Barry's Ramblings

Back from the shops: Jinxed journey and verglas

Posted on December 15, 2012 by BarryH

When I was a kid we used to have to write essays in school on less than thrilling subjects such as ‘My Summer Holidays’, ‘An afternoon in the Park’ or ‘My Favourite Pet’. So boring did I find this that in my GCE ‘O’ level English Exam (at the age of 15) I chose as the essay part of the paper to write on ‘A Visit to The Hairdesser’ and submitted a piece, conceived in a fit of spur-of-the-moment rebellion, as a horror story, the barber’s chair dropping hapless victims into the cellar to meet a grisly death. Only later did I hear about the legendary homicidal barber and the 1936 film ‘Sweeny Tod: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street’¹. Prescience or subliminal plagiarism? I just seem to have that kind of left–field brain.

But some things you just can’t make up. Latest composition: ‘Home from the Shops’

It was exactly a week ago that I had fallen asleep on the train from Cardiff and woken up in Hereford. A glutton for punishment I had returned for yet more Christmas shopping, met up with another friend for a curry and a pint ….. and was about to catch the same train home. I was determined to make sure that that this time I would stay awake, to match-stick my eyes if necessary.

No worries on that score, the journey was bizarrely entertaining from beginning to end. For a start there were mixed messages and confusion about which platform the train was leaving from with the result that I had to dash as quickly as my wonky knee would allow down the steps, along the tunnel, up the steps 3 platforms over …… and then back again to the same point just in time to get on board as the doors were closing. A near miss. Naturally it was the talk of the other passengers who had been through the same performance. Nothing like shared drama to get people talking.

I chatted to the guy in the parallel row of seats and we noticed one of the other passengers, a woman, blonde, mid-30’s, spray-on tan, surrounded by branded bags of goodies slumped and nodding off to sleep. We thought we should check whether she wanted to get off at the next station but the ticket inspector came along as we approached the platform to save us the trouble. She couldn’t find her ticket, delving into bags and coat pockets to no avail. The ticket guy had to leave her in order to open the doors to allow the other passengers to alight and she continued to search increasingly frantically and fruitlessly. Until she realised that the doors were closing and it was her stop so she rapidly grabbed her bags, ran to the door and pushed an arm through. She then had her arm horizontally at shoulder height with 4 bags dangling from her hand outside the train, the rest of her inside and the doors pinning her by the elbow. Eventually the doors opened again and she staggered out onto the platform.

At the next station all was quiet and peaceful, nobody getting off from our carriage. Until, just as the beeping started to indicate that all doors were closing, a woman, blonde, mid-30’s, spray-on tan, clutching branded bags of goodies burst wildly through the connecting door from the next carriage along and started pounding on the ‘OPEN’ button on the exit doors, first on one side of the train and then on the other. The guy in the parallel seat and I assumed that she too had nodded off to sleep. She made it very clear in very blue language that she wasn’t happy about going to the next station.

The next station was my stop. Wanting to make sure that nothing went wrong I stood up in plenty of time, was at the door first with about 4 others behind me, and as is my wont, hit the ‘OPEN’ button a micro-second after the light came on to indicate that it was active. The door opened almost instantly much of the relief to everyone. Until I realised that I was just about to step into an abyss rather than onto a platform. There was a vertical drop about 4 feet to the track below in total darkness. The train was double the usual length and our bit of it had stopped two carriages short of the platform. I held the door open until the ticket guy came and did the job to allow us to walk up the train and off onto the platform.

What a relief! But it was short-lived. The exit from the platform is via a tunnel which emerges onto the sloping station approach. It was raining so I put my woolly hat on and stepped out of the tunnel …. onto verglas. I thought ‘verglas’ was a term in common parlance but found from the internet that it is a mountaineering expression, which is where I knew it from (it’s also French for ‘black ice’). Also known as ‘glaze ice’ apparently, it occurs when it rains onto very cold surfaces and instantly forms a layer of clear ice². Walking on it is like walking on, well, ice. Very slippery indeed especially on sloping surfaces such the station approach.

But I negotiated the mile back to the house with no mishap. Really pleased to be home I decided not to go down the steeply sloping drive but to cross the hard-stand at the top and go down the steps. As soon as I set foot on the hard-stand my feet went from under me and I landed forcibly on my pride. Once again, as I’ve said so many times in my Ramblings, it’s when the difficult bit is over that accidents happen because you lose focus. I never learn.

I thought I would brighten up this tale with some photographs of verglas on the mountain behind the house on New Years Day 2010.

