A foaming glass of iridescence.
Admin1 is reading Red Bones by Ann Cleeves. Admin2 is reading Cold Water by Dave Hutchinson.
Category: Weather
Happy Orthodox New Year
Another rainbow. It is also the day of our belated celebration of Audrey’s birthday, when we gave her 2 books she’d already been given and various other quite dangerous things, ate pasta and fruit salad and scored 12 on the GSQ.
Admin1 is reading A Divided Spy by Charles Cummings. Admin2 is reading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley.
Gloom
A misty moon on a dark and rainy night.
Admin1 is reading I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. Admin2 is reading Expect Me Tomorrow by Christopher Priest.
Happy New Year
A rainbow marks the dawn of another year. 2022 had up and downs, from 39.2 to -5.5 °C, but it was our sunniest ever year, 1,537.343kWh.
Admin1 is reading Streets of Darkness by AA Dhand, a very grim crime story set in Bradford’s Asian community. Admin2 is reading The Old Enemy by Henry Porter.
Update next day: We missed our family dinner because they were all ill in various ways. Today they were recovered enough to eat stroggers and peach cake and do the quiz at which we scored a pathetic 8.5.
A frosty dawn
Here comes the sun after another chilly night.
Admin1 is reading The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox, a fantasy about libraries and fairyland. Not wholly successful in its mix of mythologies, but redeemed by some nice writing and interesting ideas.
Admin2 is reading A Memory for Murder by Anne Holt.
Freezing the Balls
Here they are, brass monkeys, after the coldest night in 10+ years: -5.5 °C.
Admin1 is reading The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer by Joel Dicker. Admin2 is rereading The Dying Light by Henry Porter.
An Ice Day
Yesterday the temperature did not rise above zero; indeed it has been very chilly for most of the month: the coldest December days and nights ever recorded on our current weather station.
Admin2 is rereading Pompeii by Robert Harris.
Clouds of the Evening: Cumulus Humilis
Warm pink fleshy sunset clouds against the naked winter trees.
Admin1 is rereading The Dying Light by Henry Porter. Admin2 is reading The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer by Joel Dicker.
Cloud of the Day: Elephants on Parade
A sublime cloud photo, taken in Sheffield Park (which seems to be in Sussex, not Yorkshire) by the inestimable Beth.
November was, on average, exactly the same as November 2021 by day, but slightly warmer by night and was one of our wettest months ever: 144.3 mm and the third least sunny November of all time.
Admin1 is reading One Way Out by AA Dhand. Admin2 is reading Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra, a rich and captivating book which requires rereading with a Hindi dictionary at hand.
Another Fogging Day
All the daylight hours we were swathed in a wet grey blanket, despite which the solar panels did OK.
Admin1 is reading Box 88 by Charles Cumming. Admin2 is reading The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth by William Boyd.
Fog on the Lake
Taken on Admin1’s new phone, a view over the rooftops to a misty Gledhow Valley Lake, looking like a Chinese painting.
Sadly Gez had the corona so we missed our family meal and did the quiz over the phone: 12 points, including several contributions from the invalid. Yay!
Admin1 is reading Going Postal by Sir Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is reading The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin.
All the Little Lights
Reflections in a car park after another day of unremitting rain (34.8 mm and ongoing). November may well be another month of record-breaking wetness.
Admin2 is reading A Change of Climate by Dame Hilary Mantel.
Mist
Blurred lights beyond the dripping trees.
Admin1 is rereading Mort by Sir Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is reading Red Bones by Ann Cleeves, which was enjoyable but the only two interesting characters got killed off in short order, leaving only a pair of fussy feuding families for suspects, and it’s still not clear why who done it did it.
Fog
All day we have been veiled in fog. A man came round to cut off the top of the laurel tree in the centre of the picture so the sight has changed and Admin1 has animated the picture on the webcam so the site has changed too.
Admin1 is rereading Wyrd Sisters by Sir Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is reading Vacant Possession by Dame Hilary Mantel, which is also wyrd.
We scored 9 on the GSQ.
Brolly Poor Show
Storm Claudio came in the night, uprooted our garden parasol and tossed it down onto the lawn far below among the autumn leaves.
Admin1 is rereading Maskerade by Sir Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is reading Widowland by SJ Carey; The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Man in the High Castle meets Nineteen Eighty-Four, set in 1953 when the new king is about to be crowned.
Autumnal colours
All the colours of the autumn leaves, the rainbow and Diwali. Oh and a person of colour for PM.
Admin1 is rereading Soul Music by Sir Terry Pratchett.
Season of Mists
A morning fog blurs the turning leaves.
Admin1 is rereading The Truth by Sir Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is rereading Stars and Bars by William Boyd.
We only scored 8.5 on the GSQ, but we are still in double figures — just.
Drip Drop Raindrops
38.4 mm and counting. We had more rain today than in the whole of January, and more rain between 11am and 12 noon than in the whole of August.
Admin1 is rereading Thief of Time by Sir Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is rereading Any Human Heart by William Boyd.
Bright Morning
A bright start to a day which supplied enough sunshine to beat all years except 2020 and 2015, and there are still a couple of months to go.
Admin1 is rereading Men at Arms by the much-missed Sir Terry Pratchett.
After the Downpour
A very faint rainbow at the end of a very wet and gloomy day.
Admin1 is rereading Jingo by Sir Terry Pratchett. Admin2 is reading Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson.
Bow Wow!
Two awesome rainbows brightening our evening. According to an article in the paper today, seeking out awe can make you happier and healthier. Awfulness is the new mindfulness.
Admin1 is reading Peculiar London by Christopher Fowler. Admin2 is reading The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith, a gigantic doorstopper which needs a comprehensive workover by an editor. How many times does the author describe the office manager as having an e-cigarette clamped in her teeth? As if that were even possible.
Cloud Appreciation Day
Our contribution to the Memory Cloud Atlas; a cumulus mediocris which was what was on display today.
Admin1 is reading The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard. Admin2 is reading Not Saying Goodbye by Boris Akunin.
Overkill
Today all the newspapers are black and every electronic billboard has been switched to pics of the erstwhile queen. HMQ is queing in every bus shelter, hanging around the shops and looking down from high buildings. And it rained on and off all day so a very feeble rainbow arrived to cheer us all up.
Admin2 is reading Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris; those who signed the death warrant for Charles I get their comeuppance when Charles II ascends to the throne.
Catch the Sun
Last month was our sunniest August ever: 239.610kWh. It was the only August to appear on the high score table for the best months ever and featured 6 of the all-time best-ever days. On average it was 5 degrees warmer than last August by day but only .5 degrees warmer by night.
Admin1 is rereading Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith. Admin2 is reading Mother’s Boy by Patrick Gale; a fictionalised early life and wartime years of the poet Charles Causley.
Pink Sunset Rainbow
Admins 1 and 2 saw this lovely sight on a dry evening; the first rainbow we have seen since the very wet month of February.
Admin1 is rereading Lethal White by Robert Galbraith. Admin2 is reading A Change of Circumstance by Susan Hill, a mundane saga of family life disguised as a crime novel.