1 EAGLETON NOTES: Global Weather Chaos

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Sunday 5 February 2017

Global Weather Chaos

It's Sunday. My 'day off' from my recent day job at my son's house. As a full-time job it comes to an end this week as he's going back to the superyacht that is his home for two months out of every four. The house is almost finished. I will miss the day job very much indeed. However I will get back to the very full life that I had before.

This morning, after a late and very enjoyable night out with my son and his wife and family at Stornoway's finest restaurant, I'm sitting in bed with hot water and lemon and doing some catching up in Blogland before getting on with the day's tasks (which include finalising the designs for my next project: gutting and putting in a new kitchen).

I'm not sure why but something prompted me to see what I'd written on this day back in 2008 (the second year of my New Zealand blog).  It was brief and to the point and reminded me (almost) of the unpredictability of Lewis weather.
It's very hard to understand how bizarre the weather is here at the moment. Two nights ago I had the air conditioning on for a short while before I went to bed because it was too warm. Yesterday morning it got up to 31.5 deg on the deck and I was working in shorts alone. This morning on the Croquet Lawn I was wearing long trousers, a body warmer, a fleece and a windproof jacket! Tonight I have the air conditioning on to warm the Cottage. We are supposed to be having a record hot, dry February according to the forecasters. Eh?

26 comments:

  1. Nothing has changed in New Zealand, 30 degrees today but probably a cold southerly tomorrow... not a brilliant summer at all!

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    1. So I'm hearing Fiona. I hope that it improves.

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  2. Sounds typical weather to me...I remember how one minute it could be gorgeous sunshine and another minute pouring with rain in NZ, then bright sunshine again when I was a child!

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    1. Serenata our memories are strange things are they not? I can remember winters of my childhood (particularly 10947 when I was only 3) when the country was closed down by heavy snow. Winters were, in my memory, winters with ice on the inside of the windows. Of course they weren't generally like that and were, as you recall, very mixed but I don't remember that.

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  3. No end to your list of projects, it seems :) As for weather, ours is precitably unprecictable as well. For February, it's unusually snow-free at the moment (around these parts of Sweden). It does have one advantage: the streets have been mostly bare and non-slippery lately. Unfortunately the general greyness kind of disencourages one to be out and about all that much anyway. (Not for pure pleasure, anyway!)

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    1. Monica I'm looking out of the kitchen window before I leave the house and it's a fabulous cloud-free sky and 6℃. It's hard to believe that most of today's ferry sailings have been cancelled because of forecast gales.

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  4. If you run out of projects in your immediate vicinity, I gladly offer you the job of planning a new bathroom for me - and making that plan reality. It needs doing, but I shy away from the upheaval. I only have the one bathroom combined with a toilet, redoing it will mean I have to move in with my parents for a few days.

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    1. Meike that's one of the big downsides to renovating the kitchen myself. It will take several weeks and it's hard to live without a kitchen for that amount of time.

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  5. NZ has been cold this summer, I believe. We are in the third week of a heat wave and no rain.

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    1. Yes Diane I don't envy your heatwave even though I love the hot weather (if I have aircon for the nights!).

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  6. You certainly keep yourself busy with projects. It will be interesting to see what happens with your kitchen.

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    1. Red I shall be very interested to see what I decide to do with the kitchen!

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  7. What does Gaz do on the superyacht? You may have mentioned this before but I don't recall.

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    1. YP he's the Chief Engineer and it's the size of MV Loch Seaforth our ferry between Ullapool and Stornoway.

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    2. I have a couple of spare spanners. Would they be any use to him?

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    3. If it's anything like the last one (and it's fairly new so it should be) a degree in computer science is more appropriate although big spanners no doubt help when taking the wheels off.

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  8. I need some air conditioning here at present...it's very hot and humid. Not a good time to be overly-energetic...so I am not being overly-energetic. :)

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    1. Lee I'd fin nights very hard without air conditioning. Where I lived in Hawkes Bay it was very rarely humid even when the temperatures were in the high 30s.

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  9. I hope you take a breather before diving into your next project. Summer may have been late arriving here but is in full swing now. So, so dry and pretty darn warm, too. I'm fed up with having my arm in a cast. It feels very hot and itchy in there.

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    1. Pauline I'm going away on Wednesday (weather permitting) for a week before embarking on any new projects.

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  10. I rely on the dog; if he refuses to go for his early morning walk, I take his advice and do similarly.

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  11. A relative of mine is going to work in NZ for a year and is looking forward to being in the middle of summer. I know the weather can vary a lot between the different towns so I hope Auckland is reasonably hot and sunny for her!

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    1. As you say Jenny the weather varies considerably between areas in New Zealand: a consequence of the country being an large island at that latitude. I know that Hawkes Bay has had a very indifferent summer and Northland is entering a period of drought. Auckland has its own micro-climate having sea on both sides so it's all in the luck of the draw for your relative. Unfortunately it does tend to be the most humid of New Zealand's cities.

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  12. Good luck with the new kitchen GB.

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