Horizontal rain in strong wind freezing onto a fence

Ice formed on individual stems of grass

At the top of the mountain

Rain frozen onto bracken stems

Close up

Some shapes are sculpted by the wind: note that in one case the ice has separated from the stem onto which it originally froze

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweeney_Todd:_The_Demon_Barber_of_Fleet_Street_(1936_film)

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaze_ice

Posted in Monmouthshire, Mountains, Wales, Winter | Tagged black ice, brecon beacons national park, Cardiff, demon barber of fleet street, ice, shopping, sweeny tod, trains, verglas | 2 Comments

Hibernation time and images of cold weather

Posted on December 12, 2012 by BarryH

Late nights have been more frequent recently. Four times in the last week I have been up until 03.00 and this has started to impact on the time I get up. My boast that I get up at 07.30 whatever time I get to bed has begun to look a little lame. The last couple of late nights have resulted in starts delayed to 08.00 and even 08.15.

It is now only a month until I go to the Canadian Rockies for a month of skiing and winter trekking. Late starts there would be a waste of expensive daylight and a rare opportunity. So I need to re-adjust my sleeping pattern.

I’ve started the process by forcing myself to get up early in the hope that this will mean that I get tired and thence keen hit the hay at 01.00 rather than it dragging on. The early starts have coincided with a drop in temperatures and the first real frosts of the winter, overnight temperatures down to -3^oC and temperatures at or below zero even in the day.

On Wednesday for the first time this winter the ground has been frozen, there has been ice on the on the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal at the end of the garden …. and I’ve lit the log fire. The fire is hypnotic and the temptation is to sit in front of it mesmerised by the flickering flames and soaking in the warmth. But I have resisted the urge to hibernate.

Some days the skies have been clear, others grey and clagged in, but a combination of the frost, blue skies and remains of Autumn browns have meant I have taken the camera out whenever I go and have not been disappointed. So, some images of the cold.

It’s difficult to know what forces are at work to produce some cloud shapes

Setting sun picks out a stone structure in the garden

Before the sun is over the ridge on the opposite side of the valley, dozens of vapour trails glow red

A thinsliver of moon among the vapour trails

Vapour trail burning red

A golden glow lights up the frosty scene as the sun peeps over the ridge

Cold, no wind, good reflection

Towards sunset, Autumn colours revitalised

… with leaves carpeting the hillside under the trees

Frost ‘n’ cones

Frost on holly

Larch trees covered in feathery whiteness

detail

Posted in Autumn, Pontypool, Wales, Winter | Tagged brecon canal, frost, log fire, Pontypool, south east wales, vapour trails | Leave a comment

Shafts of light in the winter gloom and hibernation

Posted on December 8, 2012 by BarryH

In the last week I have made another couple of trips to Cardiff in increasingly stressed and depressed pursuit of Christmas presents for the family. Each time I arranged to meet up with friends in the evening, something to look forward to, a deadline to draw a line under the meandering, a light on the conceptual horizon.

The light in the western sky as I approached from the east, an urban horizon across rooftops and chimneys, was very dramatic as the sun sank behind towering banks of cumulus which had so recently been pouring torrential rain on the city. Not so much red sky at night as a rich golden colour with massive crepuscular searchlights lighting up the late afternoon winter gloom as the solstice draws close.

Storm clouds in the western sky

Zooming in

…. and zooming in again

Chimneyscape

…. and again

In the city centre the municipal lumens were cheerful and colourful but couldn’t really expect to compete with the intensity or scale of the meteorological display.

Play time outside City Hall

Bright lights everywhere

However, these weren’t the only lights in the pre-Christmas winter gloom.

On the second of the two trips I caught the usual train back home but completely underestimated how tired I was. I find tramping urban streets, especially when combined with wandering around shops, far more tiring than trekking in the mountains and I had had a good meal and couple of pints. Moreover, before the shopping expedition I had left the house at 11.45 to catch the bus to Abergavenny to meet up with friends for a pub lunch, foregoing the pint in view of the arduous day I anticipated to lie ahead, then caught the bus to Cardiff …… and it was now 22.00.

I bought my ticket on the train just as it pulled out of Cardiff and settled back for the 30 minute journey, looking forward to getting home, a coffee and an early night. Hibernation crossed my mind. That was the last I knew of the journey until I jerked awake as we pulled into Hereford station, an hour and 10 minutes and 5 stations later. I grabbed my coat and rucksack full of presents and staggered onto the platform as the doors frenetically beeped shut behind me, alone in the deserted station.

