Weather in NW Europe

[Sinned]

Yesterday I was sat out in the garden in one of my lightweight summer skirts ( and nothing else ) reading and basking in the beautiful sunshine with my shades on, the temperatures in the low low 80s. Today it is cold, p*ssing it down and miserable. What a contrast we have in the English weather! I've spent a boring day indoors doing employment applications. Fortunately I have a holiday later this month to look forward to. At the moment MOH is the breadwinner and I'm the househusband and having been brought up for the man to be the income provider I HATE IT! I know that MOH has spent a lot of time at home whilst I have been working but it just doesn't seem right to me. The one good side is that I have more time to wear my skirts whilst she is at work.

[Jack Williams]

Early Spring here. A bit showery today, but yesterday was brilliantly sunny with temp about 16c It was so nice I took a few photos of the trees. Here's one of the cabbage tree I planted once upon a time.

[skirted_in_SF]

Jack, I've seen trees like that often here in San Francisco. Not surprising, since a lot of New Zealand and Australian flora does well here.

[Sarongman]

When I see a specimen of that species that size, I expect to see a Lorax, with arms crossed, standing in front of it and glaring at me.

[Kirbstone]

Yes, the cabbage 'palms' grow like weeds in coastal areas here and for the last 50 years since '62/3 they flourished inland too....until our horrendous frosts in 2010/11 did for the lot of the inland ones when we experienced unprecedented minus 18 degrees C. for more than a week and minus 10/12 for a month.

Kinnard View SE. Nov. 2010 Rs.jpg

At our 52nd parallel bolthole in Kerry we planted one about 30 years ago and it looks like this. There's another botanical name for them which sounds better....Cordyline. This one looks across Ballinskelligs Bay (7 ml. diameter) towards Waterville and its amphitheatre of hills behind.

T.

[Kirbstone]

Last Saturday was into October and I sallied forth down to Tullamore with a friend to scull in their time trial for singles.

They obviously have influence in VERY high places....It was like Summer 21 degrees C. & wall-to-wall Sun. Our amazing Summer of 2013 continues.

Ttullamore T.T. Empty Grand Canal Oct, 2013.jpg

TJK @ Tull. time trial. age telling now..jpg

T.

[Jack Williams]

Lovely cabbage tree you have. Dunno why they are known as cabbage trees! Can't think of anything less like a cabbage myself.

[crfriend]

Last Saturday was into October and I sallied forth down to Tullamore with a friend to scull in their time trial for singles.

How'd you do in the trials? It does seem like you're working a bit for breath in the photograph.

Time is the friend of none of us, and we shall all fall 'foul of her inevitable grasp. Let's rejoice in the duration we have on this little rock orbiting a perfectly ordinary star in the midst of an insignificant corner of an ordinary galaxy; it's all we have. I know that what I've seen so far has been mostly kind to me so I cannot really gripe all that much.

[Kirbstone]

Carl,
As one aristocratic lady said when interviewed in her own home....'Time will be considerably less kind to me than to my furniture!' In our hall next the stairs we have a large oak blanket chest dated 1430 !!......not many people that age about.

Pic taken by my friend at 2,000 meters. I was going at 26 strokes/min., Heart Rate 174 bpm and just good deep rhythmic breathing. After 167 bpm I pass into anaerobic, which means that my energy expenditure exceeds my circulation's ability to replenish it continuously and I develop an 'oxygen debt'. I had just 250 meters to go at that stage, so no real sweat, or problem.
This year I was beaten into third place in the Masters' section by two younger guys, the winner being fresh from a victory at the World Masters' in Verese, N. Italy , the other being the friend I brought down with me and to whom I lent my boat! I went round to the other bank and got some shots of them with the Sun behind me.

Rs TTT. 2013 Mick Heavey, Comm.R.C..jpg

J.Murnane Tullamore time trial 2013 2.jpg

Rs Offaly RC Time trial winner, Neale, UCDublin.jpg

The young blood who won covered the 2.25Kms in 8mins 14 sec. This translates into an average speed of 16.4Km/H, or just under 10Kn.

Jack,
Here those cabbage palms are known by the botanical name 'Cordyline'. Sounds better.

Tom.

[Sarongman]

We had a pair of Cordylines in our turn of the century garden in the Sydney suburb where I grew up. They seemed massive back In the late 50s through the mid 60s, but were no bigger than the pictures, both from Aotearoa and Ireland. Kirbstone's blanket chest is a treasure, the oldest thing datable in this house is a book, very large and heavy, you could kill an intruder with it with little damage to the book. The title is 'A History of the Bible', with some wonderful woodcut engravings throughout. The date is 1751 which puts it about halfway between Ussher and Darwin!

[Jack Williams]

Gosh. Dunno how to respond to that.
Did some sewing today.
Long job stitching around the wonderful full circle skirt of my new dress.
Had to take 3" off the bottom to accomodate my stocky stature!
"Standard size" L.
A bit of blustery wind to blow out the skirt a bit.
Actually, I have the black Silkbody dress under it.

[Kirbstone]

Back to the weather folks.....and our newspapers shouted: 'Lock up your Geraniums, Jack Frost is comin' to call!' Well, he did last night and this morning for the first time I had to pour warm water over my car windows to facilitate a quick getaway to work.
It's not too bad when the daytime temps. climb and it doesn't freeze right through until the next night, but already the frost has made our garden look very sad indeed.

Rs Bridge of Sighs...Late Autumn 2013..jpg

It has however beautified my way to work, where I cross the Liffey under trees by an old mill.

Rs Autumnal arch at Victoria Bridge over the Liffey.jpg

After work the Sun is so low that it only lights up the treetops. By the Solstice it'll only struggle up to 14 degrees above the horizon at midday at these latitudes.

Rs Autumn at Hyawatha's Teepee, H.W..jpg

Tom K.

[DavidFloyd]

How'd you come through it? The worst should be over by now;

We have come through, up here with minimal damage, however I got up this morning to no power. Even though I have solar, the "smart meter" cuts off the panels, so as to keep maintenance crews safe--there's alot to be said for stand alone, or battery hybrid systems! I therefore went out to Warwick, 22km away for breakfast. When I got in, the water was scraping the underside of the bridge and the police were closely monitoring the situation. (Note that the normal water level is about 20 feet below the bridge deck.) I had breakfast and made a quick exit for home where I grabbed the camera and set out to catch the peak flood level, fter fielding a few phone calls. On my return, the road was cut, so I parked and took a few photos. This is about 5 feet less than the "big one" of 2011, where the petrol station shown was trashed, with all window glass ripped out. Of course they'll have a big clean out and will have to flush out their underground tanks, but, at least they won;t have to rebuild! The weather front is now on the New South Wales coast and creating havoc there. In picture No.2, imagine the water at the bottom of the road sign; that was the 2011 height.

Weather has been really disturbing in Europe... So many floods, severe cold and high temp in summer..It seems we need to take strict actions to control these climatic changes.

[Caultron]

Weather has been really disturbing in Europe... So many floods, severe cold and high temp in summer..It seems we need to take strict actions to control these climatic changes.

Good luck pitching that to the like of China and India.

[Jack Williams]

Great weather here.