted: Tue 18 February, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »It’s that time of the year again where the roads are filthy, and all the grut ends up on cars. I’m not quite sure how it all works out – I think it’s a combination of grit/salt for expected sub-zero temperatures, plus rain lifting and loosening the daily-wear dirt off the tarmac and making it airborne.
It surprises me how dirty everything gets, and also how unaware people are of how vile their cars are – I regularly see lots with their number plates completely obscured and unreadable because of that caked-on junk.
Personally, I don’t get that – regardless of how well one drives, why draw the attention of any passing police, and give them a reason to stop you?
Admittedly, last week when I was driving home one night I did think I’d had a headlamp blow, as there was considerably less light/illumination than usual – but I checked when I got home, and it was just congealed gunk on the lenses. Easy to sort (and I took the car to the car wash the next day) but still, I don’t get why/how people leave their cars to get into a state where you could pretty much scrape off layers of dirt…
Ciara
Posted: Sun 9 February, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, M1, News, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »Today the UK got hit by Storm Ciara – nothing in the scale of American weather and so on, but still, enough to be entertaining
Among other things, it meant that there was a record-breaking subsonic crossing of the Atlantic – just under five hours, arriving at Heathrow a full 80 minutes ahead of schedule – because of the storm’s effect on the Jetstream.
Fortunately, the area I live in wasn’t too affected – we had several trees come down and so on, but they were all apparently cleared away pretty quickly, and a couple of trucks on the M1 were blown over, which must make life interesting. However, other areas were hit far harder, with some winds over 90mph, as well as flooding and so on.
Thankfully, I wasn’t doing much today. I had thought I was back down in London to see a play, but it turned out that is actually on a different day/weekend completely. And I can’t deny, I’m really quite pleased about that.
A Break In The Weather
Posted: Sat 28 July, 2018 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Milton Keynes, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »At last, today we’ve had some rain for the first time in ages. It’s been lovely.
The heat’s supposed to be coming back next week, but for now it’s just nice to not be roasting away.
Maybe I’ll even get some sleep tonight…
Grey Skies
Posted: Fri 12 January, 2018 Filed under: D4D™, Depression, Domestic, SAD, Weather 1 Comment »January is a funny old month in some ways – and particularly so when I look at how it affects my SAD and so on.
As usual, this January has been grey. Different degrees of grey admittedly, including some brighter/lighter grey days, and a fair bundle of darker ones.
Grey days are the ones that affect me the most, regardless of the degree. I find that a grey week with no sight of the sun really affects me – I still get out for fresh air and some daylight, but a few days without direct sunlight and it leaves me feeling far flatter and more tired than usual.
As it is, I’ve found more and more that I can deal with shorter days (although obviously I notice them, and they affect me) so long as they’re bright, and have sight of sunlight. The days now are getting longer – almost imperceptibly, but they are. But with this weeks lack of sun, it’s actually been a far tougher week to get through.
Hopefully the coming week will have more chances for some decent daylight.
Snowbound
Posted: Mon 11 December, 2017 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Health, London, M1, Milton Keynes, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »Yesterday, the weather effectively enforced a day off for me, doing nothing outside. Nothing major, but we had a fair amount (for the UK) of snow overnight, which led to lots of issues with accidents, blocked roads, etc. etc. For my own village, the two main roads out were completely blocked – one by a jack-knifed lorry, and the other just by drivers failing to get up the hills.
So technically it wasn’t the weather itself, so much as the sheer number of people who can’t bloody drive in snow. But still, day off.
In honesty, it was much needed. As I’ve said before, I’ve been ridiculously busy for the last two years – I’ve just counted up, and I’ve had stuff booked in for 48 weeks of 2017 (I’ve counted up til the end of the month) and even on those four ‘free’ ones I was still doing stuff – and December hadn’t provided any real change in that. That’s nothing short of barmy.
So anyway, I’d spent Saturday in London with a mix of food and theatre stuff, so it’s not like it’s been a write-off of a weekend, or anything like that. But a day of doing sod-all – barely going outside, catching up on recorded TV etc., doing some reading, etc. etc. – was definitely A Good Plan.
Whether I feel better for it is still to be determined, but regardless, it was a good day.
Nearly November
Posted: Mon 30 October, 2017 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »On Sunday the clocks went back an hour (in the UK, at least) and like flicking a switch, all of a sudden it’s become colder.
This morning there was also the first air-frost on the car, necessitating that classic “Where the shit did I put that scraper?” question.
Most of the trees have dropped their leaves in the last week or so – it’s all been a bit sudden.
And how the hell is it already nearly November, for chuff’s sake? Seems like it was only last week that it was March and the clocks were going forward…
Connectivity
Posted: Mon 3 July, 2017 Filed under: BT, Business, Customer Services, Domestic, Technology, Thoughts, Utilities, Weather Leave a comment »Yet again, my home broadband connection has gone to pot over the weekend.
It’s an ongoing problem – basically, there’s a leak in the outdoors part of my connection, so when it rains heavily, water gets in, and corrodes the connections in the master socket. I start to know it’s going to be bad when any phone call I make (not that I make many on the landline, but still) starts to get crackly. After a while, it then gets bad enough that the next ingress of water breaks things properly, and leaves my modem/router dropping the connection and reconnecting on an all-too-frequent basis.