A taxi driver saw me on the platform looking lost and abandoned and offered to run me home for £80 (€100, $130). I declined his offer. I thought about a hotel for the night but it was by now nearly 23.30 and any hotels close to the station, if there were any, would have locked the doors.

The next train south was at 00.10. So only 40 minutes to wait but inspection of the information monitor made it clear that it didn’t stop at my station. Nevertheless even in my sleep befuddled and traumatized state I calculated that my best option was to catch that train to the closest station at which it did stop, 5 miles south of home.

In a biting cold wind and driving rain I paced the platform for the 40 minutes while I waited, knowing that if I sat down and huddled up to get comfortable I would drop off to sleep again. Attractive as hibernation seemed at that point, I preferred to do it in my own house.

As far as I could tell I was the only person on the train. After the cold wind Morpheus beckoned in the fuggy warmth so I stood up in the centre aisle, shuttling all the way back to Cardiff didn’t appeal one bit. Neither did the hour-long walk home appeal; I decided I would take a taxi.

The ticket inspector accepted my explanation and didn’t require me to buy a new ticket which was good of him. He disappeared back to his cab at the front of the train only to return 5 minutes later. He had spoken to the driver and arranged for the train to make an unscheduled stop at my station. Above and beyond. Extraordinary generosity and kindness. Given the strict procedures by which trains are operated this was indeed a bright beam of light in a gloomy winter midnight world.

Posted in Reflections, Winter | Tagged Abergavenny, buses, Cardiff, Christmas, crepuscular rays, storm clouds, sunsets, trains, winter gloom | 2 Comments

Bah Humbug!: Christmas and beyond

Posted on December 4, 2012 by BarryH

I regret that I don’t and never have, enjoyed Christmas. Required jollity is not my thing. Nor is the hyperventilating commercialisation which tries to drag behind it a vague connexion with the birth of Christ which the church does its best to focus on but is drowned out by the klaxon call to “spend, spend, spend!!!”

1^st of December and the supermarkets turn on the Christmas musak. This evening I met a friend for a pint and had to suffer battered eardrums from Christmas schlock (an English word of Yiddish origin meaning “something cheap, shoddy, or inferior [Wikipedia]) including “Never do a tango with an Eskimo”. What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a stereotypical bloke I, inexcusably, always left preparations for Christmas to Enfys, my wife. Now I get to do everything myself and appreciate how much of a burden it must have been for her. My role was self-limited to getting presents for her and at least one good present for each of the kids, going up the mountain to cut holly and yew to decorate the house, and buying a Christmas tree.

I bought a Christmas tree today. For the same money, £40 (€50 or $65), it was significantly shorter than in previous years, but I drew the line at spending more. I have bought presents for about half the family and am considerably exercised about the need to buy for the others. I also need to get to grips with sending about 100 cards.

This afternoon I took refuge in the past by looking back over the photos I took in the Canadian Rockies for the month around Christmas 2010-11. I’m afraid that this year I’m looking beyond Christmas to going back to Canada for a month from mid-January.

High on the piste at Lake Louise

Billions of microscopic ice crystals form a sun dog at Lake Louise

The sky above Lake Louise

On the way to Grotto Canyon near Canmore

Looking along the Bow River near Banff

Long shadows across the Bow River

Hot springs keep water open even in the depths of winter

Not robbing a bank but a neoprene face mask to keep out the biting cold

Posted in Canada, Grumpy Old Men, Winter | Tagged Bah humbug, Banff, banff canada, Bow River, Canada, canadian rockies, Christmas, Grotto Canyon, Lake Louise, sun dog | 3 Comments

Winter colour

Posted on December 1, 2012 by BarryH

As forecast and commented in this blog, winter has finally arrived in South Wales (that’s Old South Wales, not the state in Australia where it’s now coming into summer). Temperatures over the last two nights have dropped below zero. Not very far below but enough not only to give a frost in the garden but also to freeze water in buckets, plant saucers and anywhere else it has collected in the last few very wet weeks.

The colder weather has been accompanied by, and is indeed partly occasioned by, clearer skies replacing the recent all-pervading greyness. Not that the skies have been completely cloudless and it is the remnant clouds which have added dramatic colour morning and evening.

The views from the balcony at the back of the house when I stagger down stairs in the morning have enticed me outside with the camera, shivering in socks and thin jogging bottoms and T-shirt. At this time of year the southeast facing balcony looks straight towards the point at which the sun pops over the ridge on the far side of the valley.

