Weather Report

We have been having weather. Lots and lots of weather.

On Wednesday, when I left for work, the hills were covered in a light mist. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the cows and sheep were grazing. It was all very lovely. Kind of October-ish, but nevertheless lovely.

On Thursday, at the same time, it was grey and mirky and foggy. Had to put the car lights on! Cleared to a reasonable day with pockets of sunshine. Mind you, by 3.30 it was as dark outside the Adsetts Centre as it would have been at 3.30 in mid-December. The heavens opened. There were three claps of thunder. There was lots of rain. Then it went. By the time I left at 5.15 the sun was shining and everything felt nice and fresh and clean.

Yesterday, it was just starting to rain as I left. The rain became steadier. And had settled to a good kind of gardeners' rain by the time I got to the Botanical Gardens. Fortunately I had thought to throw into the car that little umbrella which Austin and Julia brought from Japan for me. Got to work more or less dry, apart from my knees which were very damp and chilly! By the time I went out with Clarissa at 1:00 the sun was shining and it had turned into a lovely day.

Had a text message from The Builder at 7:30 to say that he had arrived safely at work in Rampton in Lincolnshire, having had to drive through torrential rain and high winds. Investigated the weather bureau's website and found that The Builder was sat slap bang in the middle of a severe weather alert. So, it seemed was I Severely pleasant? The Builder says that their meterological excitements lasted most of the day. And the local news last evening reported quite severe weather and even flooding in loads of places around Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The Sheffield city centre was just lucky, I guess. Had an email from Barb later in the day to say that in Salisbury it was as dark as dark could be and that the rain looked as though it was going to be Noah-like. Fortunately it only alsted for half an hour or so, but quite lots of the UK was wet and breezy on and off on Friday.

The fish have been amusing lately. For some time, they've been hanging about by the edge of the pond, waiting for me to feed them, but have run away when I've actually got there. More recently, some of the braver ones have been staying put, until I dropped the food in, then they would back off a bit and everyone would wait for me to go away before they would pounce. This morning, 8 of the 10 fish were waiting, all 8 stayed put and all 8 started gobbling as the food hit the water. The other two swam in fairly promptly. So all 10 of them were there excitedly munching. Was cute!

I like working weekends. Can't start until 9:30 and there's virtually no traffic. Don't need to leave until nearly 9:00. Means I can stay in bed longer and drink tea and listen to the radio. A nice leisurely start to the day and I *still* get paid!

The Builder's van is being hard to get along with again. It needs its MOT this week. It's been booked into a local place. It's had a new windscreen fitted, for the other one was cracked and certainly wouldn't have passed. The Builder took it across this morning to be done. And it's too tall to fit into the garage :-( He's going to talk to Colin the Retired Mechanic and see if he has any suggestions. In the meantime he's gone to dig potatoes on the Hangingwater allotment and to pick beans.

So nothing really exciting has happened this week. I've achieved a number of useful things at work and a few useful things at home. Lindsey and Ian have acquired their flat in East Melbourne. The Builder managed to stay awake for the last two episodes of I Claudius and is a bit dismayed that he missed all the rest of them. I don't think he beleived, when I said it was full of sex, murder and mayhem, that it had quite as much sex, murder and mayhem in it as it does! And he missed some of the really kinky sex :-P I see that it is available in DVD format. I might buy it. I did buy the complete collection of Flanders and Swann yesterday. Roger had been playing me snippets of some of their songs yesterday morning. I was tempted -- and fell! I was given some Waterstone and HMV vouchers for my birthday (they can be used in either store) and have been waiting for something suitably frivolous to occur to me. Flanders and Swann is about as frivolous as you get. I am now the proud owner of the Gnu, the Hippopotamus, the London Omnibus, the slightly risque Madeira and loads of other things. Ironing music, perhaps. I can iron and sing along at the same time!