Dec 12, 2010 | Uncategorized
These days I find that I tend to wake up automatically at much the same time whether the alarm is set or not. Sometimes this is assisted by the pathetic whining of a hungry cat but more often than not it is just some timer going off in my head.
And the truth is I quite like being up and about while the rest of the house is asleep. I can make a pot of tea (Ceylon, leaf not teabag) and quietly catch up with unread bits of newspaper or have a quick look on line at what the press is saying. This morning too I have been enjoying some cds which I don’t normally get a chance to play in the course of the average day – currently Aly Bain and Ale Moller’s “Fully Rigged” which I like very much.
The heavy snow of the last three weeks has mostly melted away although a very hard frost over night has left the cars and street glistening with a film of ice and, although it is 10.32 here, the rest of the house sleeps on. I have a notion to go into town and wander about a bit and maybe I will, if I can summon the energy to get out of the armchair…
Dec 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
We have apparently had the heaviest snowfall Edinburgh has seen in half a century although it is thawing fairly rapidly now (ahead of more arctic blasts forecast for next week). You might have thought that this would have given me plentiful opportunities to update the blog but, alas…
The bulk of the past few days has been occupied either by walking to and from work through a foot and a half of snow or trying to dig our way out of the said snow at the front and back of the house only to see more fall on the freshly cleared areas. We have also watched the guttering and part of the soffits of the roof of the house opposite come down with the weight of snow and ice and have been trying to avoid the same fate befalling us; succesfully.
Of course the internets have, in assorted nooks and crannies, been getting fractious about climate change (“how can it be warming when it’s cold outside?”) Aside from ignoring unseasonal warmth elsewhere because they can’t see it out of their window, there is an interesting question arises. On the one hand if you put more energy into the system then you are going to get more extreme events at both the hot and cold ends of the possibilities. Moreover, since Edinburgh sits on the same latitude as Labrador to the west and Moscow to the east the weather is kind of what you would expect were it not for the Gulf Stream. On the other hand, this is not a million miles away from the winters I remember in the seventies and early eighties in East Kilbride so this could be cyclical. Who knows?
I don’t, but I do know that either way it makes sense to pay more attention to the possibility of entering a period of hard winters and to plan accordingly. Yaktrax for the shoes are already sorted but I will shortly be stocking up on better snow shovels and other paraphenalia.
It also informs my plans for my man-shed (no, I haven’t forgotten it!).
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