Stormy Weather

[Nick Armstrong]

Cannot be done Duckie, I spent a night at Apollo's temple, at which time the temple snakes licked my ears clean so that I was able to hear the future Anyway, I like rummaging through chickens' entrails ... and making chicken liver pate!

Proper little Vestal Virgin, aren't we !?

(I suspect I'm muddling my cults.

I'll get me toga... )

[Anna]

Proper little Vestal Virgin, aren't we!?

Has been known ... given a prevailing wind ...
Offline now ..

[Nick Armstrong]

Has been known ... given a prevailing wind ...

That'll be the sprouts (q.v. 'Preparations')!

[Serial_Apologist]

Speaking of chicken's giblets, many years ago I attended a cookery course. The lecturer gave a demonstration on how to pull a chicken. Having completed the task, he asked if there were any questions. One of the students at the back of the room asked, "Excuse me, sir - where's the plastic bag?"

[handsomefortune]

It's gloriously sunny, with excellent visibility here. Make the most of tomorrow and Sunday if you want or need to get out there, would be my advice.

will do!

hope everyone's warm enough, and well fed.

[Serial_Apologist]

will do!

hope everyone's warm enough, and well fed.

If I get some , I might stand just inside the exit at Saint Sprees, holding it above my head, and see how many passers-by take the hint.

[Nick Armstrong]

If I get some , I might stand just inside the exit at Saint Sprees, holding it above my head, and see how many passers-by take the hint.

If that gambit leads to a need for legal representation, I know a very good man for police station interviews

[Anna]

A perfect day, 7°, not a breath of wind, sunshine, blue skies. Barometer shot up from 1004 yesterday to 1023 now. Salvation Army band are playing in town which always gives a real Christmassy feel

[EdgeleyRob]

A perfect day,

Same here in the Manchester area,perfect for a long walk with the dog and something nice on the i pod

[mangerton]

Well. Obviously your turn in the south for the good weather. The last few days here have been overcast and damp, not particularly cold, but sunless and depressing.

Currently it's 6°C and 1010 mb.

[Serial_Apologist]

Today's temperature peaked at just over + 5 C here, and is now down to + 3 C. Somehow I managed to cycle back up the hill from Lower Sydenham without needing gloves this morning, after a traumatic visit to the huge St Sprees there, during which I forgot where I'd left my trolley and had to go back and search just at the moment the Xmas human tsunami burst through the doors.

I wonder if anyone else shares the following. When the temperature is within the generally accepted range, i.e. 7 C at this time of year, 20 C in July, I seem to have an instinctive knowing of what it is at any given moment. I check the thermometer, and I'm pretty much accurate. It feels like 3 C right now out there. Sometimes I get it wrong: 25 C with high humidity in summer can feel like 30 C; a couple of days ago 8 C felt much colder than it actually was due to strong wind chill. I make exceptions for very low temperatures. Below - 4 C it just seems damned cold; I can't distinguish between the "feel" of - 4 C and -10 C. Yet for some odd reason, subjectively there feels to be a big difference between + 15 C and + 18 C. Presumably the closer external temperatures get to body temperatures, the greater the difference experienced, but I have a suspicion that we find it more easy to distinguish within the more familiar temperature ranges.

Here's another common myth: "It's too cold to snow".

It can never be too cold to snow. The reason that it rarely does snow in the coldest parts of the world, ie NE Asia and Antarctica, is that these regions are normally dominated by high pressure systems at the coldest times of the year, (the Antarctic permanently actually), and high pressure systems precipitate very little.

Some of the heaviest snowfall in the world actually takes place when it is getting warmer; this is because heavy snowfalls are often associated with advancing frontal systems bringing warmer air in their train, some of which leaks ahead of the precipitating front in and in advance of the snow, descending as it is from the advancing warm air, which is aloft until the actual front passes through.

If this advancing air is sufficiently warm as to be above freezing at cloud level, the resulting rain falling into the subzero regions below can either freeze on hitting surfaces at ground level, creating those terrible ice storms that are more frequent in the US and Canada, where temperature differences betwen the polar and tropical airmasses are much greater in winter than here, or, in the case of drizzle or small rain droplets, turn to so-called "soft hail", which we also sometimes get here from rain showers formed over the warmer sea that have moved inland.

Lesson over!!

[Anna]

Gosh, Professor S_A, a long post to digest! Not sure about temperature, I tend not to feel the cold and find other peoples homes uncomfortably warm (there is no heating on here at the moment) but I do instinctively know what the time is when I wake up without the aid of a watch or clock but I sleep without curtains. Comforting sometimes, waking in the night, seeing the moon and stars.

[Serial_Apologist]

Gosh, Professor S_A, a long post to digest! Not sure about temperature, I tend not to feel the cold and find other peoples homes uncomfortably warm (there is no heating on here at the moment) but I do instinctively know what the time is when I wake up without the aid of a watch or clock but I sleep without curtains. Comforting sometimes, waking in the night, seeing the moon and stars.

Gosh in return, iimss Annna - how useful to know intuitively what time it is. I bet you never overboil your eggs!!! Time just files faster and faster to me these days, which is probably a function of ageing. I go slower; time just chugs along at the same pace. So there, Einstein!

You are the very opposite of my ex-gf, for whom I had to keep the heating on all the time when she came to stay! This in turn may well be a function of how easily people can train themselves to acclimatize. My grandfather lived in sub-zero temperatures in a 15th century house in the Suffolk countryside, right into his 90s, and vociferously complained about the heating when moved into a home for the elderly. As one who feels temperature differences pretty acutely, I marvel at those Moscow residents who, regularly on Christmas day every year, break the ice on their nearby lake and go for a dip.

[Anna]

You are the very opposite of my ex-gf, for whom I had to keep the heating on all the time when she came to stay! This in turn may well be a function of how easily people can train themselves to acclimatize. My grandfather lived in sub-zero temperatures in a 15th century house in the Suffolk countryside, right into his 90s, and vociferously complained about the heating when moved into a home for the elderly. As one who feels temperature differences pretty acutely, I marvel at those Moscow residents who, regularly on Christmas day every year, break the ice on their nearby lake and go for a dip.

My ancestors were Welsh miners, living in poverty. Perhaps I have their genes? Certainly saves on the heating billa, Swalec read my meter last week (I pay by direct debit) they owe me £125! So, if it gets really cold, I may turn it up by one degree!
When I was a child we lived in a big old draughty Victorian house with a multi-fuel burner, Mother was against central heating saying it was unhealthy and unnatural, she was also against fitted carpets as they encouraged asthma and bugs!!
And, I am inclined to agree with her.

[marthe]

Well. Obviously your turn in the south for the good weather. The last few days here have been overcast and damp, not particularly cold, but sunless and depressing.

Currently it's 6°C and 1010 mb.

mangerton, You've described our weather to a T! Dreary and damp but above freezing. Nevertheless, Christmas shoppers were out and about in downtown Newport today. This is good for the small shops that rely on a good summer or good Christmas/holiday season so that they can make the rent through the winter when business is slow. The big chain stores are mostly off-island (we are on an island, gasp!) which means crossing a bridge and paying a toll to get to shopping malls. I try to shop locally as much as possible because the idea of going to a shopping mall makes me break out in hives.