In the five-and-a-bit years I’ve been in this house, I’ve had four master sockets. Now soon to be a fifth.
BT refuse to believe that this is the problem – this has been going on for ages, and they’ve done line checks etc., but won’t replace the outside part of the connection, for some reason.
So we go through the farce of doing fault-tracking, “We can’t find anything” and then booking an engineer to come out. Every time, I get told “If it’s a problem past the master socket (i.e. with my own wiring) then it’ll cost £129.99 on your next bill”. It won’t be with my wiring, because I’ve got precisely one socket, and one connector/splitter (also supplied by BT) on it.
Everything else will be fine, it’ll just be corroded connections in the master socket. Again.
This time, I’m going to aim to get the engineer to reinstall the master socket, but do so higher up the wall (so water doesn’t get in, as it can’t climb cables) or on a longer cable inside the house, so I can put it on a shelf or whatever, and again, let gravity deal with the problem.
The engineer’s coming out on Wednesday morning, so we’ll see what happens from there. It’d be nice (and really quite novel!) to have it sorted properly this time. But only time will tell whether that’ll happen or not.
Heated – plus Animals
Posted: Fri 23 June, 2017 Filed under: Domestic, Single Life, Thoughts, Weather 2 Comments »Another thing I hate when the weather gets ridiculously warm, as it has this week – cat food, and the way warm weather interacts with it.
I’ve got two cats, and they have sachets of wet cat food on a regular basis. However, they don’t eat all of it at once. That means that it attracts flies – the buzzing which annoy me intensely anyway – who lay eggs on the food and so on.
Obviously any remnants (and or course the now fly-blown cat food) get thrown away, but with the heat, it also makes the bin stink. And with fortnightly bin-collections, it makes the main bins stink too. I don’t mind fortnightly collections in general, they’re a fact of life – but I do think there should be an ability to cater for hot weather and so on, and change things to collect those bins weekly if the temperature goes above a certain limit. (I know it’s probably utterly impractical, but it’d still be nice)
All told, it’s just skanky, and I hate it. All the fun of summer.
Heated
Posted: Fri 23 June, 2017 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Insomnia, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »As I wrote about the other day – and as just about anyone in the UK already knows – this week has included the warmest June day in at least forty years, with Wednesday hitting 34.5°C (94°F) . As always, I know that people in other countries will be pissing themselves laughing at the way we’re unable to cope with temperatures at extremes (or at least what the UK sees as extremes) but that’s because for us they are extremes – and as such, we simply don’t have the infrastructure to cope with them.
We get hot periods during the summer, but we’ve not been this hot since 1976. So we don’t bother with air-conditioning in houses, or anything to deal with things like train rails expanding, tarmac melting etc. – because it only happens for small occasional periods, instead of months every year. It’s the same in Winter, if we end up with serious (for us) snow or freezing conditions – they don’t happen often, so we don’t invest in snowploughs, or underground systems like places that have deep snow for weeks and months on end.
Personally, I don’t mind warm (and even hot) days – but I hate hot nights. The other part of this week’s heat has been that there’s little to no breeze, so it’s been stifling and claggy at night, which makes it (for me) massively unpleasant. Indeed, on Wednesday night I even ended up giving up and going to sleep out in the garden instead, which helped a bit – although also resulted in interrupted sleep because of the cats.
In that context, it’s all made for what feels like a really long week…
A Paucity of Postings
Posted: Sun 15 January, 2017 Filed under: Creativity, D4D™, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, SAD, Thoughts, Weather, Writing Leave a comment »Despite the best of intentions, this week’s been quiet here on D4D™.
Mainly, it’s because I’ve been absolutely snowed under with work, including beating the living hell out of databases – and cursing the clowns that wrote Microsoft Access, which is what I’ve been taking data out of and putting into something decent. One of these days I’d like to meet the people who created it, and ask just what the fuck was going through their minds when they made certain decisions.
Along the way, there’s been a whole bundle of other stuff, insomnia and the like, and well, it’s just January.
I have a hard time with January, for some reason. It’s part of the reason I don’t really make New Year’s Resolutions, because I know I’m never good with the start of the year. The thing is, I don’t really know why it’s such a tough one for me.
I’ve got my suspicions – and primarily it’s about preparation.
I know I get affected by autumn and winter, as the nights draw in and so on, and I can fight it for a long time. Then there’s the standard dislike of the Festering Season, which I’m ready for and can keep on fighting. But now we’re through all that, the days are getting longer, and we’re through the whole Christmas period.
This is where (I suspect) my problems kick in – the days are still short, even if they’re lengthening. It’s just not doing so quickly enough. This week in particularly has been pretty much solidly grey and overcast, with little to no sunlight coming through. And I’m just tired, with no real energy for continuing to fight the whole Seasonal thing.
It leaves me flat, tired and uninspired. It shouldn’t, in all sense, but regardless, it does.
So yeah, this week’s been more about downtime, about being tired and grey, and not really in the mood for doing much. I’ve got a fair amount of stuff in the coming week as well, which will help. But this week’s been a flat and down one. Such is life, and all that rot.