At the other end of the short day the setting sun in the southwest is also visible from the balcony looking along the curving line of adjacent houses. But more dramatic is the colouring effect it has on the clouds to the east, vivid gold counterpointing the blackness of thick cumulus.

It’s a privilege and a great pleasure to have such colour in the sky at the back of the house at both ends of the day.

The sun appearing over the ridge on the opposite side of the valley behind the Douglas Fir I planted 25 years ago

…. and lighting up deep purple foliage

…… detail

The setting sun to the west lights up the trailing edge of cumulus cloud

At the end of the afternoon, the remains of ice on autumn leaf

Posted in Winter | Tagged clouds, cumulus cloud, ice, nature, outdoors, purple foliage, sunrise, sunset | 2 Comments

November Daily Blog 30: looking back on the month

Posted on November 30, 2012 by BarryH

When I started the November Daily Blog as part of the NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) challenge I had the intention of using it as an incentive to do something different and interesting every day.

That ambition took a knock when I damaged the ligament in my knee which proved to be annoyingly reluctant to respond to treatment. Therefore, though I have managed a few interesting ‘wild walks’, most notably in ‘Waterfall Country’ in the Brecon Beacons National Park, most of my rambling through the month has been of the reflective kind. Despite that I managed to post each day, often in the few minutes before midnight or just before going out to meet friends for a pint.

Has it been worth doing? Well, yes, in that it forced me to look for things of interest from a more sedentary lifestyle, one to which I am not accustomed but which may one day become more necessary as the ageing process progresses. Hopefully that’s a long way off. It hasn’t hit my uncle yet and he’s in his 90^th year.

Time constraints have made it difficult to come up with ideas for the blog some days, though I have to admit that I do perform better under the pressure of deadlines. Nevertheless, I will return to posting blogs every few days now rather than daily and hopefully, as there are signs of my knee improving, I’ll be able to get back out on a few more wild walks. And I head for the Canadian Rockies in January for a month.

Posted in Reflections | 1 Comment

November Daily Blog 29: problem solving and the subconscious

Posted on November 29, 2012 by BarryH

I don’t suffer from insomnia. I gave up on having ‘a good 8 hours sleep’ very many years ago. Instead I stay up until I’m tired and then go to bed with the result that I drop off instantly. I generally wake up once during the night and then am welcomed back instantly by Morpheus until my alarm goes off at 07.20 to give me one dab at the snooze button before I get up at 07.30.

Since I’ve been getting into an empty bed the time I head there has got later, now never before 01.00 and sometimes as late as 03.00. I seem to manage OK on that variable amount of sleep.

I am rarely aware of dreaming. I know I do dream because that’s how the human brain works but unless you wake up in REM sleep, in effect while you are dreaming, you aren’t aware of doing so.

The brain goes through a period of considerable subconscious activity during sleep while it sorts itself out together with any problems fed into it. Sometimes I sleep with a pad and pen on the bedside table as I can wake up in the night having worked out a problem and make notes to remind me of the solution in the morning. Having scribbled the solution I go straight back to sleep again.

But there are paradoxes. Good as the brain is at sorting out problems via the subconscious it occasionally does strange things in the middle of the night. Very occasionally I wake up in the small hours with a pain in some part of my body which I was scarcely if at all aware of when awake. Badly-sprained-ankle-pain or barely-able-to-move-lumbago-pain. Sometimes I limp to the loo, thinking that the pain is so bad I will need to take it to the hospital in the morning but by the time I wake up at 07.20 it has gone without trace.

Occasionally I wake up very troubled, not having solved a problem but having found or accentuated one. Last night was a case in point. At some unearthly hour I woke up deeply troubled about how I would get to Gatwick Airport when I fly it Canada in January. The flight is at 09.00 so I need to be at the airport by 06.00. I plan to travel by express bus but at what time? Do I travel the evening before and stay in a hotel? Or do I travel overnight and try to sleep on the bus? What will be the best value for money and what will be most conducive to making the more than 12 hours trapped on a bus and a plane most bearable? I will have a Big Bag plus a ski bag plus a boot bag all of which Air Transat take at no extra charge but will the bus company charge? Crazy, almost trivial concerns yet wildly exaggerated and troubling in the middle of the night.

Rather than Morpheus welcoming me back instantly as is nearly always the case, I laid awake for at least half an hour (I know because I tossed and turned looking at the clock) unable to clear or relax my mind.

