Nothing

I was uncharacteristically quiet recently and someone asked me why I wasn't saying anything. I answered that it was because I had nothing to say.  It's been the same with blogging. I've not been able to think of things worth writing about. Which probably says more about me than about what there is about which to blog. After all most of you find lots of interesting things to say and tales to tell.

I am in Glasgow today. I left Lewis on the ferry after lunch yesterday.  I'd left the Island a day earlier than planned because of the impending Storm Bert and the potential ferry cancellations. I had altered my ferry booking 5 days previously.

Yesterday morning the ferry company made it clear there were likely to be ferry cancellations all weekend because of Storm Bert. (How can anyone take a storm called Bert seriously?) So the ferry was rammed full with a lot of large commercial vehicles (I think they said 28) and 99 cars. Lots of vehicles were left behind not having booked on that crossing. 

My plan was to get to Ullapool or Inverness and stay somewhere overnight and then drive to Glasgow today. However the weather warnings made it clear that the route I take through the Scottish Highlands to Glasgow was likely to be impassable because of snow today. So I decided to get as far as I could on the 221 mile journey. As good fortune would have it despite the warmest temperature on the journey being Minus 2ºC (the coldest was -7ºC) and there being snow lying at the roadside the road itself was clear all the way and I arrived in Glasgow much to my friend's surprise at 2230! Very oddly I felt remarkably fresh and definitely ready for a rather good Cognac.

We haven't left the house today. According to the news bulletins the Scottish Highlands have been having a lot of snow and I'd probably still be stuck in Ullapool or Inverness. Or possibly been one of the people the rescue vehicle staff try to help without calling them blank blank idiots for ignoring the 'don't travel' warnings.

Plus ça change

My visitor has gone. I'm back in Blogland. This time I may never catch up with previous posts but hopefully I'll at least find out how everyone is. 

Wendy from my New Zealand family was alone this time for the first time. Having 'family' staying is very different to having visitors and, as I put her on my car insurance, Wendy was free to go and visit friends whist I could catch up in the garden and polycarb. Of course we have lots of friends in common too and visited or met for coffee. It was strange to be a passenger in my own car and very relaxing.  

We've had some fabulous weather (including yesterday and the previous day when Wendy flew to her Mother's in Edinburgh) and some not so good. However this morning I woke to very strong winds, heavy rain and wild sea. 

Heavy sea and strong wind from my kitchen window

I was just about to rail against such weather in August when I decided, instead, to see what I'd posted about 10 years ago on this day. What a coincidence. I was posting about the gales in August.

Well I'm not intending to go out today. I went to the postbox and posted a birthday card, Yesterday I did my shopping for Sunday dinner - friends are coming - and visiting and my Saturday morning coffee date is off to Sicily for a few days.  The weather will probably prevent any gardening.  

Post script: A couple of hours after the previous photo above:

Cyclone Gabrielle: New Zealand

A week or so ago I intended to write about the catastrophe that was caused by Cyclone Gabrielle as it tore through much of North Island between February 6th and 16th. 

My first reaction was, obviously, the wellbeing and safety of my friends and The Family as the cyclone made it's way through Northland and right down the country until it largely blew itself out over Wellington. 

Fortunately although one family was evacuated for the day none of my friends or The Family were hurt or suffered serious damage although some were without electricity for many days. 

However the damage done to property and communications is enormous and will take years to repair. 

I was initially surprised at how little coverage there was in the UK and then I realised that however much devastation and heartbreak and loss of property and livelihoods there was there were, thankfully, few lives actually lost. Compare those figures with Turkey and Syria and the war in Ukraine and they are hardly 'newsworthy'. We have become almost inured to the horrors of war and catastrophes and, well, a cyclone is just strong wind and the UK has had a few of those in recent history.

However in New Zealand a State of Emergency was declared for only the third time in the Country's history. The first was after the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake and the second was at the start of the Covid 19 pandemic.

As I write this I think 11 people have died and 'many' are unaccounted for partly because communications in some parts of the country have been destroyed. The damage is mind-blowing given that communications including roads, electricity and radio communications and thousands of acres of wineries and agricultural land and many businesses are very badly damaged. 

The Family hold a dental clinic in the little town of Wairoa in Hawkes Bay about 50 miles from where The Family lives. It was cut off completely but can now be reached with great difficulty and only by a 9 hour road journey from The Family's home. It could be a very long time before all the road communications are reinstated simply because of the number of landslips and lost bridges. That is one tiny example.