Sticky
Posted: Fri 22 July, 2016 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Weather Leave a comment »Among other things this week, the heat (or at least the heat in UK terms – in most places it’s barely temperate) also had another effect at my house.
Sometime in the week, I’d thrown away something sticky – I suspect one of the fresh lemonades that’d gone out of date – and while I was out at work yesterday, it’d obviously gone off, fermented, and popped the bottle. In the bin. Which meant that I came home to a kitchen floor covered in sticky gunk, that had then become an absolute snack-bar for flies. There were hundreds of the fuckers.
In the end it took a load of paper towels to absorb the majority of it, plus two full moppings of the floor before it stopped being sticky. The flies took longer to fuck off, along with judicious application of fly spray to annihilate the twats, but all was well in the end.
It was another of those things that I could’ve done without – but also it would’ve helped if I hadn’t thrown the sodding things in the bin anyway.
Too Warm
Posted: Wed 20 July, 2016 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Getting Organised, Milton Keynes, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »As usual, it’s July, so here in the UK we get a bit of a heatwave. Someone else (I believe it was George II) described the British summer as “Three hot days, and a thunderstorm” and that’s not far from the truth. This year, it started on Monday, and Tuesday was the hottest day of the year so far, hitting nearly 34° C (92° F)
I try to not gripe about the weather – I know, terribly unBritish of me – because well, realistically it’s just the British weather. We have a strange weather system/environment for a number of reasons, but in general we’re really remarkably middle-of-the-road, and thus not set up at all to handle extremes. (Or even what we refer to as extremes, and which other countries regard as “normal”) That means we don’t fit air-conditioning by default in houses, and we over-insulate them. (Similar infrastructure lacks show up in Winter, when we grind to a halt in levels of snow that Americans and Canadians look at and laugh) We’re just not cut out for long periods of heat – because we never get them. Maybe a week or so is usually the longest for any form of ‘heatwave’ without the respite of storms, rain, and anything else our weather system can throw at us.
As it is, I do feel the heat far more than I feel the cold. I’m naturally very warm (temperature-wise, if not personality-wise) which is great in Winter, but leaves me as a sweaty blob when we hit these hot days.
I try and prepare for it all – this year I’ve been organised enough to put a fan in the bedroom (which certainly helps at night) and got some cold and frozen stuff that’ll be useful. Additionally, a bottle of frozen water makes a great bag-cooler, and can then be really nice as it thaws out, while also keeping other drinks cold in the meantime.
In short, I do what I can. I’m not a massive fan of it at this point, but *shrug* it’s just part of life. I’d still rather the temperature were a few degrees cooler, but there we go, it will be in a couple of days time, I’m sure. I’ll enjoy it while it’s here – sitting out in the sun at lunchtime, and as it cools down a bit in the evenings, or getting to the coast when I can – and that’s all to the good.
There was going to be a point to all this, and I now can’t remember what that point was. Hey Ho.
Seasonal Transitional
Posted: Fri 18 March, 2016 Filed under: Change, Depression, Domestic, Fog, Introspective, Sleep - or lack thereof, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »This time of year is hard for me. A lot of it is related to the change of the seasons, the transition between winter and spring/summer, the weather, and the resultant effect on my depression.
It’s weird, really. Through the winter, I expect the grey days and the lack of sunlight – it’s par for the course, and I’m used to handling it, fighting against depression and not wanting to go out. I get as much daylight as possible – currently helped by my office facing big windows, which maximises things, and walking at lunchtime – and basically just get through Winter the best I can.
Come spring though, things change. Days get longer, we have more hours of sunlight, and I know that the easier time is coming – but it’s not here yet. I’m tired from having kept the depression at bay all winter, and it hits me harder now as a result. I just don’t have the energy by now to keep on fighting with it. It’s the time when I completely lack motivation, and could happily stay in bed a lot longer, not wanting to get up.
I still do get up, and get things done. I make plans – not always conscious plans, but because I’m aware of the upcoming Glums, I make plans ahead of time, sometimes without realising just why I’m making them for that time. I still do stuff, and get on with it. But it’s definitely a lot harder than usual (as the actress said to the bishop) and a rough period.
It’s not helped by being (or at least feeling) greyer than usual. Yes, it’s getting light – but the last couple of weeks, it’s just been bright grey, with fairly thick mists and fogs most mornings. Again, a facet of the season, but one I find particularly tough to deal with. I’m OK with it being dark when I get up, I’m better with it being light and sunny when I get up. But this grey crap in between the two is just draining.
I’ll be OK. I’m used to this crap, and I can generally deal with it. I’m affected by it, but I won’t admit defeat to it.
Given a couple of weeks – usually once the clocks go forward at the end of the month – things will start to come back. But March is just a bit cruddy, with drained energy levels, and more blah than usual as a result.
Solsticial
Posted: Mon 21 December, 2015 Filed under: Depression, Festering Season, Health, SAD, Weather Leave a comment »Happily, today is the Winter Solstice for 2015 – the shortest day, the longest night. (technically it’s tomorrow at 4.20am, but traditionally it’s today, the 21st, so I’m sticking with that)
From here, the days get longer – and that’s always a good thing. I suspect the impact of it will be lessened this year, as we’ve had such a stunningly warm December anyway, whereas the impact is always greater when November and December have been consistently grey and crap.