Why? I know the issue has to be sorted out but 2 months travelling around Greece by bus in the summer made me more relaxed about the whole process and I have given it no more than the most cursory of attention so far. It certainly hasn’t been on my mind and because it hasn’t been on my (conscious) mind it hasn’t been presented to my subconscious as a problem to solve. So why is my subconscious doing this to me? Not so much making a drama out of a crisis but creating the crisis in the first place.

I have no idea. But there must be a reason in there somewhere. No explanations, just a recognition that despite all the scanning, hypothesising and psychoanalysing the workings of the human mind are still beyond human comprehension.

Posted in Greece, Health and humour, Reflections | Tagged Canada, insomnia, problem solving, problems, psychology, sleep, stress, subsconscious, the brain | Leave a comment

November Daily Blog 28: Rough-dug and ready for winter

Posted on November 28, 2012 by BarryH

Completely different feel to the day from the outset on Wednesday as if the grey and the wet of the past weeks belonged somewhere else, to another time. Blue sky and cold air greeted me as I left the house early to take the grandchildren to school but thankfully not below freezing so no ice on the car as, unusually, I had left it parked outside overnight.

I generally park the car in the garage, one of only two people in street to do so and as I go most places on the bus or on foot I rarely take it out except on Sundays when for some reason, presumably rooted in the Lord’s Day observance of the Welsh non-conformist history, the local authority doesn’t subsidise routes and so the bus company doesn’t provide a service. Cyclical reasoning I guess: nobody uses the buses on Sundays so no point in providing them so there are no buses to use. As I’m digressing I’ll continue. Another practice rooted in the past is the planning requirement that when a new house is built it should have a garage even though probably less than 5% of householders use it for their car. More important to use it for keeping junk and the £200 lawn mower clean and dry rather than the £20,000 car.

The ground was very wet but blue sky and the sun still with a little warmth around the middle of the day, it was time to prepare the vegetable garden for winter. Most crops are harvested now except for parsnips and Brussels sprouts waiting for a frost to sweeten them, a few remaining beetroot waiting to be roasted or made into soup to give me a shock when I go to the loo (until I remember what I had the tea the evening before), and purple sprouting broccoli which has sufficiently survived the assault by giant caterpillars and will hopefully produce vast quantities of iron-rich veg in the Spring.

Beds in the terraced vegetable which I had protected with weed-suppressant fabric in early August after harvesting garlic, onions and potatoes needed to be uncovered and rough-dug to let the frost get at the soil to kill pests and break it up. Easier to let the frost do the work rather than using the fork.

By the end of the afternoon I had finished. All empty beds are now rough-dug and cleared of autumn leaves ready for the first frost of the winter forecast for tonight. Or more probably tomorrow night. With the amount of moisture which has leaked from the sky in the last few weeks the frost should do a good job this winter.

The car is back in the garage tonight.

Terraced vegetable beds rough-dug ready for the frost

Whimsical garden art : titled ‘Bicycle Fork’

Small red clouds scudding over the ridge behind the house portend well for tomorrow

Posted in Art, extreme gardening, Winter | Tagged buses, frost, garages, gardening | 1 Comment

November Daily Blog 27: The rain came down and the floods came up …. but who is to blame for the damage

Posted on November 27, 2012 by BarryH

Once again floods are headline news. About 800 homes flooded in South West England over the weekend. In north Wales residents in St Asaph have been evacuated as the River Elwy floods, train services to Holyhead disrupted and roads closed. As I type there are altogether about 2 Severe Flood Warnings (relating to the River Elwy) and 400 Flood Warnings and Flood Alerts on rivers in England and Wales listed on the Environment Agency web site.

Once again the media is playing the blame-game. Why haven’t flood defences been built? Why are flood defences which have been completed not working? It’s happened here before, why haven’t ‘they’ done something about it? The Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has denied claims that talks between the British Association of Insurers and the government on a future deal for insuring homes at risk of flooding have reached “crisis point.” Which probably means that they are. Government amateurs playing hardball with the insurance industry can have only one outcome.

Scientists have for many years been warning of the possibility that one of the likely effects of global climate change on Britain will be increased frequency and volume of rainfall with consequent increased frequency and severity of flooding. So why is there the annual ritual of repeated arguments and headlines? Same questions. Same question-avoidance.

The probability, close to certainty, is that there will be floods and properties affected somewhere in Britain every year. Protection against floods likely to occur once in 100 years is expensive but just about affordable on a rolling programme. Unfortunately the effect of increasing severity of storms and therefore of more severe floods means that what are classed as ‘once in 200 year’ floods are becoming more common. The cost of protecting against them is unaffordable.