I could show a thousand photos but many will have seen some in the media and on social media and most will mean nothing to people who don't know the areas. They will be 'just' more disaster images. In Hawkes Bay there are at least 100 emergency distribution centres with local volunteer staff and a huge mobilisation of people just helping get mud out of properties.

I'm not going to publish lots of photos but if you want to see the scale of the devastation and misery there is information with images on stuff.co.nz and INews.

However this is the Expressway between Napier and Hastings which, as you can see, has been devastated. There is at the moment only one road between the two adjacent areas and one of the staff at the dental practice in Hasting took two hours to get the few miles home yesterday. 

As Fi who lived in and through the Christchurch Earthquakes said on my last post "The loss, homelessness, insurance battles, and ongoing fear of it happening again.... sigh."

My thoughts go out to everyone in the areas affected -  Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui.

A Day From My Window

Yesterday I woke to a splendid, if not that unusual, sunrise looking from my house to the Scottish Mainland West Coast.

Within a couple of hours the sky had clouded over and the Mainland had disappeared in a sky of heavy rain.

By lunchtime the Mainland was still under cloud but we were bathed in sun. I managed a few hours in the garden in the afternoon.

By the early evening it was still and the Moon was reflected in a calm sea and Jupiter was visible to its right (as we look at it).

Highland and Island Travel

I travelled home on Saturday. I had to plan it on the basis of the snow from Storm Eunice having gone and the lull in the wind between storms allowing the Saturday evening ferry to sail. 

Unfortunately my second lot of hospital plans (ie my stent change) didn't quite work out. I was supposed to have the procedure on Thursday but as I was getting into the car to drive to the hospital I got a call from the hospital to say that they had no beds. They could do the procedure but couldn't stick me in a bed afterwards. I'm now scheduled for the middle of March. Hey ho.

The drive from Glasgow to Ullapool was one of the best I've had. There was very little traffic.  The sun shone out of a blue sky and the hills, forests and fields were covered in snow. The ferry wasn't overly busy and the sea was reasonably calm.

Unfortunately I discovered that my dashcam had not been recording onto the SDD card so all the fabulous winter footage of driving through the Scottish Highlands doesn't exist. 

The weather forecasts all seem a bit out of kilter for us at the moment. The storms don't seem to be coming our way despite the predictions on the various weather apps. However, I don't think I'd be relying on the ferries for the rest of this week notwithstanding.

Two Days; Two Views

From my kitchen window on New Year's Day

Today

Of course it wasn't like that all day on either day. 

There's No Such Thing As Bad Weather

, just soft people.

The weather is part of the British (and I use the word with care) psyche. We can't have a conversation without it cropping up, we can't write a letter without mentioning it (as if anyone really cares what my weather is like when I write to them), so much that we do is dependent upon it and our moods are so often governed by it. Generally speaking I claim (incorrectly of course) that my moods are not governed by the weather. I am too logical and independent of thought. 

What rubbish. What cant! Who am I to be so superior and different? Never has this been made aware to me as it has this morning. After a full day's rain and wind yesterday this morning has turned out to be even worse. I'm not sure whether it is the state of semi-lockdown we are in with socialising so restricted or whether it is just a change in me but this morning I am really peed off with the weather. Yesterday I didn't set foot outside the house. I didn't even visit The Polycarb. Mind you I got one helluva lot done indoors. 

Usually I'd don all my wet weather gear and set off for The Castle Grounds and walk in the relative calm of the woods and end up at The Woodlands, divest myself of all my wet weather gear and settle down to a companionable coffee. Not today. Even if The Woodlands was open for morning coffee (it opens late for lunches at the moment) I'm not in the mood. I'm sulking and I don't like this 'me'.

Even the poppies in my garden, which were in profusion at the weekend have all been blown flat. That's the last straw.

Fortunately by the time I've had my virtual coffees and discussed the weather ad nauseum I will doubtless feel on top of the world again.

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.

Last Week

Last week was a strange week: ordinary but strange. After weeks of my morning walk in the woods being in the rain and cold wind the wind suddenly got warmer. The rain didn't go away though. I think I had one dry walk.

However, despite the gales, the crocuss in my garden are surviving - just:

I set off for my walk on Saturday but the Braighe (the isthmus between the peninsula on which I live and the 'mainland' of Lewis and the town of Stornoway where the Castle Grounds where I walk are situated) was closed by the police just as I arrived. When there is a southerly gale and a very high tide the waves bring pebble and rocks over onto the road, The force is quite capable of inflicting considerable damage to a car.

Someone took A VIDEO of the waves showing the closure and me getting out of my car to take photographs.