The day’s won’t feel longer it for a while – the increase is only seconds until at least the new year – but just knowing that it’s happening is A Good Thing.
And once the Festering Season is over and done with, it’s all improvements from there.
Firm Footing
Posted: Thu 10 December, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, M1, Travel, Weather Leave a comment »In the last couple of months, as written about before, I’ve replaced all four tyres on the car with new ones. The old ones weren’t even close to their wear limits, and would’ve probably done me through the winter – but the key word in there is probably.
Because I drive a lot, I want my car to be as safe as possible – particularly as we hit autumn and winter, and the numerous joyous road conditions. Ideally, I don’t want to be driving on worn tyres in snow, ice, rain and the like. It was also the first time I’ve had a full matched set of tyres on the car, which was something where I was interested in seeing the results.
I went with Michelin Cross-Climates, which supposedly cover a wide range of weather conditions from summer through to snow and ice. On current evidence, I really can’t argue with that claim. I’ve also seen other independent reviews since the purchase that have been extremely impressed (not to say amazed) by the tyres, which is kind of reassuring.
Over the last three weeks, I’ve driven an absolute shedload of miles in some of the vilest weather this year. Serious storms, gale-force sidewinds, heavy rain, and absolutely vile roads – and the tyres have been fine, and kept me solidly on-track. I’ve seen others around me losing traction and sliding (which is fairly attention-focusing when they’re sliding in front of you!) but mine has been solid, and really that’s what matters.
I’ve been happy with my choice, and with having sorted the tyres before the bad weather hit. They’ll last me the winter, and well into next year. It’s been a good decision.
Ill-Prepared
Posted: Tue 8 December, 2015 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Milton Keynes, People, Thoughts, Weather, Weirdness Leave a comment »Currently, we’re in the middle of one of our mildest/warmest ‘winters’ in a very long time. November was potentially the warmest on record (the figures haven’t yet been confirmed, so far as I can see) and while December has certainly been bloody wet/windy so far, it’s definitely nowhere near cold.
Yet every day, I see people who are wrapped up in coats, scarves and hats. I’m wandering around – and warm – in shirtsleeves (although admittedly I do also carry a far amount of insulation) and they’re layered up like we’re about to enter the next Ice Age.
All of which just makes me wonder, what are these people going to do when it actually gets cold?
Sunrise
Posted: Wed 25 November, 2015 Filed under: Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Milton Keynes, Photography, Weather Leave a comment »One of the few good things about the way the days are getting shorter right now is that I get to see sunrise, which is always one of my favourite times of day.
This week has had a couple of stunners – Monday was beautiful (if bloody chilly) as I was driving to my current client’s office. As I was on the road, I couldn’t stop to take a photo. But sunrise through mist and clouds, silhouetting trees on the hill-ridge, that was a thing of beauty – and one of the few times I wished I’d got either a dashcam to save the image, or a camera linked to my field of view.
Today I was in my own office as the sun came up, and it was another stunner…
Hell, it even made Milton Keynes look pretty…
Durham Lumiere 2015
Posted: Mon 16 November, 2015 Filed under: Art, Creativity, Domestic, Driving, Photography, Travel, Weather Leave a comment »Two years ago, I went with friends to see the Lumiere exhibition in Durham – which was ace.
This year, it was back, and so were we.
While it’s organised by the same people, and has some of the same artists, it was utterly different – and still brilliant. The weather this time was absolutely rotten – my coat still isn’t dry – but still it was great. The theme (if there really is one) was more about science and maths this time round, with the main ‘showpiece’ projection onto Durham Cathedral this time, “The World Machine” being more about the birth of modern cosmology from the 12th century until the present day.
One of the big draws this year was Mysticete, a projection of a whale on the river Wear, visible from the bridge above. Done by the same people as the Elephant last year, it was ace – and so clever, being projected onto a water-spray. (although with the heavy rain they could probably have just done the same onto the rain) Sadly, because of that weather it got cancelled on the Sunday, but it was well worth seeing. (we were there on the Saturday)
Image (c) Durham Chronicle
We got to see a good portion of the exhibits – although not all, by any means – and really enjoyed it. Some of the stuff was really magic and fun, other bits were ‘just’ excellent.
As per the last one, I will definitely be going again when it’s next on. I may also visit the one they’re doing in London in January 2016 – I hope that’s as clever and fun as the Durham ones are.
Weather and Maintenance
Posted: Tue 3 November, 2015 Filed under: Commuting, Driving, Fog, Laziness, Milton Keynes, People, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »It’s November, so in the last few days we’ve seen the clocks go back and had some seriously thick fogs in the mornings and evenings. That means people are (or at least should be) driving with lights on and so on – and it also illustrates that plenty of them don’t have everything working.
As usual, I find it utterly gobsmacking how people can drive along – while maintaining the same speeds they’d drive at on dry roads with decent visibility – with broken headlamps, no lights at all, and no foglights. (And, of course there’s then the ones who leave on foglights well into clear weather, or use them at night when there’s no need at all)
I lost count of the number of – usually pale/grey – cars with no lights at all, in visibility that could be measured in feet, at best. I don’t understand what goes through someone’s head, that whole “well, I can see fuck-all, but I’ll keep my lights turned off, because even though I can’t see, it’s Day Time, so I don’t need lights” kind of process.
