Weather early 2009

[Martin Baxendale]

two days on the run with no rain during daylight hours and a bit of sun

It always helps to have good weather when you're on the run, Tony. Preston Jail? Which wing?

[mark smyth]

Winter weather comes in from the continent for those in the east but we get wet from the Atlantic

[art600]

Not yet. What is about to hit us?

Icy blasts from the continent, driving away the wet weather.

[arillady]

Yesterday we had 45.7C - nearly a record and similar forecast for today.
Lovely to see the Monarch butterflies that use our courtyard with ponds to get out of the heat. About a dozen or so fluttering around.
Pat

[ranunculus]

Yesterday we had 45.7C - nearly a record and similar forecast for today.

I thought you might like to read this quote from an e-mail I received today from Alan Grainger in Kentucky ... What a contrast!!!

Sorry I didn’t get back to you before now. We are in the depths of winter in Ol’ Kentucky.
Ice storm put our electric out yesterday....not likely to be restored before Friday. Don’t have the luxury of gas, so it’s bloody primitive!!!!!

Those ice storms are something else. You can hear tree limbs snapping off all over the place.....sounds like gunfire. Went to work this morning....just like driving at Brands Hatch. Chicanes everywhere. Apparently 375,000 homes in the state without electricity. The second highest power outage on record. Have just experienced my very first “State of Emergency” declaration. (Just means tough sh*t....fend for yourselves while we figure out what the hell to do!!!!!!).

[arillady]

Yes the world is certainly getting a belting weatherwise. We are supposed to have this sort of heat for a week. How are you Fermi and Otto???  You are getting this weather too.  I am just hoping bulbs and rhizomes are far enough under ground to survive the baking.
Pat

[art600]

Pat
Might the Oncocyclus iris benefit from the extra heat?  Must be more like home. 

[Carol Shaw]

Sorry I didn’t get back to you before now. We are in the depths of winter in Ol’ Kentucky.
Ice storm put our electric out yesterday....not likely to be restored before Friday. Don’t have the luxury of gas, so it’s bloody primitive!!!!!

Now if we could just send some of the ice to Australia and the heat to Kentucky...

[arillady]

Art I am just scared that we will get a summer downpour after all this weather - the oncos are probably loving the heat but if the rain comes? I have not covered the beds for years and have a lot more beds now which are irregularly shaped.
A daughter is heading back to London on Saturday after nearly a fortnight of record temps while she has been home.
Pat

[Anthony Darby]

Yesterday we had 45.7C - nearly a record and similar forecast for today.
Lovely to see the Monarch butterflies that use our courtyard with ponds to get out of the heat. About a dozen or so fluttering around.
Pat

Don't you Aussies call the monarch butterflies 'wanderers' Pat?

[fermi de Sousa]

Yes the world is certainly getting a belting weatherwise. We are supposed to have this sort of heat for a week. How are you Fermi and Otto???  You are getting this weather too.  I am just hoping bulbs and rhizomes are far enough under ground to survive the baking.
Pat

Hi Pat,
we had 42^oC yesterday which drained the life out of everything after a week around the 40^o mark and a minimum last night of above 22^oC (but a lot hotter inside the house without air-con!)
Like you I'm worried about a downpour now which could finish off some of the dry climate bulbs which are planted out; the potted ones are now re-potted and under cover.
I can escape to work where we have air-con, but I've cancelled my clients for today as its too hot for some of the frail aged to be coming to exercise class! I still have to go out to see one lady about her new walker - I hope they have cooling in their house!
cheers
fermi

[David Nicholson]

'twas a dark, dank and miserable morning, chucking it down, and two old codgers (He and She, both with heavy colds) are seated at the breakfast table. The light needed to be on, and yet again the paper boy had failed to deliver thus ensuring that He's normally sunny disposition in a morning was somewhat limited! Both are clad in dressing gowns, She in Peacocks, cheap but stylish, He in vintage 1970's Marks and Sparks on the grounds that any other dressing gown ever manufactured brings on his eczema.

He: it's like Blackpool illuminations in here. She: well I though you would want to read the paper. Thus followed and extreme and expletive laden discourse about the lack of moral fibre in paper delivery persons today as opposed to those in the 1950s. Thus having put that part of the world to rights he began to spoon some syrup into his bowl of porridge.

She: are you going to have some porridge with your golden syrup. He: I'm only ensuring that SuperGord doesn't have to bail out Tate and Lyle, he's bailed out every other bugger. She: well when you've finished put that dressing gown in the wash you've enough porridge down the front of it to feed all Dharfor for a fortnight.

She: what are you going to do today? He: Ian's sown his lily seed, I haven't sown mine yet. She: you can't go out there in weather like this. He: but Ian has sown his. She: but Ian isn't sixty six (nearly) and coughing and sneezing all over the place, I'll put you a bed in that bloody greenhouse. He: well if you did I might get a good nights sleep without someone coughing and sneezing in my ear all night.

He: well, perhaps you're right, I might make some marmalade. She: we've still got six jars left from the last lot you made, you didn't like it and the kids said it might be good for stripping paint.

She: would you go down the village and get me a bottle of Lucozade. He: when my cousin Alan was at University he used to work at Lucozade in holiday times. He told me that it was made in massive vats, 99.9% water, a shovel full of glucose, and three shovels full of some deathly yellow colour stuff, and a spray of carbon monoxide, and cost less than a pound to make the vat full, yet Tesco will charge about £2. 50 for a bottle. She: do I take that for a no then. In any case I think you'll find it was carbon dioxide. He: ah well, you went to Grammar school and got chemistry 'O' level.

He: well OK then I'll get you some. Do you remember when we were young and were feeling grotty on days like this we used to ring in with a 'sicky' and stay in bed all day. She: well we were young, and you didn't need a fortnights notice then. Whatever did she mean!

It's stuff like this that has made Alan Bennett a fortune!

[Maggi Young]

It's stuff like this that has made Alan Bennett a fortune!

It is indeed, David.... though I think Mr Bennett has a good Agent 

It's stuff like this that has brightened my day, and cheered many others, too, I don't doubt! 

[Luc Gilgemyn]

You should write a movie script Dave !!!

Now who would be the fitting actors to play the He and She parts ?? 

[TC]

David

I recognise the scene!   There are some mornings so miserable that it seems a better idea to stay in bed and try again tomorrow.  The news seems to be nothing but bad, it's either the professional gloom merchants on the BBC or interviews with "celebrities" I have never heard of. Then I think- I was born when WW2 was in full swing and I was about 15 before life started getting easier.  My parents had a much tougher time in the depression of the 1930's and their parents had to put up with a Victorian work regime, no health service or unemployment benefits.  To get it in perspective, times have been a lot worse.  Even this winter is not as bad as we used to get in the 1950's/60's.
At this point my wife has decreed that we are going out for a healthy walk - if I were a dog I would lie in front of a coal fire and snooze the afternoon away.