Yesterday Gaz, Carol and Brodie (son, daughter-in-law and grandson) returned from Italy where Gaz works at the moment. They flew into Stornoway on a Loganair (Scotland's airline) Embraer ERJ-135 jet. I think I'm correct in saying it's the first scheduled passenger jet service to the Islands.

The Last off

Home - again.

I arrived home last night. The original plan had been to come today but several texts from Calmac made it clear that the weather could well affect the ferries today and tomorrow and they could be cancelled. As I had to be back this weekend and for appointments at crack of dawn on Monday and visitors arriving on Tuesday, I decided to make a run for it yesterday. I was obviously not alone and the ferry was full of vehicles. The ferry was actually the MV Isle of Lewis which is covering for the MV Loch Seaforth which is having her annual overhaul in Aberdeen.

Today broke with a stiff breeze from the North (the worst direction for the Stornoway to Ullapool ferry) but cold and sunny. As the wind rose the sea swell got worse. The ferry left Stornoway after lunch but it came past my house and when that happens you just know it's going to be a choppy crossing in places. Shortly after these photos were taken I received a Calmac text saying that the ferry would not be coming back tonight. There could be considerable disruption because the supermarket was short of some things this morning and the freight ferry won't be running today or overnight either and they do not open on Sunday.

The picture on the right shows the position of the ferry in the last of the photo sequence below.

Sailing up the coast and towards the rainbow.

Into the rainbow

Turning across the direction of the swell

Turning towards the South and East

Next stop Ullapool (nearly two hours away)

Winter

I left the Island on the 0700 ferry yesterday morning. When I left home at 0530 it was dark. Dark! Last time I left on the morning ferry it wasn't just light, the sun was almost up. For me the weather isn't the defining factor of determining when winter starts or ends. Nor is the solstice. So far as I am concerned it is winter when one leaves for the morning ferry in the dark.

Living on Lewis gives one a rather different view of life in so many ways. For me it is not really the weather that defines the seasons. It can rain cats and dogs at any time of the year. Summer gales are (or appear to be) becoming more frequent. The average temperatures in the winter and the summer don't appear to differ anywhere near as markedly as, say, Cheshire where I used to live before I came to Lewis in the '70s.

When I was writing that I wondered how much of it is perception (those long hot summers of my youth and the bitter winters of, say, 1947 - which I can remember!) and how much is reality. So I looked up the averages. What I've not been able to find out is what period of years the averages cover.

The one statistic that stands out of me is the daylight hours. Like all statistics though it they don't tell the full story. There may be only 18 daylight hours on average in June but that doesn't tell the whole story. The sun just dips under the horizon and, on a clear night, one can still read a newspaper at 1am (if one wants to waste those beautiful moments reading a newspaper - personally I'd rather walk along the beach).

It's To Be Expected

This week we have had some beautiful weather....until yesterday and, particularly, today. For your information the mainland is about 40 miles (60 kilometres) across The Minch from the Isle of Lewis where the photos were taken. The photos were taken throughout the week with the last one taken this morning.

Sunrise over the Mainland with Lower Bayble in foreground

Late morning

 Late afternoon

Sunset over the hills of Lewis

But sometimes it was also cold and frosty

Today we had 70mph winds and all the ferries were cancelled.

Most will recognise Bayble Bay down from my house.

Confidence

It's hard to have faith in weather forecasts when the Met Office weather app on my phone gives me two different forecasts at the same time for the same place. The top one is for where the phone is (it was at home) and the second is a pre-set choice of my home (for when I'm not at home).

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?

Just Occasionally

We have weather in the Outer Hebrides which makes you realise that there is nowhere else on earth that you ant to be (at that moment!). Last Monday was such a day as I walked by the Stornoway Golf Course. It was windless, cloudless and very cold.

There was a time many years ago when I used to walk this course regularly trying to hit a golf ball around 18 fairways an into 18 holes with as few swings of a club as possible.

PS I'm away from the Island at the moment and have not had much time to read blogs. Apologies.

Autumn

No season of mists an mellow fruitfulness; no beautiful golden red leaves; no misty mornings which one knows instinctively is an 'autumn morning'. For me no discussions about meteorological use of months or general acceptance of the equinox as an indication of autumn. It's not the fact that this morning it's still raining and blowing a gale just as it was when I went to bed. It's the fact that this morning I was up at 6.25am and I had to put the lights on. For me that means it's now autumn. Soon I'll be able to get up at 8.30am and have to put the lights on. Then it will be winter.