Equally, I don’t get how people can consistently drive with a broken/non-working headlamp, and the massively-reduced visibility that gives. I know it happens, that they can just blow without warning – I’ve had it happen. But when it has happened, it gets replaced rapidly – particularly in Autumn and Winter. Even in the poorest days, you (or at least I) still make sure that the car is safe.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case with a lot of people, and it’s a mindset I just don’t get.
Snow Day
Posted: Tue 3 February, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, M1, Weather Leave a comment »Last night it snowed in the area I live in. I’d been in the cinema for the evening, and came out to find the car covered in snow. Not lots – maybe a maximum of two inches all told. But it meant slower driving (well, except for BMW drivers, who were still their usual dickwhistle selves) and just generally being sensible.
Of course, at this point I know that various friends in different areas of the country/world are pissing themselves laughing (as usual) at Britain’s shitness with snow and inclement conditions. The only excuse is that we don’t have enough dodgy weather to invest in the infrastructure to deal with it. Canada, US and Scandinavia are all used to feet of snow, and have the machinery and infrastructure to deal with it. Here? Not so much.
Anyway, it made driving home a bit more cautious – although still not bad at all – and also made me thankful I was driving at midnight, rather than in peak hours. Even at midnight there were still plenty of idiots driving too fast for the conditions, and making things interesting.
And I’m very glad I was working from home today, rather than travelling on the M1 in either direction…
Lit
Posted: Thu 13 March, 2014 Filed under: 1BEM, A428, BMW Drivers, Commuting, Driving, Fog, People, Travel, Weather, Weirdness Leave a comment »This morning’s drive in to work was foggy – foggy enough that you could see maybe three or four car-lengths ahead, and not much more.
So it left me quite gobsmacked to see how many drivers today weren’t bothering with their foglights – and in some cases without any lights on at all.
Considering how every pisswit fuck-knuckle in Christendom seems to put their fog lights on when it’s misty – and then leave them on for three damn days afterwards – it’s pretty amazing when you come across cars today (and particularly bloody silver ones) with no lights on at all.
What on earth are these drivers thinking? (And yes, I know, they’re not thinking) After all, it’s not like they can see any better than I could – I just don’t get the mindset of “Oh well, other people will be able to see me, even if I can’t see them”
I don’t mind people being stupid, inconsiderate, and fuck-witted. If they want to die on the road, that’s fine with me. What I do mind is the other people affected by those decisions. And that’s just cuntish.
Stormy
Posted: Tue 24 December, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Weather Leave a comment »Thankfully, last night’s storms didn’t affect us too badly round here. The wind and rain were heavy, and apparently some places were without power for a while, but there’s been no flooding, and no visible wind damage nearby.
It’s been quite a stormy old month really – although I’d rather have weather like that than snow and ice, in honesty.
Anyway, at least all’s good still, and in comparison to some other areas of the country, that makes me feel pretty lucky right now.
Shortest
Posted: Sat 21 December, 2013 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, SAD, Time, Weather 2 Comments »Today, December 21st, is this year’s Winter Equinox – the shortest day of the year. And about damn time too.
Today, the sun will be around for 7h 44m 14s , even if it doesn’t feel like it’s that long. Tomorrow’s only one second longer, but by the end of the year the sun will be setting after 4pm, and the day will already be five minutes longer, at 7h 49m 32s. It’s not much, but it’s an improvement.
In six months time, the day will be 16h 44m 24s, a full nine hours longer. I know that’s nothing in comparison to Tromsø (for example) where December is truly dark and June is completely lit.
All the same, knowing that today is the shortest day is a reason for celebration, and keck-all to do with the oncoming Festering Season.
Heatwave
Posted: Wed 17 July, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, People, Weather Leave a comment »I know it’s been said by many, many people over the last few days, but fucking hell, it’s warm.
I don’t mind heat when there’s some breeze to cool it down – which is probably why I like the coast, lakes and the like. But at the moment it just seems to be so still, so stale, so humid.
Still, at least it’s warm and sunny, and that’s a good thing after what has felt like a very long winter.
Snow Shopping
Posted: Sat 19 January, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, People, Shopping, Thoughts, Weather 4 Comments »Where I am now, the snow hasn’t been too bad so far. Some of the roads on the way to work are entertaining (the village where work is based is at the top of a hill, so all routes in/out involve some fun slopes) and the lane to the office is deeply dodgy, but where I live has been OK. Snow, but nothing epic.
Compared to the Norfolk and Suffolk places, it’s been a doddle. It helps that all the roads around here are major – M1, and A421 are the two main ones – which means they’re part of the gritting plan and so on.
Anyway, I hadn’t worried about the snow, but did need to do a small amount of shopping today, just basics of veg, bread and the like – but having seen the media reports of people panic-buying, of empty shelves in supermarkets and the like. (And to be fair, the village shop has/had no bread etc. today)
So I girded my loins, and prepared for a shopping trip into chaos, with the supermarket full of idiots. But it didn’t happen. The roads were virtually empty, which boded well. When I got to the local(ish) Te$co, it was virtually empty. Spaces throughout the car park, and virtually no-one around at all.
