Tag: weather

signs and portents

There’s hazy sunshine this morning and I suspect that when I finally get ready and go out it will feel like spring.

I’m pretty sure, though, that the blossoms I photographed in full sunshine at lunchtime a couple of days ago will have been battered to a pulp by storms by now.

Even today, if I diddle around too long, fussing about what to wear and writing the blog etc., it’s quite possible that the weather will have changed completely and it will be bucketing down with rain and blowing a force ten gale.
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glory all around

I have occasionally wondered why children seem to instinctively draw the sun as a yellow circle with straight lines radiating from it, but looking at the glorious sunrise in the photo above, it certainly makes some sense.

Yes, I know: I overuse the words glory and glorious, but surely it’s justified here?

That can no doubt be seen as a purely subjective opinion but, when referring to the next picture, which I personally consider rather less impressive, I gather glory would be the technically correct term:
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home to roost

In the Chinese calendar, the year of the rooster starts today, 28th January 2017, so it seems a good reason to have some cockerels, roosters and chickens on the blog this weekend.

The photo at the top was taken at the Bristol Balloon Festival some ten years ago. I feel it’s a bit cartoonish to go with this poetry vignette of dawn breaking in the Spanish pueblo where I used to live, but I don’t seem to have many photos on file that are right for the topic.
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winter magic

I was delighted to find snow drops on my walk into town yesterday, but they were only just coming into flower, so I didn’t get any good pictures. Perhaps there will be more next weekend.

I also I found this strange leafless shrub, with flowers the colour of forsythia or winter jasmine. I knew the lack of leaves meant it couldn’t be the latter, but I wondered whether it might be a very early forsythia whose petals had become deformed because it had blossomed too early.

As usual, Google has provided the answer: it is in fact witch hazel. If that doesn’t count as winter magic, I don’t know what does.

just in case

This being England, we never really know whether the winter will bring snow or floods or just days and days of interminable grey.

I admit I was delighted that Thursday night brought a sprinkling of snow. It was gone within a few hours and, of course, that may be all we have this winter. So, as I was out early enough yesterday morning to take a suitable photo, I will re-post this poem, in case I don’t get another opportunity:
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