Oh what a difference a day makes. Yesterday around 7am it was like this:

Today it's like this:

It Just Takes One Day

Yesterday I did some work in the garden and despite being absolutely brilliantly sunny  the strong wind from the North-East was bitterly cold. In fact it was so cold that I wore full winter garb and only stayed out for half an hour. It was the same the day before.

Today I spent the whole afternoon in the garden planting out tubs and so on and it was toastie.

Down in the bay the youngsters' actions said it all:

Rather A Good Day

Today has been by far the warmest day this year in this little piece of paradise: 20℃ and hardly a breath of wind and no midges!  

I woke at 0420 and was astonished to hear something I've rarely heard before here in Eagleton: a dawn chorus. I accept that it was fairly limited but there was a blackbird and quite a few other songbirds welcoming the new day.

Pat and Dave took my car and me into town this morning. Then they dropped me at The Woodlands whilst they took Briagha for a walk in the Lews Castle Grounds before joining me for a coffee. 

Photo by Dave of Briagha in the Harbour

It was so warm and wonderful this afternoon I decided to start planting seeds in pots to put in the mini greenhouse propagator. I'd not got far when Gaz and Carol turned up. Gaz fresh from his 81 mile Caledonian Etape cycle race yesterday in the Pitlochry area of the Highlands where he had come in the top 12% with a time of 4:06:12. He raised a very respectable sum for the Marie Curie Cancer Foundation in memory of his brother Andrew who died of the disease 10 years ago.

We sat outside in the warmth unable to believe our good fortune and musing on summers past and what this summer might be like. More 20 degree days would be very welcome. We saw a Cuckoo being chased by some smaller birds and then heard it calling for the rest of the afternoon. We drank in the Skylarks singing their hearts out.

It's three weeks since I had my knee replaced. It's doing very well indeed. The exercises are quite demanding but I don't need (but do use when outside) a walking stick and I'm off all pain killers. The knee is healing and therefore tightening so it's exceptionally important that the exercises are done properly and frequently

With staples in

Two weeks and staples removed

Today: three weeks and healing well

Have You Ever Wondered?

Have you ever wondered where the radar station that shows all the rain for the far North-West of the British Isles is? Or perhaps pondered on the guidance systems which help aircraft find their way over the North of the earth when travelling from the UK to Canada and the US? Highly unlikely I would have thought.  However quite a few people have asked me what the 'funny objects' on top of the ridge across the valley from me are.

The details of the Met Office weather radar network and more can be found here. However what most people see in practice is the results on the weather forecasts on television. This is the graphic from the Met Office website referred to above.

The aircraft navigation aid is much less likely to feature on television or make its presence felt at all but every time I fly North I will think about the part this piece of equipment plays in that journey.

NATS could, however, at least have spelt Stornoway correctly.

Storm Gertrude

I'm sitting in Stornoway Airport. I'm not alone. Storm Gertrude has so far managed to prevent the flights from southern Scotland from taking off for Stornoway and two have been cancelled. So there are now three sets of passengers waiting for the 1530 flight to Glasgow. Not that they will all get on. The question for me is "Will I?".  The more important question as I write this after 1500 hrs is whether this flight will also be cancelled. It was supposed to have arrived at 1500 but hasn't yet taken off from Glasgow. Fortunately being a reasonably sensible sort of chap I made sure that I had a few days in Glasgow with a friend which days also act, conveniently, as a buffer for incidents just such as this.

We're doing well (or badly depending on the point of view) so far this season: this is the seventh named storm since the middle of November.

A – Abigail (hit the UK on November 12-13)
B – Barney (November 17-18)
C – Clodagh (November 29)
D – Desmond (December 5-6)
E – Eva (December 24)
F – Frank (December 29-30)
G – Gertrude (January 29-?)

Just in case you are wondering which name comes next the answer is as follows: Henry, Imogen, Jake, Katie, Lawrence, Mary, Nigel, Orla, Phil, Rhonda, Steve, Tegan, Vernon, Wendy. If you are wondering why there is no name associated with Q, U, X, Y and Z The Met Office and Met Eireann have decided to follow the US National Hurricane Center, which names - you guessed it - hurricanes, and does not use names beginning with those letters. As storm systems often develop over the North Atlantic, they want to be consistent with their American colleagues.

However it's unlikely that we'll arrive at Wendy this season as the worst season recently (2013/4) only had 14 named storms. 

Well we've just heard that the flight has been cancelled.

I'm now booked on the 1920 flight. Most others have gone for the Inverness flight oprion with a bus to Glasgow. With snow forecast for Drumochter I don't fancy that. Oh well what will be will be. I was going to say que sera sera but I'll probably get told off by YP for being pretentious.