Inside the store was the same- really quiet, no problems with stock, and very few idiots. (There’s always some, but well, nothing’s perfect) It was probably the best shopping experience I’ve had in that particular store – certainly the one with the fewest people. I got everything I needed, and only wanted to beat one gormless muppet to a pulp with a tin of beans.
So from my side, it just meant that for all the purported problems with snow, it actually made my life easier, better, and less stressy than usual. Which is kind of odd, when you think about it.
Snowstorm
Posted: Tue 28 December, 2010 Filed under: Weather Leave a comment »Just for those in the UK who think they’ve had it bad with the weather this December…
A time-lapse video of 32 inches of snow…
Makes you realise just how lucky we are/were…
Autumnal
Posted: Mon 1 November, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »Round here, the leaves on the trees have all suddenly started to change in the last two weeks. It’s something I still find beautiful, and particularly when driving (as I did this weekend) through Thetford Forest, down roads lined with Autumn colours.
It seems weird that Autumn now really isn’t starting ’til October – and that there are still plenty of leaves on the trees while we’re now in November – but that seems to be the way the weather is developing. It’s been like this for a few years now, but still jars with what I remember of Autumn starting in September.
I wonder whether the plants will be affected by these changes. I thought they would be last year, but the harsh winter seems to have re-set their clocks OK. This year though I’ve seen things re-flowering in August/September (the California Lilac of the next-door neighbour is still in bloom now) and I wonder what effect it will have to be flowering and then suddenly be in Autumn / Winter.
Rain, Storms
Posted: Mon 23 August, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Norfolk, Sleep - or lack thereof, Weather Leave a comment »When it rains heavily (particularly when it does so at night) having the animals becomes distinctly harder work than any other time. This weekend has been a perfect demonstration of that – we had a proper thunderstorm on Saturday night / Sunday morning, and heavy rain last night/this morning.
Hound has decided that heavy rain equals Thunder, and skitters round the room to lay next to my side of the bed. I don’t mind this too much – she’s been really good this weekend on this score, without getting stressy and stupid, let alone trying to burrow through the wall as she has done on previous occasions. But she still makes enough noise to wake me up, which isn’t great. Saturday night we ended up moving into the living room again (for some reason one of Hound’s “safe places”) because it was proper thunder etc., and it’s easier to have her in there than down the side of the bed.
Sunday night we had heavy rain, so Hound came round to my side of the bed again. This time though it was Psycho Cat that was the pain in the arse – having got utterly soaked, he decided that the best way to warm up and dry off was to snug into the back of my knees, and then turn round repeatedly so that everything dried off evenly. It has to be said that there is little worse than being woken up by the sensation of cold wet cat fur in the back of your nice warm legs.
The little shit even then went back out again once he dried off and warmed up, and was whining again by 7am that he was cold and wet and why wouldn’t anyone do anything. I seriously wonder sometimes whether it wouldn’t be easier to just drown the little fucker and be done with it.
So all told
Security Hound
Posted: Wed 4 August, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Weather Leave a comment »Last night (technically this morning) Hound woke us up with full-on security barks. All very much “There’s an intruder, there’s someone/thing in the garden, something’s wrong, wake up!”
It meant I needed to get up, check the house, let her out into the garden to check what was going on, and all that crap.
It turned out – so far as we can tell – that the security issue was heavy rain, which she expected to turn into thunder. I took her basket into the living room, and spent the rest of the night on the sofa, with Hound in her basket.
She was obviously stressed about it though, as the first hour or so was spent with her right by the sofa, as close to me as possible without being on the sofa. A definite sign of stressy Hound.
It’s a good job that the sofa and chair we bought earlier this year are comfortable, and a good size. Between us we spend an inordinate amount of nights (or at least part-nights) on the damn sofa.
Blindsided
Posted: Mon 22 February, 2010 Filed under: Driving, People, Weather 2 Comments »This morning the weather while driving was truly fucking foul – icy, heavyish snowfall (heavy for the UK anyway) and a few dollops of fog to just top it off.
And yet still there was a significant percentage of drivers who didn’t have any lights on whatsoever. Well into double figures during my drive this morning. There were even more with only one working headlight, but at least they had one light working.
I simply don’t understand the logic that says “I don’t need to use lights”, although I suppose it’s something similar to the entire “Problem [x] will never happen to me”. I just think it’s another example of where people really should be done more regularly for driving without due care and attention.
Weather Warning
Posted: Wed 17 February, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, News, Weather Leave a comment »All of last night we were getting told about severe weather warnings for Norfolk, that we were going to get heavy snow and ice overnight.
From this story in the EDP (Eastern Daily Press)…
The Met Office is forecasting wintry showers across the region, and has issued a severe weather warning for Norfolk and Suffolk as it believes that rain will turn to snow early on Wednesday with the risk of heavy falls at times.
Road users are being advised to plan their journeys before they set out, check the forecast and road conditions and leave extra time for their journeys if travel conditions are poor.
And this morning, this is what we’ve got…
Yep, that was serious snow. Honest.
Visibility
Posted: Thu 14 January, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Driving, People, Stupidity, Weather 1 Comment »Sometimes you just sit gobsmacked at the stupidity of people…
You might want to try scraping the snow off before leaving
Not seen by me, but instead featured on this story on Sky News (and other locations) with the photo provided by Devon police.