A big part of the problem is that much development is in the wrong place, it’s on flood plains. Who is to blame for this? Here are some likely candidates.

Housebuilders. It is cheaper and easier to build and sell houses on flat greenfield sites than on sloping and ‘brownfield sites so company profit margins are higher and easier to guarantee. Therefore for many decades houses have been built on floodplains. Housebuilders argue that they have to get planning permission so all relevant environmental factors are taken into account …. so it’s not their fault.

Local Planning Authorities are frequently blamed for granting permission for development on flood plains in defiance of common sense and Government planning guidance. Wide ranging consultations are carried out and, among many others, the views of the Environment Agency are sought. Though sometimes culpable, in very many cases planning authorities reject planning permission for housing on floodplains on the written advice of the EA only for it to be granted on appeal …. so it’s not their fault

Planning Inspectors frequently grant permission for floodplain development previously refused by the planning authority. The inspector can only assess an application on the basis of the evidence put before him. Verbal evidence carries more weight than written because it can be ‘tested’ under cross examination by highly skilled and highly paid barristers. Very rarely, if ever, does the Environment Agency attend an inquiry in support of its written advice …. so the Inspectors are not to blame.

The Environment Agency is the only real authority on rivers and flooding in Britain, advised on the drafting of Government guidance on development on floodplains, and advises local planning authorities in writing on individual applications. But it does not give verbal evidence at Inquiry thereby shooting itself and the whole planning process in the foot. The reason it doesn’t attend inquiries is because of lack of resources ….. so it’s not their fault.

The Government holds the public purse strings so is responsible for allocating funds to the Environment Agency. It has to balance the books but more importantly it wants to win the next election and keeping taxes low is a priority in that endeavour. This is true of both major political parties but is exacerbated by ‘small government’ policies. As an aside it is reckoned that one factor in Obama’s victory in the US presidential elections was his opponents stated ambition to drastically reduce funding of FEMA which did such sterling service when Hurricane Sandy struck. The Government argues that the public want low taxes ….. so it’s not to blame either.

The Public, you and me, want the penny and the bun, unfeasibly expensive flood protection and low taxes. We need to make our minds up. It will not be offered as such by Government of whatever persuasion but the straight choice is between higher taxes or more flooding.

And we need to make all those bodies which claim that they are not to blame, which say that it’s somebody else’s fault, shoulder their portion of responsibility.

Me, I made sure I bought a house on the side of a hill.

Posted in Reflections | Tagged effects of global climate change, environment, Environment Agency, flood protection, floods, global climate change, Government, house building, planning authorities, planning inspectorate, politics, science, US election | Leave a comment

November Daily Blog 26: A change in the weather. Maybe

Posted on November 26, 2012 by BarryH

The weather may be on the turn. In South East Wales the heavy rain looks to be passing through overnight and not returning during the 5-day forecast period. Instead the expectation is that it will be replaced by sunshine and temperatures approaching freezing.

The weather during November has been unusually warm. Though there have been one or two light ground frosts the air temperature has remained above freezing the whole month. I monitor outside temperatures in order to ensure that tender plants are adequately protected and, being a methodical if somewhat boring sort of person, I record when the temperature first drops below zero each winter.

This year has been unusual but not exceptional. The notes in my diary tell me that 2000 was the wettest Autumn since records began in 1722 and that November 2006 was unusually warm.

In between times Novembers have been colder but it is notoriously difficult, to the point of being impossible, to generalise about weather trends from anecdotal evidence. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that on recent evidence it seems to be statistically more probable that there will be significant frosts in November than not.

The fact that there have been no sub-zero temperatures and that it has been very wet has meant that going out in the garden on Monday was depressing. Instead of Autumn leaves rustling underfoot they were a sodden mass collected in corners by the strong winds. The soil, always heavy, was way too wet to work on. But on the plus side fungi were thriving and here and there a few wet-tolerant plants were still in flower.

Despite that, I’m really looking forward to winter arriving in the mountains. Though again anecdotal, there does seem to be a tendency for winters to become milder and wetter. Winter 2010-11 was very hard with very low temperatures for weeks and heavy snowfall. Here’s hoping it happens again.

French lavender: not usually in flower in November

Fungi, prolific on an old oak trunk

Posted in Autumn, Grey Britain, Winter | Tagged weather | Leave a comment