2020: The First Day

For those who haven't already seen my seasonal wishes I direct you to Meike's wish: Welcome to 2020. May your skies be blue and your seas be calm. I hope you will manage to keep what good and happy things you have in your life, and get rid of what bothers you. Happy New Year! 

It's been a strange day and not quite the way I had intended to spend the first day of the year but then wotthehellarchiewotthehell I've enjoyed it so far. I just haven't really achieved anything much of the things I set out to do. Will it alter anything in this world? No. And I have managed to keep up in Blogland.

This is a photo taken this morning New Zealand time (ie 2 January) in Havelock North by Martin from my New Zealand Family. That is the sun. It is almost blanked out by smoke from the fires in Eastern Australia. Sydney is 2365k /1437 miles away from Havelock. I'm sure that all my readers will be aware of the enormity of the fires which have been burning since September and now engulf huge swathes of Australia. To give a European perspective that is the distance between Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis off the West Coast of Scotland and Belgrade, Sarajevo and Rome.

The global effects of the fires in so many ways are demonstrated rather well by this photo. 

Oddly I have just had a notification from New Zealand One News with a bulletin about the fact that this is the second day that New Zealanders have woken up to a 'blood orange sun'. In some places the sun is a dark red. 

Let us all hope for better things in the coming weeks, months and years.

The Sun Doth Shine

Who would believe that this was taken one hour before midnight yesterday from my conservatory? Yesterday Stornoway was the sunniest place in the UK with 12.5 hours of sunshine. Having said that it was also very cold with a bitter northerly wind making going outside less than a joy. 

My internet hasn't been too bad although the engineer told me that 'when' not 'if' it goes again then that's it until the new cable is laid because I'm occupying the last working line within the cable. Memo to self - ring BT for update.

Once I'd been discharged from hospital it took a few days to get back up to speed but I'm back with all cylinders working now (I hope). So I have managed to read some of your blogs and hopefully I'll be back to commenting properly soon. Frances Garrood one remarked that there were few things as irritating as retired people saying that they were so busy that they had no idea how they ever managed to fit in work as well. Well I've been retired a good few years now and I marvel at people like YP and Cro who manage to blog every day. I think my mind must work too slowly or, perhaps, I just don't have enough of interest to share with the world.

More soon.

A Sunny December Day

It's been a terrible summer and autumn and I don't think here on Lewis we have had a period of 24 hours without rain since April. I may be wrong but not very! Today was different. The sun shone out of a clear blue sky and despite that it was a relatively balmy 6℃. When you get days like this on Lewis the light is truly fantastic and changes by the hour. So the mountains of Canisp (left) and Suilven on the Scottish mainland looked entirely different in the morning:  

and the afternoon:

and there's snow on them there hills:

The hills of Harris from the road over the moor from my house to the main road:

Even the wind-farm over the Stornoway outlying townships look spectacular:

French Indian Summer

We've just looked at the Météo France forecast for the next few days.  I go back to Scotland on Tuesday.  Quel dommage!  Even worse for John and Sue is that they are taking me to Poitiers for the train when they could be sunning themselves on the terrace on Tuesday - the hottest day.

Light

The light striking through the morning clouds over The Minch can be very atmospheric:

Super Trouper

The weather over the last week or so has been quite bizarre even by our standards but yesterday was quite surreal at times. The morning (this is mid morning) was dark and wet and quite unpleasant. Then quite without warning and for no more than 5 minutes the sun shone. But only on a little patch of sea out in the Minch. A sort of sun Super Trouper.

Here Endeth the Sun

Since I arrived back in the UK 5 weeks ago there has been no rain on Lewis. For most of the time the days have been sunny from dawn until dusk. There have been a few exceptions but nothing too serious. As a result of the sun and the fact that for some days now we have had very strong winds the ground had become very dry indeed.

However I made the mistake on Monday and Tuesday of putting the sprinklers on because the plants were showing signs of distress. This so alarmed the weather gods that at about 2pm yesterday afternoon they turned on the heavenly taps and our 5+ week spell without rain ended with a vengeance.

There is something comforting about normality.