Apparently the person driving (an old woman) was told off, and given an ice scraper.
Quiet Weekend
Posted: Sat 9 January, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Weather Leave a comment »What with the weather and how work has been this year so far, we’re taking this weekend as a quiet one.
It makes sense in a lot of ways – we’ve still got a bundle of snow outside which is making driving entertaining, to say the least. (Both my experience of driving last night and this morning bears that out nicely) We’ve got enough food, don’t need anything, so don’t need to go out and do anything else this weekend.
And lo, a quiet one beckons.
Snowed In – 2
Posted: Fri 8 January, 2010 Filed under: Weather 1 Comment »One of the coolest images from the current spate of cold and snowy weather has to be this satellite shot of the UK by NASA…
Click for the larger version
And for a much bigger version (at a scale of 250m instead of the 1km scale above) you can go here, but it’s a big image. (3Mb in size)
Snow
Posted: Thu 24 December, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Norfolk, Weather 1 Comment »I didn’t get round to posting this before, but this is indicative of the amount of snow we had in our part of Norfolk.
Snow Depth
And yes, I know, people in America and Canada (and anyone else who gets serious snow on a regular basis) is pissing themselves laughing right now at how little it takes for the UK to go to pot.
Crunch 2
Posted: Sat 19 December, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Travel, Weather 3 Comments »So – following on from yesterday’s post about crunching the car, this is what I did to it…
The result of my sliding into the fence
Fucked wheel, flat tyre, buggered headlamp and bumper, knackered plastic bodywork, and a bundle of crunched connections and wires.
I’ve still not had any news about how much the repairs will cost – I suspect that’ll be Monday’s news.
Crunch
Posted: Fri 18 December, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Norfolk, Travel, Weather 1 Comment »Last night, as may have come to people’s attention, it snowed in Norfolk. Quite heavily in fact, with a heavy wind that meant the snow was horizontal in places.
It was also effing cold – in snow? Who’d have thought? – which meant that the road was slippy.
Coming home, I started slipping at one crossroads, and slowed down as a result. I knew the next bit was dodgy at the best of times – seen the results of several accidents there already – so I was down to about 15mph. The car slid, and rather than turning went straight on, up the verge, and took out the fence of the house that’s on the corner. (Again, that fence has been taken out at least four times to my knowledge – so I’m the fifth) It slid along the fence, popping out the wooden fence panels, and hitting the concrete fence posts.
It wasn’t a hard impact – just inertia and momentum really – and didn’t even trigger the airbags. But the entire front quarter is stuffed, I’ve lost a headlamp, front nearside panel’s gone, and the bumper’s stuffed too. It’s going to take some work to fix.
The insurance company I use (Tesco) have been really good so far. The recovery truck was out within the hour they said, and today I’ve started the claim, and just about everything has run smoothly. There’s one exception to that, but that’s a separate post.
More mortifying was the fact that someone had called the police – I don’t know if it was one of the houseowners, or someone driving past, but still, up they pulled, blue lights and all. Probably for the best, as the corner was still dodgy and slippery (the police car came up at about 15-20mph too) but all the same, pretty mortifying. Still, it means that as well as having my first “proper” accident, I’ve also had my first breathalyser test – blowing an absolute zero, which wasn’t a surprise – and given all my details to them about the crash. An interesting experience, to be sure.
So the car’s stuffed – but thankfully it appears to be mainly the bodywork, not the chassis or anything. And it could’ve been so much worse. After all, I’m not hurt, no-one else got hurt, and really it’s just a car and a fence.
Thunderstorm
Posted: Fri 14 August, 2009 Filed under: Photography, Weather Leave a comment »This small video is absolutely fantastic – a thunderstorm in Toronto.
It’s taken by Sam Javanrouh from Daily Dose of Imagery, one of my favourite photographers. (There’s also an interview with Sam here, although that’s not related to the thunderstorm video)
All told, the video consists of 347 15-second shots, with two seconds between each shot. (I suspect he used his Pclix for it – he’s obviously better at programming it than I am with mine at the moment)
Well worth the effort, anyway.
Toronto Lightning Storm from Sam Javanrouh on Vimeo.
Night Photography
Posted: Sat 8 August, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, Weather Leave a comment »For the last two and a half years, I’ve had a mental image of a photograph I wanted to try and get – basically, haybales lit by moonlight, so they’d be silver rather than gold. I know, strange but true.
Over the last two summers, events have conspired against that plan – there’s been no full moon when the bales are available, and conversely no bales when the full moon’s around. And on the occasions when there was a full moon + bales, the nights have been too cloudy to do anything with it.
Last night, I finally got the perfect circumstances – lovely full moon, clear skies (OK, a tiny bit of cloud, but nothing important) and bales in the fields. So off I went.
And it’s been reasonably successful. I’m pleased with the results in general, except for one thing. They’re horrifically noisy as well as everything else. Now some of that’s my fault – the wrong ISO setting, for one thing – so I’m going to go out again tonight and see whether I get anything better while using a super-low ISO – 200 at most, but preferably 100. It’ll also probably mean I need to take even longer exposures, although the ones I got last night of about 2.5-3 minutes seemed to work OK.
Even at that point I think I’m still going to need to do some editing in Photoshop and/or Capture ONE in order to get the results I’m actually thinking of , as it turns out that my mental image is probably rather more “romantic” than the reality. Still, it’s fun to try.
Additionally, it also meant I finally got to use my PClix 100 properly for the first time since I bought it three years ago. It’s a nice bit of kit, but ’til now I haven’t really had the project and/or ideas that necessitated its use. Long exposures though are one of the areas it specialises in. Without the PClix, I wouldn’t have had any real chance of getting a decent exposure at all.
Driving to the Conditions
Posted: Wed 8 July, 2009 Filed under: Driving, Thoughts, Weather Leave a comment »As regular readers will be all too aware, one of my regular driving bug-bears is about the idiots who put on their foglights, and then forget to turn them off when the weather clears.
Rather more dangerous though, as I was reminded last night on my way home, are the idiots who don’t use foglights when they’re actually necessary – even if that isn’t in fog.
Last night, just before leaving the M11 to go onto the A11, the clouds opened. Full-on thunderstorm, and the torrential rain that seems to be part and parcel at the moment. Within moment, visibility had rolled down to dogshit (the official terminology for “less than 20ft”) and I’d slowed to about 40, having seen one person in front aquaplane and spin the car through a full 180° onto the hard shoulder. (That was impressive in itself – the driver handled it fine, but just span into the hard shoulder, no damage at all, just spin to a stop) At the same time, my lights went on – as usual, to enable people to see me, not in order to be seen.
The entire drive along the A11 until the A14 was the same – exceptionally low visibility, and incredibly heavy rainfall. You couldn’t see cars at all 100 ft away – and why? Because hardly any of them even put lights on, let alone the foglights that actually should have been on.
In fact, in the entire 10-ish miles of A11, I saw exactly one other driver with his foglights on.
It boggles my mind, the number of people who use their foglights when they don’t need them, but then don’t use them at all when they actually do need to be in use.
More and more, I find myself supporting the idea of drivers having to pass a “refresher” driving test every five years. I know it would be a pig to administrate, but I think it would lead to some significant improvements in driving.
Bitten
Posted: Tue 30 June, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Weather 2 Comments »Great – it’s that time of year where the horseflies come out again, which means I get a couple of viciously nasty bug bites.
I don’t know what the hell is in a horsefly’s bite (injection, whatever) but my body reacts badly to it – not an allergic reaction, anaphylactic shock, or anything like that – but the site of the bite swells significantly. It also itches like an absolute motherfucker, which doesn’t help.
Generally the swelling stays for about 48-72 hours, and there’s nothing I’ve yet found that’ll do anything at all to it – piriton, witch hazel, cold compress, anti-histamines in general, all has no effect whatsoever. It’s incredibly annoying.
At the moment I’ve got two of these bites, which have lasted from Sunday. They should be easing off by now – or at least by the end of today – just in time to get some more this coming weekend, I’m sure.
All told it’s just another reason to get a bit more annoyed by summer.
Hail
Posted: Tue 16 June, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Green Garden, Weather Leave a comment »When I said we had epic hail yesterday, I really wasn’t kidding.
This was what remained around some of our flower pots two hours after it’d fallen – most of it stayed on the ground right through ’til at least half ten at night (having fallen at four or so in the afternoon) although it was gone this morning
Hailstones
Pretty impressive, really.
Of course, they hail has beaten the shit out of most of the plants outside – all the broad bean plants are bent over and have been beaten up, as have the strawberries, french beans, courgettes and pumpkins as well as the bamboo and lilac trees/bushes that we bought recently. But all of that should heal over time, so it could be a lot worse.
Meltdown
Posted: Mon 15 June, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Weather Leave a comment »There are some times where I really do feel sorry for Hound. And today is one of those days.
As I’ve said before, Hound’s mental state really doesn’t hold up well when it comes to thunderstorms (or fireworks, the noise of jumbo jets, gales, and many other things – it’s a long list) and today has had one of the biggest/longest thunderstorms I’ve ever seen.
In this case, the thunder started rumbling at around 1pm – fortunately I was working at home – and Hound straight away came into the office to lie under the desk on my feet. She hasn’t really moved since then ’til now (it’s currently nearly 7pm, and there’s still the odd rumble of thunder going on) except for one mad fifteen minutes just before the Main Act of the storm some three and a half hours in, when I was dying for the loo and had to move. Cue utter meltdown.
The bit where the poor nutbag really lost it though was in the Main Act, where we had pretty much constant thunder/lightning, and an incredible dollop of hail that left ice on the ground maybe half an inch deep. During that time, Hound tried (as usual) to burrow out through the wall – she still hasn’t figured out that if she actually succeeded in burrowing out through the wall, she’d be outside, in the environment that so terrifies her. I know, she panics, and isn’t really capable of that kind of logic, but all the same you’d at least hope she’d figure that one out.
So we’ve got some gouges in the walls under the desk where she’s tried her burrow for freedom, and she’s now still sleeping (or at least lying) on my feet, so I can’t go anywhere.
So while she drives me potty, on occasion I do have some sympathy for the poor cow.
Still, at least we haven’t had floods etc., like some of the nearby towns/villages – it looks like our bit of Norfolk has been the worst